Black Beauty's Family

by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  It was a small, rough farm and there was only one old horse rug which he put on Sultan who was trembling uncontrollably. Nimrod and I had to make do with sacks. He brought us warm water and then oats and hay. The oats were musty but the hay was quite eatable. The worst of it was standing tied in a stall, for my leg was very painful and swelling rapidly, and I did not like to lie down. Then my sacks slipped off and I began to feel very cold, the huge cart horse headcollar was rubbing my nose and my leg grew worse and worse. I was a very sad and miserable horse shivering there in the dark and I don’t think my two companions felt much better.

  It was about two hours later that we heard the sound of the returning trap and then the voices of Mr Johnson and Ben come to our rescue. We whinnied and they came hurrying in with rugs and lanterns and then they fetched hot water from the farm house and made us gruel.

  Mr Johnson was very upset when he saw my leg.

  ‘Well he has done it now. No more hunting for you, Ebony, not this season and maybe never. Just look at that tendon! Oh the wicked waste of it, ruining a fine young horse!’

  ‘Whatever will Miss Fanny say?’ asked Ben dismally.

  ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about, but what can a servant do in such a family matter? Run and ask the farmer’s wife to put the kettle on again; a hot fomentation will help to relieve the pain.’

  5

  A NEW HOME

  I STAYED AT that farm for several weeks. They made two of the stalls into a loosebox and Ben came over every day to attend to me while the veterinary surgeon would come and shake his head over me several times a week. When I could walk without too much pain they led me home to Earleigh Court and there Sir Clarence came to see me. He seemed very angry as he stood looking down at my misshapen leg, but all he said was, ‘Miss Fanny is heartbroken.’ And, ‘Well, we’ll try a summer at grass and then see if he is fit for light work.’

  So I was turned out, not with the other horses, for Mr Johnson said I would only be tearing about making myself worse, but with Ambrose the old donkey who pulled the mowing machine that mowed the great lawns around the house. We had a pleasant paddock at the back of the stables and only an iron paling separated it from the drive that led to the church. This meant that we had plenty to see and Sunday was a very sociable day. I enjoyed the bells and the singing and the sight of the people bstreaming up and down to church in their best clothes; some of them went three times on the same day. Most people walked because of the horses having their Sunday rest, but sometimes a carriage came. Best of all I liked the Sunday school children and I used to wait for them by the fence and most of them would stop for a pat and a talk.

  Ambrose wasn’t much of a talker, but I grew fond of him and he partly made up for the loss of Sam. I used to miss him when he put on his boots and went off to mow the lawns.

  It was autumn when Miss Fanny came to see me. She looked at my leg sadly and then she told Ben who’d come with her carrying the headcollar and the sieve of oats, that she was to be married and would live abroad for several years and, in the circumstances, Sir Clarence had decided that I should be sold to a friend of the family. A gentleman who had had a serious hunting accident and needed a well-mannered hack; a lady’s horse, narrow and not too tall to mount, for he was still rather crippled from a badly broken leg.

  So I was taken up from grass and given light exercise. Mr Arkwright, my new master lived in the north and was connected with the Sir Richard Arkwright who had invented the mechanical spinning machine, so Johnson told Ben. He was a colliery owner with a great coal mine. ‘Not an old family like Sir Clarence’s,’ Johnson said, ‘new rich, but educated and gentlemanlike. He was the owner of a fine stable of hunters before his accident.’ They all thought it a good place for me.

  Mr Arkwright hadn’t the time to come south to see me, so he bought me on Sir Clarence’s recommendation and I had to travel north by train. It was terrible, especially the shunting. I could stand the noise and the steam and the whistles, but the shunting backwards and forwards and all those jolts and bangs would have unnerved me completely if they had not sent Ben to keep me company.

  It was already dark when we arrived at the end of our train journey and left the station for a gas lit street. Ben explained that we were spending the night in the town and hacking on next day and that as the new Railway hotel had no stabling, being built for those travelling by train, we were booked at the old coaching inn, The Bell, in the High Street.

  We were greeted by a very old ostler and led into a great gloomy rabbit warren of a stable. He insisted on helping Ben groom me and I’ve never heard such hissing. He told Ben that he ought to hiss louder for there was nothing like it to stop the dust from the horse’s coat going down into your throat and lungs. There were only half a dozen horses stabled there that night, but he told us that they had room for sixty and that twenty or thirty years ago they would be full up nearly every night. ‘Them were the days,’ he said, ‘you’d hear the horn, and there was the stage coach pulling up outside; out with the fresh team of horses, get to work on the dirty, tired ones. Then there’d be all the private carriages and the post horses and on market days you couldn’t move for horses, there’d be traps and gigs left everywhere, blocking the roads and alleys. But it’s all gone, the railway killed it all.’

  ‘And what happened to all the folk that worked here?’ asked Ben rugging me up.

  ‘Lost their jobs, took to the roads most of them, tramped off to find other work. The booking clerks were all right, the railways took them on, but the coachmen – they never got over it. They’d been someone you see, people were proud to know them, proud to sit up on the box with them. They were famous. So when it all went they had nothing. Took to drink most of them, drank themselves to death.’

  I spent a comfortable night, my bed of straw was deep and my nearest companion a peaceful piebald mare called Magpie. Ben had been less well looked after and arrived scratching furiously and complaining that his bed was full of fleas. He turned me out very well, saying that I must make a good impression on my new master, and then we set out cheerfully on the last twelve miles of our journey.

  Our road led over the moors, the air was very fresh and clear and hills covered in purple and brown heather stretched round us in all directions. Ben was still whistling away and I was still gazing around me fascinated by this new world when we reached a grey stone village, and passing through we came to tall iron gates in a grey stone wall and turned up a drive. We passed the side of a fine stone house and turned into a very pleasant-looking stable yard.

  We were greeted warmly by the grooms, but Ben and I both had difficulty in understanding their Yorkshire accents. I was taken into a large loosebox and word was sent to Mr Arkwright that I had come. He appeared in a few minutes limping badly and walking with a stick. He was a fairly tall, thin man and you could see that he had been seriously ill, from the pallor and the deep lines of his face.

  My rug was whipped off and Ben had my headcollar on and stood me up while Mr Arkwright and his head man discussed me. They seemed very pleased and Mr Arkwright asked how I’d taken to the train and the inn.

  ‘No trouble at all,’ answered Ben. ‘He’s a clever horse, if you use him right and give him time and he understands what you want he’ll always do it.’

  ‘Well he’s certainly a nice-looking animal so if he’s steady enough he’ll be just the thing,’ said Mr Arkwright giving me a pat. ‘I can’t manage a horse that plays up with this crippled leg.’

  ‘If you get on the right side of Eb he’ll do anything for you,’ said Ben and his voice choked. ‘They say Miss Fanny cried her eyes out at parting with him and I for one shall hate to see the old fellow go.’

  Then they all went away and presently a strange lad brought me a feed.

  I felt very homesick for Earleigh Court and all my friends there and was quite dejected for a few days. Everyone at The Hall did their best for me and they seemed to have been told about Sam for they brought me every shape and size an
d colour of cat. I nuzzled them all politely and got scratched and spat at several times for my pains, but in the end a small tabby did decide to stay in my stable. She was a good mouser, but hadn’t much to say for herself; I never had another cat friend like Sam.

  Mr Arkwright insisted on trying me first. Draper the head man begged him not to in case I was not as quiet as I was said to be, or had been upset by my journey. But Mr Arkwright, who seemed quite an obstinate man, said that if he couldn’t manage a nine-year-old with perfect manners and suitable for a lady, the sooner he was finished off the better.

  I was led to the mounting block and Draper held me tightly, but of course I was used to Miss Fanny mounting from the block and once from a gate when she dropped her whip out hunting, so I sidled up as close as I could and stood like a rock to give Mr Arkwright confidence. When we’d got him up we went for a stroll down the drive and then we tried a trot and Mr Arkwright seemed well pleased.

