HOW he got that name, I cannot tell. I have an idea, but it, