25
REUBEN SMITH
A few words on Reuben Smith
Who was always out on the pissith
He looked after my stable
That is, whenever he was able
He was a very fine farrier
And also an Aids carrier
He said he caught it off a toilet seat in Bombay
So he caught his Aids from far away
However he won’t live long
But to bury him before he died would be very wrong.
No one understood horses more than Reuben Smith. There could not have been a more faithful or valuable man. Some valued him at over £100. He could walk on his hands, waggle his ears, and juggle coconuts, of which he had a lovely bunch. With four in hand and two in the other he was the complete piss artist. When he was pissed, his favourite trick was to urinate through people’s letter boxes. He was a terror to his wife; his underpants took the brunt of it.
York had hushed the matter up, at the same time rendering him unconscious with an iron bar: one night, he had to drive a party home; he was so drunk, he couldn’t hold the reins and fell off the driving seat and into the gutter, where he became covered in it. This affair could not be hidden, but you could smell it on him. He was dismissed; his poor wife and little children were turned out of the cottage they lived in, so he booked them into the Savoy Hotel in London and put it on Lord Grey’s bill. But Lord Grey forgave him on the understanding that he would never taste another drop as long as he lived.
Colonel Blantyre had to return to his regiment. At the station, he pressed a penny into Smith’s hand. ‘The mean bastard,’ said Reuben Smith, and bid him goodbye.
Then he drove to the White Lion and told the ostler to have me ready at four o’clock. But it came four o’clock, and five, and then he shouted not till six, as he’d met with some old friends. Finally, he appeared at nine o’clock, pissed out of his mind and sick all down the front.
The landlord stood at the door and said, ‘Have a care, Mr Smith!’
‘Fuck off!’ said Mr Smith.
He was forced to gallop at my utmost speed, 150 miles per hour. ‘Faster, 160 miles per hour!’ I stumbled and fell with violence on both my knees. Smith was flung off by my fall, and owing to the speed I was going at, he must have fallen with great force. The moon had just risen above the hedge, and by its light I could see Smith lying a few yards beyond the hedge with sick all down the front. He did not rise, he made one slight effort to do so, and then there was a heavy groan. I could have groaned too, so I did. I groaned and he groaned, and then we took it in turns to groan. Finally, we heard the sound of horse’s hooves. It was a lovely summer night and I could hear the nightingale, only interrupted now and then by the sound of Smith being sick.
26
HOW IT ENDED
One night I heard horse’s feet
They came from the street
Then, oh, woe is me
There happened a tragic tragedy
They found a dark figure on the ground
From which there came not a sound
One man turned him over
‘’Tis Reuben Smith,’ he said
‘And what’s worse, he’s dead’
So he died from alcohol
And Aids he caught from Deptford Mall
He will be greatly missed
One blessing was, never again would he be pissed.
It must have been nearly midnight when I heard, at a great distance, the sound of horse’s hooves. They came slowly, and stopped at the dark figure that lay on the ground.
One of the men jumped out. ‘It is Reuben!’ he said, ‘and he does not stir.’
They raised him up, then they laid him down again, and then for fun they picked him up and laid him down again.
‘I have just seen your cut knees,’ they said.
‘Yes, nasty aren’t they?’ I said.
Robert attempted to lead me forward. I made a step but almost fell again, so he tried leading me backwards.
‘Hallo! He’s bad in his foot as well as his knees — his hoof is cut all to pieces! I tell you what!’
‘Tell me what?’ said Ned.
‘I tell you what — either Reuben or the horse was pissed.’
Reuben was now breathing his last, and they all gathered round so as not to miss any of it. It was agreed that Robert, as the groom, should lead me, and that Reuben would be put in the dogcart. This wasn’t easy; they had to double him up with his legs sticking under his chin.
Robert came and looked at my foot again, and must have felt sorry for me because they gave me tea and a sandwich. At last I reached my own box, and Reuben was put in his box, which unlike mine, was going underground.
When at last my knees were healed, they put a blistering fluid over both of them; alas, I will always have bald knees.
27
RUINED AND GOING DOWNHILL
As soon as my knees get better
I am going to write my mother a state-of-knees letter
I was put in a meadow, all alone
I longed for company, even an old ageing crone
I was able to eat great amounts of grass
All it did was go straight thru me and out my arse
One day, my friend Ginger came on the scene
He was nothing like the horse he had been
He was so very thin
Actually, you could see right in
Lord George had ridden him into the ground
So deep, he couldn’t be found
He became very, very ill
Ruined and going downhill.
As soon as my knees were healed, I was turned into a small meadow; after a month I was turned back into a horse again. I felt very lonely; I felt my legs, and they felt lonely. Ginger and I had become fast friends; we did 45 miles per hour.
