the first thing that i remember is a green field enclosed by a stiff fence, where i was running about by my mother’s side. i cannot call to mind the earliest days of my existence, but i am sure that i was not more than a fortnight old when my mother gave me my first lesson in life—a lesson i have never forgotten. my mother was a fine bay mare, the property of mr. bayne, a farmer, who seems to have treated her very kindly; indeed i have never heard any horse speak better of a master than my mother was accustomed to speak of the man who owned her.
‘he has never laid a whip upon me,’ she would say with a proud toss of her head; ‘he has a heart far too kind for that sort of thing, and he knows i always do my best—and what horse can do more, i wonder.’
but to return to the lesson she gave me. i was ambling by her side when mr. bayne entered the field, and my mother, as she usually did, ran up to him to be caressed and fed with some trifling luxury, such as a slice of carrot or bit of sugar. i kept by her side until we reached him; then i, purely from 2playfulness, turned and kicked at him, lightly—you know—not by any means in a way to hurt him, i assure you.
‘woa there,’ shouted mr. bayne; ‘vicious are you, my youngster? the mother’s blood don’t seem to run in you.’
he said nothing more, but having fed and stroked my mother, he went out of the field, and left us together. then i received the lesson to which i have alluded.
‘how very wrong of you,’ she said, ‘to kick at so good and kind a master.’
‘it was only in play,’ i replied, hanging my head and feeling rather foolish.
‘i know it was so,’ she returned, ‘but it was wrong of you nevertheless. some men are so stupid that they do not know play from vice, in a horse, and only few of them seem really to understand us. they often reprove us when we endeavour to do right, and you will be beaten if you do not curb your propensity to play.’
‘were you ever beaten?’ i asked.
‘once i had a very cruel master,’ said my mother with a sigh; ‘but i do not care to talk about it. if ever it should be your lot to find such a man you will know enough about it then.’
‘but why did you endure it?’ i asked; ‘are you not stronger than man? why did you not kick?’
‘my child,’ said my mother impressively, ‘do not talk so idly: we are created the lawful servants of man, and it is our duty to submit. if he is kind we repay him tenfold; if he is cruel we must do our duty still, and the sin of cruelty be upon his head. besides we are in his power—he has so many things at his command, and if we disobey him he can put us to great pain. you will learn that when you come to be broken.’
‘what is that?’ i inquired.
‘your training so that you may be useful to man,’ returned my mother; ‘you will have to do your work one day with the rest of us.’
there was a pause after this, and my mother cropped the sweet grass while i meditated. my curiosity was aroused with regard to this creature who ruled over us, and i soon renewed the subject.
3‘tell me more about our master, man,’ i said; ‘i am very anxious to learn something about him.’
‘he is a strange creature,’ said my mother—‘as much a puzzle to himself as to the rest of the created world. he is very clever in some things and very stupid in others; for instance, he knows nothing of our language, although we understand his perfectly. if giles—that is mr. bayne’s foreman—bids me go here or there, i understand him without rein or whip; and yet when he was ploughing in the ten-acre field, and i pulling up told him as plain as i could that we were near a piece of hollow ground, he would not understand me, but made me go on—and then the ground gave way and we were almost buried alive.’
‘how did you know it was hollow?’ said i.
‘by the sound,’ said my mother; ‘i don’t think they ever found out what the hollow was—but there it was, as the uneven ground will testify. giles afterwards did me the credit to tell his master that i had pulled up, and my doing so was considered to be remarkably clever, but i thought nothing of it.’
‘giles must be very, very stupid,’ i remarked.
‘not more than most men,’ said my mother; ‘but they are very clever at some things—they build houses, make carts and harness; but still they are inferior to us in many things. now there is mr. martin’s boxer, who is very clever indeed; you know mr. martin?’
‘the farmer who drinks so?’ i said.
‘that’s the man,’ rejoined my mother. ‘he goes every saturday to market, and returns home in a state of helpless intoxication; he doesn’t know the way home a bit, but boxer brings him safely to the door, along the dark roads, and through the narrow lanes, much better than any man could do, and yet that fellow martin—i cannot call him anything less—very often beats boxer most cruelly.’
‘i am sure he ought to be kicked,’ i said indignantly.
