章节正文
that the horse has not moved from the place."
Robert then attempted to lead me forward. I made a step,
but almost fell again.
"Halloo! he's bad in his foot as well as his knees. Look here --
his hoof is cut all to pieces; he might well come down, poor fellow!
I tell you what, Ned, I'm afraid it hasn't been all right with Reuben.
Just think of his riding a horse over these stones without a shoe!
Why, if he had been in his right senses he would just as soon have tried
to ride him over the moon. I'm afraid it has been the old thing over again.
Poor Susan! she looked awfully pale when she came to my house
to ask if he had not come home. She made believe she was not a bit anxious,
and talked of a lot of things that might have kept him.
But for all that she begged me to go and meet him. But what must we do?
There's the horse to get home as well as the body, and that will be
no easy matter."
Then followed a conversation between them, till it was agreed that Robert,
as the groom, should lead me, and that Ned must take the body.
It was a hard job to get it into the dog-cart, for there was no one
to hold Ginger; but she knew as well as I did what was going on,
and stood as still as a stone. I noticed that, because, if she had a fault,
it was that she was impatient in standing.
Ned started off very slowly with his sad load, and Robert came and looked
at my foot again; then he took his handkerchief and bound it closely round,
and so he led me home. I shall never forget that night walk;
it was more than three miles. Robert led me on very slowly,
and I limped and hobbled on as well as I could with great pain.
I am sure he was sorry for me, for he often patted and encouraged me,
talking to me in a pleasant voice.
At last I reached my own box, and had some corn; and after Robert
had wrapped up my knees in wet cloths, he tied up my foot in a bran poultice,
to draw out the heat and cleanse it before the horse-doctor saw it
in the morning, and I managed to get myself down on the straw,
and slept in spite of the pain.
The next day after the farrier had examined my wounds, he said he hoped
the joint was not injured; and if so, I should not be spoiled for work,
but I should never lose the blemish. I believe they did the best
to make a good cure, but it was a long and painful one. Proud flesh,
as they called it, came up in my knees, and was burned out with caustic;
and when at last it was healed, they put a blistering fluid over the front
of both knees to bring all the hair off; they had some reason for this,
and I suppose it was all right.
As Smith's death had been so sudden, and no one was there to see it,
there was an inquest held. The landlord and hostler at the White Lion,
with several other people, gave evidence that he was intoxicated
when he started from the inn. The keeper of the toll-gate
said he rode at a hard gallop through the gate; and my shoe was picked up
among the stones, so that the case was quite plain to them,
and I was cleared of all blame.
Everybody pitied Susan. She was nearly out of her mind;
she kept saying over and over again, "Oh! he was so good -- so good!
It was all that cursed drink; why will they sell that cursed drink?
Oh Reuben, Reuben!" So she went on till after he was buried; and then,
as she had no home or relations, she, with her six little children,
was obliged once more to leave the pleasant home by the tall oak-trees,
and go into that great gloomy Union House.
27 Ruined and Going Downhill
As soon as my knees were sufficiently healed I was turned into a small meadow
for a month or two; no other creature was there; and though I enjoyed
the liberty and the sweet grass, yet I had been so long used to society
that I felt very lonely. Ginger and I had become fast friends,
and now I missed her company extremely. I often neighed when I heard
horses' feet passing in the road, but I seldom got an answer;
till one morning the gate was opened, and who should come in
but dear old Ginger. The man slipped off her halter, and left her there.
With a joyful whinny I trotted up to her; we were both glad to meet,
but I soon found that it was not for our pleasure that she was brought
to be with me. Her story would be too long to tell, but the end of it was
that she had been ruined by hard riding, and was now turned off
to see what rest would do.
Lord George was young and would take no warning; he was a hard rider,
and would hunt whenever he could get the chance, quite careless of his horse.
Soon after I left the stable there was a steeplechase, and he determined
to ride. Though the groom told him she was a little strained,
and was not fit for the race, he did not believe it,
and on the day of the race urged Ginger to keep up with the foremost riders.
