‘To my son, Philip Hadleigh. To be opened after my death and read by him alone. When he has read, he shall decide whether to burn at once or first to show it to his wife. The secret of my life is here.’
As his pen stopped, a chill blast passed through the room, making the lamplight waver, as if it were about to be extinguished. Mr Hadleigh, surprised, raised his head slowly, and slowly looked round.
The window behind him was open, and before it stood a tall, rough-looking, muscular man. Mr Hadleigh’s sallow cheeks became more sallow, his eyes started, and his lips trembled slightly. He recovered himself instantly, and rising calmly from his seat, and at the same moment lifting the shade from the lamp, his eyes remaining fixed all the time on the intruder, burglar, intending murderer, perhaps.
When the light was uncovered, the man drew back a pace with a kind of growl of surprise. Mr Hadleigh retained perfect self-possession; but he was not much relieved from apprehension by recognising in his midnight visitor the leader of the agricultural agitators who had on various occasions openly declared antagonism to the master of Ringsford.
(To be continued.)
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE NOT DANGEROUS.
A remarkable circumstance recently occurred which brings out strongly the fact that scientific teaching in medical and surgical matters has made giant strides of late. On the 8th of July an accident happened to a ‘marker’ at the ranges of the Civil Service Rifle regiment at Wimbledon when marking at the five hundred yards’ range. According to the report, a rifle-bullet seems ‘to have bounded off the corner of the target and to have entered the marker’s breast.’ Fortunately, the great annual meeting of the National Rifle Association was to commence in a day or two, and the Field Hospital prepared for the meeting was being got ready under the charge of Sergeant Monaghan and Corporal Melville, both of the Army Hospital Corps. Thither the wounded man was immediately carried; but there was no surgeon present or anywhere near. Seeing, however, the serious nature of the case, the two soldiers, without a moment’s hesitation, took steps to extract the bullet, which had entered the right breast just under the collar-bone. Having carefully examined his patient and found the exact locality of the bullet, Sergeant Monaghan, with the assistance of the corporal, made an incision in the back and was enabled at once to extract the bullet from the spot where it had lodged, just opposite to the point of entry in the breast. The injured man, a member of the corps of Commissionaires, expressed himself much gratified with the prompt attention he had received, as well as with the skilful operation by which, without a moment’s loss of time, the important act of removing the bullet had been accomplished. Too much praise cannot be given to the two soldiers, who by their ready and intelligent action, saved their patient not only from prolonged suffering, but perhaps even from death itself.
The well-known saying of ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,’ is here singularly confuted, for it was just the ‘little knowledge’ applied with sagacity and intelligence that probably saved the life of a fellow-creature.
Many of our readers will doubtless remember a melancholy occurrence which took place last year on one of the Swiss mountains, when a valuable young life was lost for the want of a ‘little knowledge,’ and in itself, very simple knowledge too. A German engineer and two guides were ascending one of the famous Swiss mountains, when the younger of the guides appears to have had a very bad fall, by which either a bottle or a lamp-glass was broken, the fractured part entering the young man’s thigh and dividing the femoral artery. It would not, we should suppose, have required very profound surgical knowledge to know that the man would inevitably bleed to death unless this great artery could be immediately compressed; but incredible as it may appear, neither the German nor the other Swiss guide knew anything about the matter. They tried to stop the spouting blood with their handkerchiefs, which of course was of no avail. Neither thought of tying the handkerchief or other ligature round the upper part of the limb, and then twisting it tight by the application of a stick; and so the poor young fellow quickly bled to death. Now, if the bleeding could have been arrested by ligature until surgical assistance was procured, the young guide would doubtless have recovered, for the injury, as a mere flesh-wound, was in itself by no means serious. Here, then, a ‘little knowledge’ would have done a vast amount of good.
One of the best, most useful, and practical associations of the present day is the St John’s Ambulance Society, which teaches all who care to learn how to act in such emergencies as that related, and to take instant action on the spot, until surgical aid can be obtained—a ticklish and anxious time, often fraught with serious danger, when there is not a minute to spare, and where loss of time means loss of life.