The Horseman

by Tim Pears

  When his turn came Herbert took first one then the other of the carthorses. The boy remained outside. When it was done Herbert said he would not wait but would see Leo back at the farm, and the boy led the old mare into the forge. The smith Jacob Crocker greeted the boy and he greeted the horse. He told his tall younger son to fetch shoes for Pleasant and if he didn’t yet know what size shoes, front and hind, Manor Farm carter’s old mare required by now he should seek an alternative profession. The son reached up and made his selection from shoes that hung on nails on the roof joists. In the heat of the forge on this busy day he was naked from the waist up. Crocker saw the boy watching his son and said, ‘Tis the one job here he’s good for, innit, reachin up high. His back’s no good for this work. Tis causin him grief already. He’ll never lift an anvil.’

  Jacob Crocker’s own strength was a legend. His chest was said to measure fifty inches. He could hold two carthorses while they struggled to break away. His neck was so thick, he would let two men wind rope around it and do their best to strangle him. He would challenge any man to lift with their two hands what he could hold above his head with one. Leo himself had seen him bend a poker over his own bare arm, and straighten a horseshoe with his hands.

  ‘My father says to look at her hind foot nearside,’ the boy said. ‘Her’s noddin when her puts it down.’

  Crocker shared this request with his elder son, the farrier. They were alike, two barrel-chested men who could lift a horse, a hunter at least if not a Shire. The son was scarred from some infant accident in the forge, the second son was made crooked and their father was as wide as he was tall, too squat, almost dwarf. Yet their flaws or oddities only made it seem to the boy more likely they had been forged by the Lord, who according to Isaiah created the smith, who blew the fire of coals and produced shoes for the horses of chariots, and the wheels, and the weapons of those who rode them to inflict the wrath of God.

  The tall second son who had chosen the new shoes put them in the blazing furnace. He shovelled coal and worked the bellows. His spine when he stood was not entirely straight.

  The elder son leaned back against the mare’s front left flank, bent forward, ran his hand down her leg, squeezed the tendon above the fetlock and lifted the hoof. The mare shifted her weight, distributing it across her other three feet. She allowed the farrier to hold her front left leg between his knees. He chiselled straight the tips of the nails then levered and pulled the old shoe off with pliers, throwing it onto a pile of such discards. He took up his hoof pick and cleaned out the hoof. He laid down the pick and took up his knife and cut the top layer of horn. He laid down the knife and took up his nippers and trimmed the hoof wall. When this was done he used a rasp to flatten and smooth the bottom of the hoof.

  The boy looked away from the scar on the side of the young farrier’s face. He found himself gazing at the misshapen spine of the second son, and looked away. His gaze returned unbidden to the first son’s countenance. The farrier gestured to his brother, who brought the hot shoe to him. The farrier took the pliers and applied the shoe to the mare’s hoof. The wall of the hoof hissed and smoked, the stench of the burning matter filling the boy’s nostrils.

  The farrier took nails from the pocket of his apron and drove them through the shoe and the wall of the hoof. The boy saw the tips protrude through the wall. The farrier used nippers to bend and clip the tips of the nails. Then with the hammer he clinched each nail with a single blow. He then reshod the second and the third hoof likewise. When he came to the near hind foot he removed the shoe and cleaned the hoof then dug into it, until pus came out.

  His father, watching, said, ‘He’s found it. I knew it’d be there. Your old man’s not often wrong.’

  The boy believed that his father was never wrong when it came to horses but he did not say so.

  Jacob Crocker wrapped the old mare’s foot in a poultice of bran, in a leather bag secured with string tightened around her pastern.

  ‘Walk her home slow, boy. Apply a new poultice three times a day for the next couple a days, then bring her back here. Tell your old man to put a drop a washin soda in it and all.’ Crocker patted the mare’s flank. ‘A good un, this old girl. Must be comin up near to twenty.’

  The boy nodded. ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘Er’s got a little sidebone down at the coronet there, you might have noticed. I’m keepin an eye on it. We’ll adapt her shoe if we has to. She must be gettin stiff in her joints but she’s never pulled her foot away from us yet.’

