What is to be taken as the predominant opinion of man, reflective and
philosophic, upon SUDDEN DEATH? It is remarkable that, in different
conditions of society, sudden death has been variously regarded as the
consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, or,
again, as that consummation which is with most horror to be deprecated.
Cæsar the Dictator, at his last dinner-party (_coena_), on the very
evening before his assassination, when the minutes of his earthly career
were numbered, being asked what death, in _his_ judgment, might be
pronounced the most eligible, replied "That which should be most
sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our English Church,
when breathing forth supplications, as if in some representative
character, for the whole human race prostrate before God, places such
a death in the very van of horrors: "From lightning and tempest; from
plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from SUDDEN
DEATH--_Good Lord, deliver us_." Sudden death is here made to crown the
climax in a grand ascent of calamities; it is ranked among the last of
curses; and yet by the noblest of Romans it was ranked as the first of
blessings. In that difference most readers will see little more than
the essential difference between Christianity and Paganism. But this,
on consideration, I doubt. The Christian Church may be right in its
estimate of sudden death; and it is a natural feeling, though after all
it may also be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from
life, as that which _seems_ most reconcilable with meditation, with
penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer.
There does not, however, occur to me any direct scriptural warrant for
this earnest petition of the English Litany, unless under a special
construction of the word "sudden." It seems a petition indulged rather
and conceded to human infirmity than exacted from human piety. It is not
so much a doctrine built upon the eternities of the Christian system
as a plausible opinion built upon special varieties of physical
temperament. Let that, however, be as it may, two remarks suggest
themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine which else _may_
wander, and _has_ wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The
first is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of
a sudden death from the disposition to lay a false stress upon words
or acts simply because by an accident they have become _final_ words or
acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens
to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely regarded with peculiar
horror; as though the intoxication were suddenly exalted into a
blasphemy. But _that_ is unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not,
_habitually_ a drunkard. If not, if his intoxication were a solitary
accident, there can be no reason for allowing special emphasis to this
act simply because through misfortune it became his final act. Nor,
on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one of his _habitual_
transgressions, will it be the more habitual or the more a transgression
because some sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual
transgression to be also a final one. Could the man have had any reason
even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a
new feature in his act of intemperance--a feature of presumption and
irreverence, as in one that, having known himself drawing near to the
presence of God, should have suited his demeanour to an expectation
so awful. But this is no part of the case supposed. And the only new
element in the man's act is not any element of special immorality, but
simply of special misfortune.
The other remark has reference to the meaning of the word _sudden_.
Very possibly Cæsar and the Christian Church do not differ in the way
supposed,--that is, do not differ by any difference of doctrine as
between Pagan and Christian views of the moral temper appropriate
to death; but perhaps they are contemplating different cases. Both
contemplate a violent death, a _Biathanatos_--death that is _biaios_,
or, in other words, death that is brought about, not by internal and
spontaneous change, but by active force having its origin from without.
In this meaning the two authorities agree. Thus far they are in
harmony. But the difference is that the Roman by the word "sudden" means
_unlingering_, whereas the Christian Litany by "sudden death" means a
death _without warning_, consequently without any available summons to
religious preparation. The poor mutineer who kneels down to gather into
his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades dies
by a most sudden death in Cæsar's sense; one shock, one mighty spasm,
one (possibly _not_ one) groan, and all is over. But, in the sense
of the Litany, the mutineer's death is far from sudden: his offence
originally, his imprisonment, his trial, the interval between his
sentence and its execution, having all furnished him with separate
warnings of his fate--having all summoned him to meet it with solemn
preparation.
Here at once, in this sharp verbal distinction, we comprehend the
faithful earnestness with which a holy Christian Church pleads on behalf
of her poor departing children that God would vouchsafe to them the
last great privilege and distinction possible on a death-bed, viz.,
the opportunity of untroubled preparation for facing this mighty trial.
