One summer day Willie and his grandfather drove me to a pretty, low house a mile or two from the village. Mr Thoroughgood went in and came out with three ladies. Miss Blomefield was very dignified. Miss Ellen, a younger sister with dark eyes and a merry face, liked me at once; she said I had such a good face. But the tall, pale one, Miss Lavinia, looked at my knees and said she would always be nervous behind a horse that had once fallen.
“Many good horses have fallen and hurt their knees because their drivers were careless,” said Mr Thoroughgood. “But you can have him on trial.”
The next morning a smart young man came for me. When he saw my knees, he said in a disappointed voice, “I didn’t think, sir, that you would offer my ladies a damaged horse like that.”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” said my master. “If he is not as safe as any horse you ever drove, send him back.”
The next day, as the groom was cleaning my face, he said, “That star is just like the one Black Beauty had. I wonder where he is now.”
Then he came to the small lump on my neck where I had been bled, and he began to look me over carefully.
“White star on the forehead, one white foot on the right side, this little lump in just that place.” He looked at the middle of my back. “And, as I live, there is the little patch of white hair that John used to call ‘Beauty’s threepenny bit’! Why, Beauty! Beauty! Do you know me? Little Joe Green, who almost killed you?” And he patted me again and again, full of joy.
I could not say that I remembered him, for now he was a fine young man with black whiskers and a man’s voice. But I was sure that he was Joe Green, and I was very glad. I put my nose up to him and tried to say that we were friends.
“It won’t be my fault if you aren’t happy here, my old Beauty. I wish John Manly were here to see you.”
In the afternoon Miss Ellen drove me, with Joe beside her, and I heard him tell her that I was Squire Gordon’s old Black Beauty. When we came back, she told her sisters. “I shall certainly write to Mrs Gordon and tell her that her favourite horse has come to us. How pleased she will be!”
After a week or so, as I seemed quite safe, Miss Lavinia went out with me too. Then it was decided to keep me and to call me by my old name, Black Beauty.
I have now lived in this happy place for a whole year. Joe is the best and kindest of grooms. My work is easy and pleasant, and I feel my strength and spirits coming back.
Willie always speaks to me when he can and treats me as his special friend. My ladies have promised that I shall never be sold, so I have nothing to fear. And here my story ends. My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often, before I am quite awake, I dream that I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple trees.