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BROTHER MORGAN'S STORY
of
THE DEAD HAND
WHEN this present nineteenth century was younger by a good many
years than it is now, a certain friend of mine, named Arthur
Holliday, happened to arrive in the town of Doncaster exactly in
the middle of the race-week, or, in other words, in the middle of
the month of September.
He was one of those reckless, rattle-pated, open-hearted, and
open-mouthed young gentlemen who possess the gift of familiarity
in its highest perfection, and who scramble carelessly along the
journey of life, making friends, as the phrase is, wherever they
go. His father was a rich manufacturer, and had bought landed
property enough in one of the midland counties to make all the
born squires in his neighborhood thoroughly envious of him.
Arthur was his only son, possessor in prospect of the great
estate and the great business after his father's death; well
supplied with money, and not too rigidly looked after during his
father's lifetime. Report, or scandal, whichever you please, said
that the old gentleman had been rather wild in his youthful days,
and that, unlike most parents, he was not disposed to be
violently indignant when he found that his son took after him.
This may be true or not. I myself only knew the elder Mr.
Holliday when he was getting on in years, and then he was as
quiet and as respectable a gentleman as ever I met with.
Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to
Doncaster, having decided all of a sudden, in his hare-brained
way, that he would go to the races. He did not reach the town
till toward the close of evening, and he went at once to see
about his dinner and bed at the principal hotel. Dinner they were
ready enough to give him, but as for a bed, they laughed when he
mentioned it. In the race-week at Doncaster it is no uncommon
thing for visitors who have not bespoken apartments to pass the
night in their carriages at the inn doors. As for the lower sort
of strangers, I myself have often seen them, at that full time,
sleeping out on the doorsteps for want of a covered place to
creep under. Rich as he was, Arthur's chance of getting a night's
lodging (seeing that he had not written beforehand to secure one)
was more than doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the third
hotel, and two of the inferior inns after that, and was met
everywhere with the same form of answer. No accommodation for the
night of any sort was left. All the bright golden sovereigns in
his pocket would not buy him a bed at Doncaster in the race-week.
To a young fellow of Arthur's temperament, the novelty of being
turned away into the street like a penniless vagabond, at every
house where he asked for a lodging, presented itself in the light
of a new and highly amusing piece of experience. He went on with
his carpet-bag in his hand, applying for a bed at every place of
entertainment for travelers that he could find in Doncaster,
until he wandered into the outskirts of the town.
By this time the last glimmer of twilight had faded out, the moon
was rising dimly in a mist, the wind was getting cold, the clouds
were gathering heavily, and there was every prospect that it was
soon going to rain!
The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on young
Holliday's spirits. He began to contemplate the houseless
situation in which he was placed from the serious rather than the
humorous point of view, and he looked about him for another
public house to inquire at with something very like downright
anxiety in his mind on the subject of a lodging for the night.
The suburban part of the town toward which he had now strayed was
hardly lighted at all, and he could see nothing of the houses as
he passed them, except that they got progressively smaller and
dirtier the further he went. Down the winding road before him
shone the dull gleam of an oil lamp, the one faint lonely light
that struggled ineffectually with the foggy darkness all round
him. He resolved to go on as far as this lamp, and then, if it
showed him nothing in the shape of an inn, to return to the
central part of the town, and to try if he could not at least
secure a chair to sit down on through the night at one of the
principal hotels.
As he got near the lamp he heard voices, and, walking close under
it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the
wall of which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-color,
pointing, with a lean forefinger, to this inscription:
THE TWO ROBINS.
Arthur turned into the court without hesitation to see what The
Two Robins could do for him. Four or five men were standing
together round the door of the house, which was at the bottom of
the court, facing the entrance from the street. The men were all
listening to one other man, better dressed than the rest, who was
telling his audience something, in a low voice, in which they
were apparently very much interested.
On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with a
knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house.
"No," said the traveler with the knapsack, turning round and
addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-headed
man, with a dirty white apron on, who had followed him down the
passage, "no, Mr. Landlord, I am not easily scared by trifles;
but I don't mind confessing that I can't quite stand that."
It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these words,
that the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price for a bed at
The Two Robins, and that he was unable or unwilling to pay it.
The moment his back was turned, Arthur, comfortably conscious of
his own well-filled pockets, addressed himself in a great hurry,
for fear any other benighted traveler should slip in and
forestall him, to the sly-looking landlord with the dirty apron
and the bald head.
"If you have got a bed to let," he said, "and if that gentleman
who has just gone out won't pay your price for it, I will."
The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur. "Will you, sir?" he
asked, in a meditative, doubtful way.
