‘Going to draw the osiers, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said the old grey horse I fell in beside as we clattered down the road. The horsemen spread out and surrounded the marshy osier bed as hounds were put in and I, who had imagined an immediate chase and seen myself leaping hedge and ditch and gate, grew more and more disappointed as time passed and nothing happened. Ned and the rider of the old grey were discussing the corn harvest and banging the crooks of their hunting whips against their saddles. They gave cries of encouragement to the young hounds when they came out of the osiers and stood looking about them aimlessly or sat down for a good scratch.
At last the old hounds picked up a scent and the deep sound of their voices echoed up and down the osier bed, but there was still no action; Ned walked me round for a little and the old grey horse told me that cub hunting was usually like this for its whole purpose was to teach young hounds to hunt, and to stir up the fox cubs so that they would leave the family home.
Presently the sun became hot and the old horse slept, until a fox cub peeped out of the undergrowth and there was at burst of crop-banging and shouts of ‘Tally-ho bike!’ But still no action.
Later we rode on to a small wood, hounds were put in and we went through the whole procedure again, even to the old grey horse falling asleep. Then Ned said that he had work to do and we must go home.
As I ate my second breakfast I grumbled to Blackbird about the unexciting nature of my hunt.
‘You don’t realise how lucky you are to be taken out quietly like that,’ he told me. ‘I’ve known young horses ruined by hard riding. Taken on a fast hunt, galloped nearly to death, broken winded and lame before they’d reached their full strength. And I’ve known others so over-excited by their first hunt that they could never be calm again, but were always lathered with sweat, sidling, jogging, fighting with their riders from the moment they saw hounds till the time they got home.’
In the afternoon when Ned was grooming me, Farmer Grey came into the stable. ‘Sir Clarence’s man has just been round,’ he said. ‘They saw Ebony out this morning and were very much struck with him. Sir Clarence is coming over himself in a day or two to try him.’
Ned took the news coldly. ‘They’ll hunt him to death before he’s five.’
‘I reminded Sir Clarence that the horse was only five next time and he said that he intended to keep him for his own second horse this season and he would take care not to overdo him.’
‘So long as he don’t let that dolt Roger ride him,’ said Ned. ‘I think he’s intended for the young ladies,’ answered Farmer Grey. ‘He’ll make a beautiful horse for a lady in a year or two.’
‘Miss Fanny’s all right, the other two aren’t up to much,’ complained Ned.
‘Sounds as though you’ll soon be off,’ said Blackbird when we were alone together again.
Sir Clarence came to try me. Having only had Ned on my back before, I hardly knew how to behave with an unfamiliar rider but Sir Clarence gave much the same signals; he was slower and stiffer than Ned, but equally quiet and patient and I could tell he was a rider to respect. He tried me out thoroughly at the walk, trot and canter, then we had a gallop right round a stubble field and then he put me over several fences. Ned took me when he dismounted.
‘He’s still a little green,’ said Sir Clarence patting me, ‘but my word he can gallop and he’s got a powerful leap.’
‘Yes, jumps like a stag,’ agreed Farmer Grey proudly. ‘Now come along to the house, Sir Clarence, and try a glass of Mrs Grey’s sloe gin.’
‘I’m going to miss you, Eb,’ said Ned sadly. I nibbled his coat lapel trying to explain that I was going to miss him too. Slowly we walked back to the stable.
Next day I was clipped. Farmer Grey told Ned that Sir Clarence had asked for it to be done, because he felt it was too much to ask of a young horse that he should be clipped by complete strangers. And as I felt those tickling clippers creeping over my body I felt sure that I would have kicked any stranger who treated me so. But since it was Ned I accepted it all as a necessary evil and only showed him with a lifted hoof or a ferocious face when the blades grew too warm or began to pull. Then we would stop and give poor red-faced Dick, who was turning the handle of the machine, a rest while Ned oiled the blades.
‘If you ask me it’s downright unnatural,’ Dick complained. ‘They wouldn’t have coats if they didn’t need them, so why take it off?’