One day, in came dear old Ginger, and with a joyful whinny, I trotted up to him. We were both glad to meet, but I soon found that it wasn’t for our pleasure he was brought to be with me. The story would be too long to tell, at least three months, but the end of it was that he had been ruined by hard riding, and was now turned off, to see what rest would do. Would he become dog food?
Soon after I left the stable there was a steeplechase. Lord George was determined to ride, and the groom told him he was a little strained, and not fit for the race. On the day of the race he came in with the first three horses, but his wind was touched; it was escaping out the back.
One day, the Earl came into the meadow, and York was with him. Fuck them! He examined me and said, ‘I can’t have knees like these in my stables.’
Knees
You’ve got to have knees
They’re the things that take stock when you sneeze
You’ve got to have knees
They only come in fours, but never threes
You’ve got to have knees
In the winter, fill them up with anti-freeze
You’ve got to have knees
Famous for having them are bees
You’ve got to have knees
If you want to see mine, say please
You’ve got to have knees
They help you run away from falling trees
Knees — wonderful knees!
‘No, my lord, of course not,’ said York, the grovelling little bastard.
‘They’ll soon take you away,’ said Ginger. ‘It’s a hard world.’
I tested the ground with my hoof; yes, indeed, the world was very hard.
Through the recommendation of York, the bastard, I was bought by the master of the livery stables. I found myself in a comfortable stable, and well attended to. There were some nice pictures on the wall and a three-piece suite.
28
A JOB-HORSE AND HIS DRIVERS
I’ve always been driven by people
Of which there are a few
They were English, Irish, Chinese and even a Jew
Some drivers have no control over their horse
&nbs
p; I had a driver who did not know his left from his right
So he drove me in bloody circles all bloody night
Some drivers are insane, and not to blame
They can be driving, and are never seen again.
Some poor horses have been made hard and insensible by just such drivers as these, and may, perhaps, find some support in it; but for a horse, you can depend upon its own legs. My motto is, ‘Never use a horse without his own legs.’ Some drivers fall asleep; some used to fall backwards in the carriage and get carried away.
Drivers are often careless and will attend to anything else rather than their horses, like a woman with no knickers. My driver was laughing and joking with the lady with no knickers. He was sitting next to her and feeling her all over, and thus we drove into a shop window. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ said the driver, ‘I’ve had to stop my groping.’ A farmer helped me out of the shop window. He put me in my stable that night, but he went off and continued groping.
29
COCKNEYS
Some people like to drive us like a steam train
They make us eat lumps of coal again and again
Eating coal we were fit to bust
Eventually it shot out the back as dust
My best master was Farmer Cray
Even he turned out to be gay
He carried a pot of Vaseline
You couldn’t tell where he was, but you could smell where he had been.
There is a steam engine style of driving, and these drivers keep shouting ‘choo-choo-choo-choo.’ People never think of getting out to walk up a steep hill, yet we have to.
Another thing, however steep the downhill may be, they scarcely ever put on drag; one or two men put on the top and skirts and stockings and go looking for sailors.
These Cockneys, instead of starting at an easy pace, generally set off at full speed from the stable yard, some at 100 miles per hour. Some go so fast, we go past where we are going, and have to start all over again. And some of them, they call that pulling up with a dash. We call it fucking awful. And when they turn a corner, they do so so sharply, we end up facing the other way.
As we were near the corner, I heard a horse and two wheels coming rapidly down the hill towards us. We had no time to pull up. The whole shock came upon Rory. The gig shaft ran right through his chest making him stagger back with a cry. It was a long time before the wound healed — five years. He was sold for coal carting; and what that is, is up and down those steep hills; they were delivering in the Himalayas.
I went in the carriage with a mare named Peggy. She was a strong, well-made animal, of a bright dun colour, beautifully dappled, and with a dark brown mane and tail. She was very pretty, remarkably sweet-tempered and willing — so I screwed her. Still, there was an anxious look about her eye. She had some trouble; it was me. The first time we went out to dinner together, I thought she had a very odd pace; she seemed to go partly in a trot, partly in a canter — three or four paces, and then to make a little jump forward. It threw the food all over us.
‘How is it,’ I asked, ‘you are so strong and good tempered and willing?’
‘I was sold to a farmer,’ she said, ‘and I think this one was a low sort of man. One dark night, he was galloping home as usual, when all of a sudden the wheel came against some great heavy thing in the road — it was an elephant — and turned the gig over in a minute. He was thrown out and his arm was broken, and some of his ribs.’
After she left us, another horse came in. He was young, and had a bad name for shying and starting. I asked him why.
‘Well, I hardly know,’ he said; ‘I was timid when I was young, and was a good deal frightened several times, and if I saw anything strange, like a rhino or water buffalo, I used to turn and look at it. You see, with our blinkers on, one can’t see or understand what a thing is unless one looks round; so my head was back to front and I was crashing into buildings. I am very frightened of lions and wolves. I know Mrs Brown, and I am not frightened of her.’
