POOR BLOSSOM.
[Illustration: MY PLACE OF BIRTH.]
POOR BLOSSOM;
The Story of a Horse.
[Illustration]
BY THE AUTHOR OF
“NEDDY AND ME;” “ONLY A LADYBIRD,” ETC., ETC.
LONDON:
S. W. PARTRIDGE & Co., 9, PATERNOSTER ROW.
Geo. Watson & Co., Printers, 28, Charles Street, Farringdon Road, E.C.
[Illustration:
Dedication.
TO ALL WHO HAVE THE MANAGEMENT OF THAT NOBLE AND USEFUL ANIMAL
THE HORSE,
THESE PAGES ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.
]
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
MY PLACE OF BIRTH 1
CHAPTER II.
‘BROKEN’ 7
CHAPTER III.
MY NEW MASTER 13
CHAPTER IV.
I AM SOLD.—MR. HARKAWAY 21
CHAPTER V.
THE FURNITURE DEALER 31
CHAPTER VI.
SAD SCENES OF LIFE 35
CHAPTER VII.
MY NEW MASTER, BENJAMIN BUNTER 43
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GREAT CARNIVAL 50
CHAPTER IX.
HERE AND THERE 65
CHAPTER X.
MY GENTLE MISTRESS 69
CHAPTER XI.
ANOTHER LOSS AND A DISAPPOINTMENT 75
CHAPTER XII.
EXIT BLOSSOM 83
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POOR BLOSSOM.
CHAPTER I.
MY PLACE OF BIRTH.
The first thing that I remember is a green field enclosed by a stiff
fence, where I was running about by my mother’s side. I cannot call to
mind the earliest days of my existence, but I am sure that I was not
more than a fortnight old when my mother gave me my first lesson in
life—a lesson I have never forgotten. My mother was a fine bay mare, the
property of Mr. Bayne, a farmer, who seems to have treated her very
kindly; indeed I have never heard any horse speak better of a master
than my mother was accustomed to speak of the man who owned her.
‘He has never laid a whip upon me,’ she would say with a proud toss of
her head; ‘he has a heart far too kind for that sort of thing, and he
knows I always do my best—and what horse can do more, I wonder.’
But to return to the lesson she gave me. I was ambling by her side when
Mr. Bayne entered the field, and my mother, as she usually did, ran up
to him to be caressed and fed with some trifling luxury, such as a slice
of carrot or bit of sugar. I kept by her side until we reached him; then
I, purely from playfulness, turned and kicked at him, lightly—you
know—not by any means in a way to hurt him, I assure you.
‘Woa there,’ shouted Mr. Bayne; ‘vicious are you, my youngster? the
mother’s blood don’t seem to run in you.’
He said nothing more, but having fed and stroked my mother, he went out
of the field, and left us together. Then I received the lesson to which
I have alluded.
‘How very wrong of you,’ she said, ‘to kick at so good and kind a
master.’
‘It was only in play,’ I replied, hanging my head and feeling rather
foolish.
‘I know it was so,’ she returned, ‘but it was wrong of you nevertheless.
Some men are so stupid that they do not know play from vice, in a horse,
and only few of them seem really to understand us. They often reprove us
when we endeavour to do right, and you will be beaten if you do not curb
your propensity to play.’
‘Were you ever beaten?’ I asked.
‘Once I had a very cruel master,’ said my mother with a sigh; ‘but I do
not care to talk about it. If ever it should be your lot to find such a
man you will know enough about it then.’
‘But why did you endure it?’ I asked; ‘are you not stronger than man?
Why did you not kick?’
‘My child,’ said my mother impressively, ‘do not talk so idly: we are
created the lawful servants of man, and it is our _duty_ to submit. If
he is kind we repay him tenfold; if he is cruel we must do our duty
still, and the sin of cruelty be upon his head. Besides we are in his
power—he has so many things at his command, and if we disobey him he can
put us to great pain. You will learn that when you come to be broken.’
‘What is that?’ I inquired.
‘Your training so that you may be useful to man,’ returned my mother;
‘you will have to do your work one day with the rest of us.’
There was a pause after this, and my mother cropped the sweet grass
while I meditated. My curiosity was aroused with regard to this creature
who ruled over us, and I soon renewed the subject.
‘Tell me more about our master, man,’ I said; ‘I am very anxious to
learn something about him.’
‘He is a strange creature,’ said my mother—‘as much a puzzle to himself
as to the rest of the created world. He is very clever in some things
and very stupid in others; for instance, he knows nothing of _our_
language, although we understand _his_ perfectly. If Giles—that is Mr.
Bayne’s foreman—bids me go here or there, I understand him without rein
or whip; and yet when he was ploughing in the ten-acre field, and I
pulling up told him as plain as I could that we were near a piece of
hollow ground, he would not understand me, but made me go on—and then
the ground gave way and we were almost buried alive.’
‘How did you know it was hollow?’ said I.
‘By the sound,’ said my mother; ‘I don’t think they ever found out what
the hollow was—but there it was, as the uneven ground will testify.
Giles afterwards did me the credit to tell his master that I had pulled
up, and my doing so was considered to be remarkably clever, but I
thought nothing of it.’
‘Giles must be very, very stupid,’ I remarked.
‘Not more than most men,’ said my mother; ‘but they are very clever at
some things—they build houses, make carts and harness; but still they
are inferior to us in many things. Now there is Mr. Martin’s Boxer, who
is very clever indeed; you know Mr. Martin?’
‘The farmer who drinks so?’ I said.