‘duty forbids, my dear child,’ replied my mother; ‘a proper-minded horse never kicks one who is appointed to be his master; but some kick and bite too; many of these are naturally bad, but i am certain that most of them are made bad 4through ignorant and cruel training. but even that is no excuse; if man forgets his duty to the horse, the horse never ought to forget his duty to man: remember this, my child, act up to it, and you won’t regret it in your old age.’
i promised to remember, and although i was young and therefore rather thoughtless, i really took this lesson to heart, and found it of excellent service to me throughout my varied life.
it is not my intention to dwell upon my early days, but i must say a few words more about the paddock—the dear old paddock where i first breathed the pure air. ah! i can see it now, and would that i was there. i can see the narrow peaceful stream gliding away from the water-mill, as if in calm satisfaction of having at least for the time performed its duty. i hear the murmur of the wheel as it turns and turns, now in the shadow, now in the sunlight; and the lark’s song is in my ear again, and i smell the sweet-scented clover in the field, and the mignonette growing by the cotter’s garden gate; and i see the sloping roof of the old farm-house peeping out from the ivy clinging lovingly to its walls. oh, home of the spring-time of my life, it is all before my mind. but these eyes of mine shall never see thee more, nor shall my ears be charmed again with the hum of the bee, the song of the lark, or the murmur of the water-wheel. it is all over now. but let me not anticipate, or waste time in useless regrets, for i have a long story before me and but a short time to tell it in.
to resume. when i was about five months old, another mare and foal were put into the paddock. the mare was an old acquaintance of my mother, and the two were soon gossiping together; but the foal was of course a stranger to me. he informed me that his name was rip, and i told him—what i might have told my readers before—that mr. bayne had named me blossom. this introductory business over, we became excellent friends, and capered about the paddock in fine style. rip was a better looking foal than i was—he was better bred, and had i believe something of the race-horse in him; he told me that his great-grandfather, on his mother’s side, had nearly won a big race once, and this rip seemed to be very proud of. i felt sorry for him on account of this 5weakness—it was so much like a man to be proud of such a ridiculous thing.
rip told me a deal of news which he seemed to have picked up from a number of horses in farmer martin’s meadow, where he had been with his mother. he knew boxer, and spoke highly of him as a long suffering and much-enduring horse; but he said that boxer was getting tired of doing all he could for the farmer at night and getting beaten in the morning.
‘i should not be surprised,’ said rip in a whisper, ‘if he upsets the farmer in the pond by the “wheatsheaf,” and leaves him there.’
a few weeks before i should have expressed my approval of this; but my mother’s lesson had borne fruit, and i earnestly hoped that boxer would not so forget himself. rip, however, favoured the idea of the pond trick, and said that if boxer did not carry out his threat he should think he was but a poor, mean-spirited thing. in all this i detected, as my readers have doubtless done, the racing blood of rip’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side.
those were very happy days in the old paddock. rip and i enjoyed ourselves amazingly, even when we were left alone, which occasionally happened if our mothers were put into the waggon; but sometimes giles fetched them for the plough, and then we youngsters went with our mothers and saw the earth ripped up by the terrible implement and smelt the fresh soil as it was turned over into the sunlight. i was always of a sober and reflective turn, and never lost the chance of ruminating upon anything which came under my notice; but rip was rather giddy—i am afraid i ought to say thoughtless too—and gave his mother a deal of anxiety and trouble. i have heard the poor creature declare a hundred times that he would be the death of her; but rip always laughed at such declarations, and said that he would grow better some day.
‘if we don’t have some fun now,’ he would say, ‘we never shall. it is all very well for those old fogies to talk, but they were not always so sober as they are now, i give you my word.’
i could not help laughing at rip, he was so very droll; but 6i really feared that he was getting into a bad way, and it seemed such a pity, for rip grew handsomer and handsomer every day, while i, although improving, was but a poor plain animal at the best.
‘rip will have a gentleman for a master,’ i heard mr. bayne say one day to giles.
‘and who will have blossom, sir?’ asked giles.
‘i think mr. crawshay will have him,’ replied mr. bayne, and all that night i wondered what mr. crawshay was like, and whether he was as good, or better, or worse than a gentleman. rip pretended to know him, and told me that he often drove his horses to death; but rip frequently said idle things when he was in a joking mood, and i did not mind him.
we passed the winter in the farm belonging to mr. bayne, and during the long evenings my mother prepared me for the life which was now not far ahead. she told me to be tractable when the horse-breaker took me in hand, and i should escape a deal of punishment and pain. she also prepared me for our parting, and told me that when it came we should probably lose sight of each other for ever. the example of her fortitude gave me strength, and for her sake i did my best to conceal the pain the prospect of parting gave me. as for rip, he seemed to trouble his mind very little about it, but looked forward to the new life as something to rejoice over.
one day in the spring the parting came. a tall, strong man, clad in velveteen, made his appearance on the farm, and rip and i were sent with him to the paddock to be ‘broken in.’
