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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Signal, 1880-11-12, Page 6-J { r iJ 6 A LIFE FOR 1 LIFE. av tow itneoe, • ,. • shop days, written to her utherwiis than ea My dear Anne," goading merely with "Tours tatthfully, 1 or "years truly " Faithful---true--what oould he write, or sties iasis* more 1 If my pen wanders to lowers and sweet- hearts, and moralises over simple sen- tences in the maundering way, blew* nut las, dear umtagmsry ooalssposdetnt, to whom no name shall be given at all—but blame my friend --mss friends eti in this world—Captain Augustus'habitue. Be suss, happily, that young fellow's life was saved at Balaclava, does he intend io invest me with the responsibility of it, with all its scrapes and follies, now and forewent urs 1 Is my clean. sober hut to be fumigated with tubscoo and poisoned with brandy and water, that a love-sick youth may unburden himself of his sen- timental tale ? Heaven knows why I listen to it ? Probably because telling me keeps the lad out of mischief ; also be- cause he is honest, though an ass, and I always had .a greater leaning to fools than to knaves. But let me not pretend rea- sons which slake nee out more generous than I really am, for the fellow and his love -affair bors me exceedingly sometimes and would be quite unendurable any- where but in the dull camp. I do it from a certain abstract pleasure which I have always taken in dissecting character, con- stituting myself an tytateur demonstrator of spiritual anatomy, An amusing study is, not only the swain, but the goddess. For I found her out, spelled her over satisfactorily, even in that one evening. Treherne little guessed it—he took care never to intro- duce me—he does not even mention her name, or suspect I know it. Vast pre- cautions tpgainst nothing ! Does he fear lest Mentor should put in a claim to his Eucharis ? You know better, dear im- aginary correspondent. Even were I among the list of "mar'ry- ing men," this adorable she would never be my choice ; would never attract me for an instant. Little as I know about women, I know enough to feel certain that there is a very small residium of depth or originality in that large hand- some physique of hers. Yet she looks good-natured, good-tempered ; almost as much so u Treherne himself. "Speak o' the de'll," there he comes. Far away down the lines I can catch Mi eternal 'Donna and Mobile'—how I detest that song ! No doubt he has been taking to the post his answer to one of those abominably -scented notes that he always drops out of his waistcoat by the merest accident, and glances round to see if I am looking, which I never am. What a yqung puppy it is ! Yet it hangs after one kindly, like a puppy ; after me too, who am not the pleasantest fellow in the world ; and, as it is but young, it may mend if it falls into no worse com- pany than the present. I have known what it is to be without a friend when one is very inexperienced, reckless and young. Evening. "To what base uses may we come at last." It seems perfectly ridiculous to see the use this memorandum -book has come to. Cases forsooth ! The few pages of them may as well be torn out in favor of the new specimens of moral disease which I am driven to study. For instance: No. 1. Better omit that. N. 2. Augustus Treherne, aet 29, in- termittent fever, verging upon yellow fever occasionally, as to -day.' Pulse very high, tongue rather foul, especially in speaking of Mr. Colin Granton. Coon- tenance pale, inclining to livid. A bad case altogether. Patient enters, whistling like a steam- engine, as furious and as shrill, with a corresponding puff of smoke. I point to the obnoxious vapor. "Beg pardon, doctor, I always forget. What a tyrant you are !" "Very likely ; but there is one thing I never will allow—smoking in my hut. I did not, yonetnow, even in the Crimea." The lad sit down, sighing like a fur- nace. ' "Heigho, doctor, I wish I were you." "Do you 7" "You always seem so uncommonly comfortable ; never want a cigar or any- thing to quiet the nerves and keep you in good humor. You never get into a scrape of any sort ; have neither a moth- er to lecture you nor an old governor to bully you." ' Stop there." "I will then ; you need not take me up so sharp. He's a trump, after all. You know that, so I don't mind a word or two against hist. Jud read there." He threw over one of Sir William's ultra-prney moral essays, which no doubt the worthy old gentleman flatters himself are, in another line, the very copy of Lewd (7besterfield's letters to his sum I might have smiled at it had I been alone, or laughed at it were I young enough to sympathise with the modern system of transposing into "the governor" the an- cient reversed bolus* of "father." "You see what an opinion he has of you. 'Pon my life, if I were not the meekest fellow lmtgtsabb, always ready to be lead by a straw into Vire se's ways, I should have cut your aequaintaaeea long aero. 'Invariably tallow the advioe of Dr lerrinhare 'T swish. my dear son, that your character more restwnhled that of your friend, Dr. tirquhart. 