The Grey Woman and other TalesGaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
General
The Grey Woman and other Tales
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Short stories
Two more stories of disappearance, and I have done. I will give you
the last in date first, because it is the most melancholy; and we will
wind up cheerfully (after a fashion). Some time between 1820 and 1830,
there lived in North Shields a respectable old woman, and her son, who
was trying to struggle into sufficient knowledge of medicine, to go
out as ship-surgeon in a Baltic vessel, and perhaps in this manner to
earn money enough to spend a session in Edinburgh. He was furthered in
all his plans by the late benevolent Dr. G——, of that town. I believe
the usual premium was not required in his case; the young man did many
useful errands and offices which a finer young gentleman would have
considered beneath him; and he resided with his mother in one of the
alleys (or “chares,”) which lead down from the main street of North
Shields to the river. Dr. G——had been with a patient all night, and
left her very early on a winter’s morning to return home to bed; but
first he stepped down to his apprentice’s home, and bade him get up,
and follow him to his own house, where some medicine was to be mixed,
and then taken to the lady. Accordingly the poor lad came, prepared the
dose, and set off with it some time between five and six on a winter’s
morning. He was never seen again. Dr. G—— waited, thinking he was at
his mother’s house; she waited, considering that he had gone to his
day’s work. And meanwhile, as people remembered afterwards, the small
vessel bound to Edinburgh sailed out of port. The mother expected
him back her whole life long; but some years afterwards occurred
the discoveries of the Hare and Burke horrors, and people seemed to
gain a dark glimpse at his fate; but I never heard that it was fully
ascertained, or indeed more than surmised. I ought to add that all
who knew him spoke emphatically as to his steadiness of purpose, and
conduct, so as to render it improbable in the highest degree that he
had run off to sea, or suddenly changed his plan of life in any way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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