"You need be under nae alarm," he continued, wiping the tears from his
eyes. "My courage is not yet strong enough. God be praised for it!
Moments o' fearfu fortitude sometimes come owre me, and I have held
that instrument in my clenched hand--ay, within an inch o' my bared
throat; but the resolution passes as quickly as it comes, and terror,
cowardice, and a shiverin cauld--dreadfu to suffer--come in their
place. Lay it past, sir--lay it past."
I obeyed; and, as I proceeded to place the instrument on the top of a
chest of drawers, I heard the noise of some one in the passage, with
suppressed ejaculations of--"O God! O God!"
"I wadna hae shown you that," he continued, as I sat down, "but that
it is my wish to tell you the warst; for nae man can expect
assistance, if he is ashamed or afraid to show his necessities and his
danger. I didna send for you to cure my body, but to examine my mind,
and tell me if it is sound and healthy, or weak and diseased, and
therefore I will conceal naething frae ye that may show you its state
and condition."
I was pleased to find I had so tractable a patient. I paused for a
moment, to consider in what way I should draw him out, and on what
side I should attack him--whether I should argue calmly with him, and
endeavour to stimulate his feelings of duty to his Maker, to himself
and his poor daughter; or shake him roughly as a vain and sinful
dreamer who had voluntarily swallowed a pernicious soporific, and try
to awaken him, and keep him awake, after the manner of our remedial
endeavours to save those who have attempted to poison themselves by
laudanum. I saw, in an instant, that he was by far too strong-minded a
man to be operated upon effectually by the mere charm of the imputed
reach and strength of our cabalistic lore--an agent, if well employed,
of great good in our profession--and too determined (for such
resolutions are always, in some degree, a false result of reasoning
powers) to be put from his purpose either by a firm pressure of
logical authority, or the subtle and more dangerous means of
good-humoured or severe satire. My course was clearly to endeavour to
affect the form of his own reasoning, and, if possible, to invest it
with a character which might be recognised as true by the peculiar,
and, no doubt, morbid perceptions he possessed of moral truth. I began
by securing his eye, which I saw was, at times, inclined to wander, or
take on that unmeaning, dull, glazed aspect which people in the act of
brooding over intense sorrows--as if the optic nerves were thereby
paralysed--so often exhibit.
"What train of mind are you in generally," said I, "when the wish to
die, accompanied with the fortitude you have mentioned, comes upon you
in its strongest form?"
"I first fall into a state of low spirits," said he, "and then nae
effort I can use will tak my mind aff my dead wife. I think for whole
hours--sometimes on the hills, sometimes in the house, and sometimes
in my bed--of our courtship, our marriage, our happy life, and her
miserable, painful, untimely death. This feeds my sorrow, which grows
stronger, and descends deeper and deeper, till it reaches my brain,
and I am sunk in the darkness o' despair. To escape frae thoughts o'
past sorrows that are owre strong to be borne, I try to look forward
to the future; but, alas! I see naething there but the pain o' livin
for a number o' comfortless years o' auld age, draggin after me, a
memory clogged wi' past ills, and naething afore me but a jail, and
want, and lingerin death."
"These are false views of life," said I--"overstrained and morbid. I
must teach you to think better. You have a daughter who will comfort
you, and whom you are bound to support and protect."
"True, true," he cried; "I hae a dochter, and a better never
sacrificed her ain thochts and feelins to the comforts o' a faither.
The idea o' leavin her, young, faitherless, poor, and full o' sorrow,
in the midst o' a bad world, has before this" (lowering his voice)
"brought down that rebellious hand from this throat. But, alas for the
inconsistency and mutability o' man's fancies!--dearly as I love that
creature, and she is now my only comfort, my very affection for her
sometimes sinks me deeper into that sorrow which produces the dreadfu
purpose o' takin awa my ain life; for I think--oh! how weak is man's
proud reason, when the heart is broken wi' grief!--that an auld parent
under the ban o' poverty is a burden to a child. His death (so in
these unhappy moments do I think) relieves the unhappy bairn o' twa
evils--that o' toilin maybe in vain to support him, and that o'
witnessin age, decrepitude, pain, misery, and want, wringin frae his
shrivelled and diseased body groans o' agony, strikin the heart o' his
child wi' mair pain than would be caused by the knell o' his death."
He now sank his face in the bedclothes, which he grasped with a
spasmodic hand, and groaned so deep and loud that the sounds might
have reached the passage. I again heard a noise from that quarter, as
if of stifled sighs and hysterical sobs. I was placed between the
groans of a father bent against his own judgment on self-destruction,
and the terrors and griefs of a daughter listening to the horrible
recital of her parent's designs against his life. The loneliness of
the house, and the solitude of the unhappy pair--with no one to aid
the young woman, in the event of any appalling extremity to which the
unnatural purpose of her father might drive him--struck me forcibly. I
had no recollection of ever experiencing a scene of grief so peculiar,
with such fearful and uncertain issues, so irremediable and
heart-stirring. The groans of the one and the sobs of the other seemed
to vie with each other in the effect they produced upon me; but, great
as the pain of the father was, the sufferings of the daughter, perhaps
as peculiar and touching as any that could be conceived, engaged to
the greatest extent my sympathy. It was my duty and wish to try to
remove the fundamental cause of all this suffering; and I waited the
end of the paroxysm of the father's sorrow in order to resume the
conversation.
