It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

"Give me the knife, my man. I can show you how to use it better than that." His voice could not have been more collected if he had been reading the Commination Service, without meaning it, in the little old peaceful church at Royd. The delirious man, whose conception of his own position was probably that of a victim somehow at bay, surrounded by conspirators, was for a moment convinced that he would better it by compliance, and was indeed actually surrendering the knife, when the woman's hysterical voice broke in, and undid everything.

"Yes—you give the gentleman up the knife, Robert! You give it him to keep for you now you ain't yourself, for to take good care of and giv' back. He'll do the best by you! You may trust the gentleman ... etc., etc." The Rev. Athelstan's mind said: "Deuce take the woman!—can't she hold her tongue?" but of course he said nothing so secular aloud.

The lunatic—for he was little else—had all but given up the knife, but of course now changed his mind. "You're answerin' for him, I see!" he exclaimed, with so sane a voice it was hard to think him delirious. "I can see round some of yer better than you think. Yes—Muster Preedy! Ah!... would you ... would you?..." This with an expression of intense cunning, with the knife held behind him; and a dangerous tendency to edge back towards the woman, all the while watching the Rev. Athelstan with a sly, ugly half-grin.

As he got nearer to the woman, she became unable to control herself—little wonder, perhaps!—and broke out hysterically: "Oh, God ha' mercy!—stop him! stop him!—Oh, Lard!—oh, Christ!..." and so on. It was time to act, and Athelstan Taylor knew it. Delay might be fatal. Guided by some instinct he could not explain, he shouted with sudden decision: "They're here, you fool! Can't you hear them?" and then, seizing on the pause in which the maniac's attention—caught also for the moment, perhaps, by railway sounds without—wandered to this mysterious "they," sprang upon him, and by great good luck pinioned his knife-hand as both rolled together on the carpetless floor. "Thank heaven it's me, not Gus!" thought he again, as he and his antagonist pitched heavily on the ground. He could feel the great strength there was still in the miserable victim of the fiend Alcohol. Often patients with this disorder will need three or four men to hold them—indeed, sometimes develope abnormal muscular strength, even while its tremors are running riot through their whole system.

But Mr. Steptoe's strength would have been abnormally developed indeed to enable him to contend against the successful competitor in a hundred athletic contests in the old 'Varsity days. A few sharp struggles, and he lay powerless, his adversary kneeling over him, grasping his two wrists, while he cursed and muttered below, before the railway sounds, connected apparently with the stopping of an almost endless luggage-train, had subsided into mere clinks that seemed to soothe it to stillness. But the knife was still in his right hand.

"Now where's that little maid?" Our little Lizarann had never run away, as some children might have done, but had held on bravely through the whole of the terrifying scene, full of admiration for this new Policeman—she almost thought he was really one; and when she heard him ask for her, she found voice to reply, not very articulately. She was there, please!—blue with the cold and her teeth chattering. Aunt Stingy was g-goed away. So much the better, the new Policeman seemed to think. He continued: "Very well, my child!—now you can be useful.... No, don't call your aunty. We'll do without her; she's no use. You do just as I tell you—just exactly!" Lizarann nodded her alacrity to obey orders. "Me?—yass!" is her brief undertaking.

The gentleman looked round at her, still grasping the wrists of his captive, who muttered on wildly, lost in a forest of execrations without meaning. He seemed satisfied that the child could be trusted, and determined at any rate to try a desperate expedient to get that horrible knife out of the maniac's clutch. The only other course would be to call or send for help. Send whom? This baby out in the snow again? Heaven forbid! As for the woman, she was no use. He could hear her hysterics in the next room. No!—if the child only dared do exactly as he told her, he would soon have that knife safe out of the way.

"Look here, my dear, where's the box of matches—the lucifer matches? Now don't you be frightened, but do as I tell you. You light a match!" Lizarann obeyed dutifully, though her hand shook. "Now, you know, if you blow that match out, there'll be a red spark, won't there?... Very well then, or yass, if you prefer it. Now I want you just to touch your father's hand with it ... oh, he's your uncle, is he?... well!—now you'll have to light another.... Now you touch his hand with it—don't you be frightened."

Lizarann followed her instructions without question. Whatever the gentleman said was right. Her duty was obedience. But she broke out in spasmodic terror at the result of what she had supposed to be some curious experiment; not to be understood by her, but certainly beneficial.

And Athelstan Taylor needed all his strength to retain the hand that was scorched, as his prisoner—or rather patient—gave a great plunge and a yell, as the fire touched him. But he kept his grip, though it was his left hand against the delirious man's right; and the knife, relinquished in the uncontrollable start, was left lying on the floor as he dragged him across the room away from it. He could breathe freer now that the knife was out of the way.