With her high spirit, she strained herself to the utmost;
she came in with the first three horses, but her wind was touched,
besides which he was too heavy for her, and her back was strained.
"And so," she said, "here we are, ruined in the prime of our
youth and strength, you by a drunkard, and I by a fool; it is very hard."
We both felt in ourselves that we were not what we had been. However,
that did not spoil the pleasure we had in each other's company;
we did not gallop about as we once did, but we used to feed,
and lie down together, and stand for hours under one of the shady lime-trees
with our heads close to each other; and so we passed our time
till the family returned from town.
One day we saw the earl come into the meadow, and York was with him.
Seeing who it was, we stood still under our lime-tree,
and let them come up to us. They examined us carefully.
The earl seemed much annoyed.
"There is three hundred pounds flung away for no earthly use," said he;
"but what I care most for is that these horses of my old friend,
who thought they would find a good home with me, are ruined.
The mare shall have a twelve-month's run, and we shall see
what that will do for her; but the black one, he must be sold;
'tis a great pity, but I could not have knees like these in my stables."
"No, my lord, of course not," said York; "but he might get
a place where appearance is not of much consequence,
and still be well treated. I know a man in Bath, the master
of some liverystables, who often wants a good horse at a low figure;
I know he looks well after his horses. The inquest cleared
the horse's character, and your lordship's recommendation, or mine,
would be sufficient warrant for him."
"You had better write to him, York. I should be more particular
about the place than the money he would fetch."
After this they left us.
"They'll soon take you away," said Ginger, "and I shall lose
the only friend I have, and most likely we shall never see each other again.
'Tis a hard world!"
About a week after this Robert came into the field with a halter,
which he slipped over my head, and led me away. There was no leave-taking
of Ginger; we neighed to each other as I was led off,
and she trotted anxiously along by the hedge, calling to me
as long as she could hear the sound of my feet.
Through the recommendation of York, I was bought by the master
of the liverystables. I had to go by train, which was new to me,
and required a good deal of courage the first time;
but as I found the puffing, rushing, whistling, and, more than all,
the trembling of the horse-box in which I stood did me no real harm,
I soon took it quietly.
When I reached the end of my journey I found myself
in a tolerably comfortable stable, and well attended to.
These stables were not so airy and pleasant as those I had been used to.
The stalls were laid on a slope instead of being level, and as my head
was kept tied to the manger, I was obliged always to stand on the slope,
which was very fatiguing. Men do not seem to know yet that horses
can do more work if they can stand comfortably and can turn about;
however, I was well fed and well cleaned, and, on the whole,
I think our master took as much care of us as he could.
He kept a good many horses and carriages of different kinds for hire.
Sometimes his own men drove them; at others, the horse and chaise
were let to gentlemen or ladies who drove themselves.
28 A Job Horse and His Drivers
Hitherto I had always been driven by people who at least knew how to drive;
but in this place I was to get my experience of all the different kinds
of bad and ignorant driving to which we horses are subjected;
for I was a "job horse", and was let out to all sorts of people
who wished to hire me; and as I was good-tempered and gentle, I think I was
oftener let out to the ignorant drivers than some of the other horses,
because I could be depended upon. It would take a long time
to tell of all the different styles in which I was driven,
but I will mention a few of them.
First, there were the tight-rein drivers -- men who seemed to think
that all depended on holding the reins as hard as they could, never relaxing
the pull on the horse's mouth, or giving him the least liberty of movement.
They are always talking about "keeping the horse well in hand",
and "holding a horse up", just as if a horse was not made to hold himself up.
Some poor, broken-down horses, whose mouths have been made
hard and insensible by just such drivers as these, may, perhaps,
find some support in it; but for a horse who can depend upon his own legs,
and who has a tender mouth and is easily guided, it is not only tormenting,
but it is stupid.
Then there are the loose-rein drivers, who let the reins lie easily
on our backs, and their own hand rest lazily on their knees. Of course,
such gentlemen have no control over a horse, if anything happens suddenly.