Sudden death, as a mere variety in the modes of dying where death in
some shape is inevitable, proposes a question of choice which, equally
in the Roman and the Christian sense, will be variously answered
according to each man's variety of temperament. Meantime, one aspect of
sudden death there is, one modification, upon which no doubt can
arise, that of all martyrdoms it is the most agitating--viz., where it
surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer)
some hurrying, flying, inappreciably minute chance of evading it. Sudden
as the danger which it affronts must be any effort by which such an
evasion can be accomplished. Even _that_, even the sickening necessity
for hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to be
vain,--even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one
particular case: viz., where the appeal is made not exclusively to the
instinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience, on behalf of some
other life besides your own, accidentally thrown upon _your_ protection.
To fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem
comparatively venial; though, in fact, it is far from venial. But to
fail in a case where Providence has suddenly thrown into your hands the
final interests of another,--a fellow creature shuddering between the
gates of life and death: this, to a man of apprehensive conscience,
would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a
bloody calamity. You are called upon, by the case supposed, possibly to
die, but to die at the very moment when, by any even partial failure or
effeminate collapse of your energies, you will be self-denounced as a
murderer. You had but the twinkling of an eye for your effort, and that
effort might have been unavailing; but to have risen to the level of
such an effort would have rescued you, though not from dying, yet from
dying as a traitor to your final and farewell duty.
The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, lurking far
down in the depths of human nature. It is not that men generally are
summoned to face such awful trials. But potentially, and in shadowy
outline, such a trial is moving subterraneously in perhaps all men's
natures. Upon the secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly
projected, perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to
childhood, of meeting a lion, and, through languishing prostration in
hope and the energies of hope, that constant sequel of lying down before
the lion publishes the secret frailty of human nature--reveals its
deep-seated falsehood to itself--records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps
not one of us escapes that dream; perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of
man, that dream repeats for every one of us, through every generation,
the original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, in this dream, has a
bait offered to the infirm places of his own individual will; once again
a snare is presented for tempting him into captivity to a luxury of
ruin; once again, as in aboriginal Paradise, the man falls by his
own choice; again, by infinite iteration, the ancient earth groans
to Heaven, through her secret caves, over the weakness of her child.
"Nature, from her seat, sighing through all her works," again "gives
signs of woe that all is lost"; and again the counter-sigh is repeated
to the sorrowing heavens for the endless rebellion against God. It is
not without probability that in the world of dreams every one of us
ratifies for himself the original transgression. In dreams, perhaps
under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the
consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as all
is finished, each several child of our mysterious race completes for
himself the treason of the aboriginal fall.
The incident, so memorable in itself by its features of horror, and so
scenical by its grouping for the eye, which furnished the text for this
reverie upon _Sudden Death_ occurred to myself in the dead of night,
as a solitary spectator, when seated on the box of the Manchester and
Glasgow mail, in the second or third summer after Waterloo. I find it
necessary to relate the circumstances, because they are such as could
not have occurred unless under a singular combination of accidents.
In those days, the oblique and lateral communications with many rural
post-offices were so arranged, either through necessity or through
defect of system, as to make it requisite for the main north-western
mail (_i.e._, the _down_ mail) on reaching Manchester to halt for a
number of hours; how many, I do not remember; six or seven, I think; but
the result was that, in the ordinary course, the mail recommenced its
journey northwards about midnight. Wearied with the long detention at a
gloomy hotel, I walked out about eleven o'clock at night for the sake
of fresh air; meaning to fall in with the mail and resume my seat at
the post-office. The night, however, being yet dark, as the moon had
scarcely risen, and the streets being at that hour empty, so as to offer
no opportunities for asking the road, I lost my way, and did not reach
the post-office until it was considerably past midnight; but, to my
great relief (as it was important for me to be in Westmoreland by the
morning), I saw in the huge saucer eyes of the mail, blazing through
the gloom, an evidence that my chance was not yet lost. Past the time
it was; but, by some rare accident, the mail was not even yet ready to
start. I ascended to my seat on the box, where my cloak was still lying
as it had lain at the Bridgewater Arms. I had left it there in imitation
of a nautical discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of
his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole human race,
and notifying to the Christian and the heathen worlds, with his best
compliments, that he has hoisted his pocket-handkerchief once and for
ever upon that virgin soil: thenceforward claiming the _jus dominii_ to
the top of the atmosphere above it, and also the right of driving shafts
to the centre of the earth below it; so that all people found after this
warning either aloft in upper chambers of the atmosphere, or groping
in subterraneous shafts, or squatting audaciously on the surface of
the soil, will be treated as trespassers--kicked, that is to say,
or decapitated, as circumstances may suggest, by their very faithful
servant, the owner of the said pocket-handkerchief. In the present case,
it is probable that my cloak might not have been respected, and the
_jus gentium_ might have been cruelly violated in my person--for, in
the dark, people commit deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of
morality; but it so happened that on this night there was no other
outside passenger; and thus the crime, which else was but too probable,
missed fire for want of a criminal.
