‘He’s a relation of that great horse Black Beauty,’ she said, ‘and he’s as black as you are, but with a star.’
It was a long time before I saw my father, but one day he came to the farm and stayed the night. My mother neighed with joy when she saw him. He was led by a small bandy legged man called ‘a stallion walker’ who slept near his loosebox. I was very proud when I saw my father. His coat shone like satin and he carried himself like a king. I neighed to him over the field gate, and he threw up his head and arched his beautiful neck and neighed back. That was the only time I ever saw him, for the next day he was led on to another farm which was how he spent his life moving from one farm to another all through the spring and summer.
There were cows on the farm as well as horses and a dairy where often our mistress worked with the three dairy maids. There was always a lot of laughter coming from the dairy and sometimes singing as well. There were two farm men as well as the dairy maids, the older carter Matthew who watched over all us horses though his main duty was to Mermaid and Merlin. A younger man called Mooring who did a lot of the other work like cutting the kale and carting it and feeding the pigs. And a boy called Bob, who helped where he was needed. I believe he was Matthew’s eldest boy. They all lived on the farm and seemed happy enough – at least I never heard them grumble though once we heard Matthew talking about something called, ‘the general strike’.
‘There’s no trains at all,’ he said. ‘And no letters either. I don’t know what the world’s comin’ too. Supposin’ we went on strike. Who would feed the animals then?’
‘It’s all money these days, everyone wants more money. One can’t blame them; it’s hard enough trying to live on thirty shillings a week, even with a spot of garden,’ replied Bill.
‘And working all hours as well,’ put in Bob.
‘But it ’urts everyone in the long run, even the master,’ replied Matthew. ‘That’s the worst of it.’
We were all worried by this conversation. The dairy maids poured away a lot of milk because there were no trains to take it to London. And our master walked about with a worried frown on his face.
My mother said that everything would be all right in the end but we horses sensed that something was wrong. The men had less time for us and there were less oats in our mangers and less singing from the dairy. The general strike ended. No more milk was poured away, but things didn’t get any better and after a time one of the dairy maids left.
Our master had little time for us now and one day we heard him saying to Bob, ‘It’s time you moved on; there’s no future in farming any more. No one wants our butter. The world’s changing, Bob. I can’t afford to give you a rise, and I’m sorry for it because you’re a good lad. I’ve never had a better. But the way things are going, I don’t know how we’ll be next year.’
Soon after that Bob left. We missed him, especially Sinbad who had been a great friend of his. Our master took off his coat and helped Matthew and Bill himself, which was something he had never done before. He didn’t have time to hunt any more, which saddened my mother, who loved hunting more than anything else.
I was four now and black all over except for a splash of white on my left fetlock. My master called me Blackbird. I was used to having my feet rasped, and quiet to groom and handle. No one had ever spoken in anger to me, so that when my master and mistress came to the field gate, I was the first to greet them.
‘It’s time you were working,’ said my master to me one day stroking my neck. ‘When the hay is in, we’ll make a start. You should make someone a fine young hunter.’ He looked much older and I rubbed my head against his sleeve trying to tell him that I would always do my best.
‘Don’t do too much, George,’ pleaded our mistress, slipping her arm through his. ‘Let old Matthew break him in. You know Dr Simmonds said that you were to rest.’
‘Rest!’ cried our master. ‘When everything is going to rack and ruin. When the bills pile up on my desk and no one wants our butter because New Zealand’s butter’s cheaper. No, my dear, I can’t rest till things are straight.’
‘Straight!’ she cried. ‘They will never be straight till we sell up and go.’
‘And that I will never do,’ replied our master quietly. ‘I was born here. The soil is like a mother to me. And where would we go?’ I have always been a farmer as my father was before me. I know nothing else, so let’s talk no more of going.’
They walked away arm in arm, while my mother shook her head sadly.
‘There are bad days ahead for all of us,’ she said. ‘You are young and strong Blackbird. Always do your best whatever happens.’