If a horse shies, or starts, or stumbles, they are nowhere,
and cannot help the horse or themselves till the mischief is done.
Of course, for myself I had no objection to it, as I was not in the habit
either of starting or stumbling, and had only been used to depend on
my driver for guidance and encouragement. Still, one likes
to feel the rein a little in going downhill, and likes to know
that one's driver is not gone to sleep.
Besides, a slovenly way of driving gets a horse into bad
and often lazy habits, and when he changes hands he has to be
whipped out of them with more or less pain and trouble.
Squire Gordon always kept us to our best paces and our best manners.
He said that spoiling a horse and letting him get into bad habits was
just as cruel as spoiling a child, and both had to suffer for it afterward.
Besides, these drivers are often careless altogether,
and will attend to anything else more than their horses.
I went out in the phaeton one day with one of them; he had a lady
and two children behind. He flopped the reins about as we started,
and of course gave me several unmeaning cuts with the whip,
though I was fairly off. There had been a good deal of road-mending
going on, and even where the stones were not freshly laid down
there were a great many loose ones about. My driver was laughing and joking
with the lady and the children, and talking about the country
to the right and the left; but he never thought it worth while
to keep an eye on his horse or to drive on the smoothest parts of the road;
and so it easily happened that I got a stone in one of my fore feet.
Now, if Mr. Gordon or John, or in fact any good driver, had been there,
he would have seen that something was wrong before I had gone three paces.
Or even if it had been dark a practiced hand would have felt by the rein
that there was something wrong in the step, and they would have got down
and picked out the stone. But this man went on laughing and talking,
while at every step the stone became more firmly wedged between
my shoe and the frog of my foot. The stone was sharp on the inside
and round on the outside, which, as every one knows,
is the most dangerous kind that a horse can pick up, at the same time
cutting his foot and making him most liable to stumble and fall.
Whether the man was partly blind or only very careless I can't say,
but he drove me with that stone in my foot for a good half-mile
before he saw anything. By that time I was going so lame with the pain
that at last he saw it, and called out, "Well, here's a go! Why,
they have sent us out with a lame horse! What a shame!"
He then chucked the reins and flipped about with the whip, saying,
"Now, then, it's no use playing the old soldier with me;
there's the journey to go, and it's no use turning lame and lazy."
Just at this time a farmer came riding up on a brown cob.
He lifted his hat and pulled up.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but I think there is something the matter
Robert then attempted to lead me forward. I made a step,
but almost fell again.
"Halloo! he's bad in his foot as well as his knees. Look here --
his hoof is cut all to pieces; he might well come down, poor fellow!
I tell you what, Ned, I'm afraid it hasn't been all right with Reuben.
Just think of his riding a horse over these stones without a shoe!
Why, if he had been in his right senses he would just as soon have tried
to ride him over the moon. I'm afraid it has been the old thing over again.
Poor Susan! she looked awfully pale when she came to my house
to ask if he had not come home. She made believe she was not a bit anxious,
and talked of a lot of things that might have kept him.
But for all that she begged me to go and meet him. But what must we do?
There's the horse to get home as well as the body, and that will be
no easy matter."
Then followed a conversation between them, till it was agreed that Robert,
as the groom, should lead me, and that Ned must take the body.
It was a hard job to get it into the dog-cart, for there was no one
to hold Ginger; but she knew as well as I did what was going on,
and stood as still as a stone. I noticed that, because, if she had a fault,
it was that she was impatient in standing.
Ned started off very slowly with his sad load, and Robert came and looked
at my foot again; then he took his handkerchief and bound it closely round,
and so he led me home. I shall never forget that night walk;
it was more than three miles. Robert led me on very slowly,
and I limped and hobbled on as well as I could with great pain.
I am sure he was sorry for me, for he often patted and encouraged me,
talking to me in a pleasant voice.
At last I reached my own box, and had some corn; and after Robert
had wrapped up my knees in wet cloths, he tied up my foot in a bran poultice,
to draw out the heat and cleanse it before the horse-doctor saw it
in the morning, and I managed to get myself down on the straw,
and slept in spite of the pain.
