Highway Robbery (2 page)

‘Hold the mare for me, lad. And when I come back, I’ll give you a golden guinea.’

And he ruffled my hair for me, sir. Look. Like this. Made it stand up like a bunch of straw. I would have done anything for him after that. I don’t often
meet with kindness, as I’m sure you can imagine. So I clutched tight to those reins and I closed my badger-hole mouth and I nodded my head until my teeth rattled.

‘You can rely on me, sir,’ I said. ‘I won’t move an inch from here until you come back.’

‘Good lad,’ he said. He pulled a saddlebag from the horse’s withers, then unfastened his cloak and laid it carefully over her back. That will tell you, sir, how much value he set on his mare, because it was a cold day for a gentleman to be out and about in his shirt-sleeves. He patted her on the neck, winked at me, and then he was gone, slipping away down the alley and out of sight.

I WAS AS
hungry as a sow with ten piglets, but I was full of satisfaction. I don’t know if that makes sense, but sometimes a bit of kindness goes further than a meat pie. And to be trusted too. To be given a bit of responsibility. That can make you feel like a man even if you’re only as high as a man’s elbow.

And that horse, sir. I don’t think I’d actually ever held one before that. Most horses I see are pulling carts and they don’t need anyone to hold them. If the
driver gets down to make a delivery or to go for a pint of ale, those carthorses just wait there until he comes back. And as for carriage horses, the footmen won’t let the likes of me anywhere near them. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re afraid I’d give them fleas or something. But there I was, holding this horse, and she was huge! Sixteen hands if she was an inch. And so beautiful. Her nostrils were red as cornfield poppies. Her eyes were wide and bright with the excitement of the gallop and she kept looking this way and that, as though she was still seeing the countryside speeding past.

I was, I have to admit, a little afraid of her. She was so massive and hot, all covered with mud and steaming like a dragon that could burst into a fit of violence at any moment. And she was very restless to begin with because she had been ridden so hard and so fast. In that way, I suppose a horse is pretty much like a man.
They neither of them can shut down their feelings as quick as they’d like to. So the mare was looking from side to side and moving from foot to foot, and then she planted her four feet out wide and shook herself so hard that the saddle-flaps rattled and the black cloak slipped sideways. But for all her restlessness she never once tried to break away from me. She didn’t even pull on the reins. A pure-hearted lady through and through, sir, if ever there was one.

And as she calmed down, I became more confident, until finally I found the courage to reach up and run my fingers down the front of her nose. She let out an enormous sigh and dropped her head.

I could reach it better now and I stroked her forehead and combed her black forelock with my fingers. I swear she liked it, and I wondered whether horses were like boys, and whether they too felt the need for a bit of kindness now and again.

So holding her was easy, but there was something that made it better than easy and turned it into a pleasure. The mare, as you would expect, was blowing hard, and her hot breath was coming straight at me and warming my miserable hands and feet. For a long time I just stood and soaked up the heat, and gradually my stony hands and feet came back to life.

But nothing lasts for ever. In time the mare’s breathing returned to normal, and
the cold made itself felt in my bones again. I began to wonder when the gentleman might be coming back and when I might be setting eyes on my golden guinea. I had never seen one before, and I tried to imagine what I might do with it. I thought about hot pies and pigs’ trotters and apples and pease pudding. I thought about the marketplace where you could buy hand-me-down boots for a shilling and patched woollen blankets for sixpence. And I was thinking so hard about hot bread that I began to imagine I could smell it. And then I realized that I wasn’t
imagining it, after all. I really could smell it, and I could see it as well, in the hands of two young girls who were walking along the side of the road towards me.

WHAT ARE YOU
doing?’ asked the taller of the two. She had a pigtail, and her grey skirt had a black band along the bottom where the hem had been let down.

‘I’m holding this horse for a gentleman,’ I said.

‘What gentleman?’ she said.

‘A gentleman,’ I said, ‘who doesn’t choose to give his name to little girls.’

‘I’m bigger than you are,’ she said.

This was true, but it was also irrelevant, so I didn’t answer.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘there aren’t any gentlemen around here.’

I didn’t answer that, either. They stood and watched me. I watched the horse and didn’t look at them, though I couldn’t help stealing the occasional glance at their penny loaves. They had one each, and they were hardly even nibbled. I don’t mind telling you, sir, the smell made me feel faint with hunger.

‘Why is he wearing a coat?’ said the smaller girl, after a while. She had a bad squint and I couldn’t tell whether she was looking at me or at the horse. She might have been looking at both of us at the same time.

‘It’s not a he,’ I said. ‘And she’s wearing a coat because she’s the most valuable horse
in England and she needs to be kept warm. When she’s at home in her stable, she wears a felt bonnet and a silk gown, and she eats plum duff and oranges.’

Squint giggled. ‘No she doesn’t.’

‘And figs,’ I added. ‘She’s particularly fond of figs.’

She was edging closer. If it hadn’t been for the horse, I could have snatched her penny loaf and run for it. I came up with another way of getting it.

‘In fact,’ I said, ‘this horse is so special that it’s costing me a shilling for every hour I’m allowed to hold her.’

I stroked the mare’s nose and she dropped her head to me again.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Pigtail. ‘I never heard of anyone paying just to hold a muddy old horse.’

‘She may be muddy,’ I said, ‘but that doesn’t mean she isn’t special. Did you ever
see a horse in a cloak before?’

Squint was right beside me now, reaching out timidly towards the mare’s nose. I elbowed her aside.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘if you’re really so keen to touch Her Grace, it might be arranged. But it will cost you.’

A minute later I was cramming the first of the penny loaves into my mouth and the other one into the poacher’s pocket stitched inside my patched old coat. The two girls swarmed over the mare, oohing and aahing, stroking her nose and her neck, putting little plaits into her mane and tail, and doing a really good job of straightening the cloak on her back so that it hung down exactly the same amount on
each side. The mare was very patient with all the attention, sir. I’d swear she knew what was going on, because she arched her neck and fluttered her eyelashes, and with all the grooming she was getting she actually began to look like royalty. But after a while I could see that she was starting to get restless, so as soon as I had swallowed the last of my loaf I told the girls that their time was up.