The "I" in question is James Howard, who is relating the story to John of a rather unpleasant young man called Bill. As the chapter begins, we see Bill mistreating a pony, in return for which he gets a richly deserved kicking. Through John, Black Beauty discovers that Bill is a thoroughly nasty piece of work and an entitled, over-privileged farmer's son with a reputation for cruelty toward animals.
Later on in the chapter, we discover, through James Howard, that he gave Bill a good hiding at school one day after he caught him pulling the wings off flies. Like the sniveling little coward he is, Bill screams as if he's being murdered. When a teacher comes to see what all the commotion is about, he's furious to see what Bill has been up to. In fact, James had never seen him so angry before.
This episode neatly illustrates the book's overall theme, which is that all of God's creatures, from horses to humans and from fish to flies, should be treated with respect.
The narrator of Black Beauty is the horse itself, as is indicated by the story's subtitle "the autobiography of a horse." The "I" who is speaking in the quotation, however, is James, who is relating a story to John about the boy who was caught abusing a horse in this chapter. John says that he "never saw [the master]" so angry as when he showed him the wings of flies that had been pulled off by this boy and left on the windowsill when they were at school together.
This schoolmaster then proceeded to lecture the assembled boys about the inhumanity of mistreating animals, emphasizing that it is extremely cowardly of humans to mistreat animals who are weak and helpless. The "devil's own trade mark," as referred to in the title of this chapter, is defined by this schoolmaster as cruelty, particularly cruelty exercised by humans against defenseless animals. This is in line with the general message of this book; Sewell sought to raise awareness of cruelty against animals and to raise sympathy for horses and other abused creatures.
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