What I felt that night I do not care to tell—the sorrow of the time was too deep for words. I loved my mistress; she had come upon me like sunshine after storm—her very touch was balm to my wounded spirit—and she was gone! Roberts made a deal of noise over his sorrow, and I have no doubt he felt the loss; but his wound was not so deep as mine, I warrant you.
They buried my mistress quietly, as she wished; and then another misfortune came upon me. Mr. Graham was taken ill. Mr. Archibald did not go back to college, but remained with his father; and from this I argued that the illness was of a very serious nature. Then came a dread upon me of what was to come, and I was very unhappy indeed.
I saw very little of Mr. Archibald, and what I did see was not pleasing to me. He appeared to be very proud and imperious, and talked to everybody in a very commanding way. As for me, he only came once into the stable, and then he positively laughed at me, called me a ‘broken-down hack,’ and asked Roberts why I was not sent to the knacker’s.
76‘Miss Nellie was very fond of Blossom, sir,’ replied Roberts; ‘he ain’t much to look at, but he ain’t a bad horse—he is very willing, sir.’
This recommendation made no impression upon Mr. Archibald, who laughed contemptuously and went away; but I felt very grateful to the boy Roberts, who preferred speaking the truth to toadying to the disparaging opinions of his young master. Mr. Graham was very ill, suffering from brain fever, the result of many months of anxiety and watchfulness over his daughter. The illness had long been pending, and descended upon him with terrible force. He became delirious, raving night and day, until nature was exhausted, and a calm settling upon him, he followed his daughter to the grave.
This second blow, following so closely upon the first, fairly broke me down; a gloom settled upon the house, but nowhere so darkly as upon me. I not only grieved deeply for the great loss I had sustained, but there was the weight of a dark uncertain future hanging over me.
I saw nobody but Roberts until the second funeral was over; and a few days after the event, Mr. Archibald, Roberts, and another servant in livery entered the stable. The latter person seemed to be very deferential to Mr. Archibald, and I saw at once that he was his own servant—a man I had heard Roberts speak of as Mr. Archibald’s Hoskins.
‘There, that’s the nag, Hoskins,’ said Mr. Archibald; ‘I make you a present of him, instead of a Christmas box by-and-by. He will fetch something for cats’-meat, if for nothing else.’
This unmerited insult was received with an approving laugh from Hoskins; but Roberts, with tears in his eyes, stepped forward and said,—
‘If you please, Mr. Archibald, Miss Nellie always said Blossom was not to be sold.’
‘Did she?’ returned Mr. Archibald. ‘And pray what was to be done with him?’
‘Master said he would keep him while he lived, and leave enough money to keep him at grass in his old days, if he died before him.’
Oh, kind mistress and worthy master! you have the thanks 77a horse can give for the noble thought; but alas, it was never to be!
‘There was nothing of the sort in his will,’ said Mr. Archibald; ‘and I do not feel called upon to carry out such a sentimental scheme upon your bare assertion, my lad. Hoskins, the animal is yours; get him out of the way as soon as you can, for I want the stable for my own horses.’
Having thus sealed my fate, he turned upon his heel and went his way. The cold, selfish sentence of Mr. Archibald Graham was carried out. I will make no comment upon the character of this young man, but leave my readers to judge his conduct for themselves. A few hours later I left him and Maythorn Lodge behind me.
Hoskins took me down to Smithfield, where he sold me to the proprietor of an advertising van; and for four months I dragged behind me a huge unsightly structure of light boarding, whereon was pasted the advertisements my master was employed to make known.
Sometimes we puffed a patent pill, warranted to cure every form of suffering known to man; at another time we vaunted the merits of some low wretched comic singer, who did his best nightly to degrade already fallen man; and then this gave way to a wholesale outfitter’s declaration that he was the best of tailors; and so we went on, until an Act of Parliament swept advertising vans from the public streets, and my master’s trade was ruined.
This was a very wretched time for me: I was badly stabled, badly fed; I was never once decently groomed all the time I was with this man. Sometimes, it is true, he scratched my back with a bit of a curry-comb, and threw a pail or two of water over my legs; but this was all, and what with the life I led, and the wet weather and the dirt of the streets, I sank down very low and became a poor wretched object indeed.
