Charles Temple

“ I attired in death’s garments, Dyvart dying with fright; the coffin smashed; half the hearse and the horses disappearing in the distance, with the other half—sable plumes and all—filling up with its mutilated fragments the semi-doleful, semi-ludicrous sketch. Often have I also bitterly repented my folly, and always have I steadily adhered to my resolution, formed directly after the accident, never to have anything to do with a practical joke.”
When Colonel Moreton had finished speaking, the story he had been relating was commented on in various ways by the assembled party. ”

“ It does not at all follow that we are, generally speaking, cowards. May-be our liver has been deranged, or our nerves from some cause or other unstrung, and so fear has dashed in upon us with, the irresistible impetuosity and icy coldness of a swollen river, which has burst its banks in winter. ”

“ To the ladies who have lost their bets through my gross cowardice I may be allowed to say, that I trust I shall be permitted to pay their gloves for them. To the gentlemen I can only add that I trust they are fully satisfied; that, however strange it may seem, I do hope they will fully believe me when I say, that so far from fancying that I should this evening have to confess what I have confessed, I would most decidedly, as a matter of pecuniary consideration, have gladly taken all their bets last night on my own hands. ”

“ Major Dyvart threw himself in the way, seized the head of one of the horses, and after being dragged some little distance, in the course of which he was severely bruised, succeeded in averting a catastrophe which had threatened to be fatal. One reads so often in novels of runaway horses being checked in their mad career by heroes who perform extraordinary acts, and not only invariably save the heroines of the tale, but invariably escape themselves, that seated by our firesides we almost look upon the act as common-place and comparatively easy. ”

“ It was the second evening after the above-mentioned circumstance had taken place, that we were seated round the dining-table, talking over the scene. Everyone was loud in the praises of the courage of Major Dyvart, who sat with one arm in a sling, and his forehead strapped in two or three places with plaister. A new turn was given to the conversation by Colonel Moreton exclaiming, “It is very well for you all to praise Dyvart so much, and he knows how much I myself honour and value him; but let me tell you that time has been when he was a coward.” ”

“ Probably more persons than we imagine have at some period of their lives been most thoroughly frightened. I do not mean frightened in the common sense of the word, but so completely paralysed with terror as to be utterly unable to think or act aright, or indeed do anything for a time. One does not often hear of such cases, for the confession of fear is very humiliating to men, and we lock the secret up close in our breasts. ”

“ Off I drove to the undertaker’s close by, received my orders, and trotted away, with three or four mutes clinging behind to the hearse and coach, to the place where I was directed to take up the corpse. It was a small house, apparently only just finished, if indeed quite finished, and in a part of London now well built over, but then only just beginning to be attacked with bricks and mortar. I faithfully attended to the instructions given over-night, and in due time, with two or four, I forget which, mutes walking by the side of the hearse, started for the burying-place. ”

“ May-be something has taken place which is in reality most trivial, and yet from its unusually sudden appearance, and from its most unexpected occurrence, it has sent such a shock through us, as seriously to damage, if not indeed render entirely useless for the time being, our physical and moral courage. A man can with ease step down one or two feet at a time, or jump down eight or ten feet ”

“ I left London directly. My commission was soon procured. Ere very long I had departed from England, nor did I return to these shores till after I had seen much service in India, the Crimea, and China. I really believe that many an act I have performed—which has obtained for me my sobriquet—has been the consequence of a mad feeling within, engendered by that terrible roll with death, which made me perfectly reckless.
“On my return to London, a short time ago, I found that the undertaker’s shop and the livery stables where I mounted the box of my hearse, had changed hands.” ”

“ I have seen him most thoroughly frightened, so frightened that though his hair was stiff enough to stand on end, and would have supported his hat, if he had not lost it in his fright, yet at the same time the strength that had gone to his uppermost extremities had left his legs and knees so weak, that a child might have knocked him down with a feather; and if you do not call a man in that state a coward for the time being, I do not know what cowardice means.”
Dyvart looked more mystified than ever.
Colonel Moreton was not speaking in the slightest degree in an offensive tone. ”

“ Not being rich enough to keep horses of my own, I was obliged to drive those belonging to other persons. Many and many a coach had I driven—many an omnibus, too, with a shabby great coat on my back, and the driver’s badge on my breast—many a Hansom, too, have I piloted through the City, and through the West End. ”

“ You all will, I trust, forgive me also, especially you, my dear father,” said the Colonel, affectionately looking at old Sir Edward, “for you will find you have been victimised.
“One day in town, Dyvart, Poland, and Conolly had been dining with me at the Rag and Famish. Dyvart, who had been boasting about his having driven everything except a hearse, left early. We at once set to work concocting a practical joke to be played off on him. In the comic tragedy, so to call it, which took place, I was the corpse, Poland and Conolly the two mourners. ”

“ All I can say is, try to perform it yourself, reader, when the sad opportunity occurs, or see another man do it while you yourself stand by, paralysed with fear, and you will no longer speak slightingly or feel lightly about the danger incurred. ”

“ Many a person with iron nerves will most fearlessly face the greatest conceivable danger if it comes in human form, but let there be a dash of what he thinks supernatural about it—that is, supernatural, because he can by no means account for it—and forthwith his iron nerves are turned to something about as strong as the threads of a spider’s cobweb. ”

“ You will receive your orders from the undertaker’s man to move on a bit at first, and then to go on slowly. And go on slowly you must, sir. You are sure to be tempted to cut in and out among the wehicles; though you are going at a walking pace you will see an opening, and you will be wanting gently to double thong your wheelers, or just touch your leaders with the lash, but you must not do it, sir, or you will be found out, and I shall be ruined. ”

“ The names of the persons concerned have been very slightly changed, because it is not wished that they should be made public, but every word of the narrative is true, and there is not the slightest objection to the real names being recognised, as they easily will be, by many a friend and acquaintance who reads these pages. ”