On the appointed day and hour, speaking in a very crowded court, counsel for the Crown opened the case against me, demonstrating clearly that in the pursuit of my own miserable ends I had sacrificed the life of a young, high-placed and lovely fellow-creature, and brought bereavement and desolation upon her husband and family. Then he proceeded to call evidence, which was practically the same as that which had been given before the magistrates, although the husband and Lady Colford's nurse were examined, and, on my behalf, cross-examined at far greater length.

After the adjournment for lunch Sir John Bell was put into the witness-box, where, with a little additional detail, he repeated almost word for word what he had said before. Listening to him my heart sank, for he made an excellent witness, quiet, self-contained, and, to all appearance, not a little affected by the necessity under which he found himself of exposing the evil doings of a brother practitioner. I noticed with dismay also that his evidence produced a deep effect upon the minds of all present, judge and jury not excepted.

Then came the cross-examination, which certainly was a brilliant performance, for under it were shown that from the beginning Sir John Bell had certainly borne me ill-will; that to his great chagrin I had proved myself his superior in a medical controversy, and that the fever which my wife contracted was in all human probability due to his carelessness and want of precautions while in attendance upon her. When this cross-examination was concluded the court rose for the day, and, being on bail, I escaped from the dock until the following morning.

I returned to my house and went up to the nursery to see the baby, who was a very fine and healthy infant. At first I could scarcely bear to look at this child, remembering always that indirectly it had been the cause of its dear mother's death. But now, when I was so lonely, for even those who called themselves my friends had fallen away from me in the time of trial, I felt drawn towards the helpless little thing.

I kissed it and put it back into its cradle, and was about to leave the room when the nurse, a respectable widow woman with a motherly air, asked me straight out what were my wishes about the child and by what name it was to be baptised, seeing that when I was in jail she might not be able to ascertain them. The good woman's question made me wince, but, recognising that in view of eventualities these matters must be arranged, I took a sheet of paper and wrote down my instructions, which were briefly that the child should be named Emma Jane after its mother and mine, and that the nurse, Mrs. Baker, should take it to her cottage, and be paid a weekly sum for its maintenance.

Having settled these disagreeable details I went downstairs, but not to the dinner that was waiting for me, as after the nurse's questions I did not feel equal to facing the other domestics. Leaving the house I walked about the streets seeking some small eating-place where I could dine without being recognised. As I wandered along wearily I heard a harsh voice behind me calling me by name, and, turning, found that the speaker was Mr. Stephen Strong. Even in the twilight there was no possibility of mistaking his flaming red tie.

"You are worried and tired, doctor," said the harsh voice. "Why ain't you with your friends, instead of tramping the streets after that long day in court?"

"Because I have no friends left," I answered, for I had arrived at that stage of humiliation when a man no longer cares to cloak the truth.

A look of pity passed over Mr. Strong's fat face, and the lines about the pugnacious mouth softened a little.

"Is that so?" he said. "Well, young man, you're learning now what happens to those who put their faith in fashionable folk and not in the Lord. Rats can't scuttle from a sinking ship faster than fashionable folk from a friend in trouble. You come along and have a bit of supper with me and my missis. We're humble trades-folk, but, perhaps as things are, you won't mind that."

I accepted Mr. Strong's invitation with gratitude, indeed his kindness touched me. Leading me to his principal shop, we passed through it and down a passage to a sitting-room heavily furnished with solid horsehair-seated chairs and a sofa. In the exact centre of this sofa, reading by the light of a lamp with a pink shade which was placed on a table behind her, sat a prim grey-haired woman dressed in a black silk dress and apron and a lace cap with lappets. I noticed at once that the right lappet was larger than the left. Evidently it had been made so with the design of hiding a patch of affected skin below the ear, which looked to me as though it had been caused by the malady called lupus. I noticed further that the little woman was reading an anti-vaccination tract with a fearful picture of a diseased arm upon its cover.

"Martha," said Mr. Strong, "Dr. Therne, whom they're trying at the court yonder, has come in for supper. Dr. Therne, that's my wife."

Mrs. Strong rose and offered her hand. She was a thin person, with rather refined features, a weak mouth, and kindly blue eyes.

"I'm sure you are welcome," she said in a small monotonous voice. "Any of Stephen's friends are welcome, and more especially those of them who are suffering persecution for the Right."

"That is not exactly my case, madam," I answered, "for if I had done what they accuse me of I should deserve hanging, but I did not do it."

"I believe you, doctor," she said, "for you have true eyes. Also Stephen says so. But in any case the death of the dear young woman was God's will, and if it was God's will, how can you be responsible?"

While I was wondering what answer I should make to this strange doctrine a servant girl announced that supper was ready, and we went into the next room to partake of a meal, plain indeed, but of most excellent quality. Moreover, I was glad to find, unlike his wife, who touched nothing but water, that Mr. Strong did not include teetotalism among his eccentricities. On the contrary, he produced a bottle of really fine port for my especial benefit.

In the course of our conversation I discovered that the Strongs, who had had no children, devoted themselves to the propagation of various "fads." Mr. Strong indeed was anti-everything, but, which is rather uncommon in such a man, had no extraneous delusions; that is to say, he was not a Christian Scientist, or a Blavatskyist, or a Great Pyramidist. Mrs. Strong, however, had never got farther than anti-vaccination, to her a holy cause, for she set down the skin disease with which she was constitutionally afflicted to the credit, or discredit, of vaccination practised upon her in her youth. Outside of this great and absorbing subject her mind occupied itself almost entirely with that well-known but most harmless of the crazes, the theory that we Anglo-Saxons are the progeny of the ten lost Tribes of Israel.

Steering clear of anti-vaccination, I showed an intelligent sympathy with her views and deductions concerning the ten Tribes, which so pleased the gentle little woman that, forgetting the uncertainty of my future movements, she begged me to come and see her as often as I liked, and in the meanwhile presented me with a pile of literature connected with the supposed wanderings of the Tribes. Thus began my acquaintance with my friend and benefactress, Martha Strong.



At ten o'clock on the following morning I returned to the dock, and the nurse repeated her evidence in corroboration of Sir John's testimony. A searching cross-examination showed her not to be a very trustworthy person, but on this particular point it was impossible to shake her story, because there was no standing ground from which it could be attacked. Then followed some expert evidence whereby, amongst other things, the Crown proved to the jury the fearfully contagious nature of puerperal fever, which closed the case for the prosecution. After this my counsel, reserving his address, called the only testimony I was in a position to produce, that of several witnesses to character and to medical capacity.

When the last of these gentlemen, none of whom were cross-examined, stood down, my counsel addressed the Court, pointing out that my mouth being closed by the law of the land—for this trial took place before the passing of the Criminal Evidence Act—I was unable to go into the box and give on oath my version of what had really happened in this matter. Nor could I produce any witnesses to disprove the story which had been told against me, because, unhappily, no third person was present at the crucial moments. Now, this story rested entirely on the evidence of Sir John Bell and the nurse, and if it was true I must be mad as well as bad, since a doctor of my ability would well know that under the circumstances he would very probably carry contagion, with the result that a promising professional career might be ruined. Moreover, had he determined to risk it, he would have taken extra precautions in the sick-room to which he was called, and this it was proved I had not done. Now the statement made by me before the magistrates had been put in evidence, and in it I said that the tale was an absolute invention on the part of Sir John Bell, and that when I went to see Lady Colford I had no knowledge whatsoever that my wife was suffering from an infectious ailment. This, he submitted, was the true version of the story, and he confidently asked the jury not to blast the career of an able and rising man, but by their verdict to reinstate him in the position which he had temporarily and unjustly lost.

In reply, the leading counsel for the Crown said that it was neither his wish nor his duty to strain the law against me, or to put a worse interpretation upon the facts than they would bear under the strictest scrutiny. He must point out, however, that if the contention of his learned friend were correct, Sir John Bell was one of the wickedest villains who ever disgraced the earth.

In summing up the judge took much the same line. The case, that was of a character upon which it was unusual though perfectly allowable to found a criminal prosecution, he pointed out, rested solely upon the evidence of Sir John Bell, corroborated as it was by the nurse. If that evidence was correct, then, to satisfy my own ambition or greed, I had deliberately risked and, as the issue showed, had taken the life of a lady who in all confidence was entrusted to my care. Incredible as such wickedness might seem, the jury must remember that it was by no means unprecedented. At the same time there was a point that had been scarcely dwelt upon by counsel to which he would call their attention. According to Sir John Bell's account, it was from his lips that I first learned that my wife was suffering from a peculiarly dangerous ailment. Yet, in his report of the conversation that followed between us, which he gave practically verbatim, I had not expressed a single word of surprise and sorrow at this dreadful intelligence, which to an affectionate husband would be absolutely overwhelming. As it had been proved by the evidence of the nurse and elsewhere that my relations with my young wife were those of deep affection, this struck him as a circumstance so peculiar that he was inclined to think that in this particular Sir John's memory must be at fault.

