hold it there, and that for hours together, not able to move it at all,
except with a jerk still higher, your neck aching till you did not know
how to bear it. Besides that, to have two bits instead of one--and mine
was a sharp one, it hurt my tongue and my jaw, and the blood from my
tongue colored the froth that kept flying from my lips as I chafed and
fretted at the bits and rein. It was worst when we had to stand by the
hour waiting for our mistress at some grand party or entertainment, and
if I fretted or stamped with impatience the whip was laid on. It was
enough to drive one mad.
Did not your master take any thought for you? I said.
No, said she, he only cared to have a stylish turnout, as they
call it; I think he knew very little about horses; he left that to his
coachman, who told him I had an irritable temper! that I had not been
well broken to the check-rein, but I should soon get used to it; but he
was not the man to do it, for when I was in the stable, miserable and
angry, instead of being smoothed and quieted by kindness, I got only a
surly word or a blow. If he had been civil I would have tried to
bear it. I was willing to work, and ready to work hard too; but to be
tormented for nothing but their fancies angered me. What right had they
to make me suffer like that? Besides the soreness in my mouth, and
the pain in my neck, it always made my windpipe feel bad, and if I had
stopped there long I know it would have spoiled my breathing; but I grew
more and more restless and irritable, I could not help it; and I began
to snap and kick when any one came to harness me; for this the groom
beat me, and one day, as they had just buckled us into the carriage,
and were straining my head up with that rein, I began to plunge and
kick with all my might. I soon broke a lot of harness, and kicked myself
clear; so that was an end of that place.
After this I was sent to Tattersall's to be sold; of course I could not
be warranted free from vice, so nothing was said about that. My handsome
appearance and good paces soon brought a gentleman to bid for me, and I
was bought by another dealer; he tried me in all kinds of ways and with
different bits, and he soon found out what I could not bear. At last
he drove me quite without a check-rein, and then sold me as a perfectly
quiet horse to a gentleman in the country; he was a good master, and I
was getting on very well, but his old groom left him and a new one came.
This man was as hard-tempered and hard-handed as Samson; he always spoke
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