"These views," said I, as he calmed, "which you take of life, and its
duties and affections, are all false and distorted. It is our duty to
try to regulate our thoughts as well as our actions by some steady
supporting principle, which mankind have agreed in considering as
true, whether it be derived from the direct Word of God or from the
written tablets of the heart. The taking away of our life--originally
given to us as a trust, or imposed on us by the Author of all good,
for certain ends and purposes which are veiled from our view--is
undoubtedly in many respects, as regards God himself, ourselves, our
children, and our neighbours, a great, flagrant, horrible crime. It is
against the law of God, the law of our country, the organic law of our
physical constitution, and the moral law of our minds. It is indeed
the only act that can be mentioned that is against _all_ these. It
does not require me to tell you that suicide, with other murders, was
denounced by God himself, speaking in words that all mankind have
heard, from the 'thick cloud' that hung over Mount Sinai. You are, I
presume, a Christian, and the Sacred Book containing that denunciation
lies at your side; and yet you have made the dreadful confession to
me, that you have dared to meditate on the breaking, the despising,
the contemning of the command of Him who by less than a command--ay,
than even a word, by the lifting up of his finger--may consign you to
an eternity of agony, in comparison of which all the sorrow you now
suffer is less than a grain of sand to the sandbanks of the sea."
"It is true, it is true!" replied the unhappy man. "I know, I _feel_
that every word you have uttered is true, maist true and undeniable as
are the sentiments o' this holy book," grasping again the Bible; "but
can ye--wha, by the command o' books and education, can dive farther
into the nature o' the mind than ane like me--explain this mystery,
that, when my soul is filled wi' the darkness o' sorrow, and my
rebellious purpose o' self-murder whispers in my mind treachery and
war against God, thae truths ye hae uttered, for they hae occurred to
me before, tak flight like guid angels, and leave me to warsle wi' a
power that subdues me? It is then that I am in danger, and the hand
that has held up to my throat that fatal instrument I had under my
pillow, has the moment before been lifted up vainly in prayer to God,
to throw owre my mind the light o' thae grand truths. What avails it,
then, that there are times when I love them, and am guided by them,
and thank Heaven for the precious gift o' knowin, feelin, and
appreciatin them, if there are other moments when they flee frae me,
and I am left powerless in the grasp o' my enemy?" Pausing, and
falling again into a fit of dejection. "I fear, I fear the best o' us
are only the slaves o' some mysterious power. But"--starting up, as if
recollecting himself--"I put a question to you--answer me in the name
o' Heaven; for if I gie mysel up to the belief o' an all-powerful
necessity, I am a lost man and a self-murderer."
He was now clearly approaching a rock whereon many a gallant bark has
been shivered to atoms. Even healthy-minded men cannot look at the
question of the necessity of the will without staggering and reeling;
and hypochondriacs love to get drunk by inhaling the vapours of
mysticism that rise from it, destroying as they do all moral
responsibility, and concealing the vengeance of heaven and the terrors
of hell. It was necessary to lead him from this dangerous subject,
which it was clear he had been studying and dreaming about, with all
that love of subtlety and mysticism which melancholy generates.
"No sensible man," said I, "believes in the absolute necessity of the
will. After the will is fixed, the liberty is already exercised, and
there is indeed _no will_ in the mind at all, until it takes the form
of an active, moving, propelling principle. But these are abstruse
fancies, which you must fly, if you wish to possess a healthy mind.
Sorrow, or any other feeling of pain, will extinguish while it lasts
the burning lights of principle or sentiment. The pain of the
amputation of a limb prevents, while it lasts, the natural working of
the mind; but _grief may be averted_, and the great healing secret of
that is, that the mind _must_ be occupied. Renounce all abstruse
thinking, all day-dreaming, all sorrowful remembering, all sentimental
musing--look upon application, exercise, work, as a duty and a
medicine, and I will answer for your expelling from your mind that
dreadful purpose that entails upon you misery, and disgraces the
nature of man."
"Your advice is excellent," replied he, somewhat roused; "but,
unfortunately, I hae got the same frae my ain mind; and, what is mair,
I hae tried it--I hae tried it again and again;--the medicine is worth
nae mair to me than a bread pill. My efforts to exercise my mind, when
a fit o' sorrow presses upon it, only mak the sorrow the heavier, by
makin the mind less able to bear it. My soul is for ever bent on that
question o' the necessity o' the will which you despise and avoid. I
will, God is my witness, argue it with you, calmly and reasonably."
"Unless you agree to renounce that question," said I, "I can do you no
good."
"Then," replied he, with a groan, "I am left to Heaven and my
unavoidable fate. May God have mercy on my soul!"
And he again relapsed into a fit of dejection, his head leaning on his
breast, and his eyes fixed on the bed.
I could, I found, make no more of him that day, and my other
avocations required my departure. I told him I would call again, and
bring or send him some medicine.
"It is an unnecessary waste o' your valuable time," he said, lifting
up his head, "to call again upon a wretch like me. I am much obliged
to you for advice; but the only medicine for me is--_death_."