1 should be more onnoerned about your many fol. CHAPTER I11 '' HIS evoav apt. ;itOh. Nut a twee to set down tD►dsy. This high moorland is your beet eanitorium. My "occupation's gone." I have every satisfaction in that fact, ur in the cause of it ; which, cynics might may, a member of my profession would easily manage to prevent, were he a city plysician instead of a regimental surgeon. hill idleness is inwppoeteble to me. 1 %see tried going about among the few willagcs hard by, but their worst diaeaae is one which this said regimental surgeon, with nothing but his pay, can apply but small remedy—poverty. Today I have paced the long, straight It qes of Ste camp ; from the hospital to tae_bridge, and back again to the hospi- tal ; have tried to take a vivid interest in the loungers, the font -ball players, and the wrettbed awkward squad tuned out in never -mediae; parade. With each hour of the quiet autumn afternoon I have watched the sentinel mount the little stockaded hillock, and startle the camp with the old familiar boom of the gloat Sebastopol bell, Then, I have shut toy but door, taken to my books, and studied till my head wanted me to stop. The evening poet—but only business Letters. I rarely have any other. I have no one'tt, write to me --no one to write to. Sometimes I have been driven to wish I had ; some one friend with whom it would be possible to talk in pen and ink, on other matters •than business. Yet, esti bone ! to no friend oould I or should I let out my real self ; the only thing in the letter that was truly and absolutely can would be the great grim signature : "Max Urquhart." Were it otherwise—were there any human being to whu:n I could lay open my whole heart, trust with my whole history ; but no. that were utterly im- possible now. No niore of this. No more, until the end. That end, which at once solves all difficulties, every year brings nearer. Nearly forty, and a doctor's life is usually shorter than moat men's. 'I shall be en old man soon, even if there come none of those sudden chances against which I have of course provided. The end How and in what manner it is to be done, I am not yet clear. But it shall be done, before my death or after. "Max Urquhart, JI. D. " I go on signing my name mechanically with those two business -like letters after it, and thinking how odd it would be to sign it in any other fashion. How strange—did any one care to look at my signature, in any way except thus, with the two professional letters after it—a commonplace signature of business. Equally strange, perhaps, that such a thought as this last should ever have en- tered my head, or that I should have taken the trouble, and yielded to the weakness of writing it down. It all springs from idleness—sheer idleness ; the very same cause that makes Treherne, whom I have known do duty cheerfully for twenty-four hours in the trenches, lounge, smoke, yawn and play the flute. There—it has stopped. I heard the post- man rapping at the hut door—the young simpleton has got a letter. Suppose, just to pass away the time, I Max Un1uhart, reduced to this lowest ebb of inanity by a praternal government, which has stranded my regiment here°, high and dry, but as dreary as Noah on Ararat—were to enliven my solitude, drive away blue devils, by manufacturing for myself an imaginary correspondent ? To be it. To begin then at once in the received epistolary form : "My dear--" My dear—what ? "Sir 1" No—not for this once. I wanted a change. "Mad- am 7" that is formal. Shall I invent a name 7 When I think of. it, how strange it would feel to me to be writing "my dear" before any Christian name. Orphaned early, my only brother long dead, drift- ing about from land to land till I have almost forgotten my own, which has quite forgotten me—I had not considered it before, but really I do not believe there is a human being living whom I have a right to call by his or herChristian name or who would ever think of calling nie by mine. "Max" --1 have not heard the sound of it for years. Dear, a pleasant adjective—my, • pro- noun of poseession, implying that the be- ing spoken of is one's very own --one's sole, sacred, personal property, as with Mural selfishness one would with to hold the thing most precious. My deer—s satisfactory total. I rather object to •'dear•rwf " se a word implying compari- son, and therefore never to be used where comparison should not and could not ex- ist Witness, "dearest mother," or "dearest wife," as if a man had a plural- ity of mother and wives, out of whom he chose the one he loved best. And, as ageneral rule, I dislike all ultra ex- pressions of affection set down in ink. i eons knew an honest gentleman bleated with one of the tenderest hearts that ever man had. and which in e11 his life was only given to one woman . he, his wife told me hart never. even in their court SIGNAL, lir bPW !le the MON regiment as Dr. Urquhart. Dr. Urquhart is one isf the wisest aasea I ever knew, and so as, and so un. What way yue r I said nothing , and 1 new waste down this, as I shall write anything of the kind which enters into the plea relation of facts or era veewatious whelk daily occur. God knows how vain semi words are to me st the best of time.