The next day after the farrier had examined my wounds, he said he hoped
the joint was not injured; and if so, I should not be spoiled for work,
but I should never lose the blemish. I believe they did the best
to make a good cure, but it was a long and painful one. Proud flesh,
as they called it, came up in my knees, and was burned out with caustic;
and when at last it was healed, they put a blistering fluid over the front
of both knees to bring all the hair off; they had some reason for this,
and I suppose it was all right.
As Smith's death had been so sudden, and no one was there to see it,
there was an inquest held. The landlord and hostler at the White Lion,
with several other people, gave evidence that he was intoxicated
when he started from the inn. The keeper of the toll-gate
said he rode at a hard gallop through the gate; and my shoe was picked up
among the stones, so that the case was quite plain to them,
and I was cleared of all blame.
Everybody pitied Susan. She was nearly out of her mind;
she kept saying over and over again, "Oh! he was so good -- so good!
It was all that cursed drink; why will they sell that cursed drink?
Oh Reuben, Reuben!" So she went on till after he was buried; and then,
as she had no home or relations, she, with her six little children,
was obliged once more to leave the pleasant home by the tall oak-trees,
and go into that great gloomy Union House.
27 Ruined and Going Downhill
As soon as my knees were sufficiently healed I was turned into a small meadow
for a month or two; no other creature was there; and though I enjoyed
the liberty and the sweet grass, yet I had been so long used to society
that I felt very lonely. Ginger and I had become fast friends,
and now I missed her company extremely. I often neighed when I heard
horses' feet passing in the road, but I seldom got an answer;
till one morning the gate was opened, and who should come in
but dear old Ginger. The man slipped off her halter, and left her there.
With a joyful whinny I trotted up to her; we were both glad to meet,
but I soon found that it was not for our pleasure that she was brought
to be with me. Her story would be too long to tell, but the end of it was
that she had been ruined by hard riding, and was now turned off
to see what rest would do.
Lord George was young and would take no warning; he was a hard rider,
and would hunt whenever he could get the chance, quite careless of his horse.
Soon after I left the stable there was a steeplechase, and he determined
to ride. Though the groom told him she was a little strained,
and was not fit for the race, he did not believe it,
and on the day of the race urged Ginger to keep up with the foremost riders.
With her high spirit, she strained herself to the utmost;
she came in with the first three horses, but her wind was touched,
besides which he was too heavy for her, and her back was strained.
"And so," she said, "here we are, ruined in the prime of our
youth and strength, you by a drunkard, and I by a fool; it is very hard."
We both felt in ourselves that we were not what we had been. However,
that did not spoil the pleasure we had in each other's company;
we did not gallop about as we once did, but we used to feed,
and lie down together, and stand for hours under one of the shady lime-trees
with our heads close to each other; and so we passed our time
till the family returned from town.
One day we saw the earl come into the meadow, and York was with him.
Seeing who it was, we stood still under our lime-tree,
and let them come up to us. They examined us carefully.
The earl seemed much annoyed.
"There is three hundred pounds flung away for no earthly use," said he;
"but what I care most for is that these horses of my old friend,
who thought they would find a good home with me, are ruined.
The mare shall have a twelve-month's run, and we shall see
what that will do for her; but the black one, he must be sold;
'tis a great pity, but I could not have knees like these in my stables."
"No, my lord, of course not," said York; "but he might get
a place where appearance is not of much consequence,
and still be well treated. I know a man in Bath, the master
of some liverystables, who often wants a good horse at a low figure;
I know he looks well after his horses. The inquest cleared
the horse's character, and your lordship's recommendation, or mine,
would be sufficient warrant for him."
"You had better write to him, York. I should be more particular
about the place than the money he would fetch."
After this they left us.
"They'll soon take you away," said Ginger, "and I shall lose
the only friend I have, and most likely we shall never see each other again.
'Tis a hard world!"