Two weeks later we heard that our master was dead. Gloom hung over the farm affecting all of us. People think animals don’t understand much. But we knew that things were bad. There was no more laughter, everyone looked worried. Matthew feared for his home. His children walked about with their heads down silently weeping. Bill Mooring stopped tending his garden and was late to work in the mornings. A notice was put outside the farm saying, FOR SALE.
The funeral day was saddest of all. Black horses with plumes on their bridles pulled the hearse and my mother was led behind by Matthew, her saddle empty. All the mourners were in black, our mistress with a veil hiding her face, the children weeping bitterly.
We horses watched the cortege over the field gate, as it wound its sad way to the church less than a mile away.
‘We won’t be wanted any more,’ Merlin said, shaking his wise grey head. ‘We will all be sold. And who wants a farm horse these days?’
‘I worked in a town once,’ said Rosie. ‘It was a terrible place. Our stables were high up, with gas lighting. I couldn’t bear to go back.’
‘I shall be all right,’ said Sinbad. ‘Children always want piebald ponies. I shall be found a kind home. The children will see to it. Why our mistress says I’m better than a nanny.’
Mermaid said nothing. She was the oldest of us all and not worth much any more.
Later my mother came back. We all pleaded for news, but first she washed her mouth out at the trough; then she rolled twice, once for each side of her. After that she shook herself and said, ‘This is a bad day for all of us. If a good master comes, we will be all right. If not, we will each go our separate ways and most likely never see each other again.’
‘But I don’t work on the farm. I am separate. I belong to the mistress and the children,’ said Sinbad. ‘I won’t be sold with the farm. They’ll find me a good home somewhere.’ And he cantered round the field, while the rest of us put our heads down and grazed, each afraid of what the future might hold for us.
2
I START A NEW LIFE
IT WAS NOT long before we had a new master. He was a young man with hard blue eyes and a moustache waxed at both ends. He had bought the farm cheaply and intended making a profit out of it. He walked round the farm with Matthew, poking the buildings with a stick, laughing at the way things had been run in the past.
‘That horse plough can go for a start,’ he said. ‘I’m not having horses here. The farm is going to be run by machinery. And the hedges will have to go too,’ he continued. ‘They use up valuable space. If we are to beat the colonies, we can only do it by farming like them.’
Merlin and Mermaid hung their heads in despair. Rosie said, ‘That’s that then.’
‘A lot of trees will have to go too, and the dairy will be modernised. There will be no more dairy maids,’ continued our new master.
Matthew touched his cap respectfully. ‘And me too, sir? Is my job to be done by machinery?’ he asked.
‘Yes. We don’t need a carter, and you’re too old to learn new ways. I shall need your cottage for a younger man. I will give you a week to clear out.’
‘But where shall I go?’ replied poor Matthew. ‘No one is taking on farm hands these days and I’m knocking sixty, sir. I was born in the cottage as my father was before me.’
‘That has nothing to do with me,’ replied t
he young man harshly. ‘The cottage is mine now and I can do what I like with it. You can apply to sweep the roads. The council are paying a fair bit these days.’
‘But where can I live? And what about my Missus?’ asked Matthew.
‘That’s your business. Now show me the horses. What you do with your life is your own affair. I’m here to make money, and make it I will.’
We stood together in a corner of the field. Matthew called us but we didn’t go to him as we usually did. Our new master looked us over as though we were bits of machinery. He did not speak to any of us. We knew he was deciding how much he might get for each one of us. My mother looked quite frightened. She had been treated kindly all her life and talked to as a equal by our poor late master. She had expected to live on the farm until her end came.
At last, our new master spoke. ‘The young horse might fetch a bit,’ he said staring at me. ‘But the others aren’t worth much. They can go to the sale at Stansbury next week. I shall be ploughing the field; I’m trying the modern way, one crop one year, one the next. That way you get more out of the land.’
‘The master would have wanted them to have good homes. He thought the world of them,’ said Matthew.
