I was awakened in the morning by a knocking overhead, which Sam, who was already up and stirring, told me proceeded from the head of the family in the room above, who was a cobbler. I also heard the tongue of a loud-talking woman, and the murmur of the voices of several children.
‘How many up there?’ I inquired.
‘Father, mother, and six children,’ replied Sam. ‘The father works hard, and is a patient, quiet man; but the mother drinks and scolds, and the home is a wretched one. Home I called it—ah! a poor home it is, and many a pig would turn up his nose at it.’
Mr. Harkaway and his son entered and interrupted our conversation. Jim, under the eye of his father, gave us a fairish 36grooming and a feed of corn; then I was taken out, harnessed, and put to my first day’s work in the furniture line. Mr. Harkaway drove me to a house in the Old Kent Road, with the walls all plastered with bills, and leaving Jim in charge of the cart, went in.
Everything was so novel to me that the time passed very quickly. A street in London or the suburbs is a perfect panorama to any observant creature, and no one need languish for want of food for the mind. The faces alone are sufficient to amuse and interest any thoughtful horse or man. Watch two as they meet and salute, and you will see whether they be friend or foe. Mark their style of greeting, their faces as they meet and part, and you will have a very good idea of the true nature of the feeling between them. The varieties of life are endless, the shades of emotion numberless, and he who cares to study the book of nature may read on throughout his days, and find in the end that he has but imperfectly scanned a single page.
There was much to study in the other horses I met with daily, and the dogs too were very interesting; but my great study was man, and I shall devote the principal part of these pages to him. I hope my experience of our lord and master was a very exceptional one, but I am sorry to say that I found very little good in him.
My life with Mr. Harkaway was for the most part very monotonous; he worked me very hard, and fed me as little as was consistent with the amount of work required of me. Sometimes Sam and I were taken out together in a large van to move the goods and chattels of some tradesman; but as a rule we were employed apart on small jobs, Mr. Harkaway driving me, and Sam being under the guidance of that atom of vice, the boy Jim. I do not care to speak ill of any one, but I must say that the training of this lad was fatal to every good quality which must have been born in him. He was cruel, crafty, and fond of low self-indulgence; he smoked and even drank with men—some of whom were old and grey, and ought to have checked the boy in his evil ways.
Sometimes it happened that I fell into his hands, and his 37father took Sam, and then I had a very pretty day of it. He would make me gallop until I flagged, and then beat me until I galloped again, and this with a heavy load behind me too, without the least remorse; and often I have returned to the stable in such a condition that I did not expect to leave it again alive.
I used to complain to Sam, but he said it was a common mode of treatment towards horses in London, and that thousands died yearly from overwork and neglect, or gave in with a broken heart, the result of unnecessary cruelty.
‘A good horse does not need the whip,’ he said; ‘but there are some people who use it upon every possible occasion. If a horse is tired, they lash him without mercy—they must have an idea that there is virtue in the whipcord, and that it gives us a renewal of the strength we have expended in their service.’
‘That wretched boy, Jim,’ I remarked, ‘must use a deal of whipcord.’
‘That boy is fond of giving pain,’ returned Sam; ‘if he is grooming me, and wants me to stand over, he does not say so, but to save his tongue kicks me in the ribs as if I were a log of wood or a feather bed. I have known the day when I would have repaid him amply, but this miserable life has taken all the spirit out of me. Heigho!’
‘You have had a very hard life,’ I said.
‘Very,’ replied Sam. ‘I was born in the country, but left it quite young. A dealer, Putney way, broke me in; he was celebrated for such work, and a cruel fellow he was. The bits he used were fearful, and I can almost feel his spurs now; as for his whip, it used to cross my ribs like a thin band of red-hot iron—ugh! What horse could stand it? So we all gave in; and he was celebrated as a trainer of horses. Isn’t it disgusting!’
‘Men will be wiser some day,’ I said consolingly. ‘How old are you, Sam?’
‘Somewhere about twelve,’ said Sam; ‘not at all old for a horse well used—but I am almost worked out. I heard Harkaway tell his wife to-day that I was scarcely worth my feed. Well! the knacker may come for aught I care.’
38‘What is a knacker?’ inquired I.
‘A horse murderer,’ replied Sara. ‘When a horse gets old and past work, this man is sent for, or we are taken to him. In either case it is his business to kill us, and he makes very short work of it. But we are useful to the end; they make shoes, glue, and all sorts of useful things out of our very carcases; and if man had any real love or gratitude in his composition, he would treat us all well when we are alive.’