—.sere sounding brass and tinkling cymbal—as the like inele h, to moat men well sogtaeented witlillrieleelvea. At some time., and ender en,rtein states of mind, they be- come fin my ear tba most relined and ex- quisite torture that my bitter at enemy could desire to inflict. There is no need, therefore, to apologise for them. Apol- ogias to whom, indeed 1 Having resolv- ed to write this, it were folly to mate it an imperfect statement. A journal should be fresh, complete, and correct—tbe raw's entire life, or nothing ; since, if it sets it down st all, it must necessarily be for his own sols benefit ; it would be the most contemptible form of egotistic hum. bug to arnwge sod modify it, as if it were meant for the eye of any other per- son. Dear, unknown, iraaginaz'y eye --which never was and never will be—yet, which I like to fancy shining somewhere in the clouds, out of Jupiter, Venus, or the Georgium S;idus, upon this solitary me— the foregoing sentence bears no reference to you. "Treherne," I said, "whatever good opinion your fzther is pleased to hold as to my wisdom, I certainly do not share in one juvenile folly—that, being a very well-meaning fellow on the whole, I take the greatest pains to make myself out a scamp." The youth colored. "That's me, of course." "Wear the cap if it feels comfortable. And now, will you have some tea 1" "Anything ; I feel as thirsty as when you found me dragging myself to the brink of the Tchernaya. Hey, doctor, it would have saved me a deal of bother if you had never found me at a11, except that jt would vex the old governor to end the name and hare the property all going to the dogs—that is, to Cousin Charteris, who would not pare hew soon I was dead and buried. "Were mead and buried if you please." "Confound it, to stop a man about he grammar when he is in my state of mind! Kept from his cigar too ! Doctor, you never were in love, or a smoker. "How do you know 7" 'Because you never could have given up the one or the other ; a fellow can't ; 'tits an impossibility." "Is it 7 I once smoked six cigars a day for two years. "Eh ! what ? And you never let that out before ? You are so dose. Possibly the other fact will peep out in time. Mrs. Urqukart and half a dozen brats may be living in some out-of-the-way nook—Cornwall, or Jersey, or the cen- Ire of Salisbury Plain. Why, what ? nay, 1 beg your pardon doctor." What a horrible thing it is that by no physical effort, added to years of mental self-control, can I so harden my nerves that certain words, names, suggestions, shall not startle me—make me quiver as if under the knife. Doubtless Treherne will henceforth retain, so for as his easy mind can retain anything, the idea that I have a wife and family hidden some- where. Ludicrous ides ! if it were not connected with other ideas, from which, however, this one will serve to turn his mind. To explain it away was of course im- possible. I had only power to slip from the subject with a laugh, and bring him back to the tobacco question. "Yes ; I smoked six cigars a day for at least two years." "And gave it up ?" Wonderful !" "Not very, when a nun, has a will of his own, and a few strong reasons to back it." "Out wi benefit me, however—I'm quite incor- rigible." r,' Kr: li12.1880. doubtful benefit, is vacuse Cue --the very silliest thing • young Baan can do. A thing which, from my own ezperienoe, I'll not aid and abet any young nen in doing. There, lectures over—kettle boiled—unless you you prefer tobacco and the open sir. He did not ; and we sat down, "four feet upon a fender," as the proverb says. "Heigho! but the proverb doesn't mean four feet in mat's bootie" said Treherne, dolefully. "I wish I was dead and buri- ed." um I suggested that the light moustache he curled w loudly, the elegant hair, and the aristocratic outline of phis. would look exceedingly well—in a oofin. "Faagh ! how unpleasant yot} are." And I myself repented the speech ; for it ill becomes a man under any provoca- tion to make a jest of death. But that this young fellow, so full of life, with # every ruction that it can offer ---health, wealth, kindred, friends — should sit croaking there, with such a used -up, lack-a-daiaietal air, truly it irritated we. "What's the *natter, that you wish to rid the world of your valuable presence? Hes the young lady expressed a similar desire? " "She? hang her! I won't think any more about her," said the lad, sullenly. And then out poured the grand despair, the unendyrnble climax of mortal woe. "She cantered through the north camp this afternoon with Granton, Colin Gran- ton, and upon Graoton's own brown.. mar" "Hs! horrible vision! At d you 1 you Watched them go: one hone was blind; The tails of both hung down behind. Their shoes were on their teet. "Doctor!" I stopped—there seemed more reality in his feelings than I