Having mounted the box, I took a small quantity of laudanum, having
already travelled two hundred and fifty miles--viz., from a point
seventy miles beyond London. In the taking of laudanum there was nothing
extraordinary. But by accident it drew upon me the special attention
of my assessor on the box, the coachman. And in _that_ also there was
nothing extraordinary. But by accident, and with great delight, it drew
my own attention to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point
of bulk, and that he had but one eye. In fact, he had been foretold by
Virgil as
"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."
He answered to the conditions in every one of the items:--1, a monster
he was; 2, dreadful; 3, shapeless; 4, huge; 5, who had lost an eye. But
why should _that_ delight me? Had he been one of the Calendars in the
"Arabian Nights," and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal
curiosity, what right had _I_ to exult in his misfortune? I did _not_
exult; I delighted in no man's punishment, though it were even merited.
But these personal distinctions (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) identified in an
instant an old friend of mine whom I had known in the south for some
years as the most masterly of mail-coachmen. He was the man in all
Europe that could (if _any_ could) have driven six-in-hand full
gallop over _Al Sirat_--that dreadful bridge of Mahomet, with no side
battlements, and of _extra_ room not enough for a razor's edge--leading
right across the bottomless gulf. Under this eminent man, whom in Greek
I cognominated Cyclops _Diphrélates_ (Cyclops the Charioteer), I, and
others known to me, studied the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word
too elegant to be pedantic. As a pupil, though I paid extra fees, it is
to be lamented that I did not stand high in his esteem. It showed his
dogged honesty (though, observe, not his discernment) that he could
not see my merits. Let us excuse his absurdity in this particular by
remembering his want of an eye. Doubtless _that_ made him blind to my
merits. In the art of conversation, however, he admitted that I had the
whip-hand of him. On the present occasion great joy was at our meeting.
But what was Cyclops doing here? Had the medical men recommended
northern air, or how? I collected, from such explanations as he
volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in some suit-at-law now
pending at Lancaster; so that probably he had got himself transferred
to this station for the purpose of connecting with his professional
pursuits an instant readiness for the calls of his lawsuit.
Meantime, what are we stopping for? Surely we have now waited long
enough. Oh, this procrastinating mail, and this procrastinating
post-office! Can't they take a lesson upon that subject from _me_? Some
people have called _me_ procrastinating. Yet you are witness, reader,
that I was here kept waiting for the post-office. Will the post-office
lay its hand on its heart, in its moments of sobriety, and assert that
ever it waited for me? What are they about? The guard tells me that
there is a large extra accumulation of foreign mails this night, owing
to irregularities caused by war, by wind, by weather, in the packet
service, which as yet does not benefit at all by steam. For an _extra_
hour, it seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the
pure wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff
of all baser intermediate towns. But at last all is finished. Sound your
horn, guard! Manchester, good-bye! we've lost an hour by your criminal
conduct at the post-office: which, however, though I do not mean to part
with a serviceable ground of complaint, and one which really _is_ such
for the horses, to me secretly is an advantage, since it compels us to
look sharply for this lost hour amongst the next eight or nine, and to
recover it (if we can) at the rate of one mile extra per hour. Off we
are at last, and at eleven miles an hour; and for the moment I detect no
changes in the energy or in the skill of Cyclops.