  May

  James Sparke of Wood Farm kept a breeding sow. She farrowed in the early spring. The boy’s mother Ruth announced one evening that a dozen sucklings had been born during the previous night. How their mother received such information was a mystery for she seemed rarely to leave home or garden. Word on such matters travelled around the tied cottages on the estate by some mystical means.

  Over the days and weeks following, the boy and his sister Kizzie took a detour via Wood Farm on their way home from school. They leaned over the pig-sty fence and gazed at the great black sow, who lay like some proud obese monarch on the cleanish straw. Her sleek black piglets slept or crawled sleepily over her and each other or suckled at her teats.

  After nine weeks Ruth accompanied them to Wood Farm. Leo carried the sack. Two of the litter had already gone. James Sparke and Ruth Sercombe enquired after each other’s families. They spoke about the weather, animals, crops, church. The names of many people known and unknown to the children were mentioned and discussed. Leo watched his sister fall asleep standing up, as ponies do. Perhaps the gabbering pair would go on to talk of the people of other countries, other races, those upon the earth and those below, why not? But then the children’s mother asked how much Mister Sparke wanted for this runt over here and he asked Mrs Sercombe whether she truly expected him to be as generous as he was last year, surely she did not wish to take such advantage of a man’s good nature again, and so they got to haggling.

  James Sparke named a price of two shillings for the fattening pig. Ruth Sercombe burst into laughter as if Mister Sparke had cracked a rattling joke too subtle for the children to comprehend, and said she was glad that despite all the trials and tribulations of this past year he had not lost his sense of humour. She offered one shilling. Mister Sparke said Mrs Sercombe must have little to occupy herself, no? – perhaps her daughter here had taken over the household chores – if she enjoyed wasting a busy farmer’s time for her own amusement. He would not go below one shilling and elevenpence. Ruth said, yes, she was quite happy to walk to and fro, she would leave now and would come back when he was serious. She offered one shilling and one penny. So they continued to barter until all of a sudden James Sparke spat on his palm and Ruth spat on hers, and they shook on a deal.

  James Sparke leaned over the fence of the sty and caught a black piglet by one of its hind legs. It squealed, shrill and plaintive. Its mother protested with deep-throated grunts. Leo opened the sack. Mister Sparke lifted the piglet and fed it into the sack. The Sercombes walked home three abreast, Leo with the sack over his shoulder, Kizzie beside him speaking to the piglet with words of consolation and promises of how much he would relish his new home. The boy struggled with his load as the piglet wriggled in the sack until he found the breathing hole, and then he lay still with his snout sticking out and listened to the girl’s words of reassurance.

  May

  Pigeons roosted on the beams under the roof of the open shed in the stable yard. The boy fancied their cooing soothed the horses through the long hours of winter darkness. Their number would increase periodically. Albert Sercombe decreed that their tribe be kept to a dozen, twelve apostles, their cooing the incantation of some bird-like gospel of their own.

  ‘Do we fancy pigeon pie, mother?’ he asked Ruth. The day following he shot the surplus and presented her with their carcases.

  The pigeons gathered small twigs in their beaks and constructed their nests on the rafters. The nests grew by immeasurable, laborio
us increments. By the following spring they would be dilapidated and the birds would start again. When the chicks were hatched the boy climbed up and studied them. They grew wings. Before they could fly he collected them one Tuesday in a small crate, which he covered with a piece of cloth. This he put in the cart to which he harnessed the pony and so carried it to the crossroads near Home Farm on the eastern side of the estate. There he waited and in time a light horse and cart appeared from the direction of the village. It slowed as it approached him.

  ‘Got something for me, boy?’ the huckster asked. ‘Let’s see.’

  The boy showed him the pigeon chicks, seventeen in total.

  The huckster wore a chequered yellow waistcoat beneath his grey jacket. He looked around, tipped the front of his hat back. ‘You’re the carter’s younger boy,’ he said. ‘I want no argument with your father.’

