Lady Ethel was a horse, and a remarkable one.
Her master had taken a long ride out into the countryside, farther than was wise — he’d already been feeling unwell. After a long stretch of road he grew dizzy and fell.
Lady Ethel pulled him from the middle of the road to the side, out of danger, so no one traveling the same road would ride over him by accident. Then she turned around and went home alone — the entire distance — and made such a commotion when she arrived that the people followed her out and found her master where she had left him.
He was quite ill afterward, and it took some time for him to recover. But he always said that of all those who helped him get well, the one he was most grateful to was Lady Ethel.
Every day while he was in bed, they led her beneath his window, and he would call out with as much strength as he could manage: “Hello, my faithful, fine Lady Ethel!” — and she would neigh back, happy.
