really great ones, had I lived? No one could tell now, but I made up my mind, as at the time of the rattlesnake bite, to do my best to live. All this time I was drinking cold water: now my sister brought the jug of warm water, saying, «It may make you throw up, dear,» and I began drinking it in long draughts. Bit by bit I felt it more difficult to think, so I kissed my sister, saying, «I had better get into bed while I can walk, as I'm rather heavy!» And then as I got into bed, I said,
«I wonder whether I shall be carried out next feet foremost while they chant the Miserere! Never mind, I've had a great draught of life and I'm ready to go if I must!» At this moment Dr. Richards came in.
«Now, how, how in Goodness' name, man, after our talk and all, how did ye come to take it?» His fussiness and strong Welsh accent made me laugh. «Give me the stomach pump, Doctor, for I'm full of liquid to the gullet,» I cried. I took the tube and pushed it down, sitting up in bed, and he depressed it, but only a brownish stream came: I had absorbed most of the belladonna. That was nearly my last conscious thought, only in myself I determined to keep thinking as long as I could. I heard the doctor say, «I'll give him opium-a large dose,» and I smiled to myself at the thought that the narcotic opium and the stimulant belladonna would alike induce unconsciousness, the one by exciting the heart's action, the other by slackening it. Many hours afterwards I awoke: it was night, candles were burning, and Dr.
Richards was leaning over me. «Do you know me?» he asked, and at once I answered: «Of course I know you, Richards,» and I went on jubilant to say, «I'm saved: I've won through. Had I been going to die, I should never have recovered consciousness.» To my astonishment, his brow wrinkled and he said, «Drink this and then go to sleep again quietly: it's all right,» and he held a glass of whitish liquid to my lips. I drained the glass and said joyously. «Milk! How funny you should give me milk; that's not prescribed in any of your books.» He told me afterwards it was castor oil he had given me and I had mistaken it for milk. I somehow felt that my tongue was running away with me even before he laid his hand on my forehead to quiet me, saying, «There please! Don't talk, rest! Please!» and I pretended to obey him, but couldn't make out why he shut me up. I could not recall my words either-why? A dreadful thought shook me suddenly: had I been talking nonsense? My father's face, too, appeared to be dreadfully perturbed while I was speaking. «Could one think sanely and yet talk like a madman? What an appalling fate!» I resolved in that case to use my revolver on myself as soon as I knew that my state was hopeless: that thought gave me peace and I turned at once to compose myself. In a few minutes more I was fast asleep. The next time I awoke, it was again night and again the doctor was beside me and my sister. «Do you know me?» he asked again, and again I replied,
«Of course I know you, and Sis here as well.» «That's great,» he cried joyously. «Now you'll soon be well again.» «Of course I shall,» I cried joyously. «I told you that before, but you seemed hurt; did I wander in my mind?» «There, there,» he cried, «don't excite yourself, and you'll soon be well again!» «Was it a near squeak?» I asked. «You must know it was,» he replied. «You took sixty grains of belladonna fasting, and the books give at most a quarter of a grain for a dose and declare one grain to be generally fatal. I shall never be able to brag of your case in the medical journals,» he went on smiling, «for no one would ever believe that a heart could go on galloping far too fast to count, but certainly two hundred odd times a minute for thirty odd hours, without bursting.
You've been tested,» he concluded, «as no one was ever tested before and have come back safe! But now sleep again,» he said. «Sleep is nature's restorative.» Next morning I awoke rested but very weak: the doctor came in and sponged me in warm water and changed my linen: my night-shirt and a great part of the sheet were quite brown. «Can you make water?» he asked, handing me a bed-dish. I tried and at once succeeded. «The wonder is complete!» he cried. «I'll bet you have cured your lumbago too,» and, indeed, I was completely free of pain.
That evening or the next my father and I had a great heart-to-heart talk. I told him all my ambitions and he tried to persuade me to take one hundred pounds a year from him to continue my studies. I told him I couldn't, though I was just as grateful. «I'll get work as soon as I am strong,» I said; but his unselfish affection shook my very soul, and when he told me that my sister, too, had agreed he should make me the allowance, I could only shake my head and thank him. That evening I went to bed early and he came and sat with me: he said that the doctor advised that I should take a long rest.