He pronounced the fearful word with an emphatic guttural tone, which
gave it a terrific effect. I opened the door to depart, and was
surprised to find that it would not go back sufficiently to allow me
to pass freely. The probable cause of the interruption flashed upon
my mind in an instant. Without speaking a word, I edged myself
through, and saw, lying at the back of the door, the body of the
unfortunate young woman, in a state of insensibility. I had presence
of mind enough not to carry her into the room where her father lay;
but, seeing the light of the kitchen at the further end of the long
gloomy passage, I snatched her up in my arms, and hastened with her
thither. Having laid her on a small truckle bed, whereon, I presume,
she usually slept, I found she was in a deep swoon; and,
notwithstanding that it was getting dark, and my time was expired, I
waited her recovery. As she lay before me, pale as a corpse, and as
I thought of the cause of her illness, and looked round in vain for
any one to give her assistance or consolation (the groans of her
father, which I indistinctly heard, being the only answer that would
have been given to a call for aid in a house more like a haunt for
ghosts and spectres than a residence for human beings), I felt the
impression of her peculiar misery pass over me, making me shudder as
if I had been seized with a fit of the ague. The frail, brittle
creature lying there, a victim of hysterics, fit only to be
cherished and guarded by a doting mother--placed in a large, empty,
gousty mansion--doomed to guard alone a suicide and a father, and,
perhaps, to wrestle with him through blood--her parent's blood!--for
the preservation of a remaining spark of a self-taken life! She at
length recovered, exhibiting the ordinary precursors of returning
consciousness--convulsive shiverings, rolling of the eyes, and
beating about with the hands. On perceiving me indistinctly, she
articulated--
"Death! death!--that was the word he spoke sae wildly.--Ah! I know it
now!--James H---- has lang tried to conceal it frae me; but I hae
discovered it at last. Can you save him, sir?--can you save the
faither o' her wha has scarcely anither freend on earth?"
A flood of tears followed this ejaculation. She tore her hair like a
maniac. I tried everything in my power to pacify her; but terror had
completely mastered her weak nerves, and she shook as the successive
frightful images suggested by her situation passed through her excited
and still confused mind.
"Is there no one in those parts," said I, "that can attend your
father, and assist you? Who is the James H---- you just now mentioned?"
"He is my cousin," replied she. "He lived with us for some time; but
my father and he quarrelled about a _razor_, which he said James
wanted to steal from him. But I see it now. There was nae theft.
James, poor James, was innocent, and wanted to save him; but they
concealed it frae me, and my cousin was turned away."
The mention of the word razor made me start. I had left the instrument
on the head of the drawers, and I had even now heard the wretched
man's groans. I hurried to the room, and entered softly. He was in a
fit of dejection, groaning, at intervals, deeply, like a man in bodily
pain. I took up the instrument without being noticed, and returned to
the kitchen. It was now almost dark. I had three miles to ride through
wild hill paths, and I heard some threatening indications of a
night-storm. The young woman was still lying on the couch, with her
terrors undiminished; but I could do nothing more for her, and to have
impressed her with the necessity of watching her parent would have
created additional alarm, without increasing her zeal in a cause that
concerned too nearly her own heart. I told her, therefore, that I
required to depart, and was in the act of leaving to go to the door,
when, in a paroxysm of terror, she started up, and seized me,
clutching me firmly, and crying loudly--
"Will you leave me alone wi' him in this house, and throughout the
dark night! He will do it when you are gone. Heaven preserve me frae
the sight o' a father's blood!"
I tried to calm her, and to reason with her; but it was in vain. She
still clung to me; and I found myself necessitated either to use some
gentle force to detach myself from her grasp, or remain all night. I
adopted the former expedient, and rushing out, shut the door after me,
mounted my horse, and proceeded home. She had come out after me; for I
heard her cries for some time as I rode forward in the dark.
Though soon out of sight of the house, I felt myself unconsciously
turning my head once or twice in the direction of the deserted
mansion. With all my efforts to think of some other subject--and my
own safety among these wild hills might have been sufficient to occupy
my attention--I could not, for some time, take my mind off the scene I
had witnessed, and the prospective misery that, in such different
forms, waited these two individuals. When I had gone about a mile and
a-half on my journey, I was accosted by a man, who asked me familiarly
how George B---- was. I recognised in him at once the individual who
had asked me to call for him. I told him that he was well enough in
his body, but had taken some wild and distorted views of life, which
might place him in danger of his own hands, while there was nobody in
the house to watch him but his daughter, who did not seem to me to be
well fitted for the task, seeing she was weakly, hysterical, and
timid. He told me he knew all I had stated; that his name was James
H----; that he was a cousin of the young woman's, George B---- having
been married on his mother's sister; that he had resided in the house,
and had discovered the tendency of his uncle's mind; and that, on one
occasion, he had snatched out of his hands a razor with which he
intended to destroy himself--an act for which he was expelled the
house, though he was the acknowledged suitor of the young woman, whom
he intended to wed. I told him he should marry her, protect her, and
save the father; but he replied that the old man would neither allow
him to live in the house, nor take his daughter from him; so that she
was compelled to remain in the dreadful condition in which I had found
her. I told him to call upon me next day, and proceeded homewards.
