‘If I had the ready cash I’d buy you from His Nibs and take you with me, but I haven’t and no stable to put you in either. I’m truly sorry, old horse.’ He gave me a carrot and ran out of my stable. I couldn’t believe that our happy times together had ended as suddenly and finally as this. For a day or two I thought he might come back. I would look for him in the mornings and when the time for our performance came, I felt sure that he could come bursting in, sticking on his moustache and telling me some new plan. Sometimes I thought I heard his voice and would whinney excitedly, but he never came.
Then I learned, from the talk of the stablehands, that he had been offered a good part at a big London theatre and might well become rich and famous. For a time I clung to the idea that His Nibs was finding another Dick Turpin to ride me and things would go on much as before, but men appeared who looked at my teeth and felt my legs and had me trotted up so I knew I was to be sold.
‘Too old for a hunter,’ they all said, and ‘who wants a circus horse, he’ll be doing tricks in the road.’ And they haggled with His Nibs over the price.
At last a man with very fair hair came. He said that he owned a large riding school and livery stable in London and needed a reliable, well-mannered horse for his lady clients and was willing to pay a good price for the right animal. So I changed hands again and now belonged to Mr Chandler.
11
A POPULAR HORSE
I WAS AMAZED by London. One of our stablehands took me to an inn called The Three Horseshoes and there I was met by one of Mr Chandler’s lads, looking very respectable in proper groom’s clothes, and he rode me into London.
The height and variety and extent of the buildings and streets amazed me, but the number of horses did so even more. There were pairs of horses pulling omnibuses packed with people, there were single horses in smart hansom cabs, thin broken-down-looking horses pulling the four wheeled growlers, coal carts in their hundreds. Brewery drays drawn by three great Shires or Clydesdales. Railway van horses, Mail van horses, teams of horses pulling enormous loads from the docks.
We passed through a poor area where donkeys abounded, carrying every sort of goods in their little carts. We saw sweep’s ponies, baker’s ponies and butcher’s ponies; horses drawing rubbish carts and water carts for laying the dust in the streets, and enormous vans full of the furniture of people moving house.
As we came deeper into London the carriages became more elegant. We saw beautiful horses, perfectly matched pairs drawing exquisitely painted and polished carriages, with very smartly turned-out coachmen and grooms, in special liveries, on the box. Workman-like carriages and broughams taking the professional men, the lawyers and fashionable doctors about their business and all mixed up with them and crushed together in the street were the pony and donkey carts, the great drays and vans and the omnibuses.
The noise of wheels and hoofs, the shouts of the drivers, the crush and the whole scene bewildered me and I was very pleased when I saw trees, a stretch of water and the green of a great park and then we turned down a quiet street and through a pillared gateway into a yard. The groom dismounted and led me up a ramp, it was a wide affair like a road, with a wall on either side and brought me into a great stable on the first floor of a huge building.
It was very light and airy with a high, partly glass, roof and there seemed to be seventy or eighty stalls; most of them were empty, but headcollars and folded rugs, hayracks and water buckets told me that they were only waiting for their occupant’s return. There seemed to be some trouble about finding a place for me but eventually I found myself tied up with an empty stall on one side and a large black horse lying comfortably on a good bed of straw on the other.
‘I’m tired out,’ he said. ‘Four funerals yesterday so they’ve given me a day off. Why all the people die the same week beats me. They say it’s the influenza carrying them off. I wish it would carry them somewhere where they don’t need black horses. And it beats me why they put all those cemeteries on the tops of hills. Highgate, Finchley, Norwood, whoever fixed that wasn’t thinking of horses, those carriages are blessed heavy to drag uphill.’
When he heard that I was new to London, Cardinal began to give me information. He said there were three hundred thousand horses in London and if you put them in single file they would stretch from St Paul’s to John O’ Groats at the very end of Scotland, or so he had been told. But he knew for a fact that ten thousand horses worked on the omnibuses because an omnibus horse had told him. Their life was a hard one, he said, for all the starting and stopping was a great strain, and they only lasted for five years. ‘But take the tram horse, he’s done in after four years, and a doctor’s horse only lasts six, all that waiting about in the wet and cold, you see, and night jobs.’
I was beginning to wonder how long I would last when six pairs of beautiful grey horses with white decorations on their bridles were led out.
‘They’re off to a wedding,’ said Cardinal. ‘People like greys for weddings and if they can’t get them they take chestnuts.’
In the evening the horses who had been hired out for the day began to come back. At first it was a trickle and then a flood and I had never seen men work so hard and fast as those grooms cleaning the London dirt from them.
My companion on the other side was a strong active looking horse. He said he was a Cleveland Bay, but that he hadn’t been bred in Yorkshire, and that his name was Trooper. He explained that he was kept in reserve, ready to go at a moment’s notice when any horse hired out by Chandler and Barlow fell ill or lame. He explained that some people didn’t like to be bothered with choosing horses or with keeping the number that were necessary if they were to be inconvenienced by colic and lameness and chills, so they just hired what they needed from the jobmaster, and he undertook to provide a substitute at any hour of the night or day.