"Name your price," said young Holliday, thinking that the
landlord's hesitation sprang from some boorish distrust of him.
"Name your price, and I'll give you the money at once, if you
like."
"Are you game for five shillings?" inquired the landlord, rubbing
his stubby double chin and looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling
above him.
Arthur nearly laughed in the man's face; but, thinking it prudent
to control himself, offered the five shillings as seriously as he
could. The sly landlord held out his hand, then suddenly drew it
back again.
"You're acting all fair and aboveboard by me," he said, "and,
before I take your money, I'll do the same by you. Look here;
this is how it stands. You can have a bed all to yourself for
five shillings, but you can't have more than a half share of the
room it stands in. Do you see what I mean, young gentleman?"
"Of course I do," returned Arthur, a little irritably. "You mean
that it is a double-bedded room, and that one of the beds is
occupied?"
The land lord nodded his head, and rubbed his double chin harder
than ever. Arthur hesitated, and mechanically moved back a step
or two toward the door. The idea of sleeping in the same room
with a total stranger did not present an attractive prospect to
him. He felt more than half inclined to drop his five shillings
into his pocket and to go out into the street once more.
"Is it yes or no?" asked the landlord. "Settle it as quick as you
can, because there's lots of people wanting a bed at Doncaster
to-night besides you."
Arthur looked toward the court and heard the rain falling heavily
in the street outside. He thought he would ask a question or two
before he rashly decided on leaving the shelter of The Two
Robins.
"What sort of man is it who has got the other bed?" he inquired.
"Is he a gentleman? I mean, is he a quiet, well-behaved person?"
"The quietest man I ever came across," said the landlord, rubbing
his fat hands stealthily one over the other. "As sober as a
judge, and as regular as clock-work in his habits. It hasn't
struck nine, not ten minutes ago, and he's in his bed already. I
don't know whether that comes up to your notion of a quiet man:
it goes a long way ahead of mine, I can tell you."
"Is he asleep, do you think?" asked Arthur.
"I know he's asleep," returned the landlord; "and, what's more,
he's gone off so fast that I'll warrant you don't wake him. This
way, sir," said the landlord, speaking over young Holliday's
shoulder, as if he was addressing some new guest who was
approaching the house.
"Here you are," said Arthur, determined to be beforehand with the
stranger, whoever he might be. "I'll take the bed." And he handed
the five shillings to the landlord, who nodded, dropped the money
carelessly into his waistcoat pocket, and lighted a candle.
"Come up and see the room," said the host of The Two Robins,
leading the way to the staircase quite briskly, considering how
fat he was.
They mounted to the second floor of the house. The landlord half
opened a door fronting the landing, then stopped, and turned
round to Arthur.
"It's a fair bargain, mind, on my side as well as on yours," he
said. "You give me five shillings, and I give you in return a
clean, comfortable bed; and I warrant, beforehand, that you won't
be interfered with, or annoyed in anyway, by the man who sleeps
in the same room with you." Saying those words, he looked hard,
for a moment, in young Holliday's face, and then led the way into
the room.
It was larger and cleaner than Arthur had expected it would be.
The two beds stood parallel with each other, a space of about six
feet intervening between them. They were both of the same medium
size, and both had the same plain white curtains, made to draw,
if necessary, all round them.
The occupied bed was the bed nearest the window. The curtains
were all drawn round it except the half curtain at the bottom, on
the side of the bed furthest from the window. Arthur saw the feet
of the sleeping man raising the scanty clothes into a sharp
little eminence, as if he was lying flat on his back. He took the
candle, and advanced softly to draw the curtain--stopped half
way, and listened for a moment--then turned to the landlord.
"He is a very quiet sleeper," said Arthur. "Yes," said the
landlord, "very quiet." Young Holliday advanced with the candle,
and looked in at the man cautiously.
"How pale he is," said Arthur.
"Yes," returned the landlord, "pale enough, isn't he?"
Arthur looked closer at the man. The bedclothes were drawn up to
his chin, and they lay perfectly still over the region of his
chest. Surprised and vaguely startled as he noticed this, Arthur
stooped down closer over the stranger, looked at his ashy, parted
lips, listened breathlessly for an instant, looked again at the
strangely still face, and the motionless lips and chest, and
turned round suddenly on the landlord with his own cheeks as pale
for the moment as the hollow cheeks of the man on the bed.
"Come here," he whispered, under his breath. "Come here, for
God's sake! The man's not asleep--he is dead."
"You have found that out sooner than I thought you would," said
the landlord, composedly. "Yes, he's dead, sure enough. He died
at five o'clock to-day."