I was sold again for so small a sum that I will not name it—none who knew poor Blossom in his earliest days would have dreamt that he could have come to such a pass. This buyer was Mr. Crabbe, livery stable keeper and cab proprietor of Hackney Marsh—the last master I shall ever know.
78He kept about a dozen horses—eight of them young and in good condition; the rest were pitiable objects like myself, and we were reserved for night work.
I need not tell you that our position in the stable was anything but an enviable one. The young horses turned up their noses at us, and upon the strength of being better fed and better cared for than our wretched selves, treated us with the greatest possible contempt. Mr. Crabbe himself seemed to have no thought or care for us, and never once, from the hour I became his property to the present moment, did he ever bestow a kind word or a caress upon me.
As for my duty—my work as night cab horse—I will speak more of that presently; but just now I must tell of an incident which occurred in the stable, as it bears upon the fate of a friend who is very dear to me—I mean Rip, the noble, handsome Rip.
One day, late in the afternoon, Mr. Crabbe brought home a new horse, a young thing about four years of age, which he put in the stall next to mine. I just glanced at him, but made no attempt to open a conversation, as I had endured so many insults and snubbings from the better horses of our stable; and after a time forgetting him, fell into a musing mood. My fancy carried me back, as it often did, to my place of birth, and the paddock and the surrounding scene rose up before me. For a moment the quietude of the sweet place was upon me, and bowing my head I murmured, ‘Oh, Upton, Upton! would that I could take these old bones down to your green fields! Would that I could lie down beside your sweet river and give up my life!’
‘Who talks of Upton?’ said a voice near me; and turning my head I saw the stranger look at me with an inquisitive face.
‘I do,’ I replied; ‘do you know the place?’
‘I ought to,’ replied the other; ‘for I have only just left it, and a bad leave it is for me, I fear. I was reared on Mr. Bayne’s farm, and a kinder master never lived.’
I could barely speak for the tumultuous throbbing of my heart, but I managed to stammer out, ‘Tell me all you know; is Mr. Bayne alive?’ And then I asked for my mother, and the stranger told me what I expected to hear, that she had lived to a good old age, and had died a year ago.
79
THE TALK IN THE STABLE.
81‘And Mr. Bayne?’ I asked again.
‘He is getting into years, but hale and hearty still,’ replied my informant. ‘But just before I came away a sad accident happened to a farmer named Martin. Boxer was his horse, who used to bring him home from market when he had been drinking; but Boxer was getting old and blind, I suppose, and walked out of the road into the mill-pond. Be it as it may, Mr. Martin and Boxer were found drowned together.’
I expressed my sorrow for both master and horse, and then with a palpitating heart I inquired after my old friend Rip.
‘Rip, Rip, let me see,’ said my companion, thoughtfully; ‘an old horse belonging to the Tracey family, is it not?’
It seemed so odd to hear any one speaking of Rip as an old horse: but time had flown since we met, and he, like me, was past his prime. But he could not be so worn-out as I was—his lot had fallen upon smoother places than mine; still he was old, there was no disputing that.
‘A sad accident happened to this Rip,’ continued my informant; ‘a careless groom drove him against another carriage, and a splinter entering his leg, he was lamed for life.’
‘And what has become of him?’ I asked softly, my thoughts running upon knives and guns in an instant.
‘The family with whom he lives are very kind to horses,’ was the reply—‘especially the elder branches. Rip has served them well, I believe, and they have rewarded him by making arrangements for him to end his days in the paddock where he lived when young. His leg will never be of any real service again, but it has ceased to pain him, and he limps about as happy and contented as a horse can be.’
Oh, Rip, my friend, this is good news of you. Long may you live to enjoy your well-earned rest and ease! There was a choking feeling in my throat as I thought of our different lots, but I hope it was not the result of envy. Envy is as bad in a horse as it is in a man.
‘Did he ever speak of a horse named Blossom?’ I ventured to ask softly, after a pause.
82‘Very often,’ replied my companion—‘wondering what had become of him—and always in terms of the greatest compassion. I fancy that Blossom is rather an unfortunate horse. Do you know him?’
