My master put me into the stable, tossed a feed into the manger, raked out my bed in a careless manner, and left me for the night. I was very wet and uncomfortable; but a horse has no right to complain, so I munched my food quietly, and made the best of a bad case.
Mr. Bunter’s back parlour window was near the stable: the night was warm, and the window was open, which enabled me to hear a deal of what was said. When my master went in his wife was crying still. He asked her what was the matter in a coarse brutal tone, such as I had never heard him use before. She replied in a querulous angry voice, bewailing the loss of her bonnet and the bad behaviour of Mrs. King, who had said something or other of a very personal nature on the way home.
Then there was a silence for awhile, interrupted only by the half-stifled sobs of Mrs. Bunter. This silence was suddenly broken by my master, who had apparently been brooding. I heard him rise up from his seat, and kicking over the chair, tell his wife to hold her crying about her bonnet and save her tears for something worse, for he had that day betted with and lost money which was not his own, and he was a bankrupt and a ruined man.
CHAPTER IX.
HERE AND THERE.
Five days later the bailiffs were upon the premises, and a week afterwards I was put down in the inventory and catalogue of an auctioneer as Lot 96. Everything was to be sold off, for Mr. Benjamin Bunter had told the truth when he informed his wife that he was a ruined man. Always a careless liver, he had allowed debt to accumulate, and when the pinch came, sought to retrieve his position by gambling. The result was what any sane man might have expected—he made matters worse, adding disgrace to his misfortunes.
Several of the neighbours came to look at me, and I heard many of them speak with great censure upon the fact of my master having so near his bankruptcy wasted his money upon the race-course; but with all of them the sin lay with the betting so near his bankruptcy—against betting itself they said not a word; indeed I found this fearful evil had taken very deep root among the people, and that most of them, both high and low, indulged much or little in the baneful habit.
Benjamin Bunter and his wife and children disappeared. I heard it stated that they were living in a small street near the Borough Market, and that Bunter was working as a labourer there; whether it was true or not I cannot say—I never saw them again.
The day of the sale came on, and I was knocked down to a horse dealer—just such another man as brought me from Upton—for fifteen pounds, and he, even while he was paying the money, loudly declared that I was a bad bargain to any man for eight: this is a habit of his class, and I felt in nowise hurt by the declaration. He took me home, had my coat trimmed, physicked me a little, and then, as before, I figured in a general sale.