by thomas de quincey.
hat is to be thought of sudden death? it is remarkable that, in different conditions of society, it has been variously regarded as the consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, and on the other hand, as that consummation which is most of all to be deprecated. c?sar the dictator, at his last dinner-party (c?na), and the very evening before his assassination, being questioned as to the mode of death which, in his opinion, might seem the most eligible, replied, “that which should be most sudden.” on the other hand, the divine litany of our english church, when breathing forth supplications, as if in some representative character for the whole human race prostrate before god, places such a death in the very van of horrors. “from lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death,—good lord, deliver us.” sudden death is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calamities; it is the last of curses; and yet, by the noblest of romans, it was treated as the first of blessings.[183] in that difference, most readers will see little more than the difference between christianity and paganism. but there i hesitate. the christian church may be right in its estimate of sudden death; and it is a natural feeling, though after all it may also be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life,—as that which seems most reconcilable with meditation, with penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. there does not, however, occur to me any direct scriptural warrant for this earnest petition of the english litany. it seems rather a petition indulged to human infirmity, than exacted from human piety. and, however that may be, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which else may wander, and has wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. the first is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death (i mean the objective horror to him who contemplates such a death, not the subjective horror to him who suffers it), from the false disposition to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by an accident they have become words or acts. if a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. but that is unphilosophic. the man was, or he was not, habitually a drunkard. if not, if his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be no reason at all for allowing special emphasis to this act, simply because through misfortune it became his final act. nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one of his habitual transgressions, will it be the more[184] habitual or the more a transgression, because some sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual transgression to be also a final one? could the man have had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a new feature in his act of intemperance,—a feature of presumption and irreverence, as in one that by possibility felt himself drawing near to the presence of god. but this is no part of the case supposed. and the only new element in the man’s act is not any element of extra immorality, but simply of extra misfortune.
the other remark has reference to the meaning of the word sudden. and it is a strong illustration of the duty which forever calls us to the stern valuation of words, that very possibly c?sar and the christian church do not differ in the way supposed; that is, do not differ by any difference of doctrine as between pagan and christian views of the moral temper appropriate to death, but that they are contemplating different cases. both contemplate a violent death, a βιαθανατο?—death that is βιαιο?: but the difference is that the roman by the word “sudden” means an unlingering death: whereas the christian litany by “sudden” means a death without warning, consequently without any available summons to religious preparation. the poor mutineer, who kneels down to gather into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades, dies by a most sudden death in c?sar’s sense: one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possibly not one) groan, and all is over. but, in the sense of the litany, his death is far from sudden; his offence, originally, his imprisonment, his trial, the[185] interval between his sentence and its execution, having all furnished him with separate warnings of his fate,—having all summoned him to meet it with solemn preparation.
meantime, whatever may be thought of a sudden death as a mere variety in the modes of dying, where death in some shape is inevitable,—a question which, equally in the roman and the christian sense, will be variously answered according to each man’s variety of temperament,—certainly, upon one aspect of sudden death there can be no opening for doubt, that of all agonies incident to man it is the most frightful, that of all martyrdoms it is the most freezing to human sensibilities,—namely, where it surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer) some hurried and inappreciable chance of evading it. any effort, by which such an evasion can be accomplished, must be as sudden as the danger which it affronts. even that, even the sickening necessity for hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to be vain, self-baffled, and where the dreadful knell of too late is already sounding in the ears by anticipation,—even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one particular case, namely, where the agonizing appeal is made not exclusively to the instinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience on behalf of another life besides your own, accidentally cast upon your protection. to fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem comparatively venial; though, in fact, it is far from venial. but to fail in a case where providence has suddenly thrown into your hands the final interests of another,—of a fellow-creature shuddering[186] between the gates of life and death; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody calamity. the man is called upon, too probably, to die; but to die at the very moment when, by any momentary collapse, he is self-denounced as a murderer. he had but the twinkling of an eye for his effort, and that effort might, at the best, have been unavailing; but from this shadow of a chance, small or great, how if he has recoiled by a treasonable lacheté? the effort might have been without hope; but to have risen to the level of that effort would have rescued him, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to his duties.
the situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer lurking far down in the depths of human nature. it is not that men generally are summoned to face such awful trials. but potentially, and in shadowy outline, such a trial is moving subterraneously in perhaps all men’s natures,—muttering under ground in one world, to be realized perhaps in some other. upon the secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected at intervals, perhaps, to every one of us. that dream, so familiar to childhood, of meeting a lion, and, from languishing prostration in hope and vital energy, that constant sequel of lying down before him, publishes the secret frailty of human nature,—reveals its deep-seated pariah falsehood to itself,—records its abysmal treachery. perhaps not one of us escapes that dream; perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man, that dream repeats for every one of us, through every generation, the original temptation in eden. every one of us, in[187] this dream, has a bait offered to the infirm places of his own individual will; once again a snare is made ready for leading him into captivity to a luxury of ruin; again, as in aboriginal paradise, the man falls from innocence; once again, by infinite iteration, the ancient earth groans to god, through her secret caves, over the weakness of her child; “nature, from her seat, sighing through all her works,” again “gives signs of woe that all is lost”; and again the countersign is repeated to the sorrowing heavens of the endless rebellion against god. many people think that one man, the patriarch of our race, could not in his single person execute this rebellion for all his race. perhaps they are wrong. but, even if not, perhaps in the world of dreams every one of us ratifies for himself the original act. our english rite of confirmation, by which, in years of awakened reason, we take upon us the engagements contracted for us in our slumbering infancy,—how sublime a rite is that! the little postern gate, through which the baby in its cradle had been silently placed for a time within the glory of god’s countenance, suddenly rises to the clouds as a triumphal arch, through which, with banners displayed and martial pomps, we make our second entry as crusading soldiers militant for god, by personal choice and by sacramental oath. each man says in effect, “lo! i rebaptize myself; and that which once was sworn on my behalf, now i swear for myself.” even so in dreams, perhaps, under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, each several child of our mysterious race completes for himself the aboriginal fall.
[188]
as i drew near to the manchester post-office, i found that it was considerably past midnight; but to my great relief, as it was important for me to be in westmoreland by the morning, i saw by the huge saucer eyes of the mail, blazing through the gloom of overhanging houses, that my chance was not yet lost. past the time it was; but by some luck, very unusual in my experience, the mail was not even yet ready to start. i ascended to my seat on the box, where my cloak was still lying as it had lain at the bridgewater arms. i had left it there in imitation of a nautical discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole human race, and signalizing to the christian and the heathen worlds, with his best compliments, that he has planted his throne forever upon that virgin soil: henceforward claiming the jus dominii to the top of the atmosphere above it, and also the right of driving shafts to the centre of the earth below it; so that all people found after this warning, either aloft in the atmosphere, or in the shafts, or squatting on the soil, will be treated as trespassers,—that is, decapitated by their very faithful and obedient servant, the owner of the said bunting. possibly my cloak might not have been respected, and the jus gentium might have been cruelly violated in my person,—for in the dark, people commit deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality,—but it so happened that, on this night, there was no other outside passenger; and the crime, which else was but too probable, missed fire for want of a criminal. by the way, i may as well mention at this point, since a circumstantial accuracy is essential to the effect[189] of my narrative, that there was no other person of any description whatever about the mail—the guard, the coachman, and myself being allowed for—except only one,—a horrid creature of the class known to the world as insiders, but whom young oxford called sometimes “trojans,” in opposition to our grecian selves, and sometimes “vermin.” a turkish effendi, who piques himself on good-breeding, will never mention by name a pig. yet it is but too often that he has reason to mention this animal; since constantly, in the streets of stamboul, he has his trousers deranged or polluted by this vile creature running between his legs. but under any excess of hurry he is always careful, out of respect to the company he is dining with, to suppress the odious name, and to call the wretch “that other creature,” as though all animal life beside formed one group, and this odious beast (to whom, as chrysippus observed, salt serves as an apology for a soul) formed another and alien group on the outside of creation. now i, who am an english effendi, that think myself to understand good-breeding as well as any son of othman, beg my reader’s pardon for having mentioned an insider by his gross natural name. i shall do so no more; and, if i should have occasion to glance at so painful a subject, i shall always call him “that other creature.” let us hope, however, that no such distressing occasion will arise. but, by the way, an occasion arises at this moment; for the reader will be sure to ask, when we come to the story, “was this other creature present?” he was not; or more correctly, perhaps, it was not. we dropped the creature—or the creature, by natural