hsdbeen aware of; and it is scarcely right to make a mock of even the fire -and -smoke, dust: -and ashes passion of a boy. "I beg your pardon; not knowing, the affair had gone so far. Still, it isn't worth being dead and buried for." "What business has she to go riding with that big clodhopping butt And what right has he to lend her his brown mare?" chaffed Treherne, with a great deal more which I did not attend to. At last weary of playing Friar Lawrence to such • very uninteresting Romeo, I hinted that if he disapproved of the young lady's behavior he ought to appeal to her own good sense, to her father, or somebody—or, since women understand one another best, get Lady Agusta Tre- herne to do it, "My mother! She never even heard of her. Why, you speak as seriously as if I were actually intending to marry her." Here I could not help rousing myself a trifle. with earthen flour, had underground; decentdet woman, gets half a crown a week from tits parish; bet will not be able to earn anything for months, and what Its to become ed all the children Tre erne settled that question, and one or two wore; poor fellow, he purse is as open as iia heart just now; but amongaong his other luxuries he way as well taste the luxury of giving. 'Tis good for him, he will be Sir Augustus use of there days. 1r his goddess aware of that tack, I wonder What ! is cynicism growing to 'be one of my vier? and against a woman too'? One of whom I absolutely know nothing, except watching tier for a few momentsat a ball. She seems to be one of the usual cart of officers' belles in country quarters. Yet there may be something good in her. There was, I feel sure, in that large -eyed sister of hers. But let me not judge ---I have never had any opportunity of understanding women. This subject was not revived, till, the tobacco -hunger proving too strong for hien, my friend Romeo began to fidget, and finally rose e "I say, doctor, you won't tell the governor—it would put him in an awful fume ?" "What do you mean 1" "Oh ! about Miss—, you know. I've been a great ass, I suppose, but when a girl is so civil to one—a fine girl, too—you saw her, did you not, dancing uncommon- lywith me ? Now, isn't she an uncommon- ly fine girl?" I assented. "And that Granton should get her, confound him! a great logger -headed country clown." "Who is an honest treat, and will melte her a kind husband. Any other honest man who does not mean to offer himself as her husband, had much better avoid her acquaintance." Treherne colored again; I saw he un- derstood rte, though he turned it " off with a laugh. You're preaching matrimony, doctor, surely. What an idea! to tie myself up at my age. I shan't tie myself up at my age. I shan't do the ungentlemanly thing either. So good -night, old fellow." He lounged out, with that lazy, self- satisfied air which is misnamed aristo- cratic. Yet I have seen many a one of these conceited, effeminate -looking, drawing -room darlings, a curled and st scented modeAlcibiades—fight—like Alcibiades: and die as no Greek ever could die—dike a Briton. "Ungentlemanly"—,what a word it is with most then, especially in the military erofession. Gentlemanly—the root and apex of all honor. Ungentlemanly—the lowest term of degradation. Such is our code of morals in the army; and, more or less, probably everywhere. An officer I knew, who, for all I ever heard or noticed, was himself as true a gentleman as ever breathed; polished, kindly, manly, and brave, gave me once, in an argument on duelling, his definition of the word. A gentkman "—one who never does anything he is ashamed of, or that would compromise his honor. Worldly honor, this colonel must have meant, for he considered it would have been compromised by a man's refusing to conversation about a few cases of mine accept a challenge. That "honor" surely in the neighborhood, not on the regular was a little lower than virtue: a little bat of regimental patients, which have lately been to me a curious study. If I were inclined to quit the army, I believe the branch of my profession which I should take up would be that of sanitary reform—the study of health rather than of disease, of prevention rather than cure. It often seems to me that we of the healing art have begun at the wrong end; that the energy we devote to the alleviation of irremediable disease would be better spent in the study and practice of means to preserve health. Thus, I tried to explain to Treherne, who will have plenty of money and in- fluence, and whom, therefore, it is worth while taking pains to inoculate with a few useful facts and ideas; that one half of our mortality in the Crimea was owing not to the accidents of war, but to the results of zymotic diseases, all of which might have been prevented by common sense and common knowledge of the laws of health, as the statistics of our sanitary d commission have abundantly prove And as I told him, it saddens me, al- most as much as doing my duty on a battle field, or at Scutari, or Renkioi; to take these amateur rounds in safe Eng- land, among what