[00:00.55] Black Beauty.
[00:02.13] Chapter one.
[00:04.73] My first home.
[00:10.87] My first home was a green meadow with a pond full of rushes and waterlilies.
[00:18.62] I was a small black colt with long legs and brown eyes, and the meadow seemed very big.
[00:28.21] I kept close to my mother and fed from her milk until I was old enough to eat the grass.
[00:36.59] Then mother went back to work, and I only saw her in the evening.
[00:43.83] I wasn't lonely.
[00:47.46] There were six other colts in the meadow, and we had great fun together.
[00:56.75] Sometimes we played rough, and once, after lots of kicking, mother called me over to her.
[01:07.72] Listen, she said, It's time you learned some manners.
[01:14.90] Horses must not bite or kick.
[01:20.74] Your grandfather was a champion racehorse, and I hope that you will grow up to be a fine horse too.
[01:30.63] Be gentle, work cheerfully, and never kick or bite, even when you are playing.
[01:41.96] My mother was a wise old horse, and I never forgot her words.
[01:49.56] Our owner was a good man too.
[01:53.45] He hated to see a horse badly treated, and once he sacked a worker who threw stones at us.
[02:06.39] When I was nearly two, something awful happened that I never forgot.
[02:14.81] It was early in the morning when I heard the cry of dogs.
[02:20.63] Hounds, said the oldest Colt, pricking up his ears.
[02:29.07] It's a hunt, said mother.
[02:33.10] It sounds like they found a hair.
[02:38.94] Soon a pack of dogs ran into the next field, shouting, Yo, yo, yo, yo.
[02:54.48] Men wearing green coats and galloping on horses followed them.
[02:59.91] It was so exciting that I wanted to gallop too.
[03:07.72] At the bottom of the field, the dogs lost the scent of the hair and ran about sniffing the ground.
[03:19.15] Suddenly they stopped sniffing and raced back up the field towards our meadow.
[03:26.81] A stream with a high bank ran between the two fields.
[03:34.93] Look, cried mother.
[03:39.08] The hair.
[03:42.54] A frightened hair dashed past.
[03:48.18] The dogs chased her across the bank and stream, then they all thundered across our field.
[03:59.02] As the huntsman followed, there was an awful shriek.
[04:05.56] The dogs had caught the hair.
[04:12.78] A huntsman held it up by its leg, and everyone was pleased until they saw what was happening by the stream.
[04:23.47] Two horses had fallen, one in the stream, and the other on the grass.
[04:34.55] A muddy wet rider struggled out of the water, but the second rider lay still on the ground.
[04:46.21] He's broken his neck, said my mother.
[04:52.96] Serve him right, answered a Colt.
[04:59.64] I thought the same until mother said gently, you mustn't say that.
[05:09.71] We are horses.
[05:13.33] We do not know why men take part in such a dangerous sport.
[05:23.08] Rob Roy, one of the horses who'd fallen, had broken his leg.
[05:31.11] Someone went for a gun, and he was shot in our field.
[05:38.92] This upset my mother, as she knew Rob Roy and said he was a very special horse.
[05:50.17] Years later, I was very shocked to learn that Rob Roy had been my brother.
[06:04.14] The riders all fell silent as the dead man was lifted up, then carried away.
[06:15.24] He was George Gordon, the squire's only son.
[06:22.29] A few days later, we heard the church bell tolling for George's funeral.
[06:29.87] A hearse pulled by black horses went by with lots of people following in carriages.
[06:39.18] A dead horse and a dead man, and all for the sake of one little hair.