imbecility, dropped itself—within[190] the first ten miles from manchester. in the latter case, i wish to make a philosophic remark of a moral tendency. when i die, or when the reader dies, and by repute suppose of fever, it will never be known whether we died in reality of the fever or of the doctor. but this other creature, in the case of dropping out of the coach, will enjoy a coroner’s inquest; consequently he will enjoy an epitaph. for i insist upon it, that the verdict of a coroner’s jury makes the best of epitaphs. it is brief, so that the public all find time to read; it is pithy, so that the surviving friends (if any can survive such a loss) remember it without fatigue; it is upon oath, so that rascals and dr. johnsons cannot pick holes in it. “died through the visitation of intense stupidity, by impinging on a moonlight night against the off-hind wheel of the glasgow mail! deodand upon the said wheel—twopence.” what a simple lapidary inscription! nobody much in the wrong but an off-wheel; and with few acquaintances; and if it were but rendered into choice latin, though there would be a little bother in finding a ciceronian word for “off-wheel,” marcellus himself, that great master of sepulchral eloquence, could not show a better. why i call this little remark moral is, from the compensation it points out. here, by the supposition, is that other creature on the one side, the beast of the world; and he (or it) gets an epitaph. you and i, on the contrary, the pride of our friends, get none.
but why linger on the subject of vermin? having mounted the box, i took a small quantity of laudanum, having already travelled two hundred and fifty miles,—namely, from a point seventy miles beyond london, upon[191] a simple breakfast. in the taking of laudanum there was nothing extraordinary. but by accident it drew upon me the special attention of my assessor on the box, the coachman. and in that there was nothing extraordinary. but by accident, and with great delight, it drew my attention to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point of size, and that he had but one eye. in fact, he had been foretold by virgil as—
“monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen ademptum.”
he answered in every point,—a monster he was,—dreadful, shapeless, huge, who had lost an eye. but why should that delight me? had he been one of the calendars in the arabian nights, and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curiosity, what right had i to exult in his misfortune? i did not exult; i delighted in no man’s punishment, though it were even merited. but these personal distinctions identified in an instant an old friend of mine, whom i had known in the south for some years as the most masterly of mail-coachmen. he was the man in all europe that could best have undertaken to drive six-in-hand full gallop over al sirat,—that famous bridge of mahomet across the bottomless gulf,—backing himself against the prophet and twenty such fellows. i used to call him cyclops mastigophorus, cyclops the whip-bearer, until i observed that his skill made whips useless, except to fetch off an impertinent fly from a leader’s head; upon which i changed his grecian name to cyclops diphrélates (cyclops the charioteer). i, and others known to me, studied under him the diphrelatic art. excuse, reader, a word too elegant[192] to be pedantic. and also take this remark from me, as a gage d’amitié, that no word ever was or can be pedantic which, by supporting a distinction, supports the accuracy of logic; or which fills up a chasm for the understanding. as a pupil, though i paid extra fees, i cannot say that i stood high in his esteem. it showed his dogged honesty (though, observe, not his discernment), that he could not see my merits. perhaps we ought to excuse his absurdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye. that made him blind to my merits. irritating as this blindness was (surely it could not be envy!) he always courted my conversation, in which art i certainly had the whip-hand of him. on this occasion, great joy was at our meeting. but what was cyclops doing here? had the medical men recommended northern air, or how? i collected, from such explanations as he volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in a suit-at-law pending at lancaster; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station, for the purpose of connecting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness for the calls of his lawsuit.
meantime, what are we stopping for? surely, we’ve been waiting long enough. o, this procrastinating mail, and o, this procrastinating post-office! can’t they take a lesson upon that subject from me? some people have called me procrastinating. now you are witness, reader, that i was in time for them. but can they lay their hands on their hearts, and say that they were in time for me? i, during my life, have often had to wait for the post-office; the post-office never waited a minute for me. what are they about? the guard tells me that there is[193] a large extra accumulation of foreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by war and by the packet service, when as yet nothing is done by steam. for an extra hour, it seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the pure wheaten correspondence of glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of all baser intermediate towns. we can hear the flails going at this moment. but at last all is finished. sound your horn, guard. manchester, good by; we’ve lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post-office; which, however, though i do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of complaint, and one which really is such for the horses, to me secretly is an advantage, since it compels us to recover this last hour amongst the next eight or nine. off we are at last, and at eleven miles an hour; and at first i detect no changes in the energy or in the skill of cyclops.