"How did he die? Who is he?" asked Arthur, staggered for the
moment by the audacious coolness of the answer.
"As to who is he," rejoined the landlord, "I know no more about
him than you do. There are his books, and letters, and things all
sealed up in that brown paper parcel for the coroner's inquest to
open to-morrow or next day. He's been here a week, paying his way
fairly enough, and stopping indoors, for the most part, as if he
was ailing. My girl brought him up his tea at five to-day, and as
he was pouring of it out, he fell down in a faint, or a fit, or a
compound of both, for anything I know. We couldn't bring him to,
and I said he was dead. And, the doctor couldn't bring him to,
and the doctor said he was dead. And there he is. And the
coroner's inquest's coming as soon as it can. And that's as much
as I know about it."
Arthur held the candle close to the man's lips. The flame still
burned straight up as steadily as ever. There was a moment of
silence, and the rain pattered drearily through it against the
panes of the window.
"If you haven't got nothing more to say to me," continued the
landlord, "I suppose I may go. You don't expect your five
shillings back, do you? There's the bed I promised you, clean and
comfortable. There's the man I warranted not to disturb you,
quiet in this world forever. If you're frightened to stop alone
with him, that's not my lookout. I've kept my part of the
bargain, and I mean to keep the money. I'm not Yorkshire myself,
young gentleman, but I've lived long enough in these parts to
have my wits sharpened, and I shouldn't wonder if you found out
the way to brighten up yours next time you come among us."
With these words the landlord turned toward the door, and laughed
to himself softly, in high satisfaction at his own sharpness.
Startled and shocked as he was, Arthur had by this time
sufficiently recovered himself to feel indignant at the trick
that had been played on him, and at the insolent manner in which
the landlord exulted in it.
"Don't laugh," he said sharply, "till you are quite sure you have
got the laugh against me. You shan't have the five shillings for
nothing, my man. I'll keep the bed."
"Will you?" said the landlord. "Then I wish you a good night's
rest." With that brief farewell he went out and shut the door
after him.
A good night's rest! The words had hardly been spoken, the door
had hardly been closed, before Arthur half repented the hasty
words that had just escaped him. Though not naturally
over-sensitive, and not wanting in courage of the moral as well
as the physical sort, the presence of the dead man had an
instantaneously chilling effect on his mind when he found himself
alone in the room--alone, and bound by his own rash words to stay
there till the next morning. An older man would have thought
nothing of those words, and would have acted, without reference
to them, as his calmer sense suggested. But Arthur was too young
to treat the ridicule even of his inferiors with contempt--too
young not to fear the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own
foolish boast more than he feared the trial of watching out the
long night in the same chamber with the dead.
"It is but a few hours," he thought to himself, "and I can get
away the first thing in the morning."
He was looking toward the occupied bed as that idea passed
through his mind, and the sharp, angular eminence made in the
clothes by the dead man's upturned feet again caught his eye. He
advanced and drew the curtains, purposely abstaining, as he did
so, from looking at the face of the corpse, lest he might unnerve
himself at the outset by fastening some ghastly impression of it
on his mind. He drew the curtain very gently, and sighed
involuntarily as he closed it.
"Poor fellow," he said, almost as sadly as if he had known the
man. "Ah! poor fellow!"
He went next to the window. The night was black, and he could see
nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily agai nst the
glass. He inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the
back of the house, remembering that the front was sheltered from
the weather by the court and the buildings over it.
While he was still standing at the window--for even the dreary
rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also,
because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence,
of life and companionship in it--while he was standing at the
window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he
heard a distant church clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to
pass the time till the house was astir the next morning?
Under any other circumstances he would have gone down to the
public-house parlor, would have called for his grog, and would
have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly
as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of
whiling away the time in this manner was now distasteful to him.
The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered
him to himself already. Thus far his life had been the common,
trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with
no troubles to conquer and no trials to face. He had lost no
relation whom he loved, no friend whom he treasured. Till this
night, what share he had of the immortal inheritance that is
divided among us all had lain dormant within him. Till this
night, Death and he had not once met, even in thought.
He took a few turns up and down the room, then stopped. The noise
made by his boots on the poorly-carpeted floor jarred on his ear.
He hesitated a little, and ended by taking the boots off, and
walking backward and forward noiselessly.
All desire to sleep or to rest had left him. The bare thought of
lying down on the unoccupied bed instantly drew the picture on
his mind of a dreadful mimicry of the position of the dead man.