Before James H---- called, which he did about two o'clock, I revolved
in my mind what should be done for the unfortunate man. I recollected
that, in a conversation I had with Dr D---- of Edinburgh, he told me
of a case of melancholy, and accompanying determination to commit
self-murder, which he had successfully treated by presenting to the
mind of the patient such horrific stories and narratives of men who
had taken their own lives, and suffered in their death inexpressible
agonies, and such shocking pictures of murders where the wretched
victims were brought back, by the hand of their offended Maker, from
the gates of death, with their consciences seared by the burning iron
of his vengeance, that the man got alarmed, was cured of his thirst
for his own blood, and never again spoke of self-destruction. I
resolved upon trying this expedient, and could not think of a better
book for my purpose than that extraordinary record of human vice and
suffering, the "Newgate Calendar." I fortunately possessed a copy,
with those fearfully graphic pictures, that suit so well, in their
coarse, half-caricatured, grotesque delineations, with the dreadful
narratives they are intended to illustrate. I picked out the most
fearful volume, that contained, at the same time, the greatest number
of attempted self-murders, where the victims were snatched from their
own chosen death, and, after their wounds were healed, devoted to that
pointed out by the law as due to their crimes. When James H---- called
in the afternoon, I gave him the volume, and requested him to hand it
to the patient's daughter, with directions to put it into the hands of
her father, as having been sent to him by me. He said he would take
the first opportunity of complying with my request.
I had no visits to make that required my presence in that part of the
country for two or three days. On the second day after I had sent the
book, I had another call from James H----, who said that he had been
requested by the patient's daughter to return the volume, and to
request another one, which the patient desired, above all things, to
be sent to him that day. I accordingly sent him another volume,
although I did not know whether to augur well or ill from this
anxiety; but I was inclined to be of opinion that the symptom was an
auspicious one. Two days afterwards, the messenger called again, with
a repetition of his former request for another volume as soon as it
could be sent. I complied with it instantly; sending, however, on this
occasion, two--for I thought my medicine was operating beneficially,
and it was of that kind that could be of no use unless administered in
large doses, so, as it were, to surfeit and sicken the disease, and
force it, by paralysing its energies, to relinquish its grasp of the
patient's mind and body.
Two days more having elapsed, I felt anxious to ascertain the effect
of my moral _emetocathartics_, and set out on the special errand of
visiting my patient. The house, as I approached, exhibited the same
still, dead-like aspect it possessed on my first visit. On knocking at
the door, it was opened timidly and slowly by the daughter, who
appeared to be paler, more sorrow-stricken, more weak and irritable,
than on the occasion of my former visit. Her eye exhibited that
terrorstruck look which nervous people, kept on the rack of a fearful
apprehension, so often exhibit. Her voice was low, monotonous, and
weak, as if she had been exhausted by mental anxiety, watching, and
care. There was still no one in the house but her and her father; the
same stillness reigned everywhere--the same air of dejection--the same
goustiness in the large empty dwelling. On asking her how her father
was, she replied, mournfully, that he had scarcely ever been out of
his bed since my last visit; that he lay, night and day, reading the
books I had sent him; that he had eaten very little meat, and had
fallen several times into dreadful fits of groaning, and talking to
himself. She added that he felt, at times, disinclined to see her; but
at others, his affection for her rose to such a height, that he flung
his arms about her neck, and wept like a child on her bosom. She had
proposed to him, she said, to bring some person into the house; but he
got into a violent rage when she mentioned it, and said he would expel
the first intruder, whether man or woman. She had therefore been
compelled to remain alone. She had lain at the back of his room-door
every night, watching his motions, whereby, in addition to her grief,
she had caught a violent rheumatism, which had stricken into her
bones. When, for a short time, she had gone to sleep, she was awakened
by terrific dreams and nightmares, which made her cry aloud for help,
and exposed the situation she had taken, for the purpose of watching
her parent, and defeating his purpose of self-murder.
I proceeded to the patient's room. When I entered, which I did softly,
I found him lying in bed, with his head, as formerly, bound up in a
handkerchief; a volume of the "Newgate Calendar" lying on his breast.
So occupied was he with his enjoyment of this _morceau_ of horrors,
that he did not notice my entry or approach to his bedside. I stood
and gazed at him. He had finished the page that was open before
him--exhibiting John Torrance, the blacksmith of Hockley. His eye
rested at least five minutes on this horrific picture; and, as he
continued his rapt gaze, he drew deep sighs--his breast heaving with
great force, as if to throw off an unbearable load. He turned the
page, and noticed me.
"You are very intent upon that book," said I. "I hope it _interests_
you."
"Yes," replied he. "My mind has been dead or entranced for a year.
This is the only thing in the world I have met wi' during my sorrow
capable o' putting life into my soul. It seems as if all the energies
that have been lying useless for that period had risen at the magic
power o' this wonderfu book, to pour their collected strength upon its
pages."
"Then it has served its end," said I, doubting greatly the truth of my
own statement. "I sent it for the purpose of entertaining you--that
is--interesting you."