There was, however, a wide difference between assuming that a portion of the conversation had escaped a witness's memory and disbelieving all that witness's evidence. As the counsel for the Crown had said, if he had not, as he swore, warned me, and I had not, as he swore, refused to listen to his warning, then Sir John Bell was a moral monster. That he, Sir John, at the beginning of my career in Dunchester had shown some prejudice and animus against me was indeed admitted. Doubtless, being human, he was not pleased at the advent of a brilliant young rival, who very shortly proceeded to prove him in the wrong in the instance of one of his own patients, but that he had conquered this feeling, as a man of generous impulses would naturally do, appeared to be clear from the fact that he had volunteered to attend upon that rival's wife in her illness.

From all these facts the jury would draw what inferences seemed just to them, but he for one found it difficult to ask them to include among these the inference that a man who for more than a generation had occupied a very high position among them, whose reputation, both in and out of his profession, was great, and who had received a special mark of favour from the Crown, was in truth an evil-minded and most malevolent perjurer. Yet, if the statement of the accused was to be accepted, that would appear to be the case. Of course, however, there remained the possibility that in the confusion of a hurried interview I might have misunderstood Sir John Bell's words, or that he might have misunderstood mine, or, lastly, as had been suggested, that having come to the conclusion that Sir John could not possibly form a trustworthy opinion on the nature of my wife's symptoms without awaiting their further development, I had determined to neglect advice, in which, as a doctor myself, I had no confidence.

This was the gist of his summing up, but, of course, there was a great deal more which I have not set down. The jury, wishing to consider their verdict, retired, an example that was followed by the judge. His departure was the signal for an outburst of conversation in the crowded court, which hummed like a hive of startled bees. The superintendent of police, who, I imagine, had his own opinion of Sir John Bell and of the value of his evidence, very kindly placed a chair for me in the dock, and there on that bad eminence I sat to be studied by a thousand curious and for the most part unsympathetic eyes. Lady Colford had been very popular. Her husband and relations, who were convinced of my guilt and sought to be avenged upon me, were very powerful, therefore the fashionable world of Dunchester, which was doctored by Sir John Bell, was against me almost to a woman.

The jury were long in coming back, and in time I accustomed myself to the staring and comments, and began to think out the problem of my position. It was clear to me that, so far as my future was concerned, it did not matter what verdict the jury gave. In any case I was a ruined man in this and probably in every other country. And there, opposite to me, sat the villain who with no excuse of hot blood or the pressure of sudden passion, had deliberately sworn away my honour and livelihood. He was chatting easily to one of the counsel for the Crown, when presently he met my eyes and in them read my thoughts. I suppose that the man had a conscience somewhere; probably, indeed, his treatment of me had not been premeditated, but was undertaken in a hurry to save himself from well-merited attack. The lie once told there was no escape for him, who henceforth must sound iniquity to its depths.

Suddenly, in the midst of his conversation, Sir John became silent and his lips turned pale and trembled; then, remarking abruptly that he could waste no more time on this miserable business, he rose and left the court. Evidently the barrister to whom he was talking had observed to what this change of demeanour was due, for he looked first at me in the dock and next at Sir John Bell as, recovering his pomposity, he made his way through the crowd. Then he grew reflective, and pushing his wig back from his forehead he stared at the ceiling and whistled to himself softly.

It was very evident that the jury found a difficulty in making up their minds, for minute after minute went by and still they did not return. Indeed, they must have been absent quite an hour and a half when suddenly the superintendent of police removed the chair which he had given me and informed me that "they" were coming.

With a curious and impersonal emotion, as a man might consider a case in which he had no immediate concern, I studied their faces while one by one they filed into the box. The anxiety had been so great and so prolonged that I rejoiced it was at length coming to its end, whatever that end might be.

The judge having returned to his seat on the bench, in the midst of the most intense silence the clerk asked the jury whether they found the prisoner guilty or not guilty. Rising to his feet, the foreman, a dapper little man with a rapid utterance, said, or rather read from a piece of paper, "Not guilty, but we hope that in future Dr. Therne will be more careful about conveying infection."

"That is a most improper verdict," broke in the judge with irritation, "for it acquits the accused and yet implies that he is guilty. Dr. Therne, you are discharged. I repeat that I regret that the jury should have thought fit to add a very uncalled-for rider to their verdict."

I left the dock and pushed my way through the crowd. Outside the court-house I came face to face with Sir Thomas Colford. A sudden impulse moved me to speak to him.

"Sir Thomas," I began, "now that I have been acquitted by a jury——"

"Pray, Dr. Therne," he broke in, "say no more, for the less said the better. It is useless to offer explanations to a man whose wife you have murdered."

"But, Sir Thomas, that is false. When I visited Lady Colford I knew nothing of my wife's condition."

"Sir," he replied, "in this matter I have to choose between the word of Sir John Bell, who, although unfortunately my wife did not like him as a doctor, has been my friend for over twenty years, and your word, with whom I have been acquainted for one year. Under these circumstances, I believe Sir John Bell, and that you are a guilty man. Nine people out of every ten in Dunchester believe this, and, what is more, the jury believed it also, although for reasons which are easily to be understood they showed mercy to you," and, turning on his heel, he walked away from me.

I also walked away to my own desolate home, and, sitting down in the empty consulting-room, contemplated the utter ruin that had overtaken me. My wife was gone and my career was gone, and to whatever part of the earth I might migrate an evil reputation would follow me. And all this through no fault of mine.

Whilst I still sat brooding a man was shown into the room, a smiling little black-coated person, in whom I recognised the managing clerk of the firm of solicitors that had conducted the case for the prosecution.

"Not done with your troubles yet, Dr. Therne, I fear," he said cheerfully; "out of the criminal wood into the civil swamp," and he laughed as he handed me a paper.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Statement of claim in the case of Colford v. Therne; damages laid at 10,000 pounds, which, I daresay, you will agree is not too much for the loss of a young wife. You see, doctor, Sir Thomas is downright wild with you, and so are all the late lady's people. As he can't lock you up, he intends to ruin you by means of an action. If he had listened to me, that is what he would have begun with, leaving the criminal law alone. It's a nasty treacherous thing is the criminal law, and you can't be sure of your man however black things may look against him. I never thought they could convict you, doctor, never; for, as the old judge said, you see it is quite unusual to prosecute criminally in cases of this nature, and the jury won't send a man to jail for a little mistake of the sort. But they will 'cop' you in damages, a thousand or fifteen hundred, and then the best thing that you can do will be to go bankrupt, or perhaps you had better clear before the trial comes on."

I groaned aloud, but the little man went on cheerfully:—

"Same solicitors, I suppose? I'll take the other things to them so as not to bother you more than I can help. Good-afternoon; I'm downright glad that they didn't convict you, and as for old Bell, he's as mad as a hatter, though of course everybody knows what the jury meant—the judge was pretty straight about it, wasn't he?—he chooses to think that it amounts to calling him a liar. Well, now I come to think of it, there are one or two things—so perhaps he is. Good-afternoon, doctor. Let's see, you have the original and I will take the duplicate," and he vanished.

When the clerk had gone I went on thinking. Things were worse than I had believed, for it seemed that I was not even clear of my legal troubles. Already this trial had cost me a great deal, and I was in no position to stand the financial strain of a second appearance in the law courts. Also the man was right; although I had been acquitted on the criminal charge, if the same evidence were given by Sir John Bell and the nurse in a civil action, without any manner of doubt I should be cast in heavy damages. Well, I could only wait and see what happened.

But was it worth while? Was anything worth while? The world had treated me very cruelly; a villain had lied away my reputation and the world believed him, so that henceforth I must be one of its outcasts and black sheep; an object of pity and contempt among the members of my profession. It was doubtful whether, having been thus exposed and made bankrupt, I could ever again obtain a respectable practice. Indeed, the most that I might hope for would be some small appointment on the west coast of Africa, or any other poisonous place, which no one else would be inclined to accept, where I might live—until I died.

The question that occurred to me that evening was whether it would not be wiser on the whole to accept defeat, own myself beaten, and ring down the curtain—not a difficult matter for a doctor to deal with. The arguments for such a course were patent; what were those against it?

The existence of my child? Well, by the time that she grew up, if she lived to grow up, all the trouble and scandal would be forgotten, and the effacement of a discredited parent could be no great loss to her. Moreover, my life was insured for 3000 pounds in an office that took the risk of suicide.

Considerations of religion? These had ceased to have any weight with me. I was brought up to believe in a good and watching Providence, but the events of the last few months had choked that belief. If there was a God who guarded us, why should He have allowed the existence of my wife to be sacrificed to the carelessness, and all my hopes to the villainy, of Sir John Bell? The reasoning was inconclusive, perhaps—for who can know the ends of the Divinity?—but it satisfied my mind at the time, and for the rest I have never really troubled to reopen the question.