From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is the
capital of Westmoreland, there were at this time seven stages of eleven
miles each. The first five of these, counting from Manchester, terminate
in Lancaster; which is therefore fifty-five miles north of Manchester,
and the same distance exactly from Liverpool. The first three stages
terminate in Preston (called, by way of distinction from other towns
of that name, _Proud_ Preston); at which place it is that the separate
roads from Liverpool and from Manchester to the north become confluent.
[Footnote: "_Confluent_":--Suppose a capital Y (the Pythagorean letter):
Lancaster is at the foot of this letter; Liverpool at the top of the
_right_ branch; Manchester at the top of the _left_; Proud Preston at
the centre, where the two branches unite. It is thirty-three miles
along either of the two branches; it is twenty-two miles along the
stem,--viz., from Preston in the middle to Lancaster at the root.
There's a lesson in geography for the reader!] Within these first three
stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night's
adventure. During the first stage, I found out that Cyclops was
mortal: he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep--a thing which
previously I had never suspected. If a man indulges in the vicious habit
of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the
horses of Aurora to execute his notions, avails him nothing. "Oh,
Cyclops!" I exclaimed, "thou art mortal. My friend, thou snorest."
Through the first eleven miles, however, this infirmity--which I grieve
to say that he shared with the whole Pagan Pantheon--betrayed itself
only by brief snatches. On waking up, he made an apology for himself
which, instead of mending matters, laid open a gloomy vista of coming
disasters. The summer assizes, he reminded me, were now going on at
Lancaster: in consequence of which for three nights and three days he
had not lain down on a bed. During the day he was waiting for his own
summons as a witness on the trial in which he was interested, or else,
lest he should be missing at the critical moment, was drinking with the
other witnesses under the pastoral surveillance of the attorneys. During
the night, or that part of it which at sea would form the middle watch,
he was driving. This explanation certainly accounted for his drowsiness,
but in a way which made it much more alarming; since now, after several
days' resistance to this infirmity, at length he was steadily giving
way. Throughout the second stage he grew more and more drowsy. In
the second mile of the third stage he surrendered himself finally and
without a struggle to his perilous temptation. All his past resistance
had but deepened the weight of this final oppression. Seven atmospheres
of sleep rested upon him; and, to consummate the case, our worthy guard,
after singing "Love amongst the Roses" for perhaps thirty times, without
invitation and without applause, had in revenge moodily resigned himself
to slumber--not so deep, doubtless, as the coachman's, but deep enough
for mischief. And thus at last, about ten miles from Preston, it came
about that I found myself left in charge of his Majesty's London and
Glasgow mail, then running at the least twelve miles an hour.
What made this negligence less criminal than else it must have been
thought was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes.
At that time, all the law business of populous Liverpool, and also of
populous Manchester, with its vast cincture of populous rural districts,
was called up by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster.
To break up this old traditional usage required, 1, a conflict with
powerful established interests, 2, a large system of new arrangements,
and 3, a new parliamentary statute. But as yet this change was merely in
contemplation. As things were at present, twice in the year [Footnote:
"_Twice in the year_":--There were at that time only two assizes even
in the most populous counties--viz., the Lent Assizes and the Summer
Assizes.] so vast a body of business rolled northwards from the southern
quarter of the county that for a fortnight at least it occupied the
severe exertions of two judges in its despatch. The consequence of this
was that every horse available for such a service, along the whole line
of road, was exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of people who
were parties to the different suits. By sunset, therefore, it usually
happened that, through utter exhaustion amongst men and horses, the road
sank into profound silence. Except the exhaustion in the vast adjacent
county of York from a contested election, no such silence succeeding to
no such fiery uproar was ever witnessed in England.