‘The speed they go hunting is unnatural too,’ Ned told him. ‘My Father has told me that fifty years ago when they first bred the fast hounds we have today, many good horses foundered and died. Many of the gentlemen would boast about how many horses had died under them and a lot of it was due to the thick coats. But people didn’t take to clipping for a goodish while because they thought it made the horses die young and some said it made them blind. Of course we know now that none of that’s true.’
3
MY LIFE AT EARLEIGH COURT
SIR CLARENCE’S ESTABLISHMENT, Earleigh Court, was very much larger and more handsome than the farm. The stables were entered through an archway with a clock tower above and a clock that chimed every hour. The yard was gravelled with a plot of grass in the centre and the gravel was always kept raked perfectly smooth and without a wisp of hay or straw in sight. The stables, the carriage houses and the harness rooms stood all round the yard and above them were lofts where the hay and straw was kept and rooms for the young grooms; the older, married grooms and the coachman all had cottages nearby.
My stable was a very large loosebox, well bedded down with the best wheat straw. One side of it was taken up with an iron manger and hayrack, there were green tiles above the manger and the hayrack was a low one so that I could eat in comfort. The walls and door were of brown varnished wood with iron railings above so that I could see out on three sides but I couldn’t put my head out or bite the horse next door.
When I had been rugged up in very smart rugs and Ned had left me I took a sip of water, snatched a mouthful of hay and roamed restlessly round my box. Then, missing Ned and Blackbird, I gave a loud neigh. A very wellbred chestnut head looked at me through the iron bars, ‘Kindly moderate your neighs,’ it said, ‘that noise is deafening. My name is Estella, by Starlight; I imagine you’ve come to take the place of Patience, she went lame.’
I explained who I was and said that I understood that I was to be Sir Clarence’s second horse as it would be my first season’s hunting. She told me that four horses, Merlin, Bayard, Sultan and Nimrod were out hunting, but that two should be back at any moment and then she returned to her hayrack.
At three o’clock Merlin, an enormous grey of almost seventeen hands, was led into the box on the other side of me and Bayard, a sixteen-two bay was taken into the box beyond Estella. Rugs were flung on and they were offered buckets of warm gruel.
‘These are the first horses,’ Estella explained to me. ‘Sir Clarence and Mr Roger have changed to fresh horses and gone on hunting while Pat and Bert brought the tired ones home.’
‘They weren’t as fresh as usual,’ said Merlin. ‘All the second horsemen lost us, they didn’t come until very late and they’d covered a mile or two by the look of them.’
‘Nothing to what we’d covered,’ groaned Bayard when he’d sucked down a mouthful or two of gruel. ‘There was a very fast thing in the morning. We found and he made a straight line for the hills. They killed in a quarry and Mr Roger was very peeved because he wasn’t up, but it was his own fault he was coffee-housing – chattering to his friends – when they found and got a bad start, then he expected me to catch the leaders and I just couldn’t do it. Then we found again at Fitton Oaks and this one ran towards the river, field after field of waterlogged plough and do you think Mr Roger can tell ridge from furrow, not him! No headlands for him either. Straight through the deepest going and no thought of a breather before he rams you at some great bull-finch. I was nearly down several times; he just doesn’t give you a chance.’
‘Poor old Bayard,’ said
Estella sympathetically. ‘Now Sir Clarence is always so thoughtful. He picks a wide, water-filled furrow whenever he can. He knows that if a furrow holds water it must have a hard bottom and so will be much less tiring for a horse than deep, muddy going.’
‘I wish he’d knock some sense into that son of his,’ grumbled Bayard. ‘I’m quite pumped out. Too tired to eat a thing and so hot, it’s stifling under these rugs.’
Bert and Pat came back then having changed into their stable clothes and began to groom the tired and dirty hunters hissing through their teeth as they worked.
‘Bayard’s broken out,’ Pat called. ‘What’s Merlin like?’
‘Dry as a bone,’ answered Bert, knocking his curry comb out on the floor.
Presently Pat fetched Mr Johnson the stud groom to have a look at poor Bayard and they stood discussing his exhausted and feverish state and the cold sweat he’d broken out into. Then Mr Johnson went off to get what he called a ‘pick me up’.