The natural love of life for its own sake? It had left me. What more had life to offer? Further, what is called "love of life" frequently enough is little more than fear of the hereafter or of death, and of the physical act of death I had lost my terror, shattered as I was by sorrow and shame. Indeed, at that moment I could have welcomed it gladly, since to me it meant the perfect rest of oblivion.

So in the end I determined that I would leave this lighted house of Life and go out into the dark night, and at once. Unhappy was it for me and for hundreds of other human beings that the decree of fate, or chance, brought my designs to nothing.

First I wrote a letter to be handed to the reporters at the inquest for publication in the newspapers, in which I told the true story of Lady Colford's case and denounced Bell as a villain whose perjury had driven me to self-murder. After this I wrote a second letter, to be given to my daughter if she lived to come to years of discretion, setting out the facts that brought me to my end and asking her to pardon me for having left her. This done it seemed that my worldly business was completed, so I set about leaving the world.

Going to a medicine chest I reflected a little. Finally I decided on prussic acid; its after effects are unpleasant but its action is swift and certain. What did it matter to me if I turned black and smelt of almonds when I was dead?



CHAPTER VI

THE GATE OF DARKNESS

Taking the phial from the chest I poured an ample but not an over dose of the poison into a medicine glass, mixing it with a little water, so that it might be easier to swallow. I lingered as long as I could over these preparations, but they came to an end too soon.

Now there seemed to be nothing more to do except to transfer that little measure of white fluid from the glass to my mouth, and thus to open the great door at whose bolts and bars we stare blankly from the day of birth to the day of death. Every panel of that door is painted with a different picture touched to individual taste. Some are beautiful, and some are grim, and some are neutral-tinted and indefinite. My favourite picture used to be one of a boat floating on a misty ocean, and in the boat a man sleeping—myself, dreaming happily, dreaming always.

But that picture had gone now, and in place of it was one of blackness, not the tumultuous gloom of a stormy night, but dead, cold, unfathomable blackness. Without a doubt that was what lay behind the door—only that. So soon as ever my wine was swallowed and those mighty hinges began to turn I should see a wall of blackness thrusting itself 'twixt door and lintel. Yes, it would creep forward, now pausing, now advancing, until at length it wrapped me round and stifled out my breath like a death mask of cold clay. Then sight would die and sound would die and to all eternities there would be silence, silence while the stars grew old and crumbled, silence while they took form again far in the void, for ever and for ever dumb, dreadful, conquering silence.

That was the only real picture, the rest were mere efforts of the imagination. And yet, what if some of them were also true? What if the finished landscape that lay beyond the doom-door was but developed from the faint sketch traced by the strivings of our spirit—to each man his own picture, but filled in, perfected, vivified a thousandfold, for terror or for joy perfect and inconceivable?

The thought was fascinating, but not without its fears. It was strange that a man who had abandoned hopes should still be haunted by fears—like everything else in the world, this is unjust. For a little while, five or ten minutes, not more than ten, I would let my mind dwell on that thought, trying to dig down to its roots which doubtless drew their strength from the foetid slime of human superstition, trying to behold its topmost branches where they waved in sparkling light. No, that was not the theory; I must imagine those invisible branches as grim skeletons of whitened wood, standing stirless in that atmosphere of overwhelming night.

So I sat myself in a chair, placing the medicine glass with the draught of bane upon the table before me, and, to make sure that I did not exceed the ten minutes, near to it my travelling clock. As I sat thus I fell into a dream or vision. I seemed to see myself standing upon the world, surrounded by familiar sights and sounds. There in the west the sun sank in splendour, and the sails of a windmill that turned slowly between its orb and me were now bright as gold, and now by contrast black as they dipped into the shadow. Near the windmill was a cornfield, and beyond the cornfield stood a cottage whence came the sound of lowing cattle and the voices of children. Down a path that ran through the ripening corn walked a young man and a maid, their arms twined about each other, while above their heads a lark poured out its song.

But at my very feet this kindly earth and all that has life upon it vanished quite away, and there in its place, seen through a giant portal, was the realm of darkness that I had pictured—darkness so terrible, so overpowering, and so icy that my living blood froze at the sight of it. Presently something stirred in the darkness, for it trembled like shaken water. A shape came forward to the edge of the gateway so that the light of the setting sun fell upon it, making it visible. I looked and knew that it was the phantom of my lost wife wrapped in her last garments. There she stood, sad and eager-faced, with quick-moving lips, from which no echo reached my ears. There she stood, beating the air with her hands as though to bar that path against me. . . .

I awoke with a start, to see standing over against me in the gloom of the doorway, not the figure of my wife come from the company of the dead with warning on her lips, but that of Stephen Strong. Yes, it was he, for the light of the candle that I had lit when I went to seek the drug fell full upon his pale face and large bald head.

"Hullo, doctor," he said in his harsh but not unkindly voice, "having a nip and a nap, eh? What's your tipple? Hollands it looks, but it smells more like peach brandy. May I taste it? I'm a judge of hollands," and he lifted the glass of prussic acid and water from the table.

In an instant my dazed faculties were awake, and with a swift motion I had knocked the glass from his hand, so that it fell upon the floor and was shattered.

"Ah!" he said, "I thought so. And now, young man, perhaps you will tell me why you were playing a trick like that?"

"Why?" I answered bitterly. "Because my wife is dead; because my name is disgraced; because my career is ruined; because they have commenced a new action against me, and, if I live, I must become a bankrupt——"

"And you thought that you could make all these things better by killing yourself. Doctor, I didn't believe that you were such a fool. You say you have done nothing to be ashamed of, and I believe you. Well, then, what does it matter what these folk think? For the rest, when a man finds himself in a tight place, he shouldn't knock under, he should fight his way through. You're in a tight place, I know, but I was once in a tighter, yes, I did what you have nearly done—I went to jail on a false charge and false evidence. But I didn't commit suicide. I served my time, and I think it crazed me a bit though it was only a month; at any rate, I was what they call a crank when I came out, which I wasn't when I went in. Then I set to work and showed up those for whom I had done time—living or dead they'll never forget Stephen Strong, I'll warrant—and after that I turned to and became the head of the Radical party and one of the richest men in Dunchester; why, I might have been in Parliament half a dozen times over if I had chosen, although I am only a draper. Now, if I have done all this, why can't you, who have twice my brains and education, do as much?

"Nobody will employ you? I will find folk who will employ you. Action for damages? I'll stand the shot of that however it goes; I love a lawsuit, and a thousand or two won't hurt me. And now I came round here to ask you to supper, and I think you'll be better drinking port with Stephen Strong than hell-fire with another tradesman, whom I won't name. Before we go, however, just give me your word of honour that there shall be no more of this sort of thing," and he pointed to the broken glass, "now or afterwards, as I don't want to be mixed up with inquests."

"I promise," I answered presently.

"That will do," said Mr. Strong, as he led the way to the door.

I need not dwell upon the further events of that evening, inasmuch as they were almost a repetition of those of the previous night. Mrs. Strong received me kindly in her faded fashion, and, after a few inquiries about the trial, sought refuge in her favourite topic of the lost Tribes. Indeed, I remember that she was rather put out because I had not already mastered the books and pamphlets which she had given me. In the end, notwithstanding the weariness of her feeble folly, I returned home in much better spirits.

For the next month or two nothing of note happened to me, except indeed that the action for damages brought against me by Sir Thomas Colford was suddenly withdrawn. Although it never transpired publicly, I believe that the true reason of this collapse was that Sir John Bell flatly refused to appear in court and submit himself to further examination, and without Sir John Bell there was no evidence against me. But the withdrawal of this action did not help me professionally; indeed the fine practice which I was beginning to get together had entirely vanished away. Not a creature came near my consulting-room, and scarcely a creature called me in. The prosecution and the verdict of the jury, amounting as it did to one of "not proven" only, had ruined me. By now my small resources were almost exhausted, and I could see that very shortly the time would come when I should no longer know where to turn for bread for myself and my child.

One morning as I was sitting in my consulting-room, moodily reading a medical textbook for want of something else to do, the front door bell rang. "A patient at last," I thought to myself with a glow of hope. I was soon undeceived, however, for the servant opened the door and announced Mr. Stephen Strong.

"How do you do, doctor?" he said briskly. "You will wonder why I am here at such an hour. Well, it is on business. I want you to come with me to see two sick children."

"Certainly," I said, and we started.

"Who are the children and what is the matter with them?" I asked presently.

"Son and daughter of a working boot-maker named Samuels. As to what is the matter with them, you can judge of that for yourself," he replied with a grim smile.

Passing into the poorer part of the city, at length we reached a cobbler's shop with a few pairs of roughly-made boots on sale in the window. In the shop sat Mr. Samuels, a dour-looking man of about forty.

"Here is the doctor, Samuels," said Strong.

"All right," he answered, "he'll find the missus and the kids in there and a pretty sight they are; I can't bear to look at them, I can't."