‘Where I went today the lady had her own stables and groom, but a pair of Chandler and Barlow carriage horses. When one horse started ringbone she couldn’t get out without her carriage, ladies can’t go in hansom cabs alone, you see, so the cob boy took me over. I was the right colour but not showy enough to please, so she’ll have another horse tomorrow.’ He ate a few mouthfuls of hay and then told me that he was trained as a fire engine horse. Chandler and Barlow provided the horses for three fire engines and they had to keep replacements for them always ready. ‘They telephone from the fire station and you have to get round there in a flash,’ Trooper explained, ‘but I’m not a regular fire horse, they prefer greys. They reckon the street clears quicker for a grey.’
I asked Trooper if it was dangerous pulling a fire engine and whether horses were often burned.
‘There are a lot of accidents to horses,’ he answered, ‘but they happen most frequently on the way to the fire, galloping through all the traffic or slipping on the road. Of course the horses have to be trained to remain steady in the midst of heat and smoke, to stand the sparks raining down on them and not to mind the steam pump’s engine for that is almost as terrifying to the green horse as the fire itself.’
The next day, after a good grooming, a very neatly turned-out groom mounted me. Two chestnuts, both wearing side-saddles, were brought out and the reins handed to him. So, with a horse on either side of me, I walked through some quiet streets to a large and elegant house.
Here we were evidently expected, for a manservant opened the door and said that the young ladies would be out in a moment. Presently they came, very smart in black habits and curly brimmed bowlers. The groom put them up and then we set off for the park. The young ladies rode side by side chattering to each other and the groom and I followed a respectful pace or two behind. They were experienced riders so no demands were made on us and I was able to look about me.
The main streets were very dirty. I suppose with that great crowd of horses passing so constantly it was impossible to keep them clean, but they smelled like a farmyard and where the people on foot crossed the road to the park, a bent old man in a long ragged
coat, constantly swept a way clean for them.
The park was very pleasant. There were huge trees and wide stretches of green, and soft peaty rides had been made for the horses. There were roads too for the magnificent carriages. We saw an open laundau drawn by a pair of high-stepping horses, a park phaeton driven by a lady with a pair of cream ponies and a tiny groom called a tiger sitting on a little seat behind. All the ridden horses were good-looking and well turned-out and the elegantly dressed riders were all bowing and smiling and sometimes stopping to chat with each other. We went all round the park and had a very pleasant canter or two and then took the young ladies home. I enjoyed it all very much.
When we were back in the stable Mr Chandler came over and asked, ‘How did the new one, Ebony, go?’
‘Very well indeed, sir,’ answered my rider. ‘A perfect park hack, I’d say.’
‘Did he shy at all?’
‘Not once. No trouble at all and a beautiful collected canter.’
‘Sounds all right,’ said Mr Chandler, ‘but you’d better take him out once more.’
That afternoon I escorted the three Miss Fostergills, who had brown habits and bowlers, and the next morning I was tried out in the school. It was rather a small school, but my training for Dick Turpin’s Ride had made me very well-balanced and Mr Chandler soon saw that I could canter and jump without difficulty.
I gave several lessons that day and became heartily tired of that school.
I soon found that being a perfect park hack and a good school horse were great disadvantages in life. All the young ladies wanted to ride me and a good many, supported by their mammas, insisted on having me. Mr Chandler found it very diffcult to say No, partly because he was afraid of losing good custom and partly because he was a good-natured man, who did not like to disappoint any one. The consequence was that I became hopelessly overworked.
All that winter I would go out on the morning ride, the fashionable mid-morning ride and the afternoon ride and give lessons in the school as well. And if the weather was bad, if one of the thick London fogs came down or the morning was frosty I would just work hour after hour in the school instead.
A covered school with its soft going is certainly very kind to a horse’s legs, but the boredom of staying within its walls and seeing nothing of the outside world, is very great. Especially when the work itself is monotonous and the horse is learning nothing new.
The young ladies all demanding their favourite, ‘their dear Ebony’, didn’t realise what they were doing and Mr Chandler didn’t seem to notice that I had lost all interest and merely plodded round praying for the lesson to end.
I suppose I would have stood up to the work better if I had been in my prime of life, but I was an old horse and I soon began to feel and look like one. I missed Felix and all the change and excitement of our wandering life and I had no one to be fond of, the grooms and strappers changed constantly and had little interest in us horses. I lost all my old pride and became lifeless and at last one of the mammas noticed it, and asked for her daughter to be mounted on something more lively. ‘A horse with a little more spirit’.
Mr Chandler ordered me tonic powders in my food and with less competition to ride me I suppose things would have gradually righted themselves, if it had not been for the hoop.
There was a great fashion that spring for hoops. All the children in the parks and streets trundled them along. The boys had iron hoops and a sort of hook to guide them, the girls had wooden hoops, which they bowled with short sticks.
We had been for a ride in the park, where all was fresh and green. The chestnut trees were out, every house seemed to have window boxes full of flowers and the sun shone. But I had lost my pleasure in it all and just plodded along carrying one of my endless young ladies; I had long ago given up trying to tell them apart. We were walking home along a quiet street when a hoop suddenly shot between my forelegs. If I’d been strong and alert I am sure I could have avoided it, but stumbling along weak and half asleep, with my head low, I was in no position to take sudden action and as it entangled itself with my legs I slipped and fell.