‘Beer, I expect,’ said Estella.
The activity in the stable suddenly increased. Lanterns appeared everywhere and as well as the returned hunters being groomed, rugged up and bandaged, Estella and I were being attended to. A small stable boy came into my box with a skip and pitch fork and soon straightened and tidied my straw. My water was changed, my hayrack replenished. Then there were hoofs in the yard. ‘Sultan and Nimrod,’ said Estella neighing a welcome. I heard Sir Clarence’s voice and then a louder less pleasing voice ordering the dog cart to be brought round in an hour to take him to the station.
Sir Clarence came into the stable and looked at Bayard and Merlin and then at me. He was very dirty too, all his fine clothes covered in mud. He had Bert and Mr Johnson with him when he came into my box and Bert had my headcollar on and my rugs off in a flash.
‘Not at all a bad-looking animal,’ said Mr Johnson as they stood considering me, ‘in time he should make up into something very nice indeed. Pity he isn’t a hand taller.’
Sir Clarence laughed, ‘Never mind he’ll make a perfect hunter for Miss Fanny and I think he’ll just about carry me; I don’t ride as hard as I used to – growing old. The lad at the farm made quite a good job of clipping him.’
‘Yes, except for the whiskers, I do hate to see a lot of untidy whiskers on a well-turned out horse,’ said Mr Johnson and when Sir Clarence had gone he produced a pair of scissors from his pocket and gently clipped all mine away.
It wasn’t until we were fed and settled for the night and the grooms took their lanterns and went away that I began to regret my loss. I’d never realised how useful whiskers are. It was difficult to find my way around a strange stable in the dark, for they feel out the bucket and hayrack for you and save you from banging your nose.
Estella and I talked again when we’d finished our feeds. Bayard still felt done up and was lying down, Merlin was munching hay too busily for conversation and I think she was pleased to have someone to instruct in the way of life at Earleigh Court.
She told me that Mr Johnson was an excellent stud groom and really knew his job, that Pat who did her, Bayard and Jupiter, was very good and careful and took a great pride in her appearance, but that Bert who would be doing me as well as Merlin and Nimrod, was careless and rough. Mr Johnson had to be after him all the time and he’d given her a girth gall once by carelessly pinching her skin when he saddled her. As for rollers, he always pulled them up far too tight. Poor Patience had often stood in discomfort all night long because when he rugged her up he’d pulled the roller too tight to permit her to lie down.
‘Blow yourself out,’ she advised. ‘Whenever he does up the roller take a deep breath and hold it, then, when you let the breath go, you’ll find the roller comfortably loose, it’s the only way.’
‘He’s not so bad,’ Merlin told me slowly and calmly. ‘Estella’s so thin-skinned and sensitive and she’s always had an easy life. I had a really bad groom once, he didn’t clean the water bucket for months and he left a dead mouse in my manger for a week and never bothered to investigate why I wasn’t eating up; just went on tipping more feeds on top of it.’
I soon settled down in my new home though I missed Ned and Blackbird, and most of all, my rides with Ned.
Our stables were kept extremely clean and tidy for, as well as being thoroughly mucked out every morning, small stable boys ran in and out with skips all day long. We were groomed and groomed, and the food was excellent.
We were exercised in a body under Mr Johnson’s watchful eye, each groom riding one horse and leading another and this crocodile of horses would trot solemnly round the roads and lanes nearly always taking the same route. At a certain spot those horse’s that were already fit and working quite hard would return home and I who was considered unfit, a carriage horse who had developed a sore shoulder and so had to be ridden rather than driven, and the two luckless horses that were to carry Miss Grace and Miss Griselda later in the day and so must be thoroughly tired out, went on for another three or four miles.
I enjoyed the companionship of this crowd of horses and the noise of so many hoofs was inspiring, but taking the same way time after time was very monotonous and there seemed to be no chance of a canter or gallop, though we passed many an inviting stretch of turf.
