CONCLUSION.
ONCE again did the two men meet. It was late in life, yet not many
years later.
Doctor Hudson was just preparing to leave his office one afternoon
about five o'clock, when a grey-headed man, plainly dressed, came in.
He immediately recognised him as old Mr. Dunbar.
"Doctor," he said, with a good deal of agitation in his manner, "I want
you to come to my house immediately."
"Is anything serious the matter?" asked Dr. Hudson.
"Yes, sir, very serious. My son arrived in the cars from Baltimore
this afternoon, in a terrible condition. He has been shot, and stabbed
in two places. How, why, or when, I have not yet been able to learn.
He was brought on by two men, to whose account I did not half listen,
before hurrying off for surgical aid. The ball is still in his breast.
Oh, Doctor! come with as little delay as possible."
Doctor Hudson inquired the direction, and promised to be at his house
in half an hour. Soon after the unhappy father left, he took a case of
instruments, and stepping into his carriage, drove to the residence of
Mr. Dunbar. The old man still kept a small grocery, through which the
doctor passed into a poorly furnished room, and then up a dark stairway
to a chamber over the store. Everything bore the stamp of poverty.
At the door of the chamber he met the father and mother, the latter
weeping bitterly, and the former with a face of deep distress.
"Doctor," whispered the old man, "I'm afraid all is hopeless. But we
will trust in your skill for all that human aid can do."
Doctor Hudson entered the room, and stood beside the bed where lay his
patient, feeling sadder than he had felt for a long time. There was the
well-known face of his old friend and school companion; but white, and
thin, and painful in its expression. The breath came feebly through his
lips, and the motions of his chest were scarcely perceptible. He laid
his finger upon his wrist, but the pulse was so low in the artery, if
it beat at all at so great a distance from the heart, that he could not
find it.
A slight examination of his injuries was now made. There were two deep
wounds between the ribs on the right side, inflicted with a knife or
dirk, and a shot wound on the left breast. The ball had struck the
sternum, glanced upwards at an angle, and entered among the muscles of
the left axilla or armpit, where it still remained, deeply imbedded.
There was already considerable inflammation of all the wounds, which
had received but temporary dressings. As for the patient, his mind was
completely obscured. He noticed no one, and uttered nothing more than
an occasional groan.
Any attempt to remove the ball, at present, was considered too
hazardous to be made. Slight dressings were applied to the wounds, and
the best means used for allaying the inflammation.
Before Doctor Dunbar left the house, one of the men who had brought the
wounded man to Philadelphia came in, and from him were obtained the
following facts:—
About a month previous to the sad catastrophe from which Dunbar was
suffering, he received an anonymous letter, charging upon his wife
improprieties of conduct, and naming the individual with whom she was
said to be too familiar. Long before this, all vestiges of regard for
his wife, if there had ever been any in his mind, were extinguished.
And it was the same with her. They had ceased to treat each other
with anything more than the coldest politeness. Notwithstanding this,
Dunbar was all on fire at the intelligence of his wife's infidelity. He
did not go immediately to the man who was accused of doing him a deep
injury, but waited until he was satisfied, by personal observation,
that the accusation was just. The mode of retaliation then sought, was
to go to the office of this individual with a pistol and a cowhide, and
under the muzzle of a loaded pistol to cowhide him as long as he had
strength to lift his hand. This was his intention, but he failed in
carrying it out.
On entering the office of the man who had injured him, he locked the
door, and throwing the key from the window, drew his pistol and his
cowhide, and with a bitter oath struck the betrayer of his wife a
severe blow. But he had miscalculated his opponent when he supposed
that he would tamely submit to blows even under the muzzle of a pistol.
He happened to be himself armed, and instantly drew a pistol. Both
fired at the same instant. The ball of Dunbar did not take effect; but
he received that of his adversary in his left armpit. Still furious,
he struck three or four blows with his cowhide, when he fell from two
stabs with a dirk knife in the right side. When those who had been
alarmed by the noise of the affray burst open the door, Dunbar was
lying on the floor weltering in his blood. The other had escaped from
the window and fled. On removing the wounded man to his rooms at the
hotel where he boarded, his wife was nowhere to be found. When this was
mentioned to him, he cursed her through his clenched teeth, and asked
to be immediately removed to Philadelphia to the house of his father,
which was done.
Some time before this, he had fallen in with a company of gentlemen
gamblers, and been stripped of every dollar he was worth. As a lawyer,
he had sunk into a mere pettifogger, and his practice was chiefly
confined to magistrate's and prison cases.
"Fallen! hopelessly fallen!" said Doctor Hudson, as he rode
thoughtfully homeward. When he next saw his patient, the change that
had taken place told him but too plainly the sad truth that life was
rapidly waning. Science and skill were of no avail in his hands. He
could not hold back the grim monster when he came with his fatal
message.
The young man died—died a violent death in the very prime of life—with
blighted hopes, corrupt principles, and a ruined character. And he came
home to die. He breathed out his last breath in the presence of those
he had wronged, despised, and insulted—himself fallen and degraded. It
was a sad ending of all his bright anticipations.
It is almost needless to say that Doctor Hudson's upward movement was
steadily continued. That it would be so, was in the nature of things.
There are few more distinguished and useful men in the country than he
is at the present time. And he is beloved as well as honored by all who
know him. He is truly great and truly good, for his elevation has been
internal as well as external.