Luckily I fell on my off side so I did not trap the young lady’s legs under me and the groom jumped off and soon freed her from the pummels. I lay for a little feeling very sorry for myself. My forelegs were hurting and I was in no hurry to find out just how injured they were.
But a crowd was collecting. The little girl who had bowled the hoop was sobbing and her governess was scolding and several passers-by were advising that the knackers cart or the vet should be sent for, so I struggled up. My near knee was gashed and a trickle of blood ran down my cannon bone, but it was the old injury in my off fore that pained me most.
Mr Chandler was very put out. ‘I daresay it wasn’t the horse’s fault but accidents of any sort give us a bad name. And supposing that cut leaves a scar? No one wants to see a daughter mounted on a horse with weak forelegs; on an animal that’s been down.’
By next morning both my legs were so swelled that I could scarcely hobble a step and when Mr Chandler came to see me he brought Mr Barlow.
Mr Chandler patted me but he seemed to be very unhappy about my legs. ‘He’ll be off work for months and just at the start of the season.’
‘He’s finished,’ said Mr Barlow less kindly. ‘Waste of money messing about all summer and then pole-axing him in the autumn when we’d get the same price from the knacker now.’
‘A grand old horse,’ said Mr Chandler mournfully. I felt so poorly that the thought of the knacker didn’t bother me overmuch but my masters continued to argue.
Then Mr Chandler had an idea. ‘Let Biggs have him. If the sea water does the trick we’ll get a sound horse back in the autumn, if it doesn’t, well, we don’t stand to lose. He wrote yesterday asking if we had another crock for him this summer.’
‘This one’s a crock all right. I doubt you’ll patch him up enough to get him to the sea. And what’s more, is he broke to harness? Biggs won’t be best pleased to have his bathing machines kicked to pieces.’
12
A REUNION
MR CHANDLER HAD won. After a few days in the stable I was led to the infirmary and there shod with a high-heeled shoe to relieve the pain of my old tendon trouble. I wasn’t sound, but I could walk without too much pain and presently Mr Biggs was brought by Mr Chandler to see me. He was quite an old man, shabbily dressed and with a shapeless face, but he had a very pleasant voice and he obviously liked horses.
The first thing they did was to slip off my headstall and hold the collar from a set of harness out to me. I remembered the old days at Farmer Greys’ and how I’d hated harness in my fierce determination to be a hunter.
But now it was harness or the knacker’s and as the pain in my legs grew less I had begun to find some pleasure in life again, so I obediently thrust my head through the collar. This told them that I had been broken to harness. Mr Chandler was all smiles. ‘There, that’s all right then. And you won’t have any trouble with him; a kind old horse, a perfect gentleman, a general favourite.’
‘You think he’ll stand the work?’ asked Mr Biggs looking at my legs.
‘A week of sea water and you won’t know him,’ answered Mr Chandler confidently.
So Mr Biggs and I set off for the sea. I’d always heard that train fares were expensive and now it seemed that my worth as an old crock was less than the fare, so we walked. It was early summer and the weather was kind to us. Mr Biggs wasn’t very talkative, but he was a tranquil and good-humoured companion. When we stopped for water and he gave me my nosebag and settled down to his own bread and cheese, I had the impression that he had done this walk many times before.
We were some distance out of London when we met a worried-looking man with a red flag. ‘’Ang on to the ‘orse for Gawd’s sake!’ he called. ‘There’s a motor car a-coming.’
And there it was, moving along in a very eerie way just as if a carriage had set off on its own without horses to pull it. I gave a snort, b
ut, used as I was to trains and the noisy machinery of the colliery, I didn’t shy or bolt or fall in the ditch as was expected.
‘Nasty things,’ said Mr Biggs when it had passed. ‘And they’ve gone on and on till they’ve got the law changed and they’ll be going at fourteen miles an hour instead of four this summer and not even a red flag to warn you. The roads’ll be a death trap to horses.’
We spent the night at a farm and went on again next day. I was already feeling better. The new sights, the fresh country air and a good companion had all combined to raise my spirits and though my special shoe forced me to limp, I carried my head higher.
Towards evening the smell on the breeze changed. It no longer carried the sweetness of grass and trees, but had a sharp salty taste to it. Presently we stopped on a hill top and looked down to a vast expanse of grey blue water.
‘Well, there’s the sea for you, Ebony,’ said Mr Biggs. ‘Don’t know whether you’ve met up with it before.’
I followed him down a lane between cottages and we came to a field on a cliff. There was a broken down shed with a good bed of straw for me to sleep in. It wouldn’t have done for a clipped horse, but I had grown my summer coat and except that I had been too well groomed and had no grease in my coat to protect me from the rain, I could have been turned straight out.
I liked my field, the grass was good and I enjoyed the freedom of pleasing myself, of going in and out of my shed and across to the water trough after so many years of standing in the stable and waiting for food and water to be brought to me.
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