‘And that was his undoing,’ snapped back the young man. ‘There’s no place for sentimentality in modern farming.’
‘Shall I be taking them then?’ asked Matthew. ‘I understand them, sir. I can put in a good word for them; they’ll fetch more that way, sir.’
‘No. You will be gone by then. I want you out in a week. And I mean a week,’ said our new master.
The next day our mistress and the children came to say goodbye. The children cried into Sinbad’s mane. Our mistress stroked my mother’s nose. ‘I’m sorry. He wouldn’t have wanted it this way,’ she said.
My mother rubbed her nose against her shoulder as she had done to me when I was a foal and needed comforting. The children cried louder than ever. Then they all went away, their arms round each other, and everything was suddenly quiet and I wondered how our field would look with the grass ploughed under and the trees gone.
A few days later a young man, wearing a cap on the back of his head, started moving furniture into Matthew’s cottage sighing and grumbling meanwhile.
‘Ain’t there no water closet?’ he asked Matthew. ‘And where’s the cooking range? How do you manage with the one fireplace?’
‘We cooked with a pot hung over it, and reared six children as well,’ replied Matthew.
‘There’s no running water either.’
‘There’s the well at the bottom of the garden and a good sty for a pig and a couple of old apple trees,’ Matthew answered.
When Matthew and his family had gone, we felt as though we had no friend left. No one came to visit us in the evenings to see if we were well. Our water grew low in the trough and we were all bad tempered with worry. Merlin and Mermaid bullied poor Rosie unmercifully and my mother called Sinbad ‘an impudent young fool’.
The old farmhouse was empty now and only the young man and a girl milked the cows. Then the day came when we all stood together for the last time under the elm trees. The next morning some rough looking men came, put halters on our heads and led us away from the farm for ever.
It was five miles to Stansbury and we took an hour and a half to reach it. I had never been so far before and I was scared of everything I saw. A man called Jim pulled me along and a man called Fred whipped me from behind while my mother kept whinnying to me in a distracted fashion saying,
‘Do your best. Don’t be frightened. Follow me.’
But I had never seen a car close up before, nor a bicycle. I could not understand how they moved without legs or heads. People shaking mats out of windows scared me and so did yapping dogs and children playing in the street.
By the time I reached the sale, I was soaked in sweat, with whip marks all over my quarters. There were a great many men shouting, some carrying whips, and horses everywhere in all shapes and sizes. There were stalls laden with fruits, and cars going backwards as well as forwards.
It was too much for me. I stopped and stood trembling with fear, my legs braced under me. Jim jerked at my rope. Fred whipped me from behind.
My mother called, ‘Don’t be afraid. They won’t hurt you.’ But I was in such a state now that nothing seemed to make sense any more.
If someone had spoken to me kindly then I think I might have calmed down, but all I received was blows from behind and jerks from my halter in front and a flood of bad words. So I stood up on my hind legs and then plunged forward in a wild leap scattering the bystanders. Jim held on shouting, ‘Fetch a bridle.’
A man seized one ear, another my nose. A bit was forced between my teeth, while more men put a rope round my quarters. Then Fred whipped me again and Jim held on to my head while the bit cut my mouth cruelly. All my friends had gone on by this time. The crowd had cleared a space. I was shaking in every limb. I started to spin round and round fighting against the pain of the bit. I reared again, plunged and then came down in a heap on the cobbles. A man in gaiters leapt on my head. I could feel my heart thumping against my ribs and my breath coming in gasps.
‘Hold him there for a bit. Let him calm down,’ said someone. The bridle had blinkers on it. My mouth was bleeding.
After a time I was allowed to stand again. I was still trembling and my sweat dripped on to the street. A quiet man came and took the reins from Jim. He patted my neck and spoke kindly. ‘You shouldn’t whip a young horse like that,’ he said. ‘All he needs is a little kindness.’