One morning, I was put in a light gig and taken to a house in Pulteney Street. Two gentlemen came out, one short and one tall, as is often the case in England.
‘Do you consider this horse wants a curb?’ he said to the ostler.
I was eventually sold to Mr Barry.
30
A THIEF
One day a friend said to my master
‘Can’t he go any faster?
The reason is, standing still
He looks quite ill’
Truth was, my groom was selling my corn and giving me grass
So my master kicked his arse.
My new master was an unmarried man. His doctor advised him to take horse exercise, so for miles he galloped along like a horse, and finally exhausted, he bought me. He hired a man called Filcher to work as a groom, or a man called Groom to work as a filcher. He ordered the best hay with plenty of oats, crushed beans, rye grass and Whitstable oysters.
One afternoon, we went to see a friend of his — a gentleman farmer. This gentleman had a very quick eye for horses; it did 30 miles per hour. After he had welcomed his friend he said, ‘It seems to me, Barry, that your horse does not look so well; has he been well?’
‘Yes, I believe so,’ said my master, who believed so. ‘My groom tells me that horses are always dull in the autumn, and that I must expect it.’
‘Autumn! Fiddlesticks! Bollocks!’ said the farmer.
‘Please don’t swear in front of the horses,’ said my master.
‘Why this is only August; and with your light work and good food he ought not to go down like this, even if it was autumn. How do you feed him?’
My master told him. The other shook his head slowly, and began to feel me over.
‘I can’t say who eats your corn, my dear fellow, but your horse doesn’t get it. Have you ridden very fast? I hate to be suspicious, and, thank heaven,’ So my master thanked heaven. ‘I have no cause to be, for I can trust my men; but there are mean scoundrels, wicked enough to eat a dumb beast’s share of food; you must look into it.’ And turning to his man who had come to take me: ‘Give this horse a right good feed of bruised oats topped with some oysters.’
Five or six mornings after this, just as the boy had left the stable, the door was pushed open and a policeman walked in, holding the child tight by the arm; another policeman followed, and locked the door on the inside, saying, ‘Show me the place where your father keeps his rabbits’ food.’
The boy looked very frightened and wet his pants. But there was no escape, and he led the way to the corn bin. Here the policeman found another empty bag like that which was found full of oats and oysters in the boy’s basket.
Filcher was cleaning my feet at the time, but they soon saw him, and though he blustered a good deal, they walked him off to the lock-up, and his boy with him. I heard afterwards that the boy was not held to be guilty, but the man was sentenced to prison for two months, one oyster a day for life and a year in a lion cage.
31
A HUMBUG
One day came a new groom, Alfred Smirk
In rhyming slang he was a berk
He never changed the straw in my stall
Overpowering was the smell of my dung that I let fall
Master said, ‘That smell is shit
Go get rid of it’
So Alfred got rid of the smell and the flies
Then my master shot him between the eyes.
In a few days, a new groom came. If ever there was a humbug in the shape of a groom, Alfred Smirk was the man. He was in the shape of a groom.
Alfred Smirk considered himself very handsome; he spent a great deal of time about his hair, whiskers and necktie before a little looking glass in the harness room. Everyone thought he was a very nice young man, and that Mr Barry was very fortunate to meet with him. I would say he was the laziest, most conceited bastard I ever came near. Of course it was a great thing not to be ill-used, but then a horse wants more than that. He wants
music, champagne and dancing. I had a loose box, so loose it was falling to bits, and might have been very comfortable, if he had not been too indolent to clean it out. He never took all the straw away, and the smell from what lay underneath was very bad, while the strong vapours that rose up made my eyes water.
One day, the master came in and said, ‘Alfred, the stable smells rather strong. I’d say it was shit. Should not you give that stall a good scrub, and throw down plenty of water?’
‘Well, sir,’ he said, touching his cap, ‘throwing down water in a horse’s box, they are very apt to take cold, sir.’
‘Well,’ said the master, ‘I should not like him to take cold, but I don’t like the smell of horse shit; do you think the drains are all right?’
‘Well, sir, now you mention it, the drain does sometimes send back a smell; there may be something wrong, sir.’
‘Then send for a bricklayer,’ said the master.
The bricklayer came and pulled up a great many bricks and found nothing amiss; so he put down some lime and charged the master five shillings, and the smell in my box was as bad as ever. Mind you some of the smell was Alfred Smirk. Standing, as I did, on a quantity of my own crap, my feet grew unhealthy and tender, and the master used to say:
‘I don’t know what is the matter with this horse, he goes very fumble-footed.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Alfred, ‘I have noticed the same myself.’ The bastard.
Now the fact was, he hardly ever exercised me, except for knee-bends and press-ups. This often disordered my stomach, and sometimes made me heavy and dull with the shits, but more often restless and feverish. I had to take horse balls and draughts, which, beside the nuisance of having them poured down my throat, used to make me feel ill and uncomfortable, and more shits.
Black Beauty Page 6
