A Cavalry Officer of large fortune, who had distinguished himself in
several actions, having been quartered for a long time in a foreign
city, gradually fell into a life of extreme and incessant dissipation.
He soon found himself so indisposed to any active military service,
that even the ordinary routine became irksome and unbearable. He
accordingly solicited and obtained leave of absence from his regiment
for six months. But, instead of immediately engaging in some occupation
of mind and body, as a curative process for his morbid condition, he
hastened to London, and gave himself up entirely to greater luxuries
than ever, and plunged into every kind of sensuality. The consequence
was a disgust of life and all its healthy offices. He became unable to
read half a page of a book, or to write the shortest note; mounting his
horse was too much trouble; to lounge down the street was a hateful
effort. His appetite failed, or everything disagreed with him; and
he could seldom sleep. Existence became an intolerable burthen; he
therefore determined on suicide.
With this intention he loaded his pistols, and, influenced by early
associations, dressed himself in his regimental frock-coat and crimson
sash, and entered St. James’s Park a little before sunrise. He
felt as if he was mounting guard for the last time; listened to each
sound, and looked with miserable affection across the misty green
towards the Horse Guards, faintly seen in the distance.
A few minutes after the officer had entered the park, there passed
through the same gate a poor mechanic, who leisurely followed in the
same direction. He was a gaunt, half-famished looking man, and walked
with a sad air, his eyes bent thoughtfully on the ground, and his large
bony hands dangling at his sides.
The officer, absorbed in the act he meditated, walked on without being
aware of the presence of another person. Arriving about the middle
of a wide open space, he suddenly stopped, and drawing forth both
pistols, exclaimed: ‘Oh, most unfortunate and most wretched man that I
am! Wealth, station, honour, prospects, are of no avail! Existence has
become a heavy torment to me! I have not strength—I have not courage to
endure or face it a moment longer!’
With these words he cocked the pistols, and was raising both of them
to his head, when his arms were seized from behind, and the pistols
twisted out of his fingers. He reeled round, and beheld the gaunt
scarecrow of a man who had followed him.
‘What are you?’ stammered the officer, with a painful air; ‘How dare
you to step between me and death?’
‘I am a poor hungry mechanic;’ answered the man, ‘one who works from
fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and yet finds it hard to earn a
living. My wife is dead—my daughter was tempted away from me—and I am
a lone man. As I have nobody to live for, and have become quite tired
of my life, I came out this morning, intending to drown myself. But as
the fresh air of the park came over my face, the sickness of life gave
way to shame at my own want of strength and courage, and I determined
to walk onwards and live my allotted time. But what are _you_? Have
you encountered cannon-balls and death in all shapes, and now want the
strength and courage to meet the curse of idleness?’
The officer was moving off with some confused words, but the mechanic
took him by the arm, and threatening to hand him over to the police if
he resisted, led him droopingly away.
This mechanic’s work was that of a turner, and he lived in a dark
cellar, where he toiled at his lathe from morning to night. Hearing
that the officer had amused himself with a little turnery in his youth,
the poor artisan proposed to take him down into his workshop. The
officer offered him money, and was anxious to escape; but the mechanic
refused it, and persisted.
He accordingly took the morbid gentleman down into his dark cellar,
and set him to work at his lathe. The officer began very languidly,
and soon rose to depart. Whereupon, the mechanic forced him down again
on the hard bench, and swore that if he did not do an hour’s work for
him, in return for saving his life, he would instantly consign him to a
policeman, and denounce him for attempting to commit suicide. At this
threat the officer was so confounded, that he at once consented to do
the work.
When the hour was over, the mechanic insisted on a second hour, in
consequence of the slowness of the work—it had not been a fair hour’s
labour. In vain the officer protested, was angry, and exhausted—had the
heartburn—pains in his back and limbs—and declared it would kill him.
The mechanic was inexorable. ‘If it _does_ kill you,’ said he, ‘then
you will only be where you would have been if I had not stopped you.’
So the officer was compelled to continue his work with an inflamed
face, and the perspiration pouring down over his cheeks and chin.
At last he could proceed no longer, come what would of it, and sank
back in the arms of his persecuting preserver. The mechanic now
placed before him his own breakfast, composed of a twopenny loaf of
brown bread, and a pint of small beer; the whole of which the officer
disposed of in no time, and then sent out for more.
Before the boy who was despatched on this errand returned, a little
conversation had ensued; and as the officer rose to go, he smilingly
placed his purse, with his card, in the hands of the mechanic. The poor
ragged man received them with all the composure of a physician, and
with a sort of dry, grim humour which appeared peculiar to him, and the
only relief of his otherwise rough and rigid character, made sombre by
the constant shadows and troubles of life.
But the moment he read the name on the card, all the hard lines in his
deeply-marked face underwent a sudden contortion. Thrusting back the
purse and card into the officer’s hand, he seized him with a fierce
grip by one arm—hurried him, wondering, up the dark broken stairs,
along the narrow passage—then pushed him out at the door!
‘You are the fine gentleman who tempted my daughter away!’ said he.
‘I—_your_ daughter!’ exclaimed the officer.
‘Yes, my daughter; Ellen Brentwood!’ said the mechanic. ‘Are there so
many men’s daughters in the list, that you forget her name?’
‘I implore you,’ said the officer, ‘to take this purse. _Pray_ take
this purse! If you will not accept it for yourself, I entreat you to
send it to her!’
‘Go and buy a lathe with it,’ said the mechanic. ‘Work, man! and repent
of your past life!’
So saying, he closed the door in the officer’s face, and descended the
stairs to his daily labour.