Passing through the shop, we went into a back room whence came a sound of wailing. Standing in the room was a careworn woman and in the bed lay two children, aged three and four respectively. I proceeded at once to my examination, and found that one child, a boy, was in a state of extreme prostration and fever, the greater part of his body being covered with a vivid scarlet rash. The other child, a girl, was suffering from a terribly red and swollen arm, the inflammation being most marked above the elbow. Both were cases of palpable and severe erysipelas, and both of the sufferers had been vaccinated within five days.

"Well," said Stephen Strong, "well, what's the matter with them?"

"Erysipelas," I answered.

"And what caused the erysipelas? Was it the vaccination?"

"It may have been the vaccination," I replied cautiously.

"Come here, Samuels," called Strong. "Now, then, tell the doctor your story."

"There's precious little story about it," said the poor man, keeping his back towards the afflicted children. "I have been pulled up three times and fined because I didn't have the kids vaccinated, not being any believer in vaccination myself ever since my sister's boy died of it, with his head all covered with sores. Well, I couldn't pay no more fines, so I told the missus that she might take them to the vaccination officer, and she did five or six days ago. And there, that's the end of their vaccination, and damn 'em to hell, say I," and the poor fellow pushed his way out of the room.

It is quite unnecessary that I should follow all the details of this sad case. In the result, despite everything that I could do for him, the boy died though the girl recovered. Both had been vaccinated from the same tube of lymph. In the end I was able to force the authorities to have the contents of tubes obtained from the same source examined microscopically and subjected to the culture test. They were proved to contain the streptococcus or germ of erysipelas.

As may be imagined this case caused a great stir and much public controversy, in which I took an active part. It was seized upon eagerly by the anti-vaccination party, and I was quoted as the authority for its details. In reply, the other side hinted pretty broadly that I was a person so discredited that my testimony on this or any other matter should be accepted with caution, an unjust aspersion which not unnaturally did much to keep me in the enemy's camp. Indeed it was now, when I became useful to a great and rising party, that at length I found friends without number, who, not content with giving me their present support, took up the case on account of which I had stood my trial, and, by their energy and the ventilation of its details, did much to show how greatly I had been wronged. I did not and do not suppose that all this friendship was disinterested, but, whatever its motive, it was equally welcome to a crushed and deserted man.

By slow degrees, and without my making any distinct pronouncement on the subject, I came to be looked upon as a leading light among the very small and select band of anti-vaccinationist men, and as such to study the question exhaustively. Hearing that I was thus engaged, Stephen Strong offered me a handsome salary, which I suppose came out of his pocket, if I would consent to investigate cases in which vaccination was alleged to have resulted in mischief. I accepted the salary since, formally at any rate, it bound me to nothing but a course of inquiries. During a search of two years I established to my satisfaction that vaccination, as for the most part it was then performed, that is from arm to arm, is occasionally the cause of blood poisoning, erysipelas, abscesses, tuberculosis, and other dreadful ailments. These cases I published without drawing from them any deductions whatever, with the result that I found myself summoned to give evidence before the Royal Commission on Vaccination which was then sitting at Westminster. When I had given my evidence, which, each case being well established, could scarcely be shaken, some members of the Commission attempted to draw me into general statements as to the advantage or otherwise of the practice of vaccination to the community. To these gentlemen I replied that as my studies had been directed towards the effects of vaccination in individual instances only, the argument was one upon which I preferred not to enter.

Had I spoken the truth, indeed, I should have confessed my inability to support the anti-vaccinationist case, since in my opinion few people who have studied this question with an open and impartial mind can deny that Jenner's discovery is one of the greatest boons—perhaps, after the introduction of antiseptics and anaesthetics, the very greatest—that has ever been bestowed upon suffering humanity.

If the reader has any doubts upon the point, let him imagine a time when, as used to happen in the days of our forefathers, almost everybody suffered from smallpox at some period of their lives, those escaping only whose blood was so fortified by nature that the disease could not touch them. Let him imagine a state of affairs—and there are still people living whose parents could remember it—when for a woman not to be pitted with smallpox was to give her some claim to beauty, however homely might be her features. Lastly, let him imagine what all this means: what terror walked abroad when it was common for smallpox to strike a family of children, and when the parents, themselves the survivors of similar catastrophes, knew well that before it left the house it would take its tithe of those beloved lives. Let him look at the brasses in our old churches and among the numbers of children represented on them as kneeling behind their parents; let him note what a large proportion pray with their hands open. Of these, the most, I believe, were cut off by smallpox. Let him search the registers, and they will tell the same tale. Let him ask old people of what their mothers told them when they were young of the working of this pestilence in their youth. Finally, let him consider how it comes about, if vaccination is a fraud, that some nine hundred and ninety-nine medical men out of every thousand, not in England only, but in all civilised countries, place so firm a belief in its virtue. Are the doctors of the world all mad, or all engaged in a great conspiracy to suppress the truth?

These were my real views, as they must be the views of most intelligent and thoughtful men; but I did not think it necessary to promulgate them abroad, since to do so would have been to deprive myself of such means of maintenance as remained to me. Indeed, in those days I told neither more nor less than the truth. Evil results occasionally followed the use of bad lymph or unclean treatment after the subject had been inoculated. Thus most of the cases of erysipelas into which I examined arose not from vaccination but from the dirty surroundings of the patient. Wound a million children, however slightly, and let flies settle on the wound or dirt accumulate in it, and the result will be that a certain small proportion will develop erysipelas quite independently of the effects of vaccination.

In the same way, some amount of inoculated disease must follow the almost promiscuous use of lymph taken from human beings. The danger is perfectly preventable, and ought long ago to have been prevented, by making it illegal, under heavy penalties, to use any substance except that which has been developed in calves and scientifically treated with glycerine, when, as I believe, no hurt can possibly follow. This is the verdict of science and, as tens of thousands can testify, the common experience of mankind.



CHAPTER VII

CROSSING THE RUBICON

My appearance as an expert before the Royal Commission gave me considerable importance in the eyes of a large section of the inhabitants of Dunchester. It was not the wealthiest or most influential section indeed, although in it were numbered some rich and powerful men. Once again I found myself with a wide and rapidly increasing practice, and an income that was sufficient for my needs. Mankind suffers from many ailments besides that of smallpox, indeed in Dunchester this question of the value of vaccination was at that time purely academical, as except for an occasional case there had been no outbreak of smallpox for years. Now, as I have said, I was a master of my trade, and soon proved myself competent to deal skilfully with such illnesses, surgical or medical, as I was called upon to treat. Thus my practice grew, especially among the small tradespeople and artisans, who did not belong to clubs, but preferred to pay for a doctor in whom they had confidence.

Three years and more had gone by since that night on which I sat opposite to a wine-glass full of poison and was the prey of visions, when once again I received a call from Stephen Strong. With this good-hearted, though misguided man, and his amiable, but weak-minded wife, I had kept up an intimacy that in time ripened into genuine friendship. On every Sunday night, and sometimes oftener, I took supper with them, and discussed with Mrs. Strong the important questions of our descent from the lost Tribes and whether or no the lupus from which she suffered was the result of vaccination in infancy.

Owing to a press of patients, to whom I was obliged to attend, I was not able to receive Mr. Strong for nearly half an hour.

"Things are a bit different from what they used to be, doctor," he said as he entered the room looking much the same as ever, with the exception that now even his last hairs had gone, leaving him completely bald, "there's six more of them waiting there, and all except one can pay a fee. Yes, the luck has turned for you since you were called in to attend cobbler Samuels' children, and you haven't seen the top of it yet, I can tell you. Now, what do you think I have come to see you about?"

"Can't say. I give it up."

"Then I will tell you. You saw in yesterday's paper that old brewer Hicks, the member for Dunchester, has been raised to the peerage. I understand he told the Government that if they kept him waiting any longer he would stop his subscription to the party funds, and as that's 5000 pounds a year, they gave in, believing the seat to be a safe one. But that's just where they make their mistake, for if we get the right man the Rads will win."

"And who is the right man?"

"James Therne, Esq., M.D.," he answered quietly.

"What on earth do you mean?" I asked. "How can I afford to spend from 1000 to 2000 pounds upon a contested election, and as much more a year in subscriptions and keeping up the position if I should chance to be returned? And how, in the name of fortune, can I be both a practising physician and a member of Parliament?"

"I'll tell you, doctor, for, ever since your name was put forward by the Liberal Council yesterday, I have seen these difficulties and been thinking them out. Look here, you are still young, handsome, clever, and a capital speaker with a popular audience. Also you are very hard-working and would rise. But you've no money, and only what you earn at your profession to live on, which, if you were a member of Parliament, you couldn't continue to earn. Well, such a man as you are is wanted and so he must be paid for."

"No, no," I said, "I am not going to be the slave of a Radical Five Hundred, bound to do what they tell me and vote as they like; I'd rather stick to my own trade, thank you."

