What is the meaning of the word fast in passages found in Anna Sewell's Black Beauty?

Throughout Black Beauty, author Anna Sewell uses the termfast in three different senses. One sense is to refer to firmness, another to closeness, and another to speed.Early in the story, while Black Beauty is still residing at his favorite home, Squire Gordon's Birtwick Park, one day he asks his fellow horse, Sir Oliver, what accident occurred to make his tail so short, "only six or seven inches long" (Ch. 10,...

Throughout Black Beauty, author Anna Sewell uses the term fast in three different senses. One sense is to refer to firmness, another to closeness, and another to speed.

Early in the story, while Black Beauty is still residing at his favorite home, Squire Gordon's Birtwick Park, one day he asks his fellow horse, Sir Oliver, what accident occurred to make his tail so short, "only six or seven inches long" (Ch. 10, Pt. 1). Sewell uses the term fast in Sir Oliver's reply:

Accident! ... it was no accident! it was a cruel, shameful, cold-blooded act! When I was young I was taken to a place where these cruel things were done; I was tied up, and made fast so that I could not stir, and then they came and cut off my beautiful tail, through the flesh and through the bone, and took it away. (Ch. 10)

One definition of the term fast is "tightly," or "firmly," as in the phrase "to hold fast" (Random House Dictionary). Therefore, in this passage Sewell is using fast to have Sir Oliver describe himself as being held very firmly so that he could not move when being caused cruel pain.

Later, after having been sold from Squire Gordon's, when Black Beauty is recovering in a meadow by himself after having been ruined due to mistreatment, he reflects upon how he misses Ginger's company:

Ginger and I had become fast friends, and now I missed her company extremely. (Ch. 27, Pt. 2)

A more archaic definition of fast is "close" (Random House Dictionary). Therefore, Sewell is using fast in this passage to describe Black Beauty and Ginger as being very close friends.

In many other passages throughout the book, Sewell uses the word fast to refer to speed, according to the more standard and common definition, especially the speed at which horses are forced to travel at.