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.