I did not answer, for my heart was full, and my brain was busy with thinking of my dear old friend, high-spirited noble Rip—and generous too, for he could think of me—poor, simple, vulgar Blossom. I felt very sorry for having neighed so loudly when I met him on the race-course; but he forgave me, and what more could I want?
I ought to have been sleeping that afternoon; but the news concerning Rip drove all thoughts of rest from my brain, and I had not closed my eyes when the ostler came in to harness me for my nightly work.
No harder lot could have fallen upon a horse than that which befell me. The night-work of cab horses is bad at the best, but mine was worse than the ordinary lot of these unfortunate creatures. I was driven by a man named Stevens—a coarse, brutal fellow, who could not drive a yard without using the whip and supplementing his cruelty with bitter oaths.
Then my work was in the night, when fallen man shows up at his worst. Oh! the sad scenes I have witnessed! the dreadful things I have heard! When the dark mantle has fallen upon the earth, Vice comes out boldly and walks under the stars as if there were no great Witness of its infamy far above. Then man comes out of the dark alleys and robs and plunders, and does desperate deeds of violence to others who stagger homeward soddened with drink. Then it is we hear the lewd song, the bitter blasphemy, the oath and curse and shriek for help. Then it is that woman, lost to everything but a defiant determination to live on through her shame, crawls 84about the streets, sinking lower and lower every moment of her life. Do the shameless and vicious think that night screens their evil deeds? Is it possible that they can think it less sinful to act under the starlight than under the broad beams of the midday sun; or is it that vice and folly cannot, dare not come out and face the pure golden light in the sky? Oh, man! have you forgotten that night was given to rest in, and not to riot away? Better be in your graves than out and doing the things I have seen you perform.
I shrink from any further record of this time—sad and cruel for me from the first, and sad and cruel still; but in the darkness, standing by the hour together in the chill fog, who could marvel that this old body sank under it, and that I am broken in health? I am not so old a horse in actual years; but misfortune, neglect, and ill-usage have brought me to the end of my life long before my time.
Last night, while dragging a fare up Ludgate Hill, my head suddenly swam round, and I staggered and fell. When I came to, there was a small knot of night prowlers around me, and Stevens the driver was kicking my ribs with his heavy boots. I got up somehow, and I staggered on, half-blind, and every bone in my body aching most terribly. The fare left the cab in Cannon Street, and shortly after I fell again. I did not faint, but I lay utterly helpless and exhausted. Stevens kicked me until he was tired; but I could not rise for half an hour or more, and when I did scramble to my feet I could not drag the cab, and Stevens, putting it under shelter, led me home.
I heard him tell Mr. Crabbe what had befallen me, and the livery stable keeper positively laughed—think of it, my friends, the man laughed at my misery and the brutality of the driver!
‘It must have come sooner or later,’ I heard Mr. Crabbe say; ‘he has lasted longer than I expected. As you go home tell the knacker to give me a look up to-morrow.’
I heard my sentence almost without a quiver. I was so worn-out, so reduced by pain, so weary of my existence, that I had no wish to exist. Better die a thousand times than live on as I have lived during the past six months.
85
POOR BLOSSOM’S LAST DAYS.
87I was resigned, but with my resignation came a sense of gross injustice. I had toiled all the days of my life for man, and when worn-out and broken, doomed to die in a knacker’s yard! It may be just—man is wiser than I am; but it seemed hard to end one’s days in such a place.
In the midst of my gloom a thought arose which gives me consolation to this moment—I have done my duty. None of my masters, from the first to the last, can accuse me of having shirked my work or shown the least disposition to vice; and there is a companion thought to it which gives me further comfort—I am sure that many of those who knew me, most of them ignorant of my fate, will speak kindly of me when I am gone, and say a good word for poor Blossom.
I have a hope too—a hope which I hold close to my heart—and that is of Rip, dear, noble Rip, roaming over the paddock I know so well, with the gentle stream flowing at its base, and the old water-mill turning in the sunlight, and the song of the lark and the hum of the bee in his ear, and the sweet-scented clover throwing its perfume into his grateful nostrils. As you wander thus, oh, noble Rip, I hope—ah, know—that you will sometimes think of your old friend, who served mankind all his life, and died by the knacker’s hand!