And now I had a sudden gleam of joy, a bit of pleasure so keen that it made me forget for the time all my troubles. I had a story accepted, and it appeared in print. Many of my readers will know what that meant, but I will not believe that any one could have been more delighted than I was. Not that I built up any airy structures of hope, of fame and fortune as an author upon it, but I could not help feeling that it was wonderful how I, without any of the usual educational aids, in competition with the mighty army of able writers ever assaulting harassed editors in London, and under the stress of such stern life-conditions as mine, should have accomplished such a feat. True it was only in a boy's paper, Young England, true that the pay was only a guinea, and that I waited six months for it, but the golden glorious fact remained that I saw myself in print.
Perhaps it is strange that I did not then neglect the business which yielded me nothing but debt and disappointment, and throw all my energies into this new channel. A profound distrust of my own abilities, and an idea that this was just a bit of curious good luck may possibly account for my apathy, but whatever it was I know that for a long time I was content to rest upon my laurels in the literary arena and to grub along in the shop. The verb I have used just expresses it; I grubbed and got ever deeper and deeper into the mire, and to the well-meant advice of my friends as to why on earth I did not give up the unequal struggle and go bankrupt before it killed me, I could only render the same answer as before, that bankruptcy spelt workhouse because I should inevitably lose my job.
But one spring morning I received a warning too urgent to be neglected (though I did not heed it then). I was rushing off to the office as usual after four hours of the hardest work and nothing in me since the previous midday meal, except sundry cups of tea, when just in the middle of Green Lane, Dulwich, I felt the world slipping from under me, and with hardly a struggle I was gone for the time. I often thought somewhat resentfully afterwards how much better for me it would have been not to have revived again into a world already over stocked with mediocrities, how easy and pleasant and satisfactory it would have been to have had the ever-gnawing question of how to live settled authoritatively for me. That, however, was not to be, for presently I came to, awoke as it were from a pleasant sleep, and gazed wonderingly around.
There was no one in sight, for it was then a most secluded pathway at that early hour of the day, and I gradually realised my surroundings. I had fallen very pleasantly upon a grassy and weed over-grown patch at the side of the St Olave's playing grounds, so that I was not bemired or disreputable looking. My first thought was of the office, to get there as soon as possible, and make what excuse I could for my late arrival—for I felt that it must be near noon, as I had no means of knowing the time. So I struggled to my feet, only to find that nature had her authoritative say in the matter, for I trembled so that I could not stand erect, and I felt all gone inside. Moreover there was a curious numbness at my finger ends which seemed to me to presage paralysis. Therefore I gave up the office idea and crept back at the easiest pace I could manage to the house of a gentleman in East Dulwich Grove, nearly next door to James Allen's School, who had often patronised me but never, although a local physician of great repute, attended me or any of my family.
He received me with the utmost kindness and bade me lie down after giving me some sal volatile, also forbade me speaking a word until he gave me leave. So I lay on his sofa watching him at work until my over-burdened heart and overstrung nerves had quieted down. Then he cross-examined me as to my mode of life, my health generally, and at the end of my answers, said quietly, "Now, my friend, advice is usually flung away upon such people as you have declared yourself to be, so I will not advise you. But I tell you, from my utmost convictions, that at the rate you are now living, and in the present condition of your vital powers, your time here on earth is limited to one year, or at the outside eighteen months. If, however, you ease off, slow down, don't work like a fiend or race after trains like a madman, you may live the allotted span."
I was about to reply when he interposed, saying sadly, "I know you'll tell me it's a counsel of perfection. It's one of the tragedies of our profession that we continually have to give counsel which the patient cannot follow. But we cannot help that. Now, I'll listen to what you have got to say." And he did. I detailed to him as to a father confessor, the uttermost particulars of my business, my debts, and the conditions under which I held my clerkship. He listened most sympathetically, most kindly, and then threw up his hands with a gesture as of one compelled to dismiss the case from his mind.
CHAPTER XIV RELIEF AT LAST
"Heart failure; mustn't hurry or you'll die; must eat more, whether you've any appetite, or means to get it or not; must rest and take things quietly," and so on, and so on. Bitterly I smiled to myself as I slowly crept home. But so curiously is the average man constituted that I did not feel as if I was actually under sentence of death. I rather clung to the belief that Doctor Stericker might be mistaken, and anyhow that many things might happen in eighteen months. Though really that was not what kept me going. I have no claim to perseverance, pertinacity, courage or, least of all, optimism, but like the involved orator I couldn't see a place to leave off. No opening presented itself to me to step out of and lay the almost intolerable burden down, although I know full well that but for those helpless ones dependent upon me I should certainly have made or found a way long before.