the ferret-faced man, before removing me, put some ointment upon my sores, and painted my legs with something which hid my accident from the eyes of casual observers; then he led me through the town into the country, where we joined company with another ferret-faced man who had several horses of various sizes and ages under his charge. i was tied to the rest with a halter, and then we jogged quietly along the road, the two men smoking and chatting as we went along.
my companions were strange to me—strange in the strictest sense of the word, for they had all been brought up in london, a place i had heard very little of; but i was certainly not impressed with any favourable notion of it when i saw their flippant pert ways, and became acquainted with the style of their conversation. naturally i, as soon as i joined company, wished them good day, and made some remark upon the fineness of the weather and the excellence of the second hay crop. to this they one and all responded with a sarcastic roll of the eye, and one old horse most impertinently called me a ‘yokel’—an insult i resented by becoming perfectly quiet and withdrawing as soon as possible from a company where i could see i was not particularly wanted.
i gathered from what they said that they had been down to some place belonging to the ferret-faced man ‘to grass,’ that 22is, to recruit their health after a season of very heavy work in town. they all seemed to like an idle life, but some of them really cared very little for the country, and generally expressed themselves glad to return to town.
‘another month here would have killed me,’ said a young horse with a roman nose; ‘it is so dreadfully slow, and i cannot live without “fun.” of course the fresh air and the green fields and the purer water we get does us good bodily—but we must feed the mind, you know.’
the others agreed to this, and i kept on for a long time thinking and surmising what sort of food for the mind could be obtained in the great city. i have learnt since, and i must say that much better food for the mind—food more wholesome and nourishing—can be obtained in the country than in the town; but we must not be astonished at poor ignorant horses expressing such an opinion, when we know that thousands of intelligent men declare the same thing.
we did not walk the whole way to town—london was a long way off; but on our arrival at a place much larger than upton, we were taken to a tremendous barn-like place roofed in with glass, and filled with large boxes upon wheels, some of them with chimneys to them, which puffed and snorted in such a way that i could not help jumping about in a fright, much to the amusement of my companions. the ferret-faced man, probably with a view to restore my calmness, beat me about the head with a stick, and then hustled me into one of the boxes with another horse, and closed the door.
i found myself shut in with one of the best of my late companions—a horse who had in snubbing me rather followed the leadership of others than obeyed the dictation of his own feelings. he told me not to be alarmed, that there was nothing to fear, and that we were going to travel about a hundred miles by railway. i asked him what a railway was, and he told me it was something which man had made to imitate the horse, to do its work in transmitting men and goods.
‘but it is a very poor imitation,’ he said; ‘they cannot trust it anywhere off the particular road and rails laid down for it; and there is no grace, no action in it, and whatever it does it 23makes a frightful noise about. i know that any horse would blush to make half the fuss. when man first made it, he said that he could do without the horse; but he made a great mistake. horses,’ added my informant with some pride, ‘have since the establishment of railways become worth double the money.’
i asked a deal more about this railway, and my companion gave me a very good general idea of this base but fortunately unsuccessful attempt to supersede the horse, with which i do not intend to trouble my readers; and just as he finished, the train started.
oh! the agony of that journey!—the shaking, the jolting, the screaming, the roaring, and the noise and rattle of other trains as they passed us—it was dreadful, especially to me who had never undergone the ordeal before. my companion suffered less—he had travelled upon, many occasions, and was more composed. in about four hours we arrived in london, and i being released, took my first peep at the big city.
the impression was not favourable. the place looked large, and very, very dirty; the dingy courtyard of the railway station gave me the heartache to look at it, and the promise of a most miserable place to live in was fulfilled when the ferret-faced man led me into the streets. many horses i have met with, knowing that i have a literary turn of mind, have asked me to describe the great city; but i always decline to do so—it defies description: volumes might be written upon every foot of its paved way, and libraries filled with the wonders of a street. it is at once a paradise to pleasure-seekers, a desert to the friendless, a gold mine to the successful, a pit of destruction to the unfortunate; it contains every vanity and every pleasure of human existence; the poorest, the richest, the proudest, the meekest—the lost in vice, the raised in virtue; the very depths of vice, the highest aspiration and the noblest thought, can alike be found within its gates. joy, hope, love, hatred, malice, and despair are all in the shadow of its walls, and lie hidden in the hearts of men not scattered here and there, but gathered close together in teeming millions.
the very thought of attempting to describe such a place drives me to despair: i leave it for an abler horse.