"Entertaining me!" he ejaculated. "You mean, binding my soul wi' iron
bands: my heart now loves the misery it formerly loathed. But, sir, I
am not _fed_ with this food. I devour it wi' a false and ravenous
appetite; and were there a thousand volumes, I think I could read
them a' before I broke bread or closed an ee."
He rolled out these words with a volubility and an enthusiasm that
surprised me. It was clear that I had poisoned the mind of this poor
man. I had stimulated and partly fed his appetite for horrors.
Familiarity with fearful objects kills the terror, and sometimes
raises in its place a morbid affection--a fact established in France
at the end of the last century by an empirical test of a horrific
character, but which no knowledge of man's mind could have dreamed of
_a priori_. Why had I forgotten this matter of history, and allowed
myself to be led astray by vain theories and partial experiments? What
was I now to do? The man's appetite for the bloody narratives was so
strong, that, even while I was thus cogitating, his greedy eye had
again sought the page. It was necessary that I should conceal from him
my apprehensions, and take up his words on a feigned construction.
"This kind of reading," said I, "interests you, I presume, because it
fills your mind with a salutary disgust and terror--makes you loathe
the act of the suicide--and mans your soul against the hateful purpose
you entertained against your own life."
He looked to the door, and beckoned to me to see if it was shut. I
went and satisfied him that it was, while I was myself assured that
she whom he was so anxious to deceive was again at her post behind it.
"You ask me," he continued, "if this book has disgusted or terrified
me against my purpose o' deein. Are we disgusted and terrified at what
we love? I hae seen the day when thae stories had sma' attraction for
me. But, alas! alas! I am a changed--a fearfully changed man. My soul
now gloats owre tales o' crime and scenes o' blood. To me there is an
interest, an indescribable, mysterious interest in this book, beyond
the charm o' the miser's wealth, or the bridegroom's bride--ay, sir,
or what I ance thocht was in life to the deein sinner. It is a
medicine; but"--pausing, and eyeing me sorrowfully--"do you mean it to
_kill_ or _cure_?"
"To save you from self-destruction," said I--"the most fearful and the
most cowardly of all the terminations of human life."
"If you could keep me readin this _for ever_," he said, "yer object
would be served."
"I can give you no more of it," said I, conscious that, by indulging
his morbid appetite for blood, I had been leading him to his ruin.
"Then I must read thae volumes owre, and owre, and owre again," said
he; "and when I hae dune, I hae naething mair to interest me in this
dark, bleak warld."
He fell now into one of his fits of dejection, assuming his accustomed
attitude of folding his hands over his breast, and fixing his eyes on
the bed, while deep sighs and groans were thrown from his heaving
breast. It was necessary, I now saw, to take from him the book which
had produced an effect the very opposite of what I had intended and
expected. I took it up and placed it beside the other volume that was
lying on a side-table, with a view to take them away with me--blaming
myself sorely and deservedly for the injury I had done by
experimenting so rashly on the life and eternal interests of a human
being. As I moved away the volume, he observed me, and followed it
wistfully and sorrowfully with his eye.
"Ye hae dune weel," he said--"ye hae whetted my appetite for my ain
life; and it matters naething that the whetter and the whet-stane are
taen awa when they're nae mair needed!"
I felt keenly the reproach, for it was just. I might have taken credit
for a good intention; but my sympathy for the wretched being
restrained any wish I had to defend myself I endeavoured to change
the subject of our conversation, and turn his mind to a subject which
I knew engaged his interests and feelings more than anything else on
earth.
"Your daughter," said I, "is unwell. She seems to be miserable. I know
a change upon her both in mind and body, since I called here only a
few days ago. Her body is thin and emaciated, her cheek is blanched,
and her eye dimmed. These signs do not visit the young frame for
nothing. I fear she has heard of the deadly intention you still
persist in entertaining--to take away your own life. It is clear to me
that her sickly constitution cannot long stand against a terror and an
apprehension which even the aged and the strong cannot endure without
grievous injury to all the faculties of the body and mind. Sir, take
heed"--pausing and looking at him seriously and impressively--"you may
become _a daughter's murderer_ before your _cowardly_ courage enables
you to become _your own_!"
"Hold, sir!--hold!" cried the roused man. "You now speak daggers to
me! I could hae borne this when you were here last; but ye hae
unmanned me--ye hae made me familiar wi' him, the king o' terrors, wha
waits for me. I know him in his worst shapes. He is nae langer hideous
to me; and, being his friend, I canna be my dochter's faither and
guardian! Why cam you here to revive a struggle that was past? My mind
was made up. Owre the pages o' that book, my resolution was fixed; now
you wad re-resolve me back to my doubt, my pain, my insufferable
agony, by bringin up into my mind the tender image o' a sufferin,
sorrowin, starvin dochter. My Margaret--my Margaret!--her mother's
image--the pledge o' a love dearer than life----"
The door opened, and the young woman, who had been listening at the
back of it, rushed in and flung herself on the bosom of the agonised
man.
"O father!" she cried, "I ken everything. Yer dreadfu purpose has been
revealed to me. Ye intend to tak awa yer ain life, which my mother,
yer beloved Agnes, on her death-bed, bade ye preserve for my sake. But
ye canna do that without takin also mine. Yer death will be my death.