from manchester to kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is the capital of westmoreland, were at this time seven stages of eleven miles each. the first five of these, dated from manchester, terminated in lancaster, which was therefore fifty-five miles north of manchester, and the same distance exactly from liverpool. the first three terminated in preston (called, by way of distinction from other towns of that name, proud preston), at which place it was that the separate roads from liverpool and from manchester to the north became confluent. within these first three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night’s adventure. during the first stage, i found out that cyclops was mortal: he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep,—a thing which[194] i had never previously suspected. if a man is addicted to the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of apollo himself, with the horses of aurora to execute the motions of his will, avail him nothing. “o cyclops!” i exclaimed more than once, “cyclops, my friend; thou art mortal. thou snorest.” through this first eleven miles, however, he betrayed his infirmity—which i grieve to say he shared with the whole pagan pantheon—only by short stretches. on waking up, he made an apology for himself, which, instead of mending the matter, laid an ominous foundation for coming disasters. the summer assizes were now proceeding at lancaster: in consequence of which, for three nights and three days, he had not lain down in a bed. during the day, he was waiting for his uncertain summons as a witness on the trial in which he was interested; or he was drinking with the other witnesses, under the vigilant surveillance of the attorneys. during the night, or that part of it when the least temptations existed to conviviality, he was driving. throughout the second stage he grew more and more drowsy. in the second mile of the third stage, he surrendered himself finally and without a struggle to his perilous temptation. all his past resistance had but deepened the weight of this final oppression. seven atmospheres of sleep seemed resting upon him; and to consummate the case, our worthy guard, after singing “love amongst the roses” for the fiftieth or sixtieth time, without any invitation from cyclops or me, and without applause for his poor labors, had moodily resigned himself to slumber,—not so deep doubtless as the coachman’s, but deep enough for mischief, and having,[195] probably, no similar excuse. and thus at last, about ten miles from preston, i found myself left in charge of his majesty’s london and glasgow mail, then running about eleven miles an hour.
what made this negligence less criminal than else it must have been thought, was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes. at that time all the law business of populous liverpool, and of populous manchester, with its vast cincture of populous rural districts, was called up by ancient usage to the tribunal of lilliputian lancaster. to break up this old traditional usage required a conflict with powerful established interests, a large system of new arrangements, and a new parliamentary statute. as things were at present, twice in the year so vast a body of business rolled northwards, from the southern quarter of the county, that a fortnight at least occupied the severe exertions of two judges for its despatch. the consequence of this was, that every horse available for such a service, along the whole line of road, was exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of people who were parties to the different suits. by sunset, therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion amongst men and horses, the roads were all silent. except exhaustion in the vast adjacent county of york from a contested election, nothing like it was ordinarily witnessed in england.
on this occasion, the usual silence and solitude prevailed along the road. not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. and to strengthen this false luxurious confidence in the noiseless roads, it happened also that the night was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. i myself,[196] though slightly alive to the possibilities of peril, had so far yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a profound revery. the month was august, in which lay my own birthday; a festival, to every thoughtful man, suggesting solemn and often sigh-born thoughts. the county was my own native county,—upon which, in its southern section, more than upon any equal area known to man past or present, had descended the original curse of labor in its heaviest form, not mastering the bodies of men only as slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery will. upon no equal space of earth was, or ever had been, the same energy of human power put forth daily. at this particular season also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane of flight and pursuit, as it might have seemed to a stranger, that swept to and from lancaster all day long, hunting the county up and down, and regularly subsiding about sunset, united with the permanent distinction of lancashire as the very metropolis and citadel of labor, to point the thoughts pathetically upon that counter-vision of rest, of saintly repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as to their secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man’s heart are continually travelling. obliquely we were nearing the sea upon our left, which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. the sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore an orchestral part in this universal lull. moonlight and the first timid tremblings of the dawn were now blending; and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with a[197] veil of equable transparency. except the feet of our own horses, which, running on a sandy margin of the road, made little disturbance, there was no sound abroad. in the clouds and on the earth prevailed the same majestic peace; and in spite of all that the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are the thoughts of our infancy, we still believe in no such nonsense as a limited atmosphere. whatever we may swear with our false feigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must forever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between earth and the central heavens. still, in the confidence of children that tread without fear every chamber in their father’s house, and to whom no door is closed, we, in that sabbatic vision which sometimes is revealed for an hour upon nights like this, ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of earth upwards to the sandals of god.
