"'Your father!' exclaimed Mary; and it would have been hard to say which of the two was nearest fainting. They left the prison together, old Danvers and all; and Mary and Bill were soon spliced. They were the happiest couple alive. He rose to be post captain; and I hope to see him an admiral. So, gentlemen, that's an end to my yarn."
"But," inquired the company, "what became of Jack Jenkins?" "Why, I am Jack Jenkins," answered he; "sailing-master, with half-pay of five and sixpence a-day, besides two shillings as interest for prize-money—thanks to my old friend Bill."
THE SURGEON'S TALES.
THE CONSCIENCE-STRICKEN.
At a dark period of the world, not yet so far back, in point of time, as modern conceit would place it, many facts in philosophy constituted a mere page of fable in the estimation of those whose belief in witchcraft and other fanciful agencies was unbounded; but, in our enlightened times, things are so curiously reversed, that some of the real events of human life—the every-day workings of that wonderful organ, the human heart—are viewed sceptically, as delusion, deception, or invention, by those whose faith is pinned to the floating mantle of philosophy, though it cover the wildest theory that ever set fire to enthusiasm. The facts I have to relate in this chapter, though true, may, from their extraordinary nature, be apt to be classed among creations of the fancy; yet I would rather that their credibility were tested by the mind of the plain and argute man of the world, than by that of the philosopher, who with his head down in the well, kicks at inexplicable mysteries growing on its brink.
It is not my object to treat metaphysically any of those powers of the mind which, either in health or disease, exhibit, in certain states, many extraordinary phases. The struggling energies of conscience loaded with crime, have been witnessed by philosophers who have denied the existence of the moral sense as an original power; but of what avail is their scepticism, when they are bound to admit that this great sanction of God's law is incident to all mankind—having been found as vivid and strong in the new-found islands of Polynesia, as it ever was in the Old World? It would be for the interest of mankind if those who call themselves its teachers, and dignify themselves with the name of investigators of truth, had looked more often at the workings of this extraordinary power—witnessed and described the agonies of the heart convulsed by its throes, heard and narrated the piercing cries and the flaming words that are wrung from the throat of him who is under its scorpion lash, felt and told the horrors of those sights and sounds—instead of inquiring whether it is connate or constructed by social and political institutions. Yet this, too, has been done, and well done; and it is not because the effects are unknown, or have been inadequately described, that I contribute the results of my experience on this interesting subject, but simply because I conceive they cannot be too well known, or too forcibly delineated, in a country where a struggling competition of interests and a fierce ambition are exerted hourly in attempting to still the voice of the monitor that so indefatigably and thanklessly whispers a better life.
About twelve o'clock on the night of the 15th of December, 18—, I was aroused by a loud knocking at my bedroom door—a mode of calling me to my patients different from that generally followed by my domestics; and, upon my requesting the servant to come in, he entered hurriedly, with some one behind him, who called out, in the dark, that Mr. T——, a retired undertaker, whom I had been in the habit of attending, had been shot by an assassin, but that life remained, and might eventually be preserved, by my speedy attendance. I dressed instantly, and accompanied the messenger—a nephew of the wounded man, called William B——, whom I recollected to have seen in his house, and in whom he had much confidence—to where my services were thus so urgently required. We had about a mile to walk—the residence being beyond the town, in the midst of a small plantation of fir trees, and too well situated for the accomplishment of any felonious or murderous intention which the reputed riches of the proprietor might generate in the minds of ruffians. The night was pitch dark; our path was rendered more doubtful by a heavy fall of snow, which, having continued all day, had ceased about two hours before; and I was obliged to trust almost implicitly to my guide, whose familiarity with the road rendered it an easy task for him to get forward. As we hurried on in the darkness and silence which everywhere reigned, my companion informed me that the shot was directed against the victim through the window of his bedroom, while he was sitting warming his feet at the fire, previous to retiring to rest; and that, the individuals in the house having been roused, one had taken charge of the wounded man, others had gone in search of the perpetrator, and he, the narrator, had flown for me, in the hopes of yet saving the life of his guardian and benefactor.
On arriving at the skirts of the planting, we met some domestics with lights, and perceived that they were busy endeavouring to trace some well-marked footsteps impressed on the snow, and which, they said, they had been able to follow from the window where the shot was fired. I requested them to desist for a short time, as they seemed to be incurring the danger of defacing or so confusing the foot-prints, by the irregular and excited manner in which they wore performing this important duty, that they could not be identified. They agreed to remain with the lights until I came to them, or sent some one more capable of conducting the investigation, and, in the meantime, I hurried on to the house, where a most appalling scene presented itself to my eyes. On the floor, which was literally swimming in blood, lay the body of Mr. T——, with two people—an old woman, the housekeeper, and a middle aged person, whom I understood afterwards to be another nephew of the wounded man, of the name of Walter T—— (the son of a brother, while my companion, the messenger, was the son of a sister)—bending over him, and endeavouring to stop a wound, made by a pistol bullet, near the region of the heart. The work of the assassin was not entirely finished: there was still a fluttering uncertain life in the body, which shewed itself rather by its struggles against the overpowering energies of death, than by any proper living action; a hemorrhage in the lungs, paralysing their vitality, and filling up the air cells, fought, inch by inch, the province of the breath, which forced, at intervals, its way, by a horrid crepitation, through the aperture in the side, while, as the wound was producing fresh supplies, it was not difficult to see how the contest would terminate. In the pangs of choking, the wretched man heaved himself about, and lifted his hands to his mouth in the vain effort to force an entry to that element so signally the food of life. The peculiar, and to us doctors, well-known barking noise of the cynanche trachialis, (or as the name implies, the strangling of a dog,) a few torsels of the body, and shivers extending from head to foot, preceded a sigh as deep as the relentless following blood in the lungs would permit; and, in a few moments, he expired.