About a week after this Robert came into the field with a halter,
which he slipped over my head, and led me away. There was no leave-taking
of Ginger; we neighed to each other as I was led off,
and she trotted anxiously along by the hedge, calling to me
as long as she could hear the sound of my feet.
Through the recommendation of York, I was bought by the master
of the liverystables. I had to go by train, which was new to me,
and required a good deal of courage the first time;
but as I found the puffing, rushing, whistling, and, more than all,
the trembling of the horse-box in which I stood did me no real harm,
I soon took it quietly.
When I reached the end of my journey I found myself
in a tolerably comfortable stable, and well attended to.
These stables were not so airy and pleasant as those I had been used to.
The stalls were laid on a slope instead of being level, and as my head
was kept tied to the manger, I was obliged always to stand on the slope,
which was very fatiguing. Men do not seem to know yet that horses
can do more work if they can stand comfortably and can turn about;
however, I was well fed and well cleaned, and, on the whole,
I think our master took as much care of us as he could.
He kept a good many horses and carriages of different kinds for hire.
Sometimes his own men drove them; at others, the horse and chaise
were let to gentlemen or ladies who drove themselves.
28 A Job Horse and His Drivers
Hitherto I had always been driven by people who at least knew how to drive;
but in this place I was to get my experience of all the different kinds
of bad and ignorant driving to which we horses are subjected;
for I was a "job horse", and was let out to all sorts of people
who wished to hire me; and as I was good-tempered and gentle, I think I was
oftener let out to the ignorant drivers than some of the other horses,
because I could be depended upon. It would take a long time
to tell of all the different styles in which I was driven,
but I will mention a few of them.
First, there were the tight-rein drivers -- men who seemed to think
that all depended on holding the reins as hard as they could, never relaxing
the pull on the horse's mouth, or giving him the least liberty of movement.
They are always talking about "keeping the horse well in hand",
and "holding a horse up", just as if a horse was not made to hold himself up.
Some poor, broken-down horses, whose mouths have been made
hard and insensible by just such drivers as these, may, perhaps,
find some support in it; but for a horse who can depend upon his own legs,
and who has a tender mouth and is easily guided, it is not only tormenting,
but it is stupid.
Then there are the loose-rein drivers, who let the reins lie easily
on our backs, and their own hand rest lazily on their knees. Of course,
such gentlemen have no control over a horse, if anything happens suddenly.
If a horse shies, or starts, or stumbles, they are nowhere,
and cannot help the horse or themselves till the mischief is done.
Of course, for myself I had no objection to it, as I was not in the habit
either of starting or stumbling, and had only been used to depend on
my driver for guidance and encouragement. Still, one likes
to feel the rein a little in going downhill, and likes to know
that one's driver is not gone to sleep.
Besides, a slovenly way of driving gets a horse into bad
and often lazy habits, and when he changes hands he has to be
whipped out of them with more or less pain and trouble.
Squire Gordon always kept us to our best paces and our best manners.
He said that spoiling a horse and letting him get into bad habits was
just as cruel as spoiling a child, and both had to suffer for it afterward.
Besides, these drivers are often careless altogether,
and will attend to anything else more than their horses.
I went out in the phaeton one day with one of them; he had a lady
and two children behind. He flopped the reins about as we started,
and of course gave me several unmeaning cuts with the whip,
though I was fairly off. There had been a good deal of road-mending
going on, and even where the stones were not freshly laid down
there were a great many loose ones about. My driver was laughing and joking
with the lady and the children, and talking about the country
to the right and the left; but he never thought it worth while
to keep an eye on his horse or to drive on the smoothest parts of the road;
and so it easily happened that I got a stone in one of my fore feet.
Now, if Mr. Gordon or John, or in fact any good driver, had been there,
he would have seen that something was wrong before I had gone three paces.
Or even if it had been dark a practiced hand would have felt by the rein
that there was something wrong in the step, and they would have got down
and picked out the stone. But this man went on laughing and talking,
while at every step the stone became more firmly wedged between
my shoe and the frog of my foot. The stone was sharp on the inside
and round on the outside, which, as every one knows,
is the most dangerous kind that a horse can pick up, at the same time
cutting his foot and making him most liable to stumble and fall.