On this occasion the usual silence and solitude prevailed along the
road. Not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. And, to strengthen this
false luxurious confidence in the noiseless roads, it happened also
that the night was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. For my own
part, though slightly alive to the possibilities of peril, I had so far
yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a profound
reverie. The month was August; in the middle of which lay my own
birthday--a festival to every thoughtful man suggesting solemn and often
sigh-born [Footnote: "_Sigh-born_":--I owe the suggestion of this
word to an obscure remembrance of a beautiful phrase in "Giraldus
Cambrensis"--viz., _suspiriosæ cogitationes_.] thoughts. The county was
my own native county--upon which, in its southern section, more than
upon any equal area known to man past or present, had descended the
original curse of labour in its heaviest form, not mastering the bodies
only of men, as of slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through
the fiery will. Upon no equal space of earth was, or ever had been, the
same energy of human power put forth daily. At this particular season
also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane of flight and pursuit, as
it might have seemed to a stranger, which swept to and from Lancaster
all day long, hunting the county up and down, and regularly subsiding
back into silence about sunset, could not fail (when united with this
permanent distinction of Lancashire as the very metropolis and citadel
of labour) to point the thoughts pathetically upon that counter-vision
of rest, of saintly repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as
to their secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heart are in
solitude continually travelling. Obliquely upon our left we were nearing
the sea; which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating
the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light,
bore each an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight and the
first timid tremblings of the dawn were by this time blending; and the
blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity by a
slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and
fields, but with a veil of equable transparency. Except the feet of
our own horses,--which, running on a sandy margin of the road, made but
little disturbance,--there was no sound abroad. In the clouds and on the
earth prevailed the same majestic peace; and, in spite of all that
the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimer
thoughts, which are the thoughts of our infancy, we still believe in no
such nonsense as a limited atmosphere. Whatever we may swear with our
false feigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must
for ever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between
earth and the central heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that
tread without fear every chamber in their father's house, and to whom no
door is closed, we, in that Sabbatic vision which sometimes is revealed
for an hour upon nights like this, ascend with easy steps from the
sorrow-stricken fields of earth upwards to the sandals of God.
Suddenly, from thoughts like these I was awakened to a sullen sound, as
of some motion on the distant road. It stole upon the air for a moment;
I listened in awe; but then it died away. Once roused, however, I could
not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten
years' experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and
I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no
presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is that I am miserably and
shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of
doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed
remembrances upon my energies when the signal is flying for _action_.
But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regards _thought_,
that in the first step towards the possibility of a misfortune I see its
total evolution; in the radix of the series I see too certainly and too
instantly its entire expansion; in the first syllable of the dreadful
sentence I read already the last. It was not that I feared for
ourselves. _Us_ our bulk and impetus charmed against peril in any
collision. And I had ridden through too many hundreds of perils that
were frightful to approach, that were matter of laughter to look back
upon, the first face of which was horror, the parting face a jest--for
any anxiety to rest upon _our_ interests. The mail was not built, I
felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray _me_ who trusted to its
protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light
in comparison of ourselves. And I remarked this ominous accident of our
situation,--we were on the wrong side of the road. But then, it may be
said, the other party, if other there was, might also be on the wrong
side; and two wrongs might make a right. _That_ was not likely. The same
motive which had drawn _us_ to the right-hand side of the road--viz.,
the luxury of the soft beaten sand as contrasted with the paved
centre--would prove attractive to others. The two adverse carriages
would therefore, to a certainty, be travelling on the same side; and
from this side, as not being ours in law, the crossing over to the other
would, of course, be looked for from _us_. [Footnote: It is true that,
according to the law of the case as established by legal precedents,
all carriages were required to give way before royal equipages, and
therefore before the mail as one of them. But this only increased
the danger, as being a regulation very imperfectly made known, very
unequally enforced, and therefore often embarrassing the movements on
both sides.] Our lamps, still lighted, would give the impression of
vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us would rely upon
_us_ for quartering. [Footnote: "_Quartering_":--This is the technical
word, and, I presume, derived from the French _cartayer_, to evade a
rut or any obstacle.] All this, and if the separate links of the
anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw, not discursively,
or by effort, or by succession, but by one flash of horrid simultaneous
intuition.
Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil which _might_ be
gathering ahead, ah! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe,
was that which stole upon the air, as again the far-off sound of a
wheel was heard! A whisper it was--a whisper from, perhaps, four miles
off--secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less
inevitable; that, being known, was not therefore healed. What could be
done--who was it that could do it--to check the storm-flight of these
maniacal horses? Could I not seize the reins from the grasp of the
slumbering coachman? You, reader, think that it would have been in
_your_ power to do so. And I quarrel not with your estimate of yourself.
But, from the way in which the coachman's hand was viced between his
upper and lower thigh, this was impossible. Easy was it? See, then,
that bronze equestrian statue. The cruel rider has kept the bit in
his horse's mouth for two centuries. Unbridle him for a minute, if you
please, and wash his mouth with water. Easy was it? Unhorse me, then,
that imperial rider; knock me those marble feet from those marble
stirrups of Charlemagne.
The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly the sounds of
wheels. Who and what could it be? Was it industry in a taxed cart? Was
it youthful gaiety in a gig? Was it sorrow that loitered, or joy that
raced? For as yet the snatches of sound were too intermitting, from
distance, to decipher the character of the motion. Whoever were the
travellers, something must be done to warn them. Upon the other party
rests the active responsibility, but upon _us_--and, woe is me!
that _us_ was reduced to my frail opium-shattered self--rests the
responsibility of warning. Yet, how should this be accomplished? Might I
not sound the guard's horn? Already, on the first thought, I was making
my way over the roof of the guard's seat. But this, from the accident
which I have mentioned, of the foreign mails being piled upon the roof,
was a difficult and even dangerous attempt to one cramped by nearly
three hundred miles of outside travelling. And, fortunately, before I
had lost much time in the attempt, our frantic horses swept round
an angle of the road which opened upon us that final stage where the
collision must be accomplished and the catastrophe sealed. All was
apparently finished. The court was sitting; the case was heard; the
judge had finished; and only the verdict was yet in arrear.
Before us lay an avenue straight as an arrow, six hundred yards,
perhaps, in length; and the umbrageous trees, which rose in a regular
line from either side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character
of a cathedral aisle. These trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early
light; but there was still light enough to perceive, at the further end
of this Gothic aisle, a frail reedy gig, in which were seated a young
man, and by his side a young lady. Ah, young sir! what are you about?
If it is requisite that you should whisper your communications to this
young lady--though really I see nobody, at an hour and on a road so
solitary, likely to overhear you--is it therefore requisite that you
should carry your lips forward to hers? The little carriage is creeping
on at one mile an hour; and the parties within it, being thus tenderly
engaged, are naturally bending down their heads. Between them and
eternity, to all human calculation, there is but a minute and a half. Oh
heavens! what is it that I shall do? Speaking or acting, what help can
I offer? Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of the tale might seem
laughable, that I should need a suggestion from the "Iliad" to prompt
the sole resource that remained. Yet so it was. Suddenly I remembered
the shout of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like
the son of Peleus, aided by Pallas? No: but then I needed not the shout
that should alarm all Asia militant; such a shout would suffice as might
carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people and one
gig-horse. I shouted--and the young man heard me not. A second time I
shouted--and now he heard me, for now he raised his head.
Here, then, all had been done that, by me, _could_ be done; more on _my_
part was not possible. Mine had been the first step; the second was for
the young man; the third was for God. If, said I, this stranger is a
brave man, and if indeed he loves the young girl at his side--or, loving
her not, if he feels the obligation, pressing upon every man worthy
to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman confided to his
protection--he will at least make some effort to save her. If _that_
fails, he will not perish the more, or by a death more cruel, for having
made it; and he will die as a brave man should, with his face to the
danger, and with his arm about the woman that he sought in vain to
save. But, if he makes no effort,--shrinking without a struggle from his
duty,--he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness
of poltroonery. He will die no less: and why not? Wherefore should we
grieve that there is one craven less in the world? No; _let_ him perish,
without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case,
all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl who
now, upon the least shadow of failure in _him_, must by the fiercest
of translations--must without time for a prayer--must within seventy
seconds stand before the judgment-seat of God.