suddenly from thoughts like these i was awakened to a sullen sound, as of some motion on the distant road. it stole upon the air for a moment; i listened in awe; but then it died away. once roused, however, i could not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. ten years’ experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and i saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. i pretend to no presence of mind. on the contrary, my fear is, that i am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. the palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies, when the signal is flying for action. but, on the other hand, this accursed gift i have, as regards thought,[198] that in the first step towards the possibility of a misfortune, i see its total evolution; in the radix i see too certainly and too instantly its entire expansion; in the first syllable of the dreadful sentence, i read already the last. it was not that i feared for ourselves. what could injure us? our bulk and impetus charmed us against peril in any collision. and i had rode through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were matter of laughter as we looked back upon them, for any anxiety to rest upon our interests. the mail was not built, i felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray me who trusted to its protection. but any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. and i remarked this ominous accident of our situation. we were on the wrong side of the road. but then the other party, if other there was, might also be on the wrong side; and two wrongs might make a right. that was not likely. the same motive which had drawn us to the right-hand side of the road, namely, the soft beaten sand, as contrasted with the paved centre, would prove attractive to others. our lamps, still lighted, would give the impression of vigilance on our part. and every creature that met us would rely upon us for quartering. all this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand times more, i saw, not discursively or by effort, but as by one flash of horrid intuition.
under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil which might be gathering ahead, ah, reader! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe, seemed to steal upon the air, as again the far-off sound of a wheel was[199] heard! a whisper it was,—a whisper from, perhaps, four miles off,—secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less inevitable. what could be done—who was it that could do it—to check the storm-flight of these maniacal horses? what! could i not seize the reins from the grasp of the slumbering coachman? you, reader, think that it would have been in your power to do so. and i quarrel not with your estimate of yourself. but, from the way in which the coachman’s hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh, this was impossible. the guard subsequently found it impossible, after this danger had passed. not the grasp only, but also the position of this polyphemus, made the attempt impossible. you still think otherwise. see, then, that bronze equestrian statue. the cruel rider has kept the bit in his horse’s mouth for two centuries. unbridle him, for a minute, if you please, and wash his mouth with water. or stay, reader, unhorse me that marble emperor: knock me those marble feet from those marble stirrups of charlemagne.
the sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly the sounds of wheels. who and what could it be? was it industry in a taxed cart? was it youthful gayety in a gig? whoever it was, something must be attempted to warn them. upon the other party rests the active responsibility, but upon us—and, woe is me! that us was my single self—rests the responsibility of warning. yet, how should this be accomplished? might i not seize the guard’s horn? already, on the first thought, i was making my way over the roof to the guard’s seat. but this, from the foreign mail’s being[200] piled upon the roof, was a difficult and even dangerous attempt, to one cramped by nearly three hundred miles of outside travelling. and, fortunately, before i had lost much time in the attempt, our frantic horses swept round an angle of the road, which opened upon us the stage where the collision must be accomplished, the parties that seemed summoned to the trial, and the impossibility of saving them by any communication with the guard.
before us lay an avenue, straight as an arrow, six hundred yards, perhaps, in length; and the umbrageous trees, which rose in a regular line from either side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. these trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light; but there was still light enough to perceive, at the farther end of this gothic aisle, a light, reedy gig, in which were seated a young man, and, by his side, a young lady. ah, young sir! what are you about? if it is necessary that you should whisper your communications to this young lady,—though really i see nobody at this hour, and on this solitary road, likely to overhear your conversation,—is it, therefore, necessary that you should carry your lips forward to hers? the little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour; and the parties within it, being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bending down their heads. between them and eternity, to all human calculation, there is but a minute and a half. what is it that i shall do? strange it is, and, to a mere auditor of the tale, might seem laughable, that i should need a suggestion from the iliad to prompt the sole recourse that remained. but so it was. suddenly[201] i remembered the shout of achilles, and its effect. but could i pretend to shout like the son of peleus, aided by pallas? no, certainly: but then i needed not the shout that should alarm all asia militant; a shout would suffice, such as should carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people, and one gig horse. i shouted,—and the young man heard me not. a second time i shouted,—and now he heard me, for now he raised his head.
