CHAPTER TWELVE

A Job Horse and Its Drivers

My new master was the owner of a horse and carriage rental business. He lived far from Earlshall Park, so it was necessary for me to travel by train. That took me some time getting used to, but after a while I stopped noticing the strange noise and movement of the train. And when I finally arrived in Bath, I was taken to my new home and led to a nice stall, where I was pretty well cared for.

I was one of many horses owned by the businessman. He sometimes drove us, but most often we were driven by strangers who would rent us for the day.

Before now, I had always had excellent drivers, but now I had to get used to less experienced ones, of which there were four types. The first type, were the 'clingers'. These were people who would never relax the reins, keeping the horses close to the carriage at all times. Then there were the 'loose drivers', who let the horses do most of the decision-making and work, never guiding us until the very last moment when they'd realize we were heading in a direction they did not want to go in. Often this would nearly cause the horses to fall, but the drivers were so inexperienced that they couldn't tell the difference.

And there were the impatient drivers who wanted us to drive quickly from the moment we left the stable to the moment we returned. They would get angry if we slowed down and they were often too aggressive with the reins, pulling them too hard, too suddenly.

But, occasionally, we would get a good driver. One of my favorites was a man named Mr Barry. He started to prefer me to all of the other horses and one day, after his doctor suggested that he get more exercise, he persuaded my master to sell me to him.

Because Mr Barry was a single man who lived in a boarding house in London, he had to rent a stall and hire a man named Filcher to care for me. I heard him say to Filcher, the first day he came to work, "Be sure to give my horse only the best food and bedding." This made me very happy, for I believed that I could now become as happy as I had been before. And in the beginning, it seemed that this really were going to be true, because my stable was kept clean and well lighted, but then I began to be given less and less food, until I started to seriously weaken.

When, one day, Mr Barry rode me out to one of his friends' farms, I was feeling pretty tired. The farmer noticed this and said to my new master, "What seems to be troubling your horse? I remember him looking much healthier than this when you first bought him."

"You know, I noticed that myself. But my groom told me not to worry, because it's normal for horses to weaken in Autumn."

"That's not true at all! First of all, it's still Summer, my friend. And second of all, there's no reason for a horse to weaken, unless he's not being properly taken care of!" Shouted the farmer. "You'd better watch that groom of yours more closely. I think he might be stealing some of your horse's food."

At that moment I wished that I could speak, because, I had seen Filcher come into the stable with his son and leave with a large bag of my oats.

Happily, my master trusted his farmer friend's advice, and a couple of days later, when Filcher's boy was leaving the stable with my oats, two policemen stopped him at the door.

"Now, boy, we know your family takes care of rabbits," they said holding the boy's arm. "You take us to your home now and show us where you're putting the food."

So, the boy did as he was ordered. And at the rabbit cages they found many empty bags of oats, my bags of oats. They arrested Filcher and his boy immediately, even though Filcher denied having stolen them. The boy was let go because of his age, but his father stayed in jail for two full months.

The next person hired to be my groom was a man named Alfred Smirk. He was a handsome man who knew too well that he was handsome. He would spend hours working on his hair and moustache, trying to make them look just as he wanted them to.

Whenever my master gave him an order, Smirk would always stand up straight and yell out, "Yes, sir! Of course, sir!" As though my master were the leader of all England. To most people, he seemed a good worker, but I knew better. I knew how false he was the first time I heard him shout out, "Yes sir! Of course, sir!" And my feeling could never have been more correct, because he was probably the laziest groom I had ever met in my life. My body began to smell more and more because he never cleaned me, and because he never cleaned my stall well, I started eating less and my eyes began to hurt from the smell.

When Mr Barry, noticing the strong smell coming from my stall, asked Smirk if he should cleanup my area and use water to wash away the waste, my groom replied, "Yes, sir! Of course, sir! However, you know it's a bit dangerous to use water these days. It could make the horse ill, sir."

"Well, something has to be done about that smell. Might it be the drain?" Asked my master.

"Well, sir, now that you say this, I think the drain does sometimes smell."

"OK, then have a man come here to fix it immediately," ordered Mr Barry.

Of course, when the worker came to fix the drain, he found nothing wrong. However, he did not tell my master this, because he would not have been paid anything. So he was paid five shillings for doing nothing.

Soon it became hard for me to walk properly. The dirty, wet straw I was standing in all day had started to hurt my feet.

"Smirk, have you noticed my horse's walking, lately?" Asked my master.

"Yes, sir! Of course, sir! I saw that he was having difficulty during this morning's exercise." said Smirk.

The truth was that Smirk almost never took me out for exercise. Instead, he fed me oats all day. So now I had become much heavier than I had ever been before. And from staying in my stall all day I soon became nervous and started to run an occasional fever. To help me to become calm and lose my illness, Smirk could have just given me some bran mash or green meal, but he knew nothing about caring for horses, so he gave me many different medicines, which only succeeded in making me feel worse.

Things became so bad for me that, one day, when I was out carrying the master, I nearly fell to the ground. It was my feet. The pain had become so great that I could no longer stand it. My master saw this and took me to the blacksmith immediately.

The blacksmith could see right away that I had a serious foot illness. He asked my master how it was possible that my groom had not noticed and taken care of this before now.

"How could my horse get such an illness?" Asked Mr Barry.

"Usually, this illness comes from horses standing in a dirty stall all day. Have your groom bring this horse to me tomorrow and I'll give him the proper medicine and show him how to care for your horse's feet."

Mr Barry did not bother to ask the groom to take me the next day. He took me, himself. There my feet were cleaned with a very strong medicine that smelled pretty bad. After this, the blacksmith reminded my master to make sure my stall was cleaned very carefully and that all of my straw was replaced every day. I was also to be fed nothing but bran mash and some green meal until I was feeling better.

Mr Barry was very angry with Smirk. As soon as we returned home, he fired him. My master then cared forme, himself. By this time, he had already decided that keeping horses was much too difficult, because of all the dishonest workers in the world. So, as soon as I was healthy again, he sold me.

(end of section)