CCCCXCVIII. W. C. MACREADY GAD'S HILL, Monday, June 12, 1865. MY DEAREST MACREADY, [So far in his own writing.] Many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.1 This is not all in my own hand, because I am too much shaken to write many notes. Not by the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was, it did not go over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge, but by the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible. [The rest in his own writing.] GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, Tuesday, June 13, 1865. MY DEAR MITTON, I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been quite up to writing. You I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. It was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. This is exactly what passed. may judge from it the precise length of the suspense: Suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a halfemptied balloon might. The old lady cried out, "My God!" and the young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat opposite and the young one on my left), and said, "We can't help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray don't cry out." The old lady immediately answered, "Thank you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul I will be quiet." We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, and stopped. I said to them thereupon, "You may be sure nothing worse can happen. Our danger must be over. Will you remain here without stirring, while I get out 1 This was a circular note which he sent in answer to innumerable letters of inquiry, after the accident. of the window?" They both answered quite collectedly, "Yes," and I got out without the least notion what had happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution and stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone, and nothing below me but the line of rail. Some people in the two other compartments were madly trying to plunge out at window, and had no idea that there was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else! The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them: "Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don't know me. One of them answered, "We know you very well, Mr. Dickens." "Then," I said, "my good fellow, for God's sake give me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I'll empty this carriage." We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my travelling-hat for a basin, climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water. Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with blood (I think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful cut across the skull that I couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, "I am gone," and died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I asked her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded, and I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next time I passed her she was dead. Then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed), came running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water. I don't want to be examined at the inquest, and I don't Iwant to write about it. I could do no good either way, and I could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course, I would rather not do. I am keeping very quiet here. I have a-I don't know what to call it constitutional (I suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS. of a number with me, and clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty words of recollection I feel the shake and am obliged to stop. Ever faithfully. D. MRS. HULKES GAD'S HILL, Sunday, June 18, 1865. MY DEAR MRS. HULKES, many thanks. The account is true, except that I had brandy. By an extraordinary chance I had a bottle and a half with me. I slung the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat full of water in my hands. But I can understand the describer (whoever he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith, and supposing that I called for brandy, when I really called to the others who were helping: "I have brandy here." The Mr. Dickenson mentioned had changed places with a Frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before the accident. The Frenchman was killed, and a labourer and I got Mr. Dickenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he was jammed upside down. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; but he did n't seem to know that afterwards, and of course I did n't tell him. In the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of his pockets were shaken empty! He had no watch, no chain, no money, no pocketbook, no handkerchief, when we got him out. He had been choking a quarter of an hour when I heard him groaning. If I had not had the brandy to give him at the moment, I think he would have been done for. As it was, I brought him up to London in the carriage with me, and could n't make him believe he was hurt. He was the first person whom the brandy saved. As I ran back to the carriage for the whole full bottle, I saw the first two people I had helped lying dead. A bit of shade from the hot sun, into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead in it as living. Faithfully yours always. DI. MR. PERCY FITZGERALD OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR Round," MY DEAR FITZGERALD, Gad's Hill on Sunday, and I hope you will bring a bag with you and will not think of returning to London at night. I shall be delighted to see you at We are a small party just now, for my daughter Mary has been decoyed to Andover for the election week, in the Conservative interest; think of my feelings as a Radical parent ! The wrong-headed member and his wife are the friends with whom she hunts, and she helps to receive (and deceive) the voters, which is very awful! But in the week after next we shall be in great croquet force. I shall hope to persuade you to come back to us then for a few days, and we will try to make you some amends for a dull Sunday. Turn it over in your mind and try to manage it. Sincerely yours ever. GAD'S HILL, Wednesday, July 12, 1865. MY DEAR OWEN, Studying the gorilla last night for the twentieth time, it suddenly came into my head that I had never thanked you for that admirable treatise. This is to bear witness to my blushes and repentance. If you knew how much interest it has awakened in me, and how often it has set me a thinking, you would consider me a more thankless beast than any gorilla that ever lived. I am not going to tell you. But happily you do not know, and Believe me, ever faithfully yours. DIII. SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESter, Kent, MY DEAR BULWER LYTTON, - I am truly sorry to reply to your kind and welcome note that we cannot come to Knebworth on a visit at this time: firstly, because I am tied by the leg to my book. Secondly, because my married daughter and her hus band are with us. for their holidays. Thirdly, because my two boys are at home But if you would come out of that murky electioneering atmosphere and come to us, you don't know how delighted we should be. You should have your own way as completely as though you were at home. You should have a cheery room, and you should have a Swiss châlet all to yourself to write in. Smoking regarded as a personal favour to the family. Georgina is so insupportably vain on account of being a favourite of yours, that you might find her a drawback; but nothing else would turn out in that way, I hope. Won't you manage it? Do think of it. If, for instance, you would come back with us on that Guild Saturday. I have turned the house upside down and inside out since you were here, and have carved new rooms out of places then non-existent. Pray do think of it, and do manage it. I should be heartily pleased. I hope you will find the purpose and the plot of my book very plain when you see it as a whole piece. I am looking forward to sending you the proofs complete about the end of next month. It is all sketched out and I am working hard on it, giving it all the pains possible to be bestowed on a labour of love. Your critical opinion two months in advance of the public will be invaluable to me. For you know what store I set by it, and how I think over a hint from you. case. I notice the latest piece of poisoning ingenuity in Pritchard's When he had made his medical student boarders sick, by poisoning the family food, he then quietly walked out, took an emetic, and made himself sick. This with a view to ask them, in examination on a possible trial, whether he did not present symptoms at the time like the rest, a question naturally asked for him and answered in the affirmative. From which I get at the fact. If your constituency don't bring you in they deserve to lose you, and may the gods continue to confound them! I shudder at the thought of such public life as political life. Would there not seem to be something horribly rotten in the system of it, when one stands amazed how any man not forced into it by position, as you are can bear to live it? But the private life here is my point, and again I urge upon Do think of it, and Do come. you. |