He reminded me of our late master though he was a younger man. He had the same quiet strong way with him. I saw my mother tied to a railing in the centre of the square and, still shaking with fright, I was tied up alongside her.
She looked at me sadly, ‘If our master could see you now, his heart would be broken,’ she said.
I stood tensely straining against the rope that held me. I shook all over. Men walked up and down looking at us. They forced my mother’s mouth open and picked up her hoofs. She was very patient, though I could see how their rough treatment pained her.
No one touched me; one look at my wild eye sent them on to a quieter animal. I think if they had touched my mouth I would have gone mad.
The sale had started now. There was a great deal of noise. A man sat high up holding a hammer while horses were trotted up and down. He shouted all the time and when a horse was sold he banged his hammer on a table. Merlin and Mermaid were separated; their wise heads were furrowed with anxiety. Poor Sinbad stood with his head low, let down by his mistress and the children. Rosie knew about sales; her shoulders were dark with sweat.
Merlin and Mermaid were sold. They neighed piteously to each other as they were led away to await their new owners.
My mother said, ‘Always do your best, my son. Man is cleverer than we are; he will always win.’ Her turn was next. She went calmly, her head high, her beautiful eyes shining. She trotted steadily over the rough cobbles while the man with the hammer shouted, ‘Who wants this twelve year old mare, quiet to ride and with hounds? How much am I bid? Come on ladies and gentlemen. Fifty pounds, who will bid fifty pounds?’
Men pushed forward to feel her legs, to open her mouth once again with rough fingers. Someone whipped her from behind. She trotted faster over the cobbles, her neck wet with sweat.
I strained against the rope which held me. I neighed, ‘Don’t go. Don’t leave me.’
They wrenched her round on the cobbles and I heard her hoofs slipping. A boy hit her with a stick. Someone said, ‘Forty.’
‘I’m bid forty,’ shouted the auctioneer as though it was a victory.
She was sold for forty five guineas and led away. Now it was my turn. A man untied me, jerking at my bridle. I trotted over the cobbles my unshod hoofs making no noise. I couldn’t see the crowds on each side because of the blinkers, but when a man touched my quarters I lashed out catching him on the side and I reared when a large-fisted fa
rmer touched my mouth.
The auctioneer shouted, ‘Who wants this high spirited young horse. Only four, and what a looker. By a great stallion, out of the mare you’ve just seen. A certain winner in the right hands. Come along ladies and gentlemen, how much am I bid?’
I stood with my legs braced, trembling with fear. In the distance I heard my mother calling to me.
Then a man in breeches and boots said, ‘Well I’ll risk him. No horse has beaten me yet.’ And people laughed and a man said,
‘That’s right, have a go, Sid. You can only break your neck once.’ A farmer bid twenty. Sid bid twenty-five. I was dragged across the cobbles again. The farmer bid thirty. Sid bid thirty-five. I heard the hammer fall. I was dragged away and tied up with the other horses which had been sold. Mermaid and Merlin were together again. I longed for a drink, but though there was a trough in the square no one watered us.
After a time, Rosie was led away by a bent old farmer.
The town square reeked of beer and sweat and horse dung. A small boy led my mother away. He spoke kindly to her, stroking her neck. I never saw her again.
I stood in the square for a long time. Horses were taken away in ones and twos. The sale ended. Evening came and I still stood tied to the railing longing for a drink.
At last my new master came out of a pub yard leading a chestnut cob. He pushed her between the shafts of a cart. He was unsteady on his feet and it took him some time to buckle the harness.
He tied me to the back of the cart while the cob snapped, ‘And don’t hang back, young fellow. I’ve got enough to do without pulling you home.’
I felt too exhausted and bewildered to fight any more. In the pubs men were singing. Sid whipped up the cob. My head was sore from pulling against the railings. I could not see much because of the blinkers. I just followed the cart. I don’t know how far we went but my unshod hoofs were sore and split when at last we turned into a yard and stopped.
A small man came out of a building with a lantern in his hand. ‘So you’re back, Gov,’ he said.
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