Charles Dickens

“ As she approached, she raised the knife again, and he drew himself away to the left side. She struck, as before, right into the mattress, with a deliberate, perpendicularly downward action of the arm. This time his eyes wandered from her to the knife. It was like the large clasp knives which he had often seen laboring men use to cut their bread and bacon with. Her delicate little fingers did not conceal more than two-thirds of the handle; he noticed that it was made of buck-horn, clean and shining as the blade was, and looking like new. ”

“ Look at the bed. Where's the cut of a knife in it? Look at the window—is the lock bursted? Look at the door (which I heard you fasten myself) —is it broke in? A murdering woman with a knife in my house? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Isaac answered not a word. ”

“ Little by little, after the first miserable discovery that his wife was keeping company with drunkards, the shocking certainty forced itself on Isaac that she had grown to be a drunkard herself.
He had been in a sadly desponding state for some time before the occurrence of these domestic calamities. His mother's health, as he could but too plainly discern every time he went to see her at the cottage, was failing fast; and lie upbraided himself in secret as the cause of the bodily and mental suffering she endured. ”

“ With far more than one man's fair share of adversity to endure, Isaac had but one consolation to support him—and that was of the dreariest and most negative kind. He had no wife and children to increase his anxieties and add to the bitterness of his various failures in life. ”

“ Here, again, his ill-luck pursued him as inexorably as ever. The excellent written testimonials as to character which he was able to produce, availed him nothing; his long walk had been taken in vain—only the day before the stable helper's place had been given to another man.
Isaac accepted this new disappointment resignedly, and as a matter of course. Naturally slow in capacity, he had the bluntness of sensibility and phlegmatic patience of disposition which frequently distinguish men with sluggishly-working mental powers. ”

“ It might have been from mere insensibility, or it might have been from generous unwillingness to involve another in his own unlucky destiny—but the fact undoubtedly was, that he arrived at the middle term of life without marrying; and, what is much more remarkable, without once exposing himself, from eighteen to eight and thirty, to the genial imputation of ever having had a sweetheart. When he was out of service, he lived alone with his widowed mother. Mrs. Scatchard was a woman about the average in her lowly station, as to capacities and manners. ”

“ Isaac went round with the landlord and held the candle while the doors and lower windows were being secured. He noticed with surprise the strength of the bolts, bars and iron-sheathed shutters.
"You see, we are rather lonely here," said the landlord. " We never have had any attempts made to break in yet, but it's always as well to be on the safe side. When nobody is sleeping here, I am the only man in the house. My wife and daughter are timid, and the servant-girl takes after her missusses. ”

“ When a man, previously insensible to the influence of w^oman, forms an attachment in middle life, the instances are rare, indeed, let the warning circumstances be what they may, in which he is found capable of freeing himself from the tyranny of the new ruling passion. The charm of being spoken to familiarly, fondly and gratefully by a woman whose language and manners still retained enough of their early refinement to hint at the high social station that she had lost, would have been a dangerous luxury to a man of Isaac's rank at the age of twenty. ”

“ Some years ago, there lived in the suburbs of a large seaport town, on the west coast of England, a man in humble circumstances, by name Isaac Scatchard. His means of subsistence were derived from any employment that he could get, as an ostler; and, occasionally, when times went well with him, from temporary engagements in service, as stable helper in private houses. Though a faithful, steady, and honest man, he got on badly in his calling. His ill-luck was proverbial among his neighbors. He was always missing good opportunities, by no fault of his own ”

“ Isaac went on, in the same scared whisper.—" It struck the bed each time."
The landlord took his candle into the bedroom immediately. In less than a minute he came out again into the passage in a violent passion.
"The devil fly away with you and your woman with the knife! What do you mean by coming into a man's place and frightening his family out of their wits about a dream?" ”

“ He stops, and sighs again—moves one lean arm slowly, till it rests over his throat—shudders a little, and turns on his straw—the arm leaves his throat—the hand stretches itself out, and clutches at the side toward which he has turned, as if he fancies himself to be grasping at the edge of something. ”

“ Two in the morning is the time all the year round, when he likes to be most certain that he has got that clasp knife safe about him. He does not mind being alone, as long as he is awake, except on the night before his birthday, wlien he firmly believes himself to be in peril of his life. ”

“ I mean to put my own fears and my own feelings out of the question, and to go with you to your wife, and try what I can do to reclaim her. Give me your arm, Isaac; and let me do the last thing I can in this world to help my son before it is too late."
He could not disobey her; and they walked together slowly toward his miserable home. It was only one o'clock in the afternoon when they reached the cottage where he lived. It was their dinner hour, and Rebecca was in the kitchen. He was thus able to take his mother quietly into the parlor, and then prepare his wife for the interview. ”

“ The birthday has only come round once since he has been here; and then he sat up, along with the night-porter. 'She's looking for me,' he always says, when I speak to him on the one theme of his life; 'she's looking for me.' He may be right. She may be looking for him. Who can tell?"
"Who can tell?" said I.
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ He heard the terrified, confused exclamations of women; he saw the master of the house approaching along the passage, with his burning rush-candle in one hand, and his gun in the other. "What is it?" asked the landlord, breathlessly. Isaac would only answer in a whisper: "A woman with a knife in her hand," he gasped out. "In my room —a fair, yellow-haired woman; she jobbed at me with the knife, twice over."
The landlord's pale cheeks grew paler. lie looked at Isaac eagerly by the flickering light of his candle ”