Who was he? What was the story of his past life? Poor he must
have been, or he would not have stopped at such a place as the
Two Robins Inn; and weakened, probably, by long illness, or he
could hardly have died in the manner which the landlord had
described. Poor, ill, lonely--dead in a strange place--dead, with
nobody but a stranger to pity him. A sad story; truly, on the
mere face of it, a very sad story.
While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he had
stopped insensibly at the window, close to which stood the foot
of the bed with the closed curtains. At first he looked at it
absently; then he became conscious that his eyes were fixed on
it; and then a perverse desire took possession of him to do the
very thing which he had resolved not to do up to this time--to
look at the dead man.
He stretched out his hand toward the curtains, but checked
himself in the very act of undrawing them, turned his back
sharply on the bed, and walked toward the chimney-piece, to see
what things were placed on it, and to try if he could keep the
dead man out of his mind in that way.
There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with some
mildewed remains of ink in the bottle. There were two coarse
china ornaments of the commonest kind; and there was a square of
embossed card, dirty and fly-blown, with a collection of wretched
riddles printed on it, in all sorts of zigzag directions, and in
variously colored inks. He took the card and went away to read it
at the table on which the candle was placed, sitting down with
his back resolutely turned to the curtained bed.
He read the first riddle, the second, the third, all in one
corner of the card, then turned it round impatiently to look at
another. Before he could begin reading the riddles printed here
the sound of the church clock stopped him.
Eleven.
He had got through an hour of the time in the room with the dead
man.
Once more he looked at the card. It was not easy to make out the
letters printed on it in consequence of the dimness of the light
which the landlord had left him--a common tallow candle,
furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers. Up
to this time his mind had been too much occupied to think of the
light. He had left the wick of the candle unsnuffed till it had
risen higher than the flame, and had burned into an odd
pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of the charred
cotton fell off from time to time in little flakes. He took up
the snuffers now and trimmed the wick. The light brightened
directly, and the room became less dismal.
Again he turned to the riddles, reading them doggedly and
resolutely, now in one corner of the card, now in another. All
his efforts, however, could not fix his attention on them. He
pursued his occupation mechanically, deriving no sort of
impression from what he was reading. It was as if a shadow from
the curtained bed had got between his mind and the gayly printed
letters--a shadow that nothing could dispel. At last he gave up
the struggle, threw the card from him impatiently, and took to
walking softly up and down the room again.
The dead man, the dead man, the hidden dead man on the bed!
There was the one persistent idea still haunting him. Hidden! Was
it only the body being there, or was it the body being there
concealed, that was preying on his mind? He stopped at the
window with that doubt in him, once more listening to the
pattering rain, once more looking out into the black darkness.
Still the dead man!
The darkness forced his mind back upon itself, and set his memory
at work, reviving with a painfully vivid distinctness the
momentary impression it had received from his first sight of the
corpse. Before long the face seemed to be hovering out in the
middle of the darkness, confronting him through the window, with
the paleness whiter--with the dreadful dull line of light between
the imperfectly-closed eyelids broader than he had seen it--with
the parted lips slowly dropping further and further away from
each other--with the features growing larger and moving closer,
till they seemed to fill the window, and to silence the rain, and
to shut out the night.
The sound of a voice shouting below stairs woke him suddenly from
the dream of his own distempered fancy. He recognized it as the
voice of the landlord.
"Shut up at twelve, Ben," he heard it say. "I'm off to bed."
He wiped away the damp that had gathered on his forehead,
reasoned with himself for a little while, and resolved to shake
his mind free of the ghastly counterfeit which still clung to it
by forcing himself to confront, if it was only for a moment, the
solemn reality. Without allowing himself an instant to hesitate,
he parted the curtains at the foot of the bed, and looked
through.
There was the sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful mystery
of stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No stir, no change
there! He only looked at it for a moment before he closed the
curtains again, but that moment steadied him, calmed him,
restored him--mind and body--to himself. He returned to his old
occupation of walking up and down the room, persevering in it
this time till the clock struck again.
Twelve.
As the sound of the clock-bell died away, it was succeeded by the
confused noise downstairs of the drinkers in the taproom leaving
the house. The next sound, after an interval of silence, was
caused by the barring of the door and the closing of the shutters
at the back of the inn. Then the silence followed again, and was
disturbed no more.
He was alone now--absolutely, hopelessly alone with the dead man
till the next morning.
The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took up the
snuffers, but paused suddenly on the very point of using them,
and looked attentively at the candle--then back, over his
shoulder, at the curtained bed--then again at the candle. It had
been lighted for the first time to show him the way upstairs, and
three parts of it, at least, were already consumed. In another
hour it would be burned out. In another hour, unless he called at
once to the man who had shut up the inn for a fresh candle, he
would be left in the dark.
Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered the
room, his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule and of
exposing his courage to suspicion had not altogether lost its influence over him even yet.
He lingered irresolutely by the table, waiting till he could
prevail on himself to open the door, and call from the landing,
to the man who had shut up the inn. In his present hesitating
frame of mind, it was a kind of relief to gain a few moments only
by engaging in the trifling occupation of snuffing the candle.
His hand trembled a little, and the snuffers were heavy and
awkward to use. When he closed them on the wick, he closed them a
hair-breadth too low. In an instant the candle was out, and the
room was plunged in pitch darkness.
The one impression which the absence of light immediately
produced on his mind was distrust of the curtained bed--distrust
which shaped itself into no distinct idea, but which was powerful
enough, in its very vagueness, to bind him down to his chair, to
make his heart beat fast, and to set him listening intently. No
sound stirred in the room, but the familiar sound of the rain
against the window, louder and sharper now than he had heard it
yet.
Still the vague distrust, the inexpressible dread possessed him,
and kept him in his chair. He had put his carpet-bag on the table
when he first entered the room, and he now took the key from his
pocket, reached out his hand softly, opened the bag, and groped
in it for his traveling writing-case, in which he knew that there
was a small store of matches. When he had got one of the matches
he waited before he struck it on the coarse wooden table, and
listened intently again without knowing why. Still there was no
sound in the room but the steady, ceaseless rattling sound of the
rain.
He lighted the candle again without another moment of delay, and,
on the instant of its burning up, the first object in the room
that his eyes sought for was the curtained bed.
Just before the light had been put out he had looked in that
direction, and had seen no change, no disarrangement of any sort
in the folds of the closely-drawn curtains.
When he looked at the bed now, he saw hanging over the side of it
a long white hand.
It lay perfectly motionless midway on the side of the bed, where
the curtain at the head and the curtain at the foot met. Nothing
more was visible. The clinging curtains hid everything but the
long white hand.
He stood looking at it, unable to stir, unable to call
out--feeling nothing, knowing nothing--every faculty he possessed
gathered up and lost in the one seeing faculty. How long that
first panic held him he never could tell afterward. It might have
been only for a moment--it might have been for many minutes
together. How he got to the bed--whether he ran to it headlong,
or whether he approached it slowly; how he wrought himself up to
unclose the curtains and look in, he never has remembered, and
never will remember to his dying day. It is enough that he did go
to the bed, and that he did look inside the curtains.
The man had moved. One of his arms was outside the clothes; his
face was turned a little on the pillow; his eyelids were wide
open. Changed as to position and as to one of the features, the
face was otherwise fearfully and wonderfully unaltered. The dead
paleness and the dead quiet were on it still.
One glance showed Arthur this--one glance before he flew
breathlessly to the door and alarmed the house.
The man whom the landlord called "Ben" was the first to appear on
the stairs. In three words Arthur told him what had happened, and
sent him for the nearest doctor.
I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical
friend of mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his
patients for him during his absence in London; and I, for the
time being, was the nearest doctor. They had sent for me from the
inn when the stranger was taken ill in the afternoon, but I was
not at home, and medical assistance was sought for elsewhere.
When the man from The Two Robins rang the night-bell, I was just
thinking of going to bed. Naturally enough, I did not believe a
word of his story about "a dead man who had come to life again."
However, I put on my hat, armed myself with one or two bottles of
restorative medicine, and ran to the inn, expecting to find
nothing more remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a
fit.
My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal truth
was almost, if not quite, equaled by my astonishment at finding
myself face to face with Arthur Holliday as soon as I entered the
bedroom. It was no time then for giving or seeking explanations.
We just shook hands amazedly, and then I ordered everybody but
Arthur out of the room, and hurried to the man on the bed.
The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty of hot
water in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be had. With these,
with my medicines, and with such help as Arthur could render
under my direction, I dragged the man literally out of the jaws
of death. In less than an hour from the time when I had been
called in, he was alive and talking in the bed on which he had
been laid out to wait for the coroner's inquest.
You will naturally ask me what had been the matter with him, and
I might treat you, in reply, to a long theory, plentifully
sprinkled with what the children call hard words. I prefer
telling you that, in this case, cause and effect could not be
satisfactorily joined together by any theory whatever. There are
mysteries in life and the conditions of it which human science
has not fathomed yet; and I candidly confess to you that, in
bringing that man back to existence, I was, morally speaking,
groping haphazard in the dark. I know (from the testimony of the
doctor who attended him in the afternoon) that the vital
machinery, so far as its action is appreciable by our senses,
had, in this case, unquestionably stopped, and I am equally
certain (seeing that I recovered him) that the vital principle
was not extinct. When I add that he had suffered from a long and
complicated illness, and that his whole nervous system was
utterly deranged, I have told you all I really know of the
physical condition of my dead-alive patient at the Two Robins
Inn.