"Don't you be in a hurry, young man; who asked you to be any one's slave? Now, look here—if somebody guarantees every farthing of expense to fight the seat, and 1200 pounds a year and outgoings if you should be successful, and a bonus of 5000 pounds in the event of your being subsequently defeated or electing to give up parliamentary life, will you take on the job?"

"On those terms, yes, I think so, provided I was sure of the guarantor, and that he was a man from whom I could take the money."

"Well, you can soon judge of that, doctor, for it is I, Samuel Strong, and I'll deposit 10,000 pounds in the hands of a trustee before you write your letter of acceptance. No, don't thank me. I do it for two reasons—first, because, having no chick or kin of my own, I happen to have taken a fancy to you and wish to push you on. The world has treated you badly, and I want to see you one of its masters, with all these smart people who look down on you licking your boots, as they will sure enough if you grow rich and powerful. That's my private reason. My public one is that you are the only man in Dunchester who can win us the seat, and I'd think 10,000 pounds well spent if it put those Tories at the bottom of the poll. I want to show them who is "boss," and that we won't be lorded over by bankers and brewers just because they are rich men who have bought themselves titles."

"But you are a rich man yourself," I interrupted.

"Yes, doctor, and I spend my money in helping those who will help the people. Now, before you give me any answer, I've got to ask you a thing or two," and he drew a paper from his pocket. "Are you prepared to support the abolition of 'tied' houses?"

"Certainly. They are the worst monopoly in England."

"Graduated income-tax?"

"Yes; the individual should pay in proportion to the property protected."

"An Old Age Pension scheme?"

"Yes, but only by means of compulsory insurance applicable to all classes without exception."

"Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church?"

"Yes, provided its funds are pooled and reapplied to Church purposes."

"Payment of members and placing the cost of elections on the rates?"

"Yes, the door of Parliament should not be shut in the face of all except the very rich. Election expenditure is at present only a veiled form of corruption. If it were put upon the rates it could be reduced by at least a half, and elections would be fewer."

"Home Rule—no, I needn't ask you that, for it is a dead horse which we don't want to flog, and now-a-days we are all in favour of a big navy, so I think that is about everything—except, of course, anti-vaccination, which you'll run for all it's worth."

"I never said that I would, Mr. Strong," I answered.

He looked at me curiously. "No, and you never said you wouldn't. Now, doctor, let us come to an understanding about this, for here in Dunchester it's worth more than all the other things put together. If this seat is to be won, it will be won on anti-vaccination. That's our burning question, and that's why you are being asked to stand, because you've studied the thing and are believed to be one of the few doctors who don't bow the knee to Baal. So look here, let's understand each other. If you have any doubts about this matter, say so, and we will have done with it, for, remember, once you are on the platform you've got to go the whole hog; none of your scientific finicking, but appeals to the people to rise up in their thousands and save their innocent children from being offered to the Moloch of vaccination, with enlarged photographs of nasty-looking cases, and the rest of it."

I listened and shivered. The inquiry into rare cases of disease after vaccination had been interesting work, which, whatever deductions people might choose to draw, in fact committed me to nothing. But to become one of the ragged little regiment of medical dissenters, to swallow all the unscientific follies of the anti-vaccination agitators, to make myself responsible for and to promulgate their distorted figures and wild statements—ah! that was another thing. Must I appear upon platforms and denounce this wonderful discovery as the "law of useless infanticide"? Must I tell people that "smallpox is really a curative process and not the deadly scourge and pestilence that doctors pretend it to be"? Must I maintain "that vaccination never did, never does, and never can prevent even a single case of smallpox"? Must I hold it up as a "law (!) of devil worship and human sacrifice to idols"?

If I accepted Strong's offer it seemed that I must do all these things: more, I must be false to my instincts, false to my training and profession, false to my scientific knowledge. I could not do it. And yet—when did a man in my position ever get such a chance as that which was offered to me this day? I was ready with my tongue and fond of public speaking; from boyhood it had been my desire to enter Parliament, where I knew well that I should show to some advantage. Now, without risk or expense to myself, an opportunity of gratifying this ambition was given to me. Indeed, if I succeeded in winning this city, which had always been a Tory stronghold, for the Radical party I should be a marked man from the beginning, and if my career was not one of assured prosperity the fault would be my own. Already in imagination I saw myself rich (for in this way or in that the money would come), a favourite of the people, a trusted minister of the Crown and perhaps—who could tell?—ennobled, living a life of dignity and repute, and at last leaving my honours and my fame to those who came after me.

On the other hand, if I refused this offer the chance would pass away from me, never to return again; it was probable even that I should lose Stephen Strong's friendship and support, for he was not a man who liked his generosity to be slighted, moreover he would believe me unsound upon his favourite dogmas. In short, for ever abandoning my brilliant hopes I condemned myself to an experience of struggle as a doctor with a practice among second-class people.

After all, although the thought of it shocked me at first, the price I was asked to pay was not so very heavy, merely one of the usual election platform formulas, whereby the candidate binds himself to support all sorts of things in which he has little or no beliefs. Already I was half committed to this anti-vaccination crusade, and, if I took a step or two farther in it, what did it matter? One crank more added to the great army of British enthusiasts could make little difference in the scheme of things.

If ever a man went through a "psychological moment" in this hour I was that man. The struggle was short and sharp, but it ended as might be expected in the case of one of my history and character. Could I have foreseen the dreadful issues which hung upon my decision, I believe that rather than speak it, for the second time in my life I would have sought the solace to be found in the phials of my medicine chest. But I did not foresee them, I thought only of myself, of my own hopes, fears and ambitions, forgetting that no man can live to himself alone, and that his every deed must act and re-act upon others until humanity ceases to exist.

"Well," said Mr. Strong after a two or three minutes' pause, during which these thoughts were wrestling in my mind.

"Well," I answered, "as you elegantly express it, I am prepared to go the whole hog—it is a case of hog versus calf, isn't it?—or, for the matter of that, a whole styful of hogs."

I suppose that my doubts and irritation were apparent in the inelegant jocosity of my manner. At any rate, Stephen Strong, who was a shrewd observer, took alarm.

"Look here, doctor," he said, "I am honest, I am; right or wrong I believe in this anti-vaccination business, and we are going to run the election on it. If you don't believe in it—and you have no particular call to, since every man can claim his own opinion—you'd better let it alone, and look on all this talk as nothing. You are our first and best man, but we have several upon the list; I'll go on to one of them," and he took up his hat.

I let him take it; I even let him walk towards the door; but, as he approached it, I reflected that with that dogged burly form went all my ambitions and my last chance of advancement in life. When his hand was already on the handle, not of premeditation, but by impulse, I said:—

"I don't know why you should talk like that, as I think that I have given good proof that I am no believer in vaccination."

"What's that, doctor?" he asked turning round.

"My little girl is nearly four years old and she has never been vaccinated."

"Is it so?" he asked doubtfully.

As he spoke I heard the nurse going down the passage and with her my daughter, whom she was taking for her morning walk. I opened the door and called Jane in, a beautiful little being with dark eyes and golden hair.

"Look for yourself," I said, and, taking off the child's coat, I showed him both her arms. Then I kissed her and sent her back to the nurse.

"That's good enough, doctor, but, mind you, she mustn't be vaccinated now."

As he spoke the words my heart sank in me, for I understood what I had done and the risk that I was taking. But the die was cast, or so I thought, in my folly. It was too late to go back.

"Don't be afraid," I said, "no cow poison shall be mixed with her blood."

"Now I believe you, doctor," he answered, "for a man won't play tricks with his only child just to help himself. I'll take your answer to the council, and they will send you the formal letter of invitation to stand with the conditions attached. Before you answer it the money will be lodged, and you shall have my bond for it. And now I must be going, for I am wasting your time and those patients of yours will be getting tired. If you will come to supper to-night I'll have some of the leaders to meet you and we can talk things over. Good-bye, we shall win the seat; so sure as my name is Stephen Strong we shall win on the A.V. ticket."

He went, and I saw those of my patients who had sat out the wait. When they had gone, I considered the position, summing it up in my own mind. The prospect was exhilarating, and yet I was depressed, for I had bound myself to the chariot wheels of a false doctrine. Also, by implication, I had told Strong a lie. It was true that Jane had not been vaccinated, but of this I had neglected to give him the reason. It was that I had postponed vaccinating her for a while owing to a certain infantile delicacy, being better acquainted than most men with the risks consequent on that operation, slight though it is, in certain conditions of a child's health, and knowing that there was no danger of her taking smallpox in a town which was free from it. I proposed, however, to perform the operation within the next few days; indeed, for this very purpose I had already written to London to secure some glycerinated calf lymph, which would now be wasted.

The local papers next morning appeared with an announcement that at the forthcoming bye-election Dunchester would be contested in the Radical interest by James Therne, Esq., M.D. They added that, in addition to other articles of the Radical faith, Dr. Therne professed the doctrine of anti-vaccination, of which he was so ardent an upholder that, although on several occasions he had been threatened with prosecution, he declined to allow his only child to be vaccinated.