  ‘He is so narrow that he doesn’t cause me the pain that the cob did,’ he told Draper, ‘and he moves so well there’s no jolting.’ He patted my neck. ‘If it wasn’t for the error of reading too much that is human into the animal mentality I’d say he sympathised with me having been a crock himself.’ He dismounted gingerly. ‘I’ll ride him round about the place for a week and then over to Blackmarsh.’

  The Hall had been built in a very beautiful spot with the moors on three sides of it and small farms with hilly green fields, enclosed by stone walls and inhabited by flocks of sheep on the other. With Mr Arkwright riding me daily I soon learned to know the neighbourhood. In two directions the moor seemed to go on, wild and deserted, for ever, and we had many rides over it and round the farms. Then one day we took the third road over the moor. It led us across a very high, bleak stretch and brought us to the head of a valley and a very different scene. Columns of black smoke rose from the tall chimneys and great dark mills of the manufactories. Mr Arkwright, who always talked to me a great deal when we were out together, let me stand and look in amazement from the great factories themselves to the railway sidings and the coal for factory engines, to the rows and rows of little blackened dwellings where the people lived, then he said. ‘It’s mucky and ugly, Ebony, but the source of the nation’s wealth. You don’t grow rich and powerful on agricultural products and a beautiful landscape.’ Then he turned me suddenly and we cantered away.

  By the end of the week everyone in the stable trusted me and there was no doubt that Mr Ark-wright’s leg, health and whole appearance had greatly improved. It was generally agreed that he was now fit enough to ride to Blackmarsh Colliery, instead of using the carriage or the dog cart as he had since his partial recovery.

  We took the same road as for the manufactories, passed the head of their valley and then came down into an equally despoiled area. A land of black pyramids, called slag heaps, of blackened grass and blackened trees and even a stream which ran with blackened water. The sharp arid smell of coal filled my nostrils blotting out all other smells. We went through the wide gates into the colliery. There was a group of grimy buildings and the pit head, a great wheel supported on heavy beams above the shaft that went down deep into the ground. A tall chimney gave forth smoke, a noisy engine gave forth steam. Stout cobs and heavy horses passed me pulling carts of coals. Great trucks brimming with coals stood on the tramways that led down to a railway siding. Men and boys with black faces hurried about their business and over all hung an atmosphere of gritty dust and the overpowering smell of coal.

  A bent old man hobbled out and took my rein. ‘It’s grand to see you on a horse again, sir,’ he said, ‘and a fine looking animal too.’

  ‘Yes. His name is Ebony and he answers to it,’ said Mr Arkwright climbing carefully down from the saddle. ‘Look after him, Matthew, he’s worth his weight in gold.’ Then he vanished into a building labelled ‘office’ and I was led into another with ‘Pony Sick-Bay’ written up over the door. This turned out to be a stable, with a comfortable loosebox already prepared for me, and a row of stalls in which were tied several little ponies.

  They were exceptionally sturdy ponies and with their strong necks, broad chests and round quarters, they looked like tiny cart horses. Their manes were hogged, every hair of their tails was clipped off close to the bone and they were all stallions. When Matthew had rugged me up and gone away I looked into the stall next to me. A little old grey nodded sleepily. His legs, thick and filled, were bowed with hard work, his body was covered with old scars and his elbows capped with large unsightly callouses.

  ‘What do you little fellows do?’ I asked.

  The grey raised his weary head. ‘We are pit ponies. We work in the mine pulling the tubs of coal from the coal face, where the men cut it, to the cage which brings it to the surface. It’s a hard life,’ he sighed and lowered his weary head. The bay in the stall beyond was younger. He told me that his name was Pipkin and that he’d been brought to the surface some weeks before because a runaway coal tub had crashed into him, all but breaking a hind leg.

  ‘They’ve patched me up,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m almost sound now so I shall be going down soon. I shan’t come up again until I’m past work like Tammy, unless I have another accident.’

  ‘You live down there night and day?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, there are stables underground, not as comfortable as this one. There’s never enough bedding and, as you can see, we all have capped elbows through lying on the bare floor. Tammy can remember the days when there was always an inch or two of water on the floor, but they’ve drained that away.’