When he "came to," as the phrase goes, he was a startling object
to look at, with his colorless face, his sunken cheeks, his wild
black eyes, and his long black hair. The first question he asked
me about himself when he could speak made me suspect that I had
been called in to a man in my own profession. I mentioned to him
my surmise, and he told me that I was right.
He said he had come last from Paris, where he had been attached
to a hospital; that he had lately returned to England, on his way
to Edinburgh, to continue his studies; that he had been taken ill
on the journey; and that he had stopped to rest and recover
himself at Doncaster. He did not add a word about his name, or
who he was, and of course I did not question him on the subject.
All I inquired when he ceased speaking was what branch of the
profession he intended to follow.
"Any branch," he said, bitterly, "which will put bread into the
mouth of a poor man."
At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him in silent
curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-humored way:
"My dear fellow" (everybody was "my dear fellow" with Arthur),
"now you have come to life again, don't begin by being
down-hearted about your prospects. I'll answer for it I can help
you to some capital thing in the medical line, or, if I can't, I
know my father can."
The medical student looked at him steadily.
"Thank you," he said, coldly; then added, "May I ask who your
father is?"
"He's well enough known all about this part of the country,"
replied Arthur. "He is a great manufacturer, and his name is
Holliday."
My hand was on the man's wrist during this brief conversation.
The instant the name of Holliday was pronounced I felt the pulse
under my fingers flutter, stop, go on suddenly with a bound, and
beat afterward for a minute or two at the fever rate.
"How did you come here?" asked the stranger, quickly, excitably,
passionately almost.
Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time of his
first taking the bed at the inn.
"I am indebted to Mr. Holliday's son, then, for the help that has
saved my life," said the medical student, speaking to himself,
with a singular sarcasm in his voice. "Come here!"
He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony right hand.
"With all my heart," said Arthur, taking his hand cordially. "I
may confess it now," he continued, laughing, "upon my honor, you
almost frightened me out of my wits."
The stranger did not seem to listen. His wild black eyes were
fixed with a look of eager interest on Arthur's face, and his
long bony fingers kept tight hold of Arthur's hand. Young
Holliday, on his side, returned the gaze, amazed and puzzled by
the medical student's odd language and manners. The two faces
were close together; I looked at them, and, to my amazement, I
was suddenly impressed by the sense of a likeness between
them--not in features or complexion, but solely in expression. It
must have been a strong likeness, or I should certainly not have
found it out, for I am naturally slow at detecting resemblances
between faces.
"You have saved my life," said the strange man, still looking
hard in Arthur's face, still holding tightly by his hand. "If you
had been my own brother, you could not have done more for me than
that."
He laid a singularly strong emphasis on those three words "my own
brother," and a change passed over his face as he pronounced
them--a change that no language of mine is competent to describe.
"I hope I have not done being of service to you yet," said
Arthur. "I'll speak to my father as soon as I get home."
"You seem to be fond and proud of your father," said the medical
student. "I suppose, in return, he is fond and proud of you?"
"Of course he is," answered Arthur, laughing. "Is there anything
wonderful in that? Isn't your father fond--"
The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday's hand and turned
his face away.
"I beg your pardon," said Arthur. "I hope I have not
unintentionally pained you. I hope you have not lost your
father?"
"I can't well lose what I have never had," retorted the medical
student, with a harsh mocking laugh.
"What you have never had!"
The strange man suddenly caught Arthur's hand again, suddenly
looked once more hard in his face.
"Yes," he said, with a repetition of the bitter laugh. "You have
brought a poor devil back into the world who has no business
there. Do I astonish you? Well, I have a fancy of my own for
telling you what men in my situation generally keep a secret. I
have no name and no father. The merciful law of society tells me
I am nobody's son! Ask your father if he will be my father too,
and help me on in life with the family name."
Arthur looked at me more puzzled than ever.
I signed to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on
the man's wrist. No. In spite of the extraordinary speech that he
had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed to suspect,
beginning to get light-headed. His pulse, by this time, had
fallen back to a quiet, slow beat, and his skin was moist and
cool. Not a symptom of fever or agitation about him.
