Friends I Have Made

by George Manville Fenn

“Well, I was obliged to go, for time was up; so I gave him a pat or two, and Wispey Joe a pint of beer to take care of him, and then, werry heavy-hearted and sad, I went on to the box, thinking a good deal about that there horse, for we seemed to have got to be such friends. ‘Tst,’ I’d say, and them willing old shoulders of his would shoot into the collar till I checked him. He was willing, and always seemed to be trying to show me how he could pull.

“It was quarter-past eleven that night when I turned into the yard and got off the box. ‘How’s the chestnut?’ I says to Joe. ‘Good as gone,’ he says. ‘The vet’s with him now, and one of the foremen.’

“I goes into the stable, along past the heels of a dozen horses, to where there was a lanthorn burning, and as I got up I saw my poor chestnut rear, strike his head against the roof, and then fall down on his side, kicking and moaning as if in pain, and lifting his pore head up and letting it fall again upon the heap of straw they had put in his stall. Poor old fellow! they’d put plenty of straw in to keep him from hurting himself as he lay there on his side throwing out his heels, and beating against the wooden side of the place with his hoofs. It was a pitiful sight, and I soon learnt that the veterinary surgeon had done all he could, but had very little hopes of him. He said it was some kind of inflammation with a long name; but I was taking more notice of my poor horse than of what he said.

“‘You’d best not go near him,’ he said, ‘the poor thing is dangerous.’ But before he’d finished speaking I was down on my knees in the straw with that faithful old head on my arm; and as I spoke, the poor thing turned up its muzzle and whinnied at me so pitifully, and let it fall again, that to have saved my life, ma’am, I couldn’t have helped it, but leaned down over him, and the nat’ral softness of the man came dripping from my eyes, hot and fast, as it seemed to me that I was going to lose my poor old chestnut.

“Of course it was very weak and childish, but then we are all weak and childish sometime or another; and you know it was almost in the dark, while I had my back to the two men looking on, besides being ever so far inside the stall. So for about a minute I went on like that, and then I said a few words to the poor thing again; and as often as I did so he tried to raise his head and whinny, and let it fall again.

“I never saw so pitiful a sight before; and I couldn’t have believed in a dumb beast being so human in its actions; for there were the poor strained dim eyes lifted up to mine in that quiet sensible way in which a horse can look, and then he’d whinny again, when he’d seem to have a fit of agony come on, and kick at the side of the stall, but not near me, for I was behind his head. Then several times the poor thing staggered up to his feet, and reared again and again, striking his head against the roof; and at such times I had to get out of his way, or he might have fallen on me; but the greater part of the time he was lying on his side upon the straw, with his old head on my arm. Perhaps it’s foolish of me—perhaps it ain’t—but I fancy he was easier with his head there, and when the fits of pain came on and he kicked, he did it more quietly. However, I know one thing, and that is, that whenever I spoke to him, right up to the last, he tried to answer me after his fashion, and turned his muzzle towards me.

“I forgot all about being tired that night, and as it was necessary that someone should sit up, why, I let Wispey go and lie down in the loft while I stopped with the chestnut. It was a strange night, that was, to pass there in that stable by the light of a lanthorn; and it’s wonderful how being here in this hospital has put me in mind of it over and over again. Now and then a horse would be fidgeting his halter in the rings; but mostly all was quiet but my poor horse moaning gently, and it soon came home to me that he was getting weaker and weaker. He seldom got up now, and when he kicked out it was feebly, while more than once he turned his head round as if to see whether I was there.

“I don’t want to pass such another night, ma’am; it was too much like being with a fellow-creature; and I’m afraid I shouldn’t have felt it any more deeply if it had been with a relation. I know it sounds stupid and unnatural, but poor men haven’t many friends, and that chestnut horse was one of mine.

“It was just getting towards daylight when the poor thing, as had been very quiet for some time, began to get restless, and throw out its legs again as it laid on its side, just as if it was galloping, and then it lay still again and only moaned. I spoke to him and he lifted his head just a little way, but it fell back, and after a few minutes, during which I felt as I had never felt before—as it, even with this poor beast, there was something awful about to take place—I spoke to him again, just as I had been used to do, while one hand was under his head, me kneeling behind him in the straw, and the other hand resting on his nose—I spoke to him again, and I could feel him try to lift his head, but he didn’t. Then the light shining on his great staring eyes, I either saw, or fancied I did, the tears rolling out of them—but I’m not sure, for I could not see clear just then; while, after a few minutes’ silence, I half started to my feet, frightened like, for the chestnut gave a wild hollow cry, that you could have heard all through the mews, and then there was a shivering run through him, and it was all over. Not as I knew it though, till Wispey Joe spoke to me, for the horse’s cry had woke him up.

“He was a good horse, and I hope he’s gone where there’s pleasant green pastures and clear flowing rivers, such as I used to hear about when I had a chance of going to a place of worship. Perhaps it’s wrong to think such things as that there’s a place after this life for poor dumb beasts; but many of ’em almost seems to need something to look forward to, for they gets a sorry time of it here, what with blows, and kicks, and bad living; and I don’t care, but a man who’d be wilfully a brute to a dumb animal wouldn’t be worry partickler about being a brute to his brother man. I offended one of our drivers one day, after he’d been a thrashing a horse, by asking some one which was the brute—the horse or the man.