How did the fire start in Anna Sewell's Black Beauty? Why was Ginger moving worriedly inside the stable? Why does the master say to James, "My...

In Chapter 16, Black Beauty of Anna Sewell's story narrates the account of how he had been subjected to a stable fire.

He and Ginger had been chosen to drive Squire Gordon and his wife to visit some friends in a village 46 miles away. They were with James, their stable hand, and stopped for the night  at a hotel, halfway through their journey. After James had made sure both Ginger and Beauty were well taken care of, he left the stable. Beauty reports that, later in the evening, a new traveler's horse was brought in, and while that horse was being tended to, a "young man with a pipe in his mouth" came in to chat with the hostler. The hostler asked his friend to go up into the loft to lay down some hay for the horse, and the hostler was careful to tell his friend to put down his pipe first. Only, sadly, neither the hostler nor the young friend remembered to pick the pipe up once again and take it out of the stable. As a result, the stable caught fire. Late in the night, Beauty was aroused from sleep to find the air "all thick and choking," to hear "Ginger coughing," and to hear her and all the other horses moving about restlessly because of the growing fire.

A horse's instinct is to not move when sensing danger; therefore, when the hostler rushed into the stable, untied the horses, and tried to lead and even pull them out of the stable, the horses would not follow him because, as Beauty notes, the hostler was "so frightened himself" that all he did was make the horses even more scared and unable to move.

In contrast to the hostler, James entered the stable and, speaking in the same "quite and cheery voice" he always used, said, "Come, my beauties, it is time for us to be off, so wake up and come along." He also patted them, calmly put on their bridles, took the scarf from his neck and tied it around their eyes, and gently, successfully led them out of the stable. James's calmness and quick thinking took a great deal of courage, especially since, by the time he was able to go back for Ginger, the flames were so intense that things were starting to fall and crash inside the stable. It is due to his bravery that Squire Gordon says to him, "My brave lad! ... are you hurt?" (Ch. 16).