Finding that neither of us answered him, he turned to me, and
began talking of the extraordinary nature of his case, and asking
my advice about the future course of medical treatment to which
he ought to subject himself. I said the matter required careful
thinking over, and suggested that I should send him a
prescription a little later. He told me to write it at once, as
he would most likely be leaving Doncaster in the morning before I
was up. It was quite useless to represent to him the folly and
danger of such a proceeding as this. He heard me politely and
patiently, but held to his resolution, without offering any
reasons or explanations, and repeated to me that, if I wished to
give him a chance of seeing my prescription, I must write it at
once.
Hearing this, Arthur volunteered the loan of a traveling
writing-case, which he said he had with him, and, bringing it to
the bed, shook the note-paper out of the pocket of the case
forthwith in his usual careless way. With the paper there fell
out on the counterpane of the bed a small packet of
sticking-plaster, and a little water-color drawing of a
landscape.
The medical student took up the drawing and looked at it. His eye
fell on some initials neatly written in cipher in one corner. He
started and trembled; his pale face grew whiter than over; his
wild black eyes turned on Arthur, and looked through and through
him.
"A pretty drawing," he said, in a remarkably quiet tone of voice.
"Ah! and done by such a pretty girl," said Arthur. "Oh, such a
pretty girl! I wish it was not a landscape--I wish it was a
portrait of her!"
"You admire her very much?"
Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for
answer.
"Love at first sight," said young Holliday, putting the drawing
away again. "But the course of it doesn't run smooth. It's the
old story. She's monopolized, as usual; trammeled by a rash
engagement to some poor man who is never likely to get money
enough to marry her. It was lucky I heard of it in time, or I
should certainly have risked a declaration when she gave me that
drawing. Here, doctor, here is pen, ink, and paper all ready for
you."
"When she gave you that drawing? Gave it? gave it?"
He repeated the words slowly to himself, and suddenly closed his
eyes. A momentary distortion passed across his face, and I saw
one of his hands clutch up the bedclothes and squeeze them hard.
I thought he was going to be ill again, and begged that there
might be no more talking. He opened his eyes when I spoke, fixed
them once more searchingly on Arthur, and said, slowly and
distinctly:
"You like her, and she likes you. The poor man may die out of
your way. Who can tell that she may not give you herself as well
as her drawing, after all?"
Before young Holliday could answer he turned to me, and said in a
whisper: "Now for the prescription." From that time, though he
spoke to Arthur again, he never looked at him more.
When I had written the prescription, he examined it, approved of
it, and then astonished us both by abruptly wishing us
good-night. I offered to sit up with him, and he shook his head.
Arthur offered to sit up with him, and he said, shortly, with his
face turned away, "No." I insisted on having somebody left to
watch him. He gave way when he found I was determined, and said
he would accept the services of the waiter at the inn.
"Thank you both," he said, as we rose to go. "I have one last
favor to ask--not of you, doctor, for I leave you to exercise
your professional discretion, but of Mr. Holliday." His eyes,
while he spoke, still rested steadily on me, and never once
turned toward Arthur. "I beg that Mr. Holliday will not mention
to any one, least of all to his father, the events that have
occurred and the words that have passed in this room. I entreat
him to bury me in his memory as, but for him, I might have been
buried in my grave. I cannot give my reason for making this
strange request. I can only implore him to grant it."
His voice faltered for the first time, and he hid his face on the
pillow. Arthur, completely bewildered, gave the required pledge.
I took young Holliday away with me immediately afterward to the
house of my friend, determining to go back to the inn and to see
the medical student again before he had left in the morning.
I returned to the inn at eight o'clock, purposely abstaining from
waking Arthur, who was sleeping off the past night's excitement
on one of my friend's sofas. A suspicion had occurred to me, as
soon as I was alone in my bedroom, which made me resolve that
Holliday and the stranger whose life he had saved should not meet
again, if I could prevent it.
I have already alluded to certain reports or scandals which I
knew of relating to the early life of Arthur's father. While I
was thinking, in my bed, of what had passed at the inn; of the
change in the student's pulse when he heard the name of Holliday;
of the resemblance of expression that I had discovered between
his face and Arthur's; of the emphasis he had laid on those three
words, "my own brother," and of his incomprehensible
acknowledgment of his own illegitimacy--while I was thinking of
these things, the reports I have me ntioned suddenly flew into my
mind, and linked themselves fast to the chain of my previous
reflections. Something within me whispered, "It is best that
those two young men should not meet again." I felt it before I
slept; I felt it when I woke; and I went as I told you, alone to
the inn the next morning.
I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless patient
again. He had been gone nearly an hour when I inquired for him.
I have now told you everything that I know for certain in
relation to the man whom I brought back to life in the
double-bedded room of the inn at Doncaster. What I have next to
add is matter for inference and surmise, and is not, strictly
speaking, matter of fact.
