The battle of life

by A. L. O. E.

In the Dark.

JOHN CAREY had enjoyed his walk to London, and had never so much as thought if he were tired or not; but whether from the noise and excitement to which he had been unaccustomed, or whether from the damp on his spirits telling on his bodily frame, the road which he retraced on his return seemed to him a weary long one. The sun set in a bank of clouds, a heavy mist filled the air; it appeared to John as if he should never get beyond the line of streets and villas which stretch, mile after mile, along the suburbs of London. The country was reached at last, but the evening mist lay so heavy upon it, that John could see nothing of the fields, and the hedges and trees which bordered the road loomed dim and indistinct through the increasing darkness. John had no inclination to whistle.

"Somehow, everything looks dull to me this evening, and I feel a bit down-hearted," muttered John, as he dragged his weary limbs along. "Mother says as how there's nothing ever comes to us by chance, that there's never a brier thrown across a pilgrim's way but he may pluck a blessing from it. I don't see how that can be, but mayhap that's because I ain't a pilgrim, and don't ask or look for the blessing. I can see nothing in this here matter about the cheque but the stupid blunder of a lazy old glutton, and all I get from it is a waste of shoe-leather, and a loss of time and temper. I suppose that I shall have another trudge up to London to-morrow; no, that there Justice should pay for the coach, if there's anything of justice in him but the name."

Darker and darker grew the night, weary and more weary the traveller; one of his shoes hurt his foot, and he painfully limped along.

"If I didn't know every foot of the road here," said John to himself, as he turned down the lane which led to his home, "I'd be a-losing myself in the darkness. I wish I'd done as my mother bade, and taken my father's good oaken stick; one doesn't think, when setting out fresh and hearty in broad daylight, how glad one may be of a staff before the journey is done."

John was to have need of that staff in more ways than one. Scarcely had the thought passed through his mind, when he was suddenly startled by a violent blow on the back of his head, which knocked off his cap, and stretched him on the road. Up the young lion sprang in a moment, facing the cowardly assailant who had attacked him from behind, and receiving as he did so, another heavy blow, which made him stagger backwards, while the blood gushed from his wound. John was bold and strong, and not one to be easily mastered in a struggle, but he had been taken by surprise, he was weary, and had no weapon but his own bare fists.

In vain John tried to close with his assailant, another blow laid him prostrate again, and the highwayman kicked him with his heavy boot, when attempting again to rise. Lights seemed flashing in the young man's eyes, there was a rushing sound in his ears, he had a confused sense of pain and of a struggle for life, and then all consciousness left him—John Carey lay senseless and bleeding.

While Sam Soames, stooping over him, rifled him of the pocket-book, which the ruffian expected to find full of money obtained by cashing the cheque. Soames made off at once with his booty, without attempting to take anything else, or to ascertain whether his victim yet breathed.

It was not long before the guilty Soames discovered that he had hazarded soul and body for that of which he could make no use. But had the pocket-book, instead of an unsigned cheque, contained hundreds of bank-notes, worse than worthless had been that which bore on it the stain of blood, and carried with it a curse like that which rested upon Cain, a fugitive and vagabond upon the face of the earth.

John Carey lay for some time apparently lifeless, perhaps it was the drizzling rain which awoke him at last; he opened his eyes on the darkness, but was utterly unable to move from the damp ground on which he was lying. He could scarcely collect his senses sufficiently to remember anything that had happened, or to imagine how he came to be stretched there, helpless upon the road.