It was nothing new, but being a diversion from the monotony of their work, half the brickmakers stopped to look on.
The remnant of a fine horse was in the shafts of a heavily-laden sand cart, which he had dragged for some distance through the tenacious mud of the deeply-cut ruts, till, coming to a softer place than usual, one wheel had gone down nearly to the nave in the mire, tilting the cart sideways, and every frantic struggle made by the poor beast only seemed to set it more fast. Its hoofs, which sank deeply, churned up the mud and water, and it stood still at last with heaving flanks, its great earnest eyes staring appealingly at its masters, while the blindfolded skeleton in the clay mill went round and round, then stopped short, and gave its head a jerk, as if saying once more, “It doesn’t matter; it will not be for long.”
Click, clack, clack went the whip, and the skeleton in the mill started energetically once more, while the horse in the cart struggled spasmodically to move the load, much of its strength being, however, exhausted by extricating its hoofs from the clayey, sticky mud.
Click, clack, clack went the whip once more, and as Jane Glyne came along panting and perspiring with the weight of her bundle, a little crowd of clayey savages began to collect.
The horse struggled with a piteous expression in the wrinkles above its starting eyes; its flanks heaved; they moistened the lash of the cruel whip, and still it strove; but the cart wheels had sunk so low that a team could hardly have dragged it out, and the willing beast vainly essayed the impossible. A dozen strong men stood around, as many shovels were within reach ready to remove the clay from the wheels, and partially dig them out; but, as Jane Glyne looked on, in a strange, hard, callous manner, no one made a move, not a hand was placed to a wheel-spoke to help with a few pounds the labouring beast. Cartloads of hard broken brick rubbish lay about that could have been thrown down to fill up the ruts; but not a barrowful was brought, and amidst a shower of oaths, there was added, to make it a storm, a shower of blows.
The horse’s struggles grew interesting, and as the little crowd increased pipes were replenished, and the heavy clay-sullied men looked on.
More blows, more struggles; but the cart sank deeper, and was not likely to be moved, for, in spite of the frantic way in which the horse plunged into its collar, it could not stir the load an inch. Not an inch, strong as it was; but there is exhaustion even for the strongest, and at last the poor brute stood deep in the tenacious mud, with wet heaving flanks, staring eyes, and trembling in every limb.
“Here, give us holt!” cried father; and his children brought up in this earthly school looked on with glee.
“Father ’ll soon fetch him out,” said the eldest boy; and it seemed that at last the poor brute was to get some help. But it was not help the horse was to have, for the whip was handed to father.
“Take holt on his head,” he cried to the man in charge, and the latter ruffian seized the rein, and began to jerk and drag the bit savagely.