  The huckster bought surplus poultry, butter, eggs from the farms on the estate and doubtless others. He also sold all manner of items without order or reason. A year ago he’d sold a pair of laces to the boy’s brother Fred. They broke within days for they were made of cotton not of leather such as were required for hobnailed boots, and the following Tuesday Albert Sercombe waited for him. Leo went with him. The carter demanded back the ballast Fred had paid for the cotton laces. The huckster said it was an honest sale and warned Albert not to lay a hand upon him. Not withstanding this request, with a single punch Albert broke his nose and the huckster handed over the coin, all bloody as was the yellow waistcoat.

  ‘I’ll give ye half a crown,’ he told the boy now. ‘Don’t make a face, boy, that’s two pennies for every chick near’s dammit. If ye wish to walk to Taunton or bloody Bridgwater to find yourself a fairer price, you’re welcome.’

  Leopold nodded and the huckster gave him the coin. He shook his head. ‘Don’t think you can spend it on my cart. I’ll buy but I’ll sell to neither you nor your kin.’

  He made sure the crate was secure on his cart and then rode away along the lane. The boy watched. The odd items stacked upon the cart knocked and jostled against each other, making an almost musical sound as of a band of tambourines fading into the distance.

  June

  Gideon Sparke, son of James, announced to the cohort of his contemporaries stood around the schoolyard at breaktime that his father had acquired a new pony. He said it was better than any other such animal upon the estate and his father had bought it chiefly for his, Gideon’s, use. Leo found this believable. James Sparke also gave his son pig bladders, which Gideon brought to school for football. If he found himself on the losing side he was inclined to grab the bladder and take it home.

  Alfred Haswell said he supposed this pony had no vices. Gideon agreed. She was willing, well schooled, comfortable, and had the softest mouth you could dream of. Farm machinery did not rattle her.

  Kizzie asked if the pony was pretty too and Gideon assured her that she was. ‘A lovely bay mare, I should say, with a good bit a Welsh in her – lovelier than any a your lot over Manor Farm.’ He said that she was seven years old, the perfect age. A touch under fourteen hands, an ideal height. That she came to call and boxed easy.

  ‘Sounds just right for you.’

  ‘No, she ain’t a novice’s pony, that’s true.’

  Gideon was a tall and portly boy, cumbersome, for not only did his father give him whatever he desired, his mother likewise refused him nothing, which in her case amounted to food. The other boys preferred to tease than to cross him, for though he was no natural fighter, in a brawl his sheer size could prove awkward.

  ‘I’ll bet she’s fast, though, Giddy, ain’t she?’ Gilbert Prowse offered.

  ‘Fast?’ said Gideon. ‘Faster than any a yourn.’

  ‘You should breed from her.’

  ‘She’s already bred, when she were three. A lovely black foal, filly t’was.’

  ‘You saw it, did you?’

  ‘I heard about it. A wonderful mother, she were.’

  ‘Don’t let the master see such a prize,’ said Alfred. ‘Why, he’ll confiscate a fitty mare like that for hisself.’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’ Gideon said. ‘I’ll prove it. Get Sercombe there to bring his nag Saturday and I’ll race him. Father’ll give us one a his pasture fields. Bring your brass and I’ll bet the bloody lot a you.’

  With that the bell rang and Gideon marched ahead into the schoolroom.

  They congregated at Wood Farm on the morning of the appointed day, the children of the estate and of the village and one or two adults with naught better to do. Dunstone was one, Isaiah Vagges another. Kizzie had volunteered her services as bookmaker for the event.

  Leo had not asked for the contest, but it did not occur to him to refuse. The boy walked their pony along the track. He was a skewbald gelding, less than thirteen hands high, a strong little cob who liked to work. He could be harnessed to the small cart in a moment for Ruth to take to the village or if Amos Tucker needed something fetching. Unlike the carthorses he had no name. Leo did not know why. It was as if a horse had to be of sufficient height to warrant one. He was happy for Leo to ride him. But he was not fast.