‘But all masters are not cruel, Sam.’
‘No: many are very kind, and keep their stables in better condition than they do their cottages for the labouring poor; and some keep both horse and labourer well, but these are the exception, and not the rule. For my part, I do not care for a rich master; give me a quiet family of the middle class, living, let us say, at Finchley, Hampstead, or somewhere about eight miles the north of London; these are the people who feed and treat a horse well.’
‘Were you ever in such a family, Sam?’
‘No; but once I was almost bought by a gentleman of that class, but the chance went by, and I am now too old to hope for such a thing. I have, however, heard a deal of this life, and I am sure nothing could be more agreeable. Now you are a likely fellow to drop upon this sort of thing, if ever Harkaway makes up his mind to sell you.’
The picture drawn by Sam pleased me very much, and I earnestly hoped that such a lot might befall me.
So my life passed on. I dragged furniture about—now from a general sale, now at midnight from a fraudulent debtor’s house, and once from a ruined home, where the law had deprived the widow and fatherless of the comforts of life. Sometimes Mr. Harkaway beat me very cruelly; but he was generally sparing of the whip, as he had an idea that it knocked some of the value off a horse—as rubbing removes gilt from gingerbread; still he did not hesitate to overload me, and gave me such burdens to bear that I often felt I must die beneath them. Yet I kept on, supported by youth, I suppose, and endured this life for four long years.
During this time I had not forgotten my place of birth, or 39those connected with it. Of my mother I thought a great deal; but I had no anxiety on her account, as I had often heard Mr. Bayne declare that he intended to keep her all his life. Rip was very often in my mind, and a thousand times I wondered what had become of him, with a yearning such as one true friend feels for another. I loved Rip; he was so full of life, so spirited, so brilliant in action, that any one with an eye for beauty must have admired him. Ah, noble Rip! I did indeed love you, and wonder if the humble companion of your youth, pining in the dingy stable of a furniture dealer, ever entered your thoughts. Nor did I forget the beauty of the scene where I was born: the paddock, the stream, the old mill, and the rich surrounding foliage oft rose before me, and never faded away again without leaving behind an aching heart. Often and often I have, in fancy, smelt the sweet meadow flowers, and heard the melodious beating of Rip’s feet upon the soft turf, as he gaily pranced about the field; and such memories, if they have brought pain, have had a softening influence too, and I have lain down to sleep a sadder but a better horse.
The four years gave me a good knowledge of the great metropolis, as business at various times took me to every part of it; and the more I knew, the more I wondered at the magnitude of the place. I have learnt more since, and I have not ceased to wonder.
About this period a very terrible thing happened. I had been out all day with my master, and was back in the stable quite worn-out, thankful for the prospect of rest, when Jim, now a morose, sullen, dissipated young man, came into the stable, and without putting any harness upon me led me away. The act was so novel that my mind became full of vague terror, and the terrible knackers talked of by Sam arose before my eyes; but I dismissed the thought as a piece of folly—for I was yet active and full of work, and Mr. Harkaway was not the man to waste capital by useless slaughter—and looked about me for a more reasonable solution of the mystery.
With his head down, Jim Harkaway slouched beside me, giving no clue, and I wondered in vain as we walked the length 40of several streets, and came at last into the presence of a small crowd of people. An opening was made for Jim, and he led me through. The first thing I saw was a cartload of furniture resting upon the shafts; the next, a horse lying in the road, quite still.
The shock was dreadful. I read the truth at once. Poor Sam was dead—had died in the midst of his daily duty. It was indeed terrible, but I found no tears then. My sorrow was tempered with a dawning conviction that this sudden death was to him a merciful and happy release. In the morning before starting he had complained of a pain in his side, but such a form of suffering was common to us both, and I did not dream of finding him dead that night. Jim harnessed me in, and drove away, leaving poor Sam in charge of a man in a very dirty blue slop—a knacker’s assistant, I have since been informed.
That was a long night for me, and I slept but little. Sam, and Rip, and mother, and home were alternately in my thoughts through the long dark hours; and when the morning came, it found me but little prepared for work. Prepared or not, there was the work to do, and during that and many days following I toiled early and late, until I began to give out signs of really breaking down; and then Mr. Harkaway, still influenced by the pounds, shillings, and pence idea, kindly sent me into the country for a month’s rest and fresh green food.