poets and politicanr call Me noble British peasantry, and see the frightful sacrifice of life --and worse than life—from causes perfectly remedi- able. Take, for instance. these canes, as set down in my note book. Amos Pell, 49, or thereabouts; down with fewer for ten days; wife and five room oocupy one of a cottage on the Moor, which hold two other families. Says, would be glad to live in a better place, but esanaot get N; landlonl will more allow ore e,rttages to be &wilt. Would build himself a pen hut, but doubts if that Imola be permitted; so jest goes on as well as he can. Peck family. fever also, living et the filthiest end of the village; themselves about the dirtied in itwith a stream rushing by fresh enough to wash and atones • wheal. town. Widow Haynes, rheumatism. from Stoves 1 Stoves 1 SAVE TROUGHS and CONDUCTING NP)i8, CISTERN PUMPS, LEAD PIPES, a. "Excuse me; it never struck me that a gentleman could discuss a young lady among his acquaintance, make a public show of his admiration for her, interfere with her proceedings or her conduct to- ward any other gentleman, and not in- tend to marry her. Suppose we choose another subject of bonversation Treherne grew hot.to the ears, but he took the hint and spared me his senti- mental maunderigga. We had afterward some interesting th them—not that they will btle.s. Fist, I was a poor mel- t and six ligan at fourteen per diem r shillings a week—thirty-one pounds, eight shillings, a year. A good sum to give for an artificial want—enough to have fed and clothed a child." "You're weak on the pointspointsof beets. Do you remember the little picked up in the telex at Sebiss- do believe you'd have adopted and broug ht it home with you if it had I ? But, u Treherne said, it ly, thirty-one pounds, eight per annum was a gond deal to give fur a purely selfish enjoyment, an- almweep! ost everybody eQtthe smoker, and at the time of smoking - es- pecially whenm with said revoker it is rare In grow f rom .mer. occidental enjoy o an irt'eaistfhle t►eCeeiity-� which he becomes the most utter slave. No tia New, s man is only heli • so who allow • himself to bieenme the nave it whatsoever." "Bravo, e doctor ! all thisshook? go into the Lenore.' "No, for it does not touch the question rnt the medical aide, but the general and pinethasl one tamely, hnw to create an unnanaarary luxury. which is a nuisance f,. averehetiv else and t. himself ..f very field work, (end tree in w .lame ,.,ern 'Doo ical stutien Urquhart. Russ we pi topol ? I not died." Should died. "Second shillings noying to went int habit to w of any hats reeve AND raItCT TINWARE. COAL OIL, T ea WHO&r a AND astride Cosl Oil Lampe, etc., Okd be Co es Cower, Bra, Wool Pickings and VireoSkiaa, taken in excesses. J. STORY. Sign of the Coal Oil Berm'. 51 as IT tits 81 to SHEPPARD, .c less pure than the Christianity which all of its profess, and s., few believe. Yet there was something at once touching and heroic about it, and in the way this man of the world upheld it. The best of our British chivalry—as chivalry goes I —is made up of materials such as these. 1 But is there not a higner morality—a divine honor? And if so, who is he that can find it? (To as cowrrwuse.) A LADY'S REASONS FOR NOT DANCING. L Dancing would lead me into crowd- ed rooms and late hours, which are in- jurious to health and usefulness. 2. Dancing would lead me into very close contact with very pernicious com- pany, and evil communications corrupt good manners. 3. Dancing would require me to use and permit freedoms with the opposite sex of which I should be heartily a- shamed, and which I believe to be wrong. 4. My parents and friends would be anxious about me if I were out lab, keeping company with they know not whom. b. Ministers and good people in gen- eral disapprove of dancing, and 1 think it is not safe to set myself against them. If a thing be even doubtful, I wish to he on the safe side. ff. Dancing has a hail name. and I mean to study thus that are pure and lovely mod of good report. 7. Deaciag is geewally /moompanied with drink ns, and I sea drinking pro- duces a great deial of evil. it. I am told dancing is a great temp- tation and snare to young man, and i do not wish to have anything to do with leading them astray. 9. Dancing unfits the mind foreerious reflection and pryer, and 1 mean to do nothing that will estrange me from my God and Saviour IQ There are plenty of graceful ex enemies and cheerful amusements which have none of the ..hja-tions mnneeted with them that I . wwa,,,st danainc 1 1' " THE CHEAPEST HOUSE UNDER THE SUN!" Saunders' Variely Store AT aAOIInwRw' Ton will rIRD The Beat Beating Stores, 77te Beet (looking Stores, pie But Base Burners, -A11D-- CHEAPER than any other dealer in town. 200 STOVES TO Csnf,tst TROM. Stoves fitted up without moving any Fur- niture and we ntwy made. TiD aid GalTamel Iron Wort attended to promptly by experienced hands. SATISFACTION 'UARANTBBI►. The usual *tone of Patty Clone's, Novel ties. Jewelry, Unitary and Plated Ware (1whe'. Mork. ("hurl fir»os. *tome 11