Then Mr Johnson began to ride me when he escorted the young ladies for their almost daily ride, but this too was frustrating. Miss Grace was nervous. She was the youngest of the three sisters and had pale fair hair and eye lashes and weak-looking pale blue eyes. Miss Griselda, the middle one, was a lump with no aptitude for riding. This was not her fault, but her boundless self-confidence and her habit of grumbling at her horse and blaming him for her own shortcomings, irritated us all. Miss Fanny was slim and long-legged and high-spirited and always demanding a gallop or a jump, so she would be skimming over sheep hurdles on Estella, Miss Griselda would make a half-hearted attempt to follow and then belabour poor Bayard for refusing while Miss Grace sobbing with terror would plead pitifully with Mr Johnson not to make her canter. I did my best to behave. I stayed close beside Juno so that Mr Johnson could grab Miss Grace’s reins whenever it was needful, I opened and shut gates neatly, but I did find it hard to remain at a sedate walk while Estella galloped and jumped, and even the smallest prance of protest brought a wail of fear from Miss Grace and an angry rebuke from Mr Johnson.
At last I was considered fit to hunt and this did enliven my life. Sir Clarence wasn’t bold enough for my taste, but I supposed that he was getting on in years and no longer fell lightly and that this cramped his style.
Merlin and Bayard never tired of telling me that I was a hot-head and needed a steady rider. ‘Left to your own devices you would have broken your neck a hundred times over, they told me. And, hacking home after a particularly fast run, Bayard began to lecture me again. ‘You’re so wild, Ebony. You never look before you leap. I know you are only a four-year-old, but we value Sir Clarence and we don’t want a good master killed because a youngster can’t resist showing off.’
‘I once saw a horse land on a harrow, a spiked harrow,’ said Estella. ‘Farmers just leave these dangerous things lying under hedges, they never think that we may land among the chains and spikes, falling or damaging our legs and feet for life.’
‘I was reared in Ireland,’ Bayard told us, ‘and there you find every sort of rubbish in the hedges and ditches and often a fine fat pig asleep on the landing side of a bank! But there the riders are pretty circumspect, they jump more in the old fashioned way, the way they rode before the Leicestershire style and the flying leap, and the horses hold themselves ready to make a sudden extra effort should they see something waiting to trap them. You wouldn’t do there, Ebony.’
However, despite the fears of my stable companions, I finished the season without mishap. Looking back, I can see that this was chiefly due to Sir Clarence’s restraining hand, but I was too young and cocksure to believe it at the time.
Hunting ended on April the first and they immediately began to rou
gh us off. During the next month our oats, exercise and rugs were gradually reduced and then some of the horses had their shoes off and some were re-shod with grass tips. Then on May the first the hunters were led away in a long string to the fields where they were to spend their holidays. As I watched Merlin and Bayard and Estella deserting me I neighed loudly and indignantly and dashed myself against the walls and bars of my stable in an attempt to follow.
Juno, the little cob, was hastily moved into Estella’s box to keep me company. ‘No you can’t have a holiday, Ebony,’ said the small stable boy who brought her. ‘You’ve only just started work and Sir Clarence says you have a lot to learn before you are fit to carry Miss Fanny.’
The yard was much quieter now that hunting was over, though of course there were carriage horses in the stable opposite, but two pairs of them had gone to London with the family so most of the activity we saw was the spring cleaning and painting of the stables.
I enjoyed Juno’s company. I had grown fond of Estella, but she thought too much about herself to be a really interesting companion. She was always wanting her mane admired, or bemoaning some near invisible swelling in her fetlock or complaining of the dull shade her chestnut coat became when she was clipped. Juno was hogged and docked so she was very glad that she was not to be turned out for the summer and left to the mercy of the flies, who tormented her terribly. She had changed hands several times in her life and so had many interesting stories to tell about her other places, but she was such a steady, useful animal that she was always in demand to take messages here, there and everywhere and then I was left on my own.
However I had acquired another friend. A small black cat had jumped down into my loosebox one day and spent hours attentively watching a mouse-hole under my manger. He didn’t catch the mouse, but he told me his name was Sam. He liked my stable and I liked the way he purred and rubbed himself against my face as he marched up and down the edge of my hayrack and manger so we quickly became fast friends and whenever he felt like a nap or a chat he would come to see me.
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