Sometimes it happened that I fell into his hands, and his father took Sam, and then I had a very pretty day of it. He would make me gallop until I flagged, and then beat me until I galloped again, and this with a heavy load behind me too, without the least remorse; and often I have returned to the stable in such a condition that I did not expect to leave it again alive.
I used to complain to Sam, but he said it was a common mode of treatment towards horses in London, and that thousands died yearly from overwork and neglect, or gave in with a broken heart, the result of unnecessary cruelty.
‘A good horse does not need the whip,’ he said; ‘but there are some people who use it upon every possible occasion. If a horse is tired, they lash him without mercy—they must have an idea that there is virtue in the whipcord, and that it gives us a renewal of the strength we have expended in their service.’
‘That wretched boy, Jim,’ I remarked, ‘must use a deal of whipcord.’
‘That boy is fond of giving pain,’ returned Sam; ‘if he is grooming me, and wants me to stand over, he does not say so, but to save his tongue kicks me in the ribs as if I were a log of wood or a feather bed. I have known the day when I would have repaid him amply, but this miserable life has taken all the spirit out of me. Heigho!’
‘You have had a very hard life,’ I said.
‘Very,’ replied Sam. ‘I was born in the country, but left it quite young. A dealer, Putney way, broke me in; he was celebrated for such work, and a cruel fellow he was. The bits he used were fearful, and I can almost feel his spurs now; as for his whip, it used to cross my ribs like a thin band of red-hot iron—ugh! What horse could stand it? So we all gave in; and he was celebrated as a trainer of horses. Isn’t it disgusting!’
‘Men will be wiser some day,’ I said consolingly. ‘How old are you, Sam?’
‘Somewhere about twelve,’ said Sam; ‘not at all old for a horse well used—but I am almost worked out. I heard Harkaway tell his wife to-day that I was scarcely worth my feed. Well! the knacker may come for aught I care.’
‘What is a knacker?’ inquired I.