Englefield Grange; or, Mary Armstrong's TroublesPaull, H. B., Mrs.
General
Englefield Grange; or, Mary Armstrong's Troubles
Paull, H. B., Mrs.
Fiction
While the train is speeding on with Henry Halford to the Euston Station,
we will go back to the Friday afternoon when Arthur Franklyn was carried
in an apparently lifeless state to Guy's.
When dragged from the water many voices were raised in eager haste.
"Send for a doctor!" "Carry him to the hotel!" "No use, the man is
dead!" "Nonsense, he hasn't been five minutes in the water." This and
other confusing advice was, however, set aside by the appearance of two
policemen with a cab. Putting back the crowd, they lifted in the
apparently drowned man, and bidding the driver make haste, jumped in
with him.
The rapid movement produced an unexpected effect. Before they were half
over London Bridge the policeman who sat opposite to Arthur was startled
at seeing the eyes of the supposed dead man open suddenly, and after a
heavily drawn breath came the words, "My carpet bag! where is my carpet
bag?" The wild eyes, the unexpected recovery, and the firmly uttered
words took these officers of the law by surprise.
"All right, sir, don't you go worritting yourself about carpet bags;
yours is all safe, I daresay," was all one of them could reply in a
soothing tone before the cab stopped at the hospital entrance, to the
great satisfaction of Arthur Franklyn's companions.
The medical officers were quickly in attendance, but the shock of the
accident had so increased the feverish excitement of Arthur Franklyn,
that on being taken out of the cab he struggled with those who held him,
and exclaimed frantically, "I must go back! You shall not detain me!
Where is my carpet bag?"
Regardless of his almost frenzied manner, which they judged to arise
from incipient disease, the attendants quickly relieved Arthur of his
wet clothes; he was placed in bed, and the remedies against the
consequences of a cold bath while in such a heated state vigorously
applied.
But there were other causes at work in that excited brain at present
unknown to the hospital doctors, and before night the patient was
tossing from side to side of the bed in the alternate delirium and
stupor which attends brain fever. His clothes were eagerly searched to
find a letter or address which might give some clue to his friends, for
he was evidently a gentleman, but with no success.
Arthur's great anxiety to conceal his name and his movements, now bid
fair to elude all attempts to discover his relations. He had booked
himself for the voyage under a false name, and the initials A. F. on his
linen were of very little use.
In the midst of his delirium his words were so incoherent that none
could be distinguished but the constant cry for the "carpet bag." At
last, during the afternoon of Sunday, although still insensible to
surrounding objects, his muttered words became more distinct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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