  ‘And is it quite dark?’

  ‘Not when the men are there, they all carry their special safety lamps. A naked light can cause an explosion because of all the gases that abound in the atmosphere. When I was brought up the light seemed so bright it was almost unbearable, but they put me in the dark little stable next door and let me become accustomed to it gradually.’

  ‘Why don’t they bring you up for Sundays and holidays?’ I asked.

  ‘Because this is a deep mine and so the temperature down below is always very warm and humid and the ponies brought to the surface frequently lose condition or catch chills. Also some ponies are frightened by the movement of the cage and there are terrible accidents when they break loose in their panic and hurl themselves down the shaft to their death.’

  ‘It’s the hardness of the work that does us in,’ said a tiny chestnut who was called The Giant. ‘I’m only eleven hands but I’m expected to pull great tubs of coal for two shifts a day, five days a week. The men only work one shift and we’re only supposed to do ten hours, but the good ponies are often taken out twice, which leaves four hours out of the twenty-four for eating, sleeping and resting. You work till you can scarcely stand, your legs go, your wind breaks, cough, cough, cough, day and night. Tammy has seen ponies die at their work, but nowadays they bring us up before we quite come to that, but I’m finished, I’ll never be of any more use.’ He sighed and we all stood feeling very sad as he gave his hacking cough. Then Georgie, a little skewbald, spoke up from farther down the stable. ‘The food and water is dreadful. I can’t touch it. There’s coal dust in everything. I became quite ill after only a week or two, that’s why I’ve been brought to the surface.’

  ‘The food is not so bad here,’ Pipkin told me. ‘The horse-keeper is a good one, he keeps the feed bins tightly closed against the dust and he does his best to keep the water supply pure. I’ve known ponies come here from pits where the water tubs were so foul they stank and yet the ponies must either drink it or go without, and where, though they worked so hard, their feed was a few oats in chopped straw. Here we are well fed, with almost as many oats as we can eat. Our roads are kept in reasonable repair, so that they don’t trap our feet, also the roofs, for if the wooden supports are broken they can catch and drag at our collars giving us terrible sores. There are rules about the heights of roofs and the size of pony that may be used when the seams of coal and, consequently, the tunnel
s are small, as they are here. I have been along tunnels too low for me, one has to crouch and crawl and it is very hard work to pull a load in that cramped position. That is why the tiny ponies like Giant are overworked, there are so many places where only they may go.’

  ‘Mr Arkwright seems such a kind and humane man,’ I said, ‘and all the horses at The Hall are so well looked after. I don’t understand how he can allow you to be treated in this way.’

  ‘It is all to do with money,’ answered Pipkin.

  Tammy raised his head. ‘When I first went down there were old ponies who remembered the days when little children pulled the tubs. They wore a sort of harness and crawled along the tunnels pulling, just like we do now. There were even smaller children of four and five years, who used to sit in the dark all day opening and shutting the trap doors as the tubs came through. Then a law was passed and no women and no children under ten years were to be allowed to work underground, so the ponies were sent down instead. I suppose the coals must be dragged by someone.’

  Mr Arkwright was soon in the habit of riding me over to the colliery on four or five days in the week. I enjoyed the ride even in the wintery weather with frost nails in my shoes or, on several occasions, half a pound of lard in each foot to stop the snow balling, and when I got there I enjoyed the company of the pit ponies. Then one day I arrived to hear anxious neighs and I found that Tammy and The Giant had gone and Pipkin and Georgie had been moved into the stalls nearest my box. They both looked very worried.

  ‘What has happened?’ I asked.

  ‘They were taken away in a sort of cart,’ said Georgie plunging in his stall. ‘If I could break loose I would follow.’

  ‘It was the knacker, I think,’ Pipkin told me softly and sadly. ‘The head horsekeeper and the vet came round yesterday. They examined Tammy and The Giant very thoroughly and I heard the vet say that their useful lives were over. Oh Ebony, I’m afraid they’ve gone for dogs’ and cats’ meat, their skins for leather and their bones for glue.’