I hae already seen yer bleedin body in my dreams--the image haunts me
like a spirit, and leaves me nae rest. The doctor says true--ye will
kill me before yer dreadfu purpose is fulfilled; but if, in God's
will, I should be left when ye are awa, wha is to guard me, wha is to
comfort me--without freends, without means, and without health?"
The scene now presented to me transcended anything I had ever seen
during my long intercourse with suffering humanity. The excited girl
clung with a firm grasp to the neck of her parent, and sobbed
intensely; while he, struggling to be liberated, and holding away his
face to the back of the bed, groaned and appealed for relief in
broken, guttural, half-choked aspirations to Heaven. I saw his eyes
turned to the throne of mercy, and big tears rolled down his rugged
cheeks. In my anxiety to aid this struggle, and assist him to the
return to his natural love of life and duty to his God, I was afraid
to interfere with the sacred service of a bursting heart, turned in
its agony to the only source of consolation and healing virtue; while,
if I allowed this opportunity to escape, I might not have another for
adding a mortal's means and energies (sometimes God's instruments) to
the workings of nature, and the silent but powerful voice of religion
speaking from the innermost recesses of his moral constitution.
"This is nature and truth," said I, after a pause--"powers a thousand
times stronger than the brain-sick fancies of a diseased mind. It is
the voice of God himself, sounding through the heart, and, like the
electric energy, heaving it with convulsive throes, as if to cast
forth from it the impious daring and unnatural purpose you have
cherished in it so long that no lesser power will expel it. I rejoice
in these throes; cherish them and aid them, for they are the
expulsers of poison that, having got into your blood, and reached the
heart, the seat of life, madly stimulates it to self-destruction. This
is the time--here is the vantage-ground of a return to all that is
right, true, and good, from cowardice, cruelty, irreligion, and even
rebellion against God!"
"Listen to him--listen to him!" cried the young woman, still sobbing.
"Hear thae words o' truth, for they are sent from Heaven. Receive them
into your heart, and it will be changed, and I will live to see my
father enjoy life and be happy."
"_When?_" groaned the miserable man, satirically, as if roused by the
sound of the distasteful word "happy." "When I am sittin at the window
o' a prison, thinkin o' my dead Agnes, and lookin at the red settin o'
my sixty-fifth sun?"
These words showed that the struggle had been ineffectual. Released
from the grasp of his daughter, who sat at the side of the bed, he
doggedly and sternly folded his arms, and relapsed into a silent fit
of dejection. No effort would make him open his lips. There seemed to
be no principle of reaction in his moral economy; all was penetrated
by a fatal lethargy, which closed up every issue, broke every spring
of living thought, feeling, or motion. My professional knowledge was
entirely useless, my personal services unavailing. I called to him
loudly to answer me, and got no reply but deep groans. I even shook
him roughly, and tried to bend his head to his weeping daughter. My
efforts were quickened by a sense that bore in upon me with fearful
strength and importunity, that I had, by experimenting on his mind,
and filling it with images of horror, increased the disease I intended
to cure. Pained beyond measure, I was anxious to redeem my fault and
correct my error by getting him again engaged in conversation, whereby
I might have a last opportunity of drawing him into a train of thought
which might lead to a sense of his awful condition, and a prospect of
escaping from its present misery, and its horrible consequences. But
my medicine had operated too powerfully. There he sat, unmoved,
immoveable--a sad and melancholy victim of the worst species of
hypochondria--that which exhibits as one of its pathognomonic
symptoms, the desire, the determination, persevered in through all
difficulties, all oppositions, all wiles and schemes, to commit
self-murder.
I waited for a considerable period, standing at the side of his bed,
to see if he would exhibit any signs of returning moral vitality: but
in vain. My other pressing avocations demanded imperiously my presence
in quarters where I could be of more service. The daughter was herself
buried in despondency, her face being hid in her hands, and broken
ejaculations escaping from her lips. I took up the book which had
produced so much harm, and whispered lowly in her ear, to request
James H---- to call for me next day. At the sound of this name she
started, and looked up wildly. I was afraid I might have to encounter
another scene like that I had witnessed on the occasion of my last
departure. I therefore hurried away, giving her no time to reply,
where conversation was apparently useless. My intention was to try and
devise some means of introducing a person into the house--though
against the determined will of the father--to guard him and assist the
daughter; but that could only be done through the medium of the
messenger who went between me and the young woman.
When I had got some distance from the house, I could not resist the
feeling that on the occasion of my prior visit compelled me to look
back upon this miserable dwelling. I had seen diseases of all kinds
grinding the feelings of unhappy man; but in the worst of them there
is some principle, either of resistance or resignation, that comes to
the aid of the sufferer, and enables him to pass the ordeal, whether
for life or death. The duty he is called upon to perform is to
_bear_; for no man I ever yet saw on a sick-bed can get quit of the
thought--however much he may try to philosophise about physical
causes, or to conceal his sense of a divine influence--that he is
placed there by a superior Hand _for the very purpose of suffering_,
with a view to some end that is veiled from his eye. Every pang,
therefore, that is borne carries with it, or leaves after it, some
feeling of necessity to _bear_, and a satisfaction of having endured,
and to a certain extent obeyed, the behest of Him that sent it. In
many, this feeling is strong and decided, yielding comfort and
consolation when no other power could have any effect; and though in
others it may be less discernible--being often denied by the patients
themselves, and attempted to be laughed at and scorned--it is, I
assert, still there, silently working its progress in the heart, and
spreading its balm even against the sufferer's own rebellious will.