In the same issues it was announced that the Conservative candidate would be Sir Thomas Colford.

So the die was cast. I had crossed the Rubicon.



CHAPTER VIII

BRAVO THE A.V.'S

In another week the writ had been issued, and we were in the thick of the fight. What a fight it was! Memory could not record; tradition did not even record another half as fierce in the borough of Dunchester. For the most part, that is in many of our constituencies, it is not difficult for a candidate standing in the Radical interest, if he is able, well-backed, and not too particular as to what he promises, to win the seat for his party. But Dunchester was something of an exception. In a sense it was corrupt, that is, it had always been represented by a rich man, who was expected to pay liberally for the honour of its confidence. Pay he did, indeed, in large and numberless subscriptions, in the endowment of reading-rooms, in presents of public parks, and I know not what besides.

At least it is a fact that almost every advantage of this nature enjoyed to-day by the inhabitants of Dunchester, has been provided for them by former Conservative members for the borough.

Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that in choosing a candidate the majority of the electors of the city were apt to ask two leading questions: first, Is he rich? and secondly, What will he do for the town if he gets in?

Now, Sir Thomas Colford was very rich, and it was whispered that if he were elected he would be prepared to show his gratitude in a substantial fashion. A new wing to the hospital was wanted; this it was said would be erected and endowed; also forty acres of valuable land belonging to him ran into the park, and he had been heard to say that these forty acres were really much more important to the public than to himself, and that he hoped that one day they would belong to it.

It is small wonder, then, that the announcement of his candidature was received with passionate enthusiasm. Mine, on the contrary, evoked a chorus of disapproval, that is, in the local press. I was denounced as an adventurer, as a man who had stood a criminal trial for wicked negligence, and escaped the jail only by the skin of my teeth. I was held up to public reprobation as a Socialist, who, having nothing myself, wished to prey upon the goods of others, and as an anti-vaccination quack who, to gain a few votes, was ready to infest the whole community with a loathsome disease. Of all the accusations of my opponents this was the only one that stung me, because it alone had truth in it.

Sir John Bell, my old enemy, one of the nominators of Sir Thomas Colford, appeared upon the platform at his first meeting, and, speaking in the character of an old and leading citizen of the town, and as one who had doctored most of them, implored his audience not to trust their political fortunes to such a person as myself, whose doctrines were repudiated by almost every member of the profession, which I disgraced. This appeal carried much weight with it.

From all these circumstances it might have been supposed that my case was hopeless, especially as no Radical had even ventured to contest the seat in the last two elections. But, in fact, this was not so, for in Dunchester there existed a large body of voters, many of them employed in shoe-making factories, who were almost socialistic in their views. These men, spending their days in some hive of machinery, and their nights in squalid tenements built in dreary rows, which in cities such people are doomed to inhabit, were very bitter against the upper classes, and indeed against all who lived in decent comfort.

This was not to be marvelled at, for what can be expected of folk whose lot, hard as it is, has none of the mitigations that lighten the troubles of those who live in the country, and who can at least breathe the free air and enjoy the beauties that are common to all? Here, at Dunchester, their pleasures consisted for the most part in a dog fight or some such refining spectacle, varied by an occasional "boose" at the public-house, or, in the case of those who chanced to be more intellectually inclined, by attending lectures where Socialism and other advanced doctrines were preached. As was but natural, this class might be relied upon almost to a man to vote for the party which promised to better their lot, rather than for the party which could only recommend them to be contented and to improve themselves. To secure their support it was only necessary to be extravagant of promises and abusive of employers who refused to pay them impossible wages.

Next in importance to these red-hot "forwards" came the phalanx of old-fashioned people who voted Liberal because their fathers had voted Liberal before them. Then there were the electors who used to be Conservative but, being honestly dissatisfied with the Government on account of its foreign policy, or for other reasons, had made up their minds to transfer their allegiance. Also there were the dissenters, who set hatred of the Church above all politics, and made its disendowment and humiliation their watchword. In Dunchester these were active and numerous, a very tower of strength to me, for Stephen Strong was the wealthiest and most important of them.

During the first day or two of the canvass, however, a careful estimate of our electoral strength showed it to be several hundred votes short of that of our opponents. Therefore, if we would win, we must make converts by appealing to the prejudices of members of the electorate who were of Conservative views; in other words, by preaching "fads."

Of these there were many, all useful to the candidate of pliant mind, such as the total drink-prohibition fad, the anti-dog-muzzling fad, and others, each of which was worth some votes. Even the Peculiar People, a society that makes a religion of killing helpless children by refusing them medical aid when they are ill, were good for ten or twelve. Here, however, I drew the line, for when asking whether I would support a bill relieving them from all liability to criminal prosecution in the event of the death of their victims, I absolutely declined to give any such undertaking.

But although all these fancies had their followers, it was the anti-vaccination craze that really had a hold in Dunchester. The "A.V.'s," as they called themselves, were numbered by hundreds, for the National League and other similar associations had been at work here for years, with such success that already twenty per cent. of the children born in the last decade had never been vaccinated. For a while the Board of Guardians had been slow to move, then, on the election of a new chairman and the representations of the medical profession of the town, they instituted a series of prosecutions against parents who refused to comply with the Vaccination Acts. Unluckily for the Conservative party, these prosecutions, which aroused the most bitter feelings, were still going on when the seat fell vacant; hence from an electoral point of view the question became one of first-class importance.

In Dunchester, as elsewhere, the great majority of the anti-vaccinators were already Radical, but there remained a residue, estimated at from 300 to 400, who voted "blue" or Conservative. If these men could be brought over, I should win; if they remained faithful to their colour, I must lose. Therefore it will be seen that Stephen Strong was right when he said that the election would be won or lost upon anti-vaccination.

At the first public meeting of the Conservatives, after Sir Thomas's speech, the spokesman of the anti-vaccination party rose and asked him whether he was in favour of the abolition of the Compulsory Vaccination laws. Now, at this very meeting Sir John Bell had already spoken denouncing me for my views upon this question, thereby to some extent tying the candidate's hands. So, after some pause and consultation, Sir Thomas replied that he was in favour of freeing "Conscientious Objectors" to vaccination from all legal penalties. Like most half measures, this decision of course did not gain him a single vote, whereas it certainly lost him much support.

On the same evening a similar question was put to me. My answer may be guessed, indeed I took the opportunity to make a speech which was cheered to the echo, for, having acted the great lie of espousing the anti-vaccination cause, I felt that it was not worth while to hesitate in telling other lies in support of it. Moreover, I knew my subject thoroughly, and understood what points to dwell upon and what to gloze over, how to twist and turn the statistics, and how to marshal my facts in such fashion as would make it very difficult to expose their fallacy. Then, when I had done with general arguments, I went on to particular cases, describing as a doctor can do the most dreadful which had ever come under my notice, with such power and pathos that women in the audience burst into tears.

Finally, I ended by an impassioned appeal to all present to follow my example and refuse to allow their children to be poisoned. I called on them as free men to rise against this monstrous Tyranny, to put a stop to this system of organised and judicial Infanticide, and to send me to Parliament to raise my voice on their behalf in the cause of helpless infants whose tender bodies now, day by day, under the command of the law, were made the receptacles of the most filthy diseases from which man was doomed to suffer.

As I sat down the whole of that great audience—it numbered more than 2000—rose in their places shouting "We will! we will!" after which followed a scene of enthusiasm such as I had never seen before, emphasised by cries of "We are free Englishmen," "Down with the baby-butchers," "We will put you in, sir," and so forth.

That meeting gave me my cue, and thenceforward, leaving almost every other topic on one side, I and my workers devoted ourselves to preaching the anti-vaccination doctrines. We flooded the constituency with tracts headed "What Vaccination does," "The Law of Useless Infanticide," "The Vaccine Tyranny," "Is Vaccination a Fraud?" and so forth, and with horrible pictures of calves stretched out by pulleys, gagged and blindfolded, with their under parts covered by vaccine vesicles. Also we had photographs of children suffering from the effects of improper or unclean vaccination, which, by means of magic lantern slides, could be thrown life-sized on a screen; indeed, one or two such children themselves were taken round to meetings and their sores exhibited.

The effect of all this was wonderful, for I know of nothing capable of rousing honest but ignorant people to greater rage and enthusiasm than this anti-vaccination cry. They believe it to be true, or, at least, seeing one or two cases in which it is true, and having never seen a case of smallpox, they suppose that the whole race is being poisoned by wicked doctors for their own gain. Hence their fierce energy and heartfelt indignation.

