In the Dark.
JOHN CAREY had enjoyed his walk to London, and had never so much
as thought if he were tired or not; but whether from the noise and
excitement to which he had been unaccustomed, or whether from the damp
on his spirits telling on his bodily frame, the road which he retraced
on his return seemed to him a weary long one. The sun set in a bank
of clouds, a heavy mist filled the air; it appeared to John as if he
should never get beyond the line of streets and villas which stretch,
mile after mile, along the suburbs of London. The country was reached
at last, but the evening mist lay so heavy upon it, that John could see
nothing of the fields, and the hedges and trees which bordered the road
loomed dim and indistinct through the increasing darkness. John had no
inclination to whistle.
"Somehow, everything looks dull to me this evening, and I feel a bit
down-hearted," muttered John, as he dragged his weary limbs along.
"Mother says as how there's nothing ever comes to us by chance, that
there's never a brier thrown across a pilgrim's way but he may pluck
a blessing from it. I don't see how that can be, but mayhap that's
because I ain't a pilgrim, and don't ask or look for the blessing. I
can see nothing in this here matter about the cheque but the stupid
blunder of a lazy old glutton, and all I get from it is a waste of
shoe-leather, and a loss of time and temper. I suppose that I shall
have another trudge up to London to-morrow; no, that there Justice
should pay for the coach, if there's anything of justice in him but the
name."
Darker and darker grew the night, weary and more weary the traveller;
one of his shoes hurt his foot, and he painfully limped along.
"If I didn't know every foot of the road here," said John to himself,
as he turned down the lane which led to his home, "I'd be a-losing
myself in the darkness. I wish I'd done as my mother bade, and taken my
father's good oaken stick; one doesn't think, when setting out fresh
and hearty in broad daylight, how glad one may be of a staff before the
journey is done."
John was to have need of that staff in more ways than one. Scarcely had
the thought passed through his mind, when he was suddenly startled by
a violent blow on the back of his head, which knocked off his cap, and
stretched him on the road. Up the young lion sprang in a moment, facing
the cowardly assailant who had attacked him from behind, and receiving
as he did so, another heavy blow, which made him stagger backwards,
while the blood gushed from his wound. John was bold and strong, and
not one to be easily mastered in a struggle, but he had been taken by
surprise, he was weary, and had no weapon but his own bare fists.
In vain John tried to close with his assailant, another blow laid him
prostrate again, and the highwayman kicked him with his heavy boot,
when attempting again to rise. Lights seemed flashing in the young
man's eyes, there was a rushing sound in his ears, he had a confused
sense of pain and of a struggle for life, and then all consciousness
left him—John Carey lay senseless and bleeding.
While Sam Soames, stooping over him, rifled him of the pocket-book,
which the ruffian expected to find full of money obtained by cashing
the cheque. Soames made off at once with his booty, without attempting
to take anything else, or to ascertain whether his victim yet breathed.
It was not long before the guilty Soames discovered that he had
hazarded soul and body for that of which he could make no use. But had
the pocket-book, instead of an unsigned cheque, contained hundreds of
bank-notes, worse than worthless had been that which bore on it the
stain of blood, and carried with it a curse like that which rested upon
Cain, a fugitive and vagabond upon the face of the earth.
John Carey lay for some time apparently lifeless, perhaps it was the
drizzling rain which awoke him at last; he opened his eyes on the
darkness, but was utterly unable to move from the damp ground on which
he was lying. He could scarcely collect his senses sufficiently to
remember anything that had happened, or to imagine how he came to be
stretched there, helpless upon the road.
Gradually there dawned upon his mind some recollection of a struggle,
then a desire to get home, then a belief that he should never be found
till the morning, when his corpse would be carried to his mother. So
confused was John's brain from the shock which it had sustained, that
even this idea was more like a half-waking dream, than an actual effort
of reasoning powers. The sufferer could not fix his thoughts upon
anything, not even on the awful probability that he was on the very
verge of an eternity for which he was not prepared. Here lay the only
son of the widow, the child of so many fond prayers, likely, before the
night should have passed away, to be summoned before his Maker, yet
unable even to utter the cry—
"God be merciful to me, a sinner!"