  Gideon or perhaps his father had marked out a race track in a field of grass. The field was crooked like most hereabouts but there were half a dozen places where the hedge turned sharply, and at each of these corners they had planted a stake some five yards out. Leo led the cob around the temporary course. He watched Gideon seated upon his bay mare in the middle of the field, allowing other children to come and pat the horse and otherwise pay homage. Unless there was something faulty with the bay she would surely be swifter than Leo’s cob, but she had to carry far more weight and perhaps this would equalise the contest.

  Kizzie took note of the bets. People bet against her pot and they bet against Gideon too, according to his challenge in the schoolyard. In order to be allowed to bet on a horse with Kizzie they had to bet a farthing against him. That was the deal.

  The boys and girls put down their farthings or halfpennies. Gilbert Prowse, son of the baker, put down threepence. According to what proportion of stakes were put on which horse, Kizzie determined the odds. They began even but shifted with each wager. She noted the amount a person laid and their odds at that moment. Most, seeing the new pony, forgot how good a rider Leo Sercombe was and put their money on Gideon. Since they had also to stand Gideon’s wager it was a way to spread their bet.

  Kizzie did not know how bookmakers operated on professional race tracks but here on the estate the children had devised this system and it had become accepted as their custom. It required an older child such as herself, competent in mathematics, to administer it. After the race she would take her cut of five per cent then divide the rest according to a subtle combination of the odds and the amount in the pot. She would also either hand over farthings to Gideon or give him a list of those to each of whom he owed this sum.

  When the master’s daughter walked into the field all stopped what they were doing and watched her come towards them. She did not falter. She asked the first person she reached, Gilbert Prowse, if those two ponies were the only ones taking part. How she knew about the race was a mystery, yet it was hardly profound, for one or two of the maids in the big house were elder sisters of those here present.

  Miss Prideaux wore a blue skirt and white blouse. The skirt had neither pleat nor trim and the blouse was plain yet as she walked amongst them it was as if her presence were a gift conferred upon the assembled company. Leo was not sure how. She wore a straw boater tilted back upon her head and from beneath it her light brown hair fell loose upon her shoulders. When she saw Kizzie with the money she stepped forward and said, ‘Put this on the bigger horse.’

  Kizzie stared at the coin now on her palm. She had seen a sovereign before, but not held one herself. It was oddly insubstantial, lighter than a florin. ‘Beg pardon, Miss Charlotte,’ she said. ‘We cannot cover it.’

  The master’s daughter frowned. She took back the coin and returned
it to her purse, producing a sixpence instead, which Kizzie accepted. She licked her pencil and wrote down the name.

  Alfred Haswell asked Gideon how many times they intended to circumnavigate the field. Gideon said they would ride twice around. Leo nodded in agreement. He figured the field was between one and two acres. There were two stakes to mark the start line, which would also be the finish. Gideon rode his bay mare towards it. Leo watched him and knew at once that he and his cob would win the race, for the chubby older boy’s bareback mount upon the horse was loose and unbalanced. If Gideon let his mare go, he would be unable to stay upon her. That was all there was to it.

  Leo looked around. The morning was overcast but warm, the grey sky would surely clear soon. He jumped onto his pony’s back and grasping the mane pivoted his body and swung his right leg over, and followed after Gideon.

  There was no official starter. The riders made ready and Gideon yelled and took off. The boy let him go. The mare set off at a cracking pace. Gideon held on as best he could. Soon he was holding his arms as far around the bay mare’s neck as he could, while also pulling on the reins to slow her down. Leo let his cob canter behind some yards distant, for if the corpulent boy fell he did not wish to trample him. He wondered whether the others in the middle of the field realised Gideon’s predicament. Perhaps they found the sight impressive and thought he was riding his bay mare like a jockey. Leo looked across and saw that they were yelling and waving encouragement, though to whom he could not tell.

  They circled the field once. Gideon pressed his legs against his horse’s belly for balance. He still hung on her neck, and was jouncing or wobbling upon her spine. Halfway round the second time Leo himself leaned forward. He brought his knees up and crouched forward on the cob’s withers. It was not a style he had copied, or been taught. He cantered past the bay mare and glanced towards the spectators, for he hoped the master’s daughter was watching. But, riding hard, he could not pick her out in the crowd.