With his head down, Jim Harkaway slouched beside me, giving no clue, and I wondered in vain as we walked the length of several streets, and came at last into the presence of a small crowd of people. An opening was made for Jim, and he led me through. The first thing I saw was a cartload of furniture resting upon the shafts; the next, a horse lying in the road, quite still.
The shock was dreadful. I read the truth at once. Poor Sam was dead—had died in the midst of his daily duty. It was indeed terrible, but I found no tears then. My sorrow was tempered with a dawning conviction that this sudden death was to him a merciful and happy release. In the morning before starting he had complained of a pain in his side, but such a form of suffering was common to us both, and I did not dream of finding him dead that night. Jim harnessed me in, and drove away, leaving poor Sam in charge of a man in a very dirty blue slop—a knacker’s assistant, I have since been informed.
That was a long night for me, and I slept but little. Sam, and Rip, and mother, and home were alternately in my thoughts through the long dark hours; and when the morning came, it found me but little prepared for work. Prepared or not, there was the work to do, and during that and many days following I toiled early and late, until I began to give out signs of really breaking down; and then Mr. Harkaway, still influenced by the pounds, shillings, and pence idea, kindly sent me into the country for a month’s rest and fresh green food.
DEATH OF POOR SAM.
CHAPTER VII.
MY NEW MASTER, BENJAMIN BUNTER.
I was sent down to a place about two miles from Blackheath, on the Forest Hill side, and spent the days of my leisure in a field, sharing the welcome grass with half a dozen cows belonging to a local dairyman. It was almost as bad as being alone, having no other horse for a companion; for the cows, not very conversational among themselves, did not care to accost a stranger who spoke a language they did not understand.
It was not like my early home, but it was a paradise compared to the dungeon I lived in down Lambeth way, and I would have been well content to have spent the rest of my days there; but I had a great amount of work left in my bones yet, and it was not to be.