But craven he was not: sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden was
his answer to the call. He saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin
that was coming down: already its gloomy shadow darkened above him; and
already he was measuring his strength to deal with it. Ah! what a vulgar
thing does courage seem when we see nations buying it and selling it for
a shilling a-day: ah! what a sublime thing does courage seem when some
fearful summons on the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running
before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some tumultuous crisis from
which lie two courses, and a voice says to him audibly, "One way lies
hope; take the other, and mourn for ever!" How grand a triumph if, even
then, amidst the raving of all around him, and the frenzy of the danger,
the man is able to confront his situation--is able to retire for a
moment into solitude with God, and to seek his counsel from _Him!_
For seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his
countenance steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element
in the conflict before him. For five seconds more of his seventy he sat
immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. For five more,
perhaps, he sat with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow,
under some extremity of doubt, for light that should guide him to the
better choice. Then suddenly he rose; stood upright; and, by a powerful
strain upon the reins, raising his horse's fore-feet from the ground,
he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind-legs, so as to plant the
little equipage in a position nearly at right angles to ours. Thus far
his condition was not improved; except as a first step had been taken
towards the possibility of a second. If no more were done, nothing was
done; for the little carriage still occupied the very centre of our
path, though in an altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too
late: fifteen of the seventy seconds may still be unexhausted; and one
almighty bound may avail to clear the ground. Hurry, then, hurry! for
the flying moments--_they_ hurry. Oh, hurry, hurry, my brave young
man! for the cruel hoofs of our horses--_they_ also hurry! Fast are the
flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses. But fear not for
_him_, if human energy can suffice; faithful was he that drove to his
terrific duty; faithful was the horse to _his_ command. One blow, one
impulse given with voice and hand, by the stranger, one rush from the
horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the
docile creature's forefeet upon the crown or arching centre of the
road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our
over-towering shadow: _that_ was evident even to my own agitated sight.
But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety if upon
the wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear
part of the carriage--was _that_ certainly beyond the line of absolute
ruin? What power could answer the question? Glance of eye, thought of
man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the
question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? Light
does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly than did our
all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig. _That_ must
the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not
by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril; but, by the
dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed
that all was finished as regarded any effort of _his_. Already in
resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps in his heart he
was whispering, "Father, which art in heaven, do Thou finish above what
I on earth have attempted." Faster than ever mill-race we ran past
them in our inexorable flight. Oh, raving of hurricanes that must have
sounded in their young ears at the moment of our transit! Even in
that moment the thunder of collision spoke aloud. Either with the
swingle-bar, or with the haunch of our near leader, we had struck the
off-wheel of the little gig; which stood rather obliquely, and not quite
so far advanced as to be accurately parallel with the near-wheel. The
blow, from the fury of our passage, resounded terrifically. I rose in
horror, to gaze upon the ruins we might have caused. From my elevated
station I looked down, and looked back upon the scene; which in a moment
told its own tale, and wrote all its records on my heart for ever.
Here was the map of the passion that now had finished. The horse was
planted immovably, with his fore-feet upon the paved crest of the
central road. He of the whole party might be supposed untouched by the
passion of death. The little cany carriage--partly, perhaps, from the
violent torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the
thundering blow we had given to it--as if it sympathised with human
horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man
trembled not, nor shivered. He sat like a rock. But _his_ was the
steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he dared not
to look round; for he knew that, if anything remained to do, by him it
could no longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their
safety were accomplished. But the lady--
But the lady--! Oh, heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my
dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her
arms wildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air,
fainting, praying, raving, despairing? Figure to yourself, reader,
the elements of the case; suffer me to recall before your mind the
circumstances of that unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep
peace of this saintly summer night--from the pathetic blending of this
sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight--from the manly tenderness of
this flattering, whispering, murmuring love--suddenly as from the
woods and fields--suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in
revelation--suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon
her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death the crowned phantom, with all
the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice.
The moments were numbered; the strife was finished; the vision was
closed. In the twinkling of an eye, our flying horses had carried us to
the termination of the umbrageous aisle; at the right angles we wheeled
into our former direction; the turn of the road carried the scene out of
my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams for ever.