I have to tell you, first, that the medical student turned out to
be strangely and unaccountably right in assuming it as more than
probable that Arthur Holliday would marry the young lady who had
given him the water-color drawing of the landscape. That marriage
took place a little more than a year after the events occurred
which I have just been relating.
The young couple came to live in the neighborhood in which I was
then established in practice. I was present at the wedding, and
was rather surprised to find that Arthur was singularly reserved
with me, both before and after his marriage, on the subject of
the young lady's prior engagement. He only referred to it once
when we were alone, merely telling me, on that occasion, that his
wife had done all that honor and duty required of her in the
matter, and that the engagement had been broken off with the full
approval of her parents. I never heard more from him than this.
For three years he and his wife lived together happily. At the
expiration of that time the symptoms of a serious illness first
declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned out to be
a long, lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her throughout. We
had been great friends when she was well, and we became more
attached to each other than ever when she was ill. I had many
long and interesting conversations with her in the intervals when
she suffered least. The result of one of those conversations I
may briefly relate, leaving you to draw any inferences from it
that you please.
The interview to which I refer occurred shortly before her death.
I called one evening as usual, and found her alone, with a look
in her eyes which told me she had been crying. She only informed
me at first that she had been depressed in spirits, but by little
and little she became more communicative, and confessed to me
that she had been looking over some old letters which had been
addressed to her, before she had seen Arthur, by a man to whom
she had been engaged to be married. I asked her how the
engagement came to be broken off. She replied that it had not
been broken off, but that it had died out in a very mysterious
way. The person to whom she was engaged--her first love, she
called him--was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of
their being married. He followed my profession, and went abroad
to study. They had corresponded regularly until the time when, as
she believed, he had returned to England. From that period she
heard no more of him. He was of a fretful, sensitive temperament,
and she feared that she might have inadvertently done or said
something to offend him. However that might be, he had never
written to her again, and after waiting a year she had married
Arthur. I asked when the first estrangement had begun, and found
that the time at which she ceased to hear anything of her first
lover exactly corresponded with the time at which I had been
called in to my mysterious patient at The Two Robins Inn.
A fortnight after that conversation she died. In course of time
Arthur married again. Of late years he has lived principally in
London, and I have seen little or nothing of him.
I have some years to pass over before I can approach to anything
like a conclusion of this fragmentary narrative. And even when
that later period is reached, the little that I have to say will
not occupy your attention for more than a few minutes.
One rainy autumn evening, while I was still practicing as a
country doctor, I was sitting alone, thinking over a case then
under my charge, which sorely perplexed me, when I heard a low
knock at the door of my room.
"Come in," I cried, looking up curiously to see who wanted me.
After a momentary delay, the lock moved, and a long, white, bony
hand stole round the door as it opened, gently pushing it over a
fold in the carpet which hindered it from working freely on the
hinges. The hand was followed by a man whose face instantly
struck me with a very strange sensation. There was something
familiar to me in the look of him, and yet it was also something
that suggested the idea of change.
He quietly introduced himself as "Mr. Lorn," presented to me some
excellent professional recommendations, and proposed to fill the
place, then vacant, of my assistant. While he was speaking I
noticed it as singular that we did not appear to be meeting each
other like strangers, and that, while I was certainly startled at
seeing him, he did not appear to be at all startled at seeing me.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I thought I had met
with him before. But there was something in his face, and
something in my own recollections--I can hardly say what--which
unaccountably restrained me from speaking and which as
unaccountably attracted me to him at once, and made me feel ready
and glad to accept his proposal.
He took his assistant's place on that very day. We got on
together as if we had been old friends from the first; but,
throughout the whole time of his residence in my house, he never
volunteered any confidences on the subject of his past life, and
I never approached the forbidden topic except by hints, which he
resolutely refused to understand.
I had long had a notion that my patient at the inn might have
been a natural son of the elder Mr. Holliday's, and that he might
also have been the man who was engaged to Arthur's first wife.
And now another idea occurred to me, that Mr. Lorn was the only
person in existence who could, if he chose, enlighten me on both
those doubtful points. But he never did choose, and I was never
enlightened. He remained with me till I removed to London to try
my fortune there as a physician for the second time, and then he
went his way and I went mine, and we have never seen one another
since.
I can add no more. I may have been right in my suspicion, or I
may have been wrong. All I know is that, in those days of my
country practice, when I came home late, and found my assistant
asleep, and woke him, he used to look, in coming to, wonderfully
like the stranger at Doncaster as he raised himself in the bed on
that memorable night.
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