England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
We carried him to the gamekeeper's cottage on the outskirts of the
woods, and on the side of it nearest to our village. He and his boy were
out, but the light cart in which he makes his rounds, in the remoter
part of his master's property, was in the outhouse. While my friend was
putting the horse to, I examined the stranger's wound. It had been quite
recently inflicted, and I doubted whether it had (as yet, at any rate)
really killed him. I did what I could with the linen and cold water
which the gamekeeper's wife offered to me, and then my friend and I
removed him carefully to my house in the cart. I applied the necessary
restoratives, and I had the pleasure of satisfying myself that the vital
powers had revived. He was perfectly unconscious, of course, but the
action of the heart became distinctly perceptible, and I had hopes.
In a few days more I felt fairly sure of him. Then the usual fever set
in. I was obliged, in justice to his friends, to search his clothes in
presence of a witness. We found his handkerchief, his purse, and his
cigar-case, and nothing more. No letters or visiting cards; nothing
marked on his clothes but initials. There was no help for it but to wait
to identify him until he could speak.
When that time came, he acknowledged to me that he had divested himself
purposely of any clew to his identity, in the fear (if some mischance
happened to him) of the news of it reaching his father and mother
abruptly, by means of the newspapers. He had sent a letter to his
bankers in London, to be forwarded to his parents, if the bankers
neither saw him nor heard from him in a month's time. His first act was
to withdraw this letter. The other particulars which he communicated to
me are, I am told, already known. I need only add that I willingly kept
his secret, simply speaking of him in the neighborhood as a traveler
from foreign parts who had met with an accident.
His convalescence was a long one. It was the beginning of October
before he was completely restored to health. When he left us he went to
London. He behaved most liberally to me; and we parted with sincere good
wishes on either side.
No. 6.--_Mr. Lionel Varleigh, of Boston, U. S. A., testifies and
says:--_
MY first proceeding, on my recovery, was to go to the relations of
Captain Stanwick in London, for the purpose of making inquiries about
him.
I do not wish to justify myself at the expense of that miserable man. It
is true that I loved Miss Laroche too dearly to yield her to any rival
except at her own wish. It is also true that Captain Stanwick more than
once insulted me, and that I endured it. He had suffered from sunstroke
in India, and in his angry moments he was hardly a responsible being.
It was only when he threatened me with personal chastisement that my
patience gave way. We met sword in hand. In my mind was the resolution
to spare his life. In his mind was the resolution to kill me. I have
forgiven him. I will say no more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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