Rising in the world

by T. S. Arthur

"Yes, sir, very serious. My son arrived in the cars from Baltimore this afternoon, in a terrible condition. He has been shot, and stabbed in two places. How, why, or when, I have not yet been able to learn. He was brought on by two men, to whose account I did not half listen, before hurrying off for surgical aid. The ball is still in his breast. Oh, Doctor! come with as little delay as possible."

Doctor Hudson inquired the direction, and promised to be at his house in half an hour. Soon after the unhappy father left, he took a case of instruments, and stepping into his carriage, drove to the residence of Mr. Dunbar. The old man still kept a small grocery, through which the doctor passed into a poorly furnished room, and then up a dark stairway to a chamber over the store. Everything bore the stamp of poverty. At the door of the chamber he met the father and mother, the latter weeping bitterly, and the former with a face of deep distress.

"Doctor," whispered the old man, "I'm afraid all is hopeless. But we will trust in your skill for all that human aid can do."

Doctor Hudson entered the room, and stood beside the bed where lay his patient, feeling sadder than he had felt for a long time. There was the well-known face of his old friend and school companion; but white, and thin, and painful in its expression. The breath came feebly through his lips, and the motions of his chest were scarcely perceptible. He laid his finger upon his wrist, but the pulse was so low in the artery, if it beat at all at so great a distance from the heart, that he could not find it.

A slight examination of his injuries was now made. There were two deep wounds between the ribs on the right side, inflicted with a knife or dirk, and a shot wound on the left breast. The ball had struck the sternum, glanced upwards at an angle, and entered among the muscles of the left axilla or armpit, where it still remained, deeply imbedded. There was already considerable inflammation of all the wounds, which had received but temporary dressings. As for the patient, his mind was completely obscured. He noticed no one, and uttered nothing more than an occasional groan.

Any attempt to remove the ball, at present, was considered too hazardous to be made. Slight dressings were applied to the wounds, and the best means used for allaying the inflammation.

Before Doctor Dunbar left the house, one of the men who had brought the wounded man to Philadelphia came in, and from him were obtained the following facts:—

About a month previous to the sad catastrophe from which Dunbar was suffering, he received an anonymous letter, charging upon his wife improprieties of conduct, and naming the individual with whom she was said to be too familiar. Long before this, all vestiges of regard for his wife, if there had ever been any in his mind, were extinguished. And it was the same with her. They had ceased to treat each other with anything more than the coldest politeness. Notwithstanding this, Dunbar was all on fire at the intelligence of his wife's infidelity. He did not go immediately to the man who was accused of doing him a deep injury, but waited until he was satisfied, by personal observation, that the accusation was just. The mode of retaliation then sought, was to go to the office of this individual with a pistol and a cowhide, and under the muzzle of a loaded pistol to cowhide him as long as he had strength to lift his hand. This was his intention, but he failed in carrying it out.

On entering the office of the man who had injured him, he locked the door, and throwing the key from the window, drew his pistol and his cowhide, and with a bitter oath struck the betrayer of his wife a severe blow. But he had miscalculated his opponent when he supposed that he would tamely submit to blows even under the muzzle of a pistol. He happened to be himself armed, and instantly drew a pistol. Both fired at the same instant. The ball of Dunbar did not take effect; but he received that of his adversary in his left armpit. Still furious, he struck three or four blows with his cowhide, when he fell from two stabs with a dirk knife in the right side. When those who had been alarmed by the noise of the affray burst open the door, Dunbar was lying on the floor weltering in his blood. The other had escaped from the window and fled. On removing the wounded man to his rooms at the hotel where he boarded, his wife was nowhere to be found. When this was mentioned to him, he cursed her through his clenched teeth, and asked to be immediately removed to Philadelphia to the house of his father, which was done.

Some time before this, he had fallen in with a company of gentlemen gamblers, and been stripped of every dollar he was worth. As a lawyer, he had sunk into a mere pettifogger, and his practice was chiefly confined to magistrate's and prison cases.