But the case of the suicide is left purposely by Him against whose law
and authority the unholy purpose is directed, in a solitary condition
of unmitigated horror; for the desire to get quit of pain--the
inheritance of mortals--is itself the very exclusion of that
resignation which is its legitimate antidote, while the devoted
victim, obeying a necessity that forces him to eschew a misery he is
not noble-minded enough to bear, not only has _no good_ in view, but
is conscious that he is flying _from_ evil, _through_ evil, _to_ evil;
so that from behind, around him, within him, before him--wherever he
casts his eye--there is nothing but darkness, pain, and utter
desolation. To complete the scene--there is, perhaps, no living
_natural_ evil more peculiar and acute, and less capable of generating
resistance or resignation, than the rack of apprehension and terror of
an only daughter watching, alone and unaided, the issues of a purpose
that is, in all likelihood, to force her through the energies of the
strongest instinct--filial affection--to stop, with her trembling
hands, the flow of a father's life-blood. Yet all this evil, this
misery, was to be found in that house, standing alone in the midst of
these bleak hills, like a temple dedicated to sorrow.
Next day James H---- called upon me, having seen the young woman,
unknown to the father, on the previous night, and received from her
the instructions I left for him. He saw himself the necessity of
something being done towards the amelioration of the condition of the
two unhappy individuals; but he acknowledged the difficulty of
effecting it. He perceived (what was true) that, if any watch were set
over his uncle, it might only make certain that which at present was
doubtful; that the watchman could only proceed on the principle that
he was mad, and bind him, or confine him, or otherwise treat him as
insane; and that, besides, he knew no one who, without pay (and there
was no money), would undertake so unpleasant a duty, which might last
for weeks, or months, or even years. No concealed surveillance could
be kept over him; for he suspected in an instant the object of any one
visiting him, and had ordered one or two individuals, who had come
from a distance to call for him, out of the house, suspecting (such is
the way of all his unhappy tribe) that they came for the purpose of
observing his motions. The difficulty was greatly owing to the lonely
position of the house: the cloak of friendly intercourse might have
covered the frequent visits of near neighbours; but there were none
such--for the nearest house was two miles off; and as for relations,
they were in another part of the country, distant in locality as well
as blood.
The case was hedged with difficulties. Violent diseases require strong
remedies. I recollected that James H---- said, on a former occasion,
that he was the suitor of the young woman, and wished to wed her. I
came to a resolution on the instant--firm, decided, and sound. I told
him that, if he wished to save the father and the daughter, he must
accelerate his intended marriage with the latter, even in the midst of
the unfortunate circumstances in which she was placed, and under the
unfavourable auspices of an event of joy being shadowed with a cloud
of sorrow. This would give him a claim on the daughter; and if the old
man would not permit his son-in-law to remain in the house, and assist
him as formerly with the labours of his land, he could threaten to
take her from him altogether--a threat that would not, in all
likelihood, fail to make him consent to his becoming an inmate in the
house. The young man was pleased with an advice that quadrated with
his wishes, and left me, to consult with some other friends on the
propriety of instantly following it.
I heard the banns proclaimed next Sunday in the parish church, and was
somewhat surprised at the rapidity with which my advice had been
adopted, and the plan put into execution. The intelligence was
promptly communicated to me by the bridegroom himself, who informed me
also that the fact of the proclamation of the banns had been
communicated to his uncle, who had expressed himself strongly against
the match. He had, in fact, taken up a strong prejudice against his
nephew, in consequence of the latter's interference with his purpose
of self-immolation. He had never allowed the young man to come near
him since the day on which he had taken the razor out of his hands by
force; and the intelligence that he was to marry his daughter, and
deprive him of her society, roused him to fury. He denounced the
union, and said that it added another drop of bitterness to the cup of
his misery, which was already overflowing. I told the young man that
the anger into which his uncle had been thrown would, in all
likelihood, do him more good than harm: it might stimulate a mind,
dead or dormant, from the effects of brooding over imaginary evils,
which produced ten times more self-murders than the real misfortunes
of life. He told me the marriage would not, on account of his uncle's
anger, be put off; that it was fixed for the 15th of the month, and
would be celebrated in private. I informed him that I required to go
to a distant part of the country, and could not, for some time, see
his uncle, and that he must endeavour, by all means, to support and
comfort the unhappy bride in her watchful care over her unfortunate
father, who, according to his account, was still under the cloud from
which he threatened every instant to draw down the lightning that was
to strike him to death.