Strange colored lights kept sweeping across my sight every time I shut my eyes, so I asked him to lie beside me and hold my hand. At once he lay down beside me, and with his hand in mine, I soon fell asleep and slept like a log till seven next morning. I awoke perfectly well and refreshed and was shocked to see that my father's face was strangely drawn and white, and when he tried to get off the bed, he nearly fell.
I saw then that he had lain all the night through on the brass edge of the bed rather than risk disturbing me to give him more room. From that time to the end of his noble and unselfish life, some twenty-five years later, I had only praise and admiration for him. As soon as I began to take note of things, I remarked that Lizzie no longer came near my room. One day I asked my sister what had become of her. To my astonishment, my sister broke out in passionate dislike of her. «While you were lying unconscious,» she cried, «and the doctor was taking your pulse every few minutes, evidently frightened, he asked me could he get a prescription made up at once. He wanted to inject morphia, he said, to stop or check the racing of your heart. He wrote the prescription and I sent Lizzie with it and told her to be as quick as she could, for your life might depend on it. When she didn't come back in ten minutes, I got the doctor to write it out again and sent father with it. He brought it back in double-quick time. Hours passed and Lizzie didn't return: she had gone out before ten and didn't get back till it was almost one. I asked her where she had been. Why she hadn't got back sooner? She replied coolly that she had been listening to the band. I was so shocked and angry I would not keep her another moment.
I sent her away at once. Think of it! I have no patience with such heartless brutes!» Lizzie's callousness seemed to me even stranger than it seemed to my sister. I have often noticed that girls are less considerate of others than even boys, unless their affections are engaged, but I certainly thought I had half won Lizzie at least!
However, the fact is so peculiar that I insert it here for what it may be worth. During my convalescence, which lasted three months, Molly went for a visit to some friends. At the time I regretted it: now looking back I have no doubt she went away to free herself from an engagement she thought ill-advised. Missing her, I went about with her younger, prettier, sister Kathleen, who was more sensuous and more affectionate than Molly. A little later, Molly went to Dresden to stay with an elder married sister: thence she wrote to me to set her free, and I consented as a matter of course very willingly. Indeed, I had already more real affection for Kathleen than Molly had ever called to life in me. As I got strong again I came to know a young Oxford man who professed to be astonished at my knowledge of literature, and one day he came to me with the news that Grant Allen, the writer, had thrown up his job as professor of literature at Brighton College. «Why should you not apply for it: it's about two hundred pounds a year, and they can do no worse than refuse you.»
I wrote to Taine at once, telling him of the position and my illness and asking him to send me a letter of recommendation, if he thought I was fit. By return post I got a letter from him recommending me in the warmest way. This letter I sent on to Dr. Bigge, the head-master, together with one from Professor Smith of Lawrence, and Dr. Bigge answered by asking me to come to Brighton to see him. Within twenty-four hours I went and was accepted forthwith, though he thought I looked too young to keep discipline. He soon realized that his fears were merely imaginary, I could have kept order in a cage of hyenas.
A long book would not exhaust my year as a master in Brighton College, but only two or three happenings require notice here as affecting my character and its growth. First of all, I found in every class of thirty lads five or six of real ability, and in the whole school three or four of astonishing minds, well graced, too, in manners and spirit. But six out of ten were both stupid and obstinate, and these I left wholly to their own devices. Dr. Bigge warned me by a report of my work exhibited on the notice board of the sixth form, that while some of my scholars displayed great improvement, the vast majority showed none at all. I went to see him immediately and handed him my written resignation to take place at any moment he pleased. «I cannot bother with the fools who don't even wish to learn,» I said, «but I'll do anything for the others.» Most of the abler boys liked me, I believe, and a little characteristic incident came to help me. There was a form-master named Wolverton, an Oxford man and son of a well-known archdeacon, who sometimes went out with me to the theatre or the roller-skating rink in West Street. One night at the rink he drew my attention to a youth in a straw hat, going out accompanied by a woman. «Look at that,» said Wolverton,
«there goes So-and-So in our colors and with a woman! Did you see him?» «I didn't pay much attention,» I replied, «but surely there's nothing unusual in a sixth form boy trying his wings outside the nest.» At the next
