The bricklayer came and pulled up a great many bricks, but found nothing
amiss; so he put down some lime and charged the master five shillings,
and the smell in my box was as bad as ever. But that was not all:
standing as I did on a quantity of moist straw my feet grew unhealthy
and tender, and the master used to say:
I don't know what is the matter with this horse; he goes very
fumble-footed. I am sometimes afraid he will stumble.
Yes, sir, said Alfred, I have noticed the same myself, when I have
exercised him.
Now the fact was that he hardly ever did exercise me, and when the
master was busy I often stood for days together without stretching my
legs at all, and yet being fed just as high as if I were at hard work.
This often disordered my health, and made me sometimes heavy and dull,
but more often restless and feverish. He never even gave me a meal
of green food or a bran mash, which would have cooled me, for he
was altogether as ignorant as he was conceited; and then, instead of
exercise or change of food, I had to take horse balls and draughts;
which, beside the nuisance of having them poured down my throat, used to
make me feel ill and uncomfortable.
One day my feet were so tender that, trotting over some fresh stones
with my master on my back, I made two such serious stumbles that, as he
came down Lansdown into the city, he stopped at the farrier's, and asked
him to see what was the matter with me. The man took up my feet one
by one and examined them; then standing up and dusting his hands one
against the other, he said:
Your horse has got the 'thrush', and badly, too; his feet are very
tender; it is fortunate that he has not been down. I wonder your groom
has not seen to it before. This is the sort of thing we find in foul
stables, where the litter is never properly cleaned out. If you will
send him here to-morrow I will attend to the hoof, and I will direct
your man how to apply the liniment which I will give him.
The next day I had my feet thoroughly cleansed and stuffed with tow
soaked in some strong lotion; and an unpleasant business it was.
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