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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Black Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Horse Care, Abuse, and Neglect
Class, Transportation, and Victorian England
Good, Evil, and Power
Dignity and Religion
Summary
Analysis
Squire Gordon and Mrs. Gordon decide to visit friends that live 46 miles away, and they plan for James to drive them. On the first day, James skillfully drives Black Beauty and Ginger 32 miles. He makes their work as easy as possible by using the drag (brake) going downhill and by letting them rest partway up the hills. At sunset, they reach a hotel where they’ll stay for the night. An old ostler (a person who cares for horses at inns) untacks Black Beauty and grooms him faster than Black Beauty has ever been cared for. James is impressed by the man’s speed and comments on it.
Black Beauty’s happy, thankful tone as he describes James’s skillful driving shows how much of a difference it makes to be driven by a person who knows what they’re doing. It makes what could be a long and arduous journey into something far more pleasant. Meeting the old ostler at the inn introduces James to another way of working with horses, and gives him yet one more person to admire and look up to (in addition to John).
Themes
The old ostler says he’s been practicing for 40 years, and besides, he’d rather be quick than slow. He explains that he worked as a jockey in his youth, but he was injured in a fall. Unable to live without horses, he started working at inns. He says he loves working with well-bred, well-behaved horses like Black Beauty. The old ostler says it only takes 20 minutes around a horse to tell what kind of care it gets, and whether it’s naturally timid or spirited. Horses, he says, are like kids: you must train them when they’re young and then they’ll be just fine.
As the old ostler talks, he echoes many things that Squire Gordon, Farmer Grey, and John have said already: that horses need to be started properly in order to grow into good, useful transportation, and that a horse’s early experiences with humans will color their behavior for the rest of its life. Again, people have a huge responsibility when it comes to animals with decidedly less power.
Themes
James shares that his employer is Squire Gordon, and he and the old ostler discuss George Gordon’s death and that Black Beauty is the brother of Rob Roy. Sadly, the old ostler says he knows the jump where George died, and it's only appropriate for very experienced riders to take it. The life of horse and rider are way more important, he says, than foxes. The two men leave the stable.
While Duchess didn’t feel she knew enough to say in so many words that foxhunting is a dangerous endeavor, the ostler—a person—comes out and insists that it’s not safe for most riders and horses to foxhunt, unless they’re very experienced. The death toll of this sport, the ostler suggests, is too high to not take it seriously.
Themes