‘That’s the man,’ rejoined my mother. ‘He goes every Saturday to market,
and returns home in a state of helpless intoxication; _he_ doesn’t know
the way home a bit, but Boxer brings him safely to the door, along the
dark roads, and through the narrow lanes, much better than any man could
do, and yet that fellow Martin—I cannot call him anything less—very
often beats Boxer most cruelly.’
‘I am sure _he_ ought to be kicked,’ I said indignantly.
‘_Duty_ forbids, my dear child,’ replied my mother; ‘a proper-minded
horse never kicks one who is appointed to be his master; but some kick
and bite too; many of these are naturally bad, _but I am certain that
most of them are made bad through ignorant and cruel training_. But even
that is no excuse; if man forgets his duty to the horse, the horse never
ought to forget his duty to man: remember this, my child, act up to it,
and you won’t regret it in your old age.’
I promised to remember, and although I was young and therefore rather
thoughtless, I really took this lesson to heart, and found it of
excellent service to me throughout my varied life.
It is not my intention to dwell upon my early days, but I must say a few
words more about the paddock—the dear old paddock where I first breathed
the pure air. Ah! I can see it now, and would that I was there. I can
see the narrow peaceful stream gliding away from the water-mill, as if
in calm satisfaction of having at least for the time performed its duty.
I hear the murmur of the wheel as it turns and turns, now in the shadow,
now in the sunlight; and the lark’s song is in my ear again, and I smell
the sweet-scented clover in the field, and the mignonette growing by the
cotter’s garden gate; and I see the sloping roof of the old farm-house
peeping out from the ivy clinging lovingly to its walls. Oh, home of the
spring-time of my life, it is all before my mind. But these eyes of mine
shall never see thee more, nor shall my ears be charmed again with the
hum of the bee, the song of the lark, or the murmur of the water-wheel.
It is all over now. But let me not anticipate, or waste time in useless
regrets, for I have a long story before me and but a short time to tell
it in.
To resume. When I was about five months old, another mare and foal were
put into the paddock. The mare was an old acquaintance of my mother, and
the two were soon gossiping together; but the foal was of course a
stranger to me. He informed me that his name was Rip, and I told
him—what I might have told my readers before—that Mr. Bayne had named me
Blossom. This introductory business over, we became excellent friends,
and capered about the paddock in fine style. Rip was a better looking
foal than I was—he was better bred, and had I believe something of the
race-horse in him; he told me that his great-grandfather, on his
mother’s side, had nearly won a big race once, and this Rip seemed to be
very proud of. I felt sorry for him on account of this weakness—it was
so much like a man to be proud of such a ridiculous thing.
Rip told me a deal of news which he seemed to have picked up from a
number of horses in farmer Martin’s meadow, where he had been with his
mother. He knew Boxer, and spoke highly of him as a long suffering and
much-enduring horse; but he said that Boxer was getting tired of doing
all he could for the farmer at night and getting beaten in the morning.
‘I should not be surprised,’ said Rip in a whisper, ‘if he upsets the
farmer in the pond by the “Wheatsheaf,” and leaves him there.’
A few weeks before I should have expressed my approval of this; but my
mother’s lesson had borne fruit, and I earnestly hoped that Boxer would
not so forget himself. Rip, however, favoured the idea of the pond
trick, and said that if Boxer did not carry out his threat he should
think he was but a poor, mean-spirited thing. In all this I detected, as
my readers have doubtless done, the racing blood of Rip’s
great-grandfather on his mother’s side.
Those were very happy days in the old paddock. Rip and I enjoyed
ourselves amazingly, even when we were left alone, which occasionally
happened if our mothers were put into the waggon; but sometimes Giles
fetched them for the plough, and then we youngsters went with our
mothers and saw the earth ripped up by the terrible implement and smelt
the fresh soil as it was turned over into the sunlight. I was always of
a sober and reflective turn, and never lost the chance of ruminating
upon anything which came under my notice; but Rip was rather giddy—I am
afraid I ought to say thoughtless too—and gave his mother a deal of
anxiety and trouble. I have heard the poor creature declare a hundred
times that he would be the death of her; but Rip always laughed at such
declarations, and said that he would grow better some day.
‘If we don’t have some fun now,’ he would say, ‘we never shall. It is
all very well for those old fogies to talk, but they were not always so
sober as they are now, I give you my word.’
I could not help laughing at Rip, he was so very droll; but I really
feared that he was getting into a bad way, and it seemed such a pity,
for Rip grew handsomer and handsomer every day, while I, although
improving, was but a poor plain animal at the best.
‘Rip will have a gentleman for a master,’ I heard Mr. Bayne say one day
to Giles.
‘And who will have Blossom, sir?’ asked Giles.
‘I think Mr. Crawshay will have him,’ replied Mr. Bayne, and all that
night I wondered what Mr. Crawshay was like, and whether he was as good,
or better, or worse than a gentleman. Rip pretended to know him, and
told me that he often drove his horses to death; but Rip frequently said
idle things when he was in a joking mood, and I did not mind him.
We passed the winter in the farm belonging to Mr. Bayne, and during the
long evenings my mother prepared me for the life which was now not far
ahead. She told me to be tractable when the horse-breaker took me in
hand, and I should escape a deal of punishment and pain. She also
prepared me for our parting, and told me that when it came we should
probably lose sight of each other for ever. The example of her fortitude
gave me strength, and for her sake I did my best to conceal the pain the
prospect of parting gave me. As for Rip, he seemed to trouble his mind
very little about it, but looked forward to the new life as something to
rejoice over.
One day in the spring the parting came. A tall, strong man, clad in
velveteen, made his appearance on the farm, and Rip and I were sent with
him to the paddock to be ‘broken in.’
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