experience I had of men's kindness; it was all force. They did not
give me a chance to know what they wanted. I was high bred and had
a great deal of spirit and was very wild, no doubt, and gave them,
I dare say, plenty of trouble, but then it was dreadful to be shut
up in a stall day after day instead of having my liberty, and I
fretted and pined and wanted to get loose. You know yourself it's
bad enough when you have a kind master and plenty of coaxing, but
there was nothing of that sort for me.

"There was one--the old master, Mr. Ryder--who, I think, could soon
have brought me round, and could have done anything with me; but he
had given up all the hard part of the trade to his son and to
another experienced man, and he only came at times to oversee. His
son was a strong, tall, bold man; they called him Samson, and he
used to boast that he had never found a horse that could throw him.
There was no gentleness in him, as there was in his father, but
only hardness, a hard voice, a hard eye, a hard hand; and I felt
from the first that what he wanted was to wear all the spirit out
of me, and just make me into a quiet, humble, obedient piece of
horse-flesh. 'Horse-flesh!' Yes, that is all that he thought
about," and Ginger stamped her foot as if the very thought of him
made her angry. Then she went on:

"If I did not do exactly what he wanted, he would get put out, and
make me run round with that long rein in the training field till he
had tired me out. I think he drank a good deal, and I am quite sure
that the oftener he drank the worse it was for me. One day he had
worked me hard in every way he could, and when I lay down I was
tired, and miserable, and angry; it all seemed so hard. The next
morning he came for me early, and ran me round again for a long