Well, it carried me through. The election was fought not with foils but with rapiers. Against me were arrayed the entire wealth, rank, and fashion of the city, reinforced by Conservative speakers famous for their parliamentary eloquence, who were sent down to support Sir Thomas Colford. Nor was this all: when it was recognised that the fight would be a close one, an eloquent and leading member of the House was sent to intervene in person. He came and addressed a vast meeting gathered in the biggest building of the city. Seated among a crowd of workmen on a back bench I was one of his audience. His speech was excellent, if somewhat too general and academic. To the "A.V." agitation, with a curious misapprehension of the state of the case, he devoted one paragraph only. It ran something like this:—

"I am told that our opponents, putting aside the great and general issues upon which I have had the honour to address you, attempt to gain support by entering upon a crusade—to my mind a most pernicious crusade—against the law of compulsory vaccination. I am not concerned to defend that law, because practically in the mind of all reasonable men it stands beyond attack. It is, I am told, suggested that the Act should be amended by freeing from the usual penalties any parent who chooses to advance a plea of conscientious objection against the vaccination of his children. Such an argument seems to me too puerile, I had almost said too wicked, to dwell upon, for in its issue it would mean that at the whim of individuals innocent children might be exposed to disease, disfigurement, and death, and the whole community through them to a very real and imminent danger. Prophecy is dangerous, but, speaking for myself as a private member of Parliament, I can scarcely believe that responsible ministers of any party, moved by the pressure of an ill-informed and erroneous opinion, would ever consent under this elastic plea of conscience to establish such a precedent of surrender. Vaccination with its proved benefits is outside the pale of party. After long and careful study, science and the medical profession have given a verdict in its favour, a verdict which has now been confirmed by the experience of generations. Here I leave the question, and, turning once more before I sit down to those great and general issues of which I have already spoken, I would again impress upon this vast audience, and through it upon the constituency at large," etc., etc., etc.

Within a year it was my lot to listen to an eminent leader of that distinguished member (with the distinguished member's tacit consent) pressing upon an astonished House of Commons the need of yielding to the clamour of the anti-vaccinationists, and of inserting into the Bill, framed upon the report of a Royal Commission, a clause forbidding the prosecution of parents or guardians willing to assert before a bench of magistrates that they objected to vaccination on conscientious grounds.

The appeal was not in vain; the Bill passed in its amended form; and within twenty years I lived to see its fruits.

At length came the polling day. After this lapse of time I remember little of its details. I, as became a Democratic candidate, walked from polling-station to polling-station, while my opponent, as became a wealthy banker, drove about the city in a carriage and four. At eight o'clock the ballot-boxes were sealed up and conveyed to the town-hall, where the counting commenced in the presence of the Mayor, the candidates, their agents, and the necessary officers and assistants. Box after box was opened and the papers counted out into separate heaps, those for Colford into one pile, those for Therne into another, the spoiled votes being kept by themselves.

The counting began about half-past nine, and up to a quarter to twelve nobody could form an idea as to the ultimate result, although at that time the Conservative candidate appeared to be about five and thirty votes ahead. Then the last ballot-box was opened; it came from a poor quarter of the city, a ward in which I had many supporters.

Sir Thomas Colford and I, with our little knots of agents and sub-agents, placed ourselves one on each side of the table, waiting in respectful silence while the clerk dealt out the papers, as a player deals out cards. It was an anxious moment, as any one who has gone through a closely-contested parliamentary election can testify. For ten days or more the strain had been great, but, curiously enough, now at its climax it seemed to have lost its grip of me. I watched the denoument of the game with keenness and interest indeed, but as though I were not immediately and personally concerned. I felt that I had done my best to win, and no longer cared whether my efforts ended in success or failure. Possibly this was the result of the apathy that falls upon overstrained nerves. Possibly I was oppressed by the fear of victory and of that Nemesis which almost invariably dogs the steps of our accomplished desires, of what the French writer calls la page effrayante . . . des desirs accomplis. At least just then I cared nothing whether I won or lost, only I reflected that in the latter event it would be sad to have told so many falsehoods to no good purpose.

"How does it stand?" asked the head Conservative agent of the officer.

The clerk took the last numbers from the counters and added up the figures.

"Colford, 4303; Therne, 4291, and two more bundles to count."

Another packet was counted out.

"How does it stand?" asked the agent.

"Colford, 4349; Therne, 4327, and one more bundle of fifty to count," answered the clerk.

The agent gave a sigh of relief and smiled; I saw him press Sir Thomas's hand in congratulations, for now he was sure that victory was theirs.

"The game is up," I whispered to Strong, who, as my principal supporter, had been admitted with me to the hall.

He ground his teeth and I noticed in the gaslight that his face was ghastly pale and his lips were blue.

"You had better go out," I said, "you are overtaxing that dilated heart of yours. Go home and take a sleeping draught."

"Damn you, no," he answered fiercely in my ear, "those papers come from the Little Martha ward, where I thought there wasn't a wrong 'un in the crowd. If they've sold me, I'll be even with them, as sure as my name is Strong."

"Come," I said with a laugh, "a good Radical shouldn't talk like that." For me the bitterness was over, and, knowing the worst, I could afford to laugh.

The official opened the last packet and began to count aloud.

The first vote was for "Therne," but bad, for the elector had written his name upon the paper. Then in succession came nine for "Colford." Now all interest in the result had died away, and a hum of talk arose from those present in the room, a whispered murmur of congratulations and condolences. No wonder, seeing that to win I must put to my credit thirty-two of the forty remaining papers, which seemed a thing impossible.

The counter went on counting aloud and dealing down the papers as he counted. One, two, three, four, and straight on up to ten for Therne, when he paused to examine a paper, then "One for Colford." Then, in rapid successful, "Five, ten, fifteen for Therne."

Now the hum of conversation died away, for it was felt that this was becoming interesting. Of course it was practically impossible that I should win, for there were but fourteen papers left, and to do so I must secure eleven of them!

"Sixteen for Therne," went on the counter, "seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty."

Now the excitement grew intense, for if the run held in two more votes I should tie. Every eye was fixed upon the counter's hand.

To the right and left of him on the table were two little piles of voting papers. The pile to the right was the property of Colford, the pile to the left was sacred to Therne. The paper was unfolded and glanced at, then up went the hand and down floated the fateful sheet on to the left-hand pile. "Twenty-one for Therne." Again the process was repeated, and again the left-hand pile was increased. "Twenty-two for Therne."

"By heaven! you've tied him," gasped Stephen Strong.

There were but seven papers left, and the candidate who secured four of them would be the winner of the election.

"Twenty-three for Therne, twenty-four, twenty-five"—a silence in which you could hear the breath of other men and the beating of your own heart.

"Twenty-six for Therne, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, all for Therne."

Then, bursting from the lips of Stephen Strong, a shrill hoarse cry, more like the cry of a beast than that of a man, and the words, "By God! we've won. The A.V.'s have done it. Bravo the A.V.'s!"

"Silence!" said the Mayor, bringing his fist down upon the table, but so far as Stephen Strong was concerned, the order was superfluous, for suddenly his face flushed, then turned a dreadful ashen grey, and down he sank upon the floor. As I leant over him and began to loosen his collar, I heard the Conservative agent say in strident tones:—

"There is some mistake, there must be some mistake. It is almost impossible that Dr. Therne can have polled twenty-nine votes in succession. On behalf of Sir Thomas Colford, I demand a recount."

"Certainly," answered some official, "let it be begun at once."

In that ceremony I took no part; indeed, I spent the next two hours, with the help of another doctor, trying to restore consciousness to Stephen Strong in a little room that opened off the town-hall. Within half an hour Mrs. Strong arrived.

"He still breathes," I said in answer to her questioning glance.

Then the poor little woman sat herself down upon the edge of a chair, clasped her hands and said, "If the Lord wills it, dear Stephen will live; and if the Lord wills it, he will die."

This sentence she repeated at intervals until the end came. After two hours there was a knocking at the door.

"Go away," I said, but the knocker would not go away. So I opened. It was my agent, who whispered in an excited voice, "The count's quite correct, you are in by seven."

"All right," I answered, "tell them we want some more brandy."

At that moment Stephen Strong opened his eyes, and at that moment also there arose a mighty burst of cheering from the crowd assembled on the market-place without, to whom the Mayor had declared the numbers from a window of the town-hall.

The dying man heard the cheering, and looked at me inquiringly, for he could not speak. I tried to explain that I was elected on the recount, but was unable to make him understand. Then I hit upon an expedient. On the floor lay a Conservative rosette of blue ribbon. I took it up and took also my own Radical colours from my coat. Holding one of them in each hand before Strong's dying eyes, I lifted up the Radical orange and let the Conservative blue fall to the floor.

He saw and understood, for a ghastly smile appeared upon his distorted face. Indeed, he did more—almost with his last breath he spoke in a hoarse, gurgling whisper, and his words were, "Bravo the A.V.'s!"

Now he shut his eyes, and I thought that the end had come, but, opening them presently, he fixed them with great earnestness first upon myself and then upon his wife, accompanying the glance with a slight movement of the head. I did not know what he could mean, but with his wife it was otherwise, for she said, "Don't trouble yourself, Stephen, I quite understand."

Five minutes more and it was over; Stephen Strong's dilated heart had contracted for the last time.