Whether the man was partly blind or only very careless I can't say,
but he drove me with that stone in my foot for a good half-mile
before he saw anything. By that time I was going so lame with the pain
that at last he saw it, and called out, "Well, here's a go! Why,
they have sent us out with a lame horse! What a shame!"
He then chucked the reins and flipped about with the whip, saying,
"Now, then, it's no use playing the old soldier with me;
there's the journey to go, and it's no use turning lame and lazy."
Just at this time a farmer came riding up on a brown cob.
He lifted his hat and pulled up.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but I think there is something the matter
- handkerchief [´hæŋkətʃif]
n.手帕，手绢 (初中英语单词) - landlord [´lændlɔ:d] n.地主；房东；店主 (初中英语单词)
- keeper [´ki:pə] n.管理人；看守；保管人 (初中英语单词)
- gallop [´gæləp] n.&v.奔驰；急速行进 (初中英语单词)
- sufficiently [sə´fiʃəntli] ad.充分地，足够地 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- extremely [ik´stri:mli] ad.极端地；非常地 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- careless [´keəlis] a.粗心的；草率的 (初中英语单词)
- stable [´steibəl] n.马棚 a.稳固的 (初中英语单词)
- meadow [´medəu] n.草地；牧场 (初中英语单词)
- character [´kæriktə] n.特性；性质；人物；字 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- ignorant [´ignərənt] a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词)
- mischief [´mistʃif] n.伤害；故障；调皮 (初中英语单词)
- objection [əb´dʒekʃən] n.反对；异议；缺点 (初中英语单词)
- firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- stumble [´stʌmbəl] v.摔倒；失足；弄错 (初中英语单词)
- partly [´pɑ:tli] ad.部分地；不完全地 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- ginger [´dʒindʒə] n.姜；精神，元气 (高中英语单词)
- impatient [im´peiʃənt] a.不耐烦的，急躁的 (高中英语单词)
- cleanse [klenz] vt.使清洁；净化 (高中英语单词)
- painful [´peinfəl] a.痛(苦)的；费力的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- gloomy [´glu:mi] a.昏暗的；忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- joyful [´dʒɔifəl] a.高兴的，充满快乐的 (高中英语单词)
- foremost [´fɔ:məust] a.最重要的；最先的 (高中英语单词)
- earthly [´ə:θli] a.地球的；世俗的 (高中英语单词)
- recommendation [,rekəmen´deiʃən] n.推荐；劝告 (高中英语单词)
- anxiously [´æŋkʃəsli] ad.挂念地；渴望地 (高中英语单词)
- comfortably [´kʌmfətəbli] ad.舒适地 (高中英语单词)
- encouragement [in´kʌridʒmənt] n.鼓励；赞助；引诱 (高中英语单词)
- liable [´laiəbəl] a.易于...的；有责任的 (高中英语单词)
- warning [´wɔ:niŋ] n.警告；前兆 a.预告的 (英语四级单词)
- livery [´livəri] a.有肝病征象的 (英语四级单词)
- warrant [´wɔrənt] n.根据；委任书；权利 (英语四级单词)
- manger [´meindʒə] n.槽；牛槽 (英语四级单词)
- guidance [´gaidəns] n.向导，指导，领导 (英语四级单词)
- freshly [´freʃli] ad.新近，刚才 (英语四级单词)
- blemish [´blemiʃ] n.缺点；污点 vt.沾污 (英语六级单词)
- halter [´hɔ:ltə] n.缰绳，绞索 (英语六级单词)
- drunkard [´drʌŋkəd] n.醉汉；酒鬼 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- insensible [in´sensəbəl] a.麻木的；冷淡的 (英语六级单词)
- lazily [´leizili] ad.懒惰地，慢吞吞地 (英语六级单词)
- practiced [´præktist] a.经验丰富的；熟练的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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