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were taken into a clean, snug stable and a kind
coachman made us very comfortable. He had put in armchairs and curtains.
    ‘Your horses know who they
can trust.’
    ‘Yes, they could trust
Queen Victoria and her ghillie John Brown who was giving it to her,’ said
James. ‘The hardest thing in the world is to get horses out of the stable when
there is a fire, flood, earthquake, hurricane, thunderstorm, plague, leprosy
and toothache.’
    We stopped two or three
days at this place, and the stable girls gave us a relief massage. Before James
left us for the night he said, ‘I wonder who is coming in my place.’
    ‘Little Joe Green at the
Lodge,’ said John.
    ‘Little Joe Green! Why he’s
a child!’
    ‘He is fourteen and a
half,’ said John, ‘he is small, quick, and willing as well, and you don’t tread
on him. He is kindhearted too, his kidneys are kindhearted, and he has a
kindhearted liver too. We were agreeable to try him for six weeks.’
    ‘Just six weeks?’ said
James. ‘He won’t even grow an inch in that time.’
    ‘I was never afraid of work
yet,’ said John, ‘yet I am afraid of lions.’
    ‘I’m frightened of ducks,’
said James, ‘but I’m not afraid of lions, not as long as they stay in Africa.’
    ‘I’ll just tell you how I
look on these things. I was just as old as Joseph when my father and mother
died of the fever, within ten days of each other. We laid odds on them as to
who would go first. My father did, and I won £5.00. Then I was left with my
crippled sister Nelly. Alone in the world, without a relation; I was a farmer’s
boy not earning enough to keep myself, much less the both of us. But our
mistress (Nelly calls her an angel, and she has good right to do so), went and
hired a room for her with old widow Mallet, and she gave her knitting and
needlework. She taught her plumbing and made her re-plumb the house. The
trouble was, when we turned the gas taps on, we got fountains of water, but out
of the water tap we got gas, so we used to cook on that upside down. The master
took me to the house where I had my food, my bed in the loft, a suit of clothes
and three shillings a week so that I could help Nelly. Nelly couldn’t help me,
so I pushed her over a cliff. Nelly, who had climbed back up the cliff, was as
happy as a bird. So you see, James, I’m not the man that should turn up his
nose at a little boy. If you did, he would be able to see up it.’
    ‘Then,’ said James, ‘you
don’t hold with that saying: “Everybody look after himself?” ’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘fuck
everyone else.’
    James laughed at this, then
he said, ‘You have been my best friend, except for my mother; I hope you won’t
forget me.’
    ‘No, lad, no!’ said John,
‘and if ever I can do you a good turn, I hope you won’t forget me.’
    ‘No, no, no, what’s your
name again?’
    The next day Joe came to
the stables to learn all he could before James left. He learned to sweep the
stable and to bring in the straw and hay; he began to clean the harness, and
helped to wash the carriage. As he was too short to do anything in the way of
grooming, he walked underneath the horses and did what he could there.
    ‘You see,’ James said to
John, ‘I am leaving a great deal behind; my mother and Betsy, and you, and a
good master and “mistress”.’ The mistress would certainly miss him. ‘I will be
able to help my mother much better with a new wooden leg.’
    Merrylegs pined after him
and went off his food. John took him out several mornings with a leading rein.
He also exercised me — doing somersaults, the pole-vault, the long jump and the
one hundred metres breast stroke.
    Joe’s father would often
come in and do bugger all. He understood the work, and refused to do it.

18

GOING FOR THE DOCTOR
     
    Oh, I was called out one early morn
    Just as the day was about to dawn
    Mistress kept having to go
    Seventeen times an hour, she had filled the poe
    Get the doctor in a hurry
    And while you