here, then, all had been done that, by me, could be done: more on my part was not possible. mine had been the first step: the second was for the young man: the third was for god. if, said i, the stranger is a brave man, and if, indeed, he loves the young girl at his side,—or, loving her not, if he feels the obligation pressing upon every man worthy to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman confided to his protection,—he will at least make some effort to save her. if that fails, he will not perish the more, or by a death more cruel, for having made it; and he will die as a brave man should, with his face to the danger, and with his arm about the woman that he sought in vain to save. but if he makes no effort, shrinking, without a struggle, from his duty, he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of poltroonery. he will die no less: and why not? wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven less in the world? no; let him perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case, all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl, who now, upon the least shadow of failure in him, must, by the fiercest of translations,—must, without time for[202] a prayer,—must, within seventy seconds, stand before the judgment-seat of god.
but craven he was not: sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden was his answer to the call. he saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down: already its gloomy shadow darkened above him; and already he was measuring his strength to deal with it. ah! what a vulgar thing does courage seem, when we see nations buying it and selling it for a shilling a day: ah! what a sublime thing does courage seem, when some fearful crisis on the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some mountainous wave, from which, accordingly as he chooses his course, he describes two courses, and a voice says to him audibly, “this way lies hope; take the other way and mourn forever!” yet, even then, amidst the raving of the seas and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to confront his situation,—is able to retire for a moment into solitude with god, and to seek all his counsel from him! for seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his countenance steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element in the conflict before him. for five seconds more he sat immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. for five he sat with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for wisdom to guide him towards the better choice. then suddenly he rose; stood upright; and, by a sudden strain upon the reins, raising his horse’s forefeet from the ground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plant the little equipage in a position nearly at right angles[203] to ours. thus far his condition was not improved; except as a first step had been taken towards the possibility of a second. if no more were done, nothing was done; for the little carriage still occupied the very centre of our path, though in an altered direction. yet even now it may not be too late: fifteen of the twenty seconds may still be unexhausted; and one almighty bound forward may avail to clear the ground. hurry then, hurry! for the flying moments—they hurry! o, hurry, hurry, my brave young man! for the cruel hoofs of our horses—they also hurry! fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses. fear not for him, if human energy can suffice: faithful was he that drove, to his terrific duty; faithful was the horse to his command. one blow, one impulse given with voice and hand by the stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature’s forefeet upon the crown or arching centre of the road. the larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our over-towering shadow: that was evident even to my own agitated sight. but it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon the wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. the rear part of the carriage—was that certainly beyond the line of absolute ruin? what power could answer the question? glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? light does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly, than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig. that must[204] the young man have felt too plainly. his back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed,—that all was finished as regarded any further effort of his. already in resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps in his heart he was whispering, “father, which art above, do thou finish in heaven what i on earth have attempted.” we ran past them faster than ever mill-race in our inexorable flight. o, raving of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at the moment of our transit! either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch of our near leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig, which stood rather obliquely and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel with the near wheel. the blow, from the fury of our passage, resounded terrifically. i rose in horror, to look upon the ruins we might have caused. from my elevated station i looked down, and looked back upon the scene, which in a moment told its tale, and wrote all its records on my heart forever.
the horse was planted immovably, with his forefeet upon the paved crest of the central road. he of the whole party was alone untouched by the passion of death. the little cany carriage,—partly perhaps from the dreadful torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thundering blow we had given to it,—as if it sympathized with human horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. the young man sat like a rock. he stirred not at all. but his was the steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. as yet he dared[205] not to look round; for he knew that if anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. and as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. but the lady—
but the lady,—o heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, despairing! figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of the unparalleled situation. from the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night,—from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight,—from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love,—suddenly as from the woods and fields,—suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation,—suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, death the crownéd phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice.
the moments were numbered. in the twinkling of an eye our flying horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous aisle; at right angles we wheeled into our former direction; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams forever.
the end