When I returned from my journey, I called again upon the unfortunate
man, in the hope of finding some amelioration in his condition, as
well as that of his daughter. I found him still in bed, though he had
been up and out on several occasions since I visited him. I saw no
signs of improvement. I endeavoured to get him engaged in a
conversation about his own condition; but I saw that, in place of
being fond of dwelling on the state of his mind, talking of his
sorrows, and contemplating the purpose he entertained against his
existence, he showed an utter repugnance to the subject, having become
perfectly taciturn, sullen, and morose, giving me monosyllables for
answers, and sometimes not deigning even to show that he attended to
me, or understood me. The only thing that seemed to interest him was
his daughter's marriage--looking dark and gloomy when the subject was
broached, and muttering indistinct words of reproach and anger. The
condition of his daughter was changed; but it was only a new form of
anguish. Some days previous, she had observed him with another razor
in his hand; but he had secreted it somewhere, and all her efforts had
as yet been ineffectual to get it. Her watch had therefore been more
unremitting--her apprehensions were increased, while her strength was
greatly diminished. She was reduced to a shadow; the pale skin that
covered her face seemed to be in contact with the bones; while her
eyes burned with fever and excitement. Yet _her marriage_ was fixed to
take place two or three days after! She could not avoid it; she had
pledged her word, and her father's safety depended in a great degree
upon it. She could bear her condition no longer--all her powers of
suffering were worn out; and if her father would not permit her
husband to remain in the house, she would, she said, allow the latter
to exercise what authority he pleased, in endeavouring, by force, to
save his father-in-law and his wife from the ruin that seemed to await
them. The gloom that enveloped her mind was deepened by the contrast
of the light of a happiness she had long sighed for, now changed into
a refinement of peculiar pain. She shuddered when she thought of her
marriage with the man she loved, and feared that the power of Heaven
would fall on her, for presuming to bring joy into the chamber of
mourning, if not death. As she spoke, tears moistened her burning eye,
and ran down her thin, pallid cheeks. She wished the ceremony over, as
an evil to be endured, and then fate must take its course, though she
feared the termination would be miserable, as well for her father as
for her. His life was hanging by a thread; hers was worn out by
watching, fainting, and suffering, till it was on the very eve of
leaving the body, which was no longer able to support or contain it.
These were the misfortunes in the inside of the house; but there were
others without-doors. The landlord had sequestrated the stock
belonging to her father--a circumstance that had plunged him deeper in
his despondency and misery, and explained the very altered state in
which I had found him. The attorney, a hard man, _laughed_ at the
_device_ of threatened self-murder, resorted to for the purpose of
exciting his sympathy, and robbing his client's pocket.
"Yes," she concluded, "he _laughed_"--and she repeated the word
"laughed" with a hysterical action of the throat, as if it choked her,
and next moment burst into tears.
Two days afterwards, a man on horseback arrived at my door, and rapped
with great violence; his horse was heated, and foaming at the mouth,
as if it had been hard pressed, and he himself was flushed and
excited. He told me, in a hurried manner, that I was wanted instantly
at George B----'s; he had been sent to me by another man, and could
tell me nothing beyond the fact that something very alarming had taken
place, and that, if I did not hasten thither on the instant, and with
my very greatest speed, I could be of no use. I took with me what I
conceived might be wanted, for my suspicions were more communicative
than the messenger, and proceeded, with all the expedition in my
power, to the house where I had lately seen so much suffering.
On my entering the house, a most extraordinary spectacle presented
itself. On the small truckle-bed that stood opposite the door in the
kitchen lay a female figure, dressed in white, with both her hands
wrapped up in cloth, from which issues of blood rolled on the bed; and
her face, not less pale than her dress, was spotted and besmeared with
the same element. It was Margaret B---- in her _marriage dress_. A
young woman, her bridesmaid, was beside her, looking in her face as if
to see whether life was still in her body. A young man, also dressed
as if for the marriage, hurried me to the apartment of George B----,
where a scene not less awful was presented to me. The unhappy man was
lying in the middle of the floor, on his back, with his throat cut,
and James H----, in his bridegroom clothes, was bending over him, with
his hands busily occupied in stanching a wound that would have let out
ten lives, if he had had as many to destroy; the floor was literally
swimming in blood, and on a chair in the corner of the room lay the
fatal instrument, still open. My services were useless: the man was
dead; his attendants were engaged in stopping blood already curdled
with death. I hurried to the patient that was still living. She had
lost almost the whole blood of her body, and it was difficult to
detect in her any symptoms of life. I unloosed the cloths from her
hands; they were cut in a fearful manner--the blade of the razor,
which she had, in her struggles with her parent, endeavoured to wrest
from him, having been _whisked_ through them when hard clenched. No
one had been in the house; her marriage-dress was still
incomplete--her bosom bare, and her head uncovered; a proof that she
had been called from the mirror wherein she saw a half-dressed bride,
to see a father kill himself by his own hand against her efforts to
save him. Her screams were heard by the bridesmaid and bridegroom, as
they approached the house; but, before they entered, the struggle was
nearly over; they found her bending over the body of her father, which
lay on the floor, grasping the open wound with her hands. So spoke the
attendants as I dressed the wounds. I took up several arteries; but
there was one in the left wrist which, for a long period, defied my
efforts, unassisted as I was with professional aid, to stem its
torrent. I succeeded at last--so, at least, I thought--in my
endeavours to stop all the issues. Vain thought! _Death_ had stopped
them!
This was the first time I had seen a _dead bride_.