"I see it has pleased the Lord that dear Stephen should die," said Mrs. Strong in her quiet voice. "When you have spoken to the people out there, doctor, will you take me home? I am very sorry to trouble, but I saw that after he was gone Stephen wished me to turn to you."



CHAPTER IX

FORTUNE

My return to Parliament meant not only the loss of a seat to the Government, a matter of no great moment in view of their enormous majority, but, probably, through their own fears, was construed by them into a solemn warning not to be disregarded. Certain papers and opposition speakers talked freely of the writing on the wall, and none saw that writing in larger, or more fiery letters, than the members of Her Majesty's Government. I believe that to them it took the form not of Hebraic characters, but of two large Roman capitals, the letters A and V.

Hitherto the anti-vaccinators had been known as troublesome people who had to be reckoned with, but that they should prove strong enough to wrest what had been considered one of the safest seats in the kingdom out of the hands of the Unionists came upon the party as a revelation of the most unpleasant order. For Stephen Strong's dying cry, of which the truth was universally acknowledged, "The A.V.'s have done it. Bravo the A.V.'s!" had echoed through the length and breadth of the land.

When a Government thinks that agitators are weak, naturally and properly it treats them with contempt, but, when it finds that they are strong enough to win elections, then their arguments become more worthy of consideration. And so the great heart of the parliamentary Pharaoh began to soften towards the anti-vaccinators, and of this softening the first signs were discernible within three or four days of my taking my seat as member for Dunchester.

I think I may say without vanity, and the statement will not be contradicted by those who sat with me, that I made a good impression upon the House from the first day I entered its doors. Doubtless its members had expected to find in me a rabid person liable to burst into a foam of violence at the word "vaccination," and were agreeably surprised to find that I was much as other men are, only rather quieter than most of them. I did not attempt to force myself upon the notice of the House, but once or twice during the dinner hour I made a few remarks upon subjects connected with public health which were received without impatience, and, in the interval, I tried to master its forms, and to get in touch with its temper.

In those far-away and long-forgotten days a Royal Commission had been sitting for some years to consider the whole question of compulsory vaccination; it was the same before which I had been called to give evidence. At length this commission delivered itself of its final report, a very sensible one in an enormous blue-book, which if adopted would practically have continued the existing Vaccination Acts with amendments. These amendments provided that in future the public vaccinator should visit the home of the child, and, if the conditions of that home and of the child itself were healthy, offer to vaccinate it with glycerinated calf lymph. Also they extended the time during which the parents and guardians were exempt from prosecution, and in various ways mitigated the rigour of the prevailing regulations. The subject matter of this report was embodied in a short Bill to amend the law and laid before Parliament, which Bill went to a standing committee, and ultimately came up for the consideration of the House.

Then followed the great debate and the great surprise. A member moved that it should be read that day six months, and others followed on the same side. The President of the Local Government Board of the day, I remember, made a strong speech in favour of the Bill, after which other members spoke, including myself. But although about ninety out of every hundred of the individuals who then constituted the House of Commons were strong believers in the merits of vaccination, hardly one of them rose in his place to support the Bill. The lesson of Dunchester amongst others was before their eyes, and, whatever their private faith might be, they were convinced that if they did so it would lose them votes at the next election.

At this ominous silence the Government grew frightened, and towards the end of the debate, to the astonishment of the House and of the country, the First Lord of the Treasury rose and offered to insert a clause by virtue of which any parent or other person who under the Bill would be liable to penalties for the non-vaccination of a child, should be entirely freed from such penalties if within four months of its birth he satisfied two justices of the peace that he conscientiously believed that the operation would be prejudicial to that child's health. The Bill passed with the clause, which a few days later was rejected by the House of Lords. Government pressure was put upon the Lords, who thereon reversed their decision, and the Bill became an Act of Parliament.

Thus the whole policy of compulsory vaccination, which for many years had been in force in England, was destroyed at a single blow by a Government with a great majority, and a House of Commons composed of members who, for the most part, were absolute believers in its virtues. Never before did agitators meet with so vast and complete a success, and seldom perhaps did a Government undertake so great a responsibility for the sake of peace, and in order to shelve a troublesome and dangerous dispute. It was a very triumph of opportunism, for the Government, aided and abetted by their supporters, threw over their beliefs to appease a small but persistent section of the electors. Convinced that compulsory vaccination was for the benefit of the community, they yet stretched the theory of the authority of the parent over the child to such an unprecedented extent that, in order to satisfy his individual prejudices, that parent was henceforth to be allowed to expose his helpless infant to the risk of terrible disease and of death.

It is not for me to judge their motives, which may have been pure and excellent; my own are enough for me to deal with. But the fact remains that, having power in their hands to impose the conclusions of a committee of experts on the nation, and being as a body satisfied as to the soundness of those conclusions, they still took the risk of disregarding them. Now the result of their action is evident; now we have reaped the seed which they sowed, nor did they win a vote or a "thank you" by their amiable and philosophic concessions, which earned them no gratitude but indignation mingled with something not unlike contempt.

So much for the anti-vaccination agitation, on the crest of whose wave I was carried to fortune and success. Thenceforward for many long years my career was one of strange and startling prosperity. Dunchester became my pocket borough, so much so, indeed, that at the three elections which occurred before the last of which I have to tell no one even ventured to contest the seat against me. Although I was never recognised as a leader of men, chiefly, I believe, because of a secret distrust which was entertained as to my character and the sincerity of my motives, session by session my parliamentary repute increased, till, in the last Radical Government, I was offered, and for two years filled, the post of Under-Secretary to the Home Office. Indeed, when at last we went to the country over the question of the China War, I had in my pocket a discreetly worded undertaking that, if our party succeeded at the polls, my claims to the Home Secretaryship should be "carefully considered." But it was not fated that I should ever again cross the threshold of St. Stephen's.

So much for my public career, which I have only touched on in illustration of my private and moral history.

The reader may wonder how it came about that I was able to support myself and keep up my position during all this space of time, seeing that my attendance in Parliament made it impossible for me to continue in practise as a doctor. It happened thus.

When my old and true friend, Stephen Strong, died on the night of my election, it was found that he was even richer than had been supposed, indeed his personalty was sworn at 191,000 pounds, besides which he left real estate in shops, houses and land to the value of about 23,000 pounds. Almost all of this was devised to his widow absolutely, so that she could dispose of it in whatever fashion pleased her. Indeed, there was but one other bequest, that of the balance of the 10,000 pounds which the testator had deposited in the hands of a trustee for my benefit. This was now left to me absolutely. I learned the fact from Mrs. Strong herself as we returned from the funeral.

"Dear Stephen has left you nearly 9000 pounds, doctor," she said shaking her head.

Gathering from her manner and this shake of her head that the legacy was not pleasing to her, I hastened to explain that doubtless it was to carry into effect a business arrangement we had come to before I consented to stand for Parliament.

"Ah, indeed," she said, "that makes it worse, for it is only the payment of a debt, not a gift."

Not knowing what she could mean, I said nothing.

"Doubtless, doctor, if dear Stephen had been granted time he would have treated you more liberally, seeing how much he thought of you, and that you had given up your profession entirely to please him and serve the party. That is what he meant when he looked at me before he died, I guessed it from the first, and now I am sure of it. Well, doctor, while I have anything you shall never want. Of course, a member of Parliament is a great person, expected to live in a style which would take more money than I have, but I think that if I put my own expenses at 500 pounds a year, which is as much as I shall want, and allow another 1000 pounds for subscriptions to the anti-vaccination societies, the society for preventing the muzzling of dogs, and the society for the discovery of the lost Tribes of Israel, I shall be able to help you to the extent of 1200 pounds a year, if," she added apologetically, "you think you could possibly get along on that."

"But, Mrs. Strong," I said, "I have no claim at all upon you."

"Please do not talk nonsense, doctor. Dear Stephen wished me to provide for you, and I am only carrying out his wishes with his own money which God gave him perhaps for this very purpose, that it should be used to help a clever man to break down the tyranny of wicked governments and false prophets."

So I took the money, which was paid with the utmost regularity on January the first and June the first in each year. On this income I lived in comfort, keeping up my house in Dunchester for the benefit of my little daughter and her attendants, and hiring for my own use a flat quite close to the House of Commons.

As the years went by, however, a great anxiety took possession of me, for by slow degrees Mrs. Strong grew as feeble in mind as already she was in body, till at length, she could only recognise people at intervals, and became quite incompetent to transact business. For a while her bankers went on paying the allowance under her written and unrevoked order, but when they understood her true condition, they refused to continue the payment.

Now my position was very serious. I had little or nothing put by, and, having ceased to practise for about seventeen years, I could not hope to earn an income from my profession. Nor could I remain a member of the House, at least not for long. Still, by dint of borrowing and the mortgage of some property which I had acquired, I kept my head above water for about eighteen months. Very soon, however, my financial distress became known, with the result that I was no longer so cordially received as I had been either in Dunchester or in London. The impecunious cannot expect to remain popular.