24we kept on for half an hour, with nothing but houses on either side, and then i was led into a paved yard, where i saw a long row of stabling, all very clean and nice—more so than i could have expected, considering the place was in the heart of the great city. i spent ten days there, and then i, with a number of other horses, was put up for sale; but in the meantime my broken knees had been attended to by a very clever veterinary surgeon, who put them right in the most astonishing manner. i heard one of the ferret-faced men declare that it would take a very good pair of eyes to tell that i had been down, and as far as my sight went i was perfectly restored. i felt a little weakness, and nothing more.
a great number of people attended the sale, and we were all made very spruce for the occasion. the grooms trotted us up and down, and made us show off ourselves to the best advantage. several of the bystanders seemed to take a great deal of notice of us, and these i afterwards noticed were the principal buyers.
one of the horses which accompanied me from upton was put up first, and the bidding began—but slowly. neither the auctioneer—a tall, stout, florid man—nor the public seemed to think much of him, and after a little haggling he was knocked down for twenty pounds. as he was led back to his stall i was led out, and the disgust written upon his face found vent in words.
‘twenty pounds!’ he said, with an indignant neigh; ‘there’s a price! if i had dreamt of such a thing a month ago, i believe i should have drowned myself in the river.’
i shook my head to express my disapproval of such light talk, but could say nothing, as the groom who led me gave me a thump with the halter, and bade me ‘come up’—which i did by breaking into what was really a very pretty trot.
‘now here, gentlemen,’ said the auctioneer, ‘is a very valuable lot, named blossom, reared by bayne, of upton, a man who, as you are fully aware, never sends a bad lot into the market. this horse is rising four, and has never been in private hands, but he is thoroughly fit either to ride or drive. take a look at him, gentlemen. don’t be afraid of it; he can bear it—sound from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail.’
oh! the falsehood of this man—to say that i had never been out of private hands, and that i was thoroughly sound. i really felt as if i could have kicked him—not very hard, but in such a way as to warn him not to tell such fibs again. the groom trotted me to and fro, then pulled up, and a number of men proceeded to examine me.
‘he’s been down, ain’t he?’ asked a short, thick-set man, who spoke in a husky voice, as if he had a hair or straw in his throat.
‘i believe he knocked himself in the paddock, mr. harkaway,’ replied the auctioneer; ‘a mere graze, though—the skin was barely broken.’
‘he grazed a tenner off him,’ said mr. harkaway, with a short laugh; adding in a whisper to a man, apparently his friend, who stood beside him, ‘but he is the sort of nag i want; and i will have him.’
the bidding for me, in spite of the signs of my fall, was very brisk, and i soon ran up to forty pounds; then a few fell away, and i increased to fifty. at this sum all left me but mr. harkaway and a man in a sort of grazier’s suit, with a face so positively cruel, that i shudder even now when i think of it. mr. harkaway had a dissipated, reckless look, which reminded me of richards; and if i could have had my will, i would have chosen another master; but he was better than the grazier, and i earnestly hoped that he would show the longer purse.
‘fifty-five,’ said the grazier.
‘six,’ said mr. harkaway.
‘seven,’ cried the other.
‘eight,’ returned mr. harkaway.
‘nine,’ shouted the grazier.
mr. harkaway hesitated, and looked at me. i turned an imploring eye upon him, but i might as well have looked at a brick wall—he was as stupid as the rest of the men, and did not understand me a bit; but the auctioneer came to my rescue.
‘come, mr. harkaway,’ he said, ‘put another pound on—you won’t get such another chance this season; the horse is young, sound, good-tempered, and ready for any amount of work. shall i say sixty?’
28‘sixty be it,’ said mr. harkaway, and the hammer to my great joy fell. the grazier seemed to be rather disappointed—his face expressed that feeling; but he said he was glad he had not bought me, as i was a poor thing at the best, only fit for a dust cart. this hurt me a little, for none of us like to be depreciated even by those we despise; but since then i have heard a story about a fox and some grapes, which sufficiently explains the insulting expressions of the grazier.
as the rest of the sale has no interest to my readers, or any connexion with my life, i will pass it over with the simple declaration that it was a very painful thing to witness. falsehood and deceit were rampant; not a single horse was honestly represented to the public, and some poor things, long past work, were doctored and stimulated for the occasion, and then solemnly described as horses in excellent condition—fit for any amount of service. most of the men collected there were too sharp to be deceived; but i am afraid that more than one was that day sadly swindled and deceived by the artful horse-dealer and the glib-tongued auctioneer.
as i have since become thoroughly acquainted with london, i may as well now call places by their proper names; such a course will help those of my friends as know the metropolis to a more definite idea of my wanderings, and assist me in making my story more graphic to the rest of my readers.
late in the afternoon mr. harkaway fetched me from the horse-dealer’s yard, and tying my halter to the tail of a common cart, drove away. there was a big brown horse in the shafts, whom he called ‘sam’—rather a knowing-looking animal, i thought, and one certainly accustomed to the noisy ways of this bewildering place. we travelled over an immense stone bridge near the houses of parliament, and turning to the right went through a maze of street, for the most part poor, dirty, and miserable, making me wonder how any one could live in such tumble-down houses. this was lambeth, and lambeth was to be my home; for my new master halted at a house by the corner of a street a shade better than most we had passed through, and shouted out for jim in such a way that i knew the house must be his own.