



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Friends I have made
By George Manville Fenn
Published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co, London, Paris, New York.
This edition dated 1883.

Friends I have made, by George Manville Fenn.

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This version was made from a set of scans that were actually defective.
Two sets of sixteen pages were missing, resulting in the absence of
chapters 10, 11 and 16.  In addition some text is missing from chapters
15 and 18.  Since the book consists of a collection of almost unrelated
anecdotes it was felt worth our while to make available as much as we
can, as it is certain that a better set of scans of this book may become
available, for instance from the microfilmed set held by Cambridge
University.  There are 21 chapters, of which we present 16 in full,
and two with a few paragraphs missing.
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FRIENDS I HAVE MADE, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.



CHAPTER ONE.

MY LIFE.

May I ask your patience while I introduce myself--the writer of the
following chapters?  I am sitting before the looking-glass at the end of
my room as I write, I not from any vanity, you will readily perceive
that as you read on--but so that I may try and reflect with my ink the
picture that I wish to present to you of a rather sad--I only say
_rather_, for, upon the whole, I am very cheerful,--thin, pale,
careworn-looking woman, with hair that has long been scant and grey--
whiter, perhaps, than that of many people at eight-and-forty.

Eight-and-forty!  What a great age that seems to the young; and yet how
few the years, save in one period of my life, have appeared to me!  At
times I can hardly realise that I am decidedly elderly, so busy has been
my life, so swiftly has it glided away, thinking so much as I have of
other people and their lives as well as of my own.

I never knew how it was, but, somehow, those with whom I came in contact
always seemed to look upon me, because I had had trouble, as one in whom
they could confide.  I never sought their confidence, but when some
weary wayfarer in life's journey has held out a hand to me, asking help
or advice, it has grown into my pleasure to try and aid or counsel as
far as in me lay.  And it is strange how relieved some have been, what a
quiet solace it has seemed, to pour out into my sympathetic ear the
salient passages of their troubled lives.  "You have suffered, so you
can feel," has always seemed to be the thought, expressed or
unexpressed, of their hearts, and hence, without being inquisitive, I
have been made the storehouse, so to speak, of that which I without any
breach of confidence propose to tell.

I should first, though, tell you of myself, for why should I lay bare
the sorrows of others without prefacing them with my own?

A strangely quiet, uneventful life mine has been; its incidents simple,
its troubles many, and its pleasures--I was about to say few, but that
would be false, for its pleasures have been great.  They have not been
the boisterous joys that fall to the lot of some; but, feeling, as I do
most thoroughly now, that the greatest delights, the purest and most
unalloyed are those which are unselfish, I can think and believe that my
pleasures have been many.

I will, then, tell you my own little history first, slight as it is, and
you may, in reading, find that it is the key-note to the simple chords
that I afterwards strike in passing, and perhaps it will explain why
others have come to me to tell me what they knew.

It is a tale of early sorrow, but you shall hear, and you will bear with
me when I tell you that the wound has never healed, and if I put my hand
above it, the place still throbs, even as it will beat and ache till
kindly nature says to me, "Sleep, poor weary one, and rest."  And then
peacefully, trustingly, and with a simple hope of forgiveness, may I
sleep that long sleep which they say so flippantly has no end; but which
has a waking, as every lesson which we learn in life persists in
teaching.

You will smile, perhaps, when I tell you that I was once what people
call pretty--that this pale, lined face was once plump and rosy, these
sad eyes bright, and this grey scant hair golden-brown, long, and
flowing.  But why should I think you would smile?  Do I not know that
you must have seen the gay young plant putting out its tender leaves in
spring, growing green and luxuriant of foliage in summer, ripe and ruddy
in autumn, and grey, bent, and withered in age?  And should I be pitied
because I have but followed in the way of nature?  Surely not.  It is
not for that I ask your sympathy, but for the blight that fell upon the
young plant, and seared and scathed it so that it seemed for months as
if it would die; but it lived, as I have lived to tell you this.

Do you know that wondrous feeling which comes in the early year, and
that strange sense of keen delight, that elasticity of spirit, when,
full of youth and hope, the very tears of joyous sensibility start to
the eyes as you wander amidst the trees and flowers in spring?  I
remember how I felt, oh! so well, even though it is now thirty years
ago, and I was but eighteen.

Jack and I were engaged.  It was all such a simple, homely affair.  We
had known one another for years--the children of neighbouring farmers.
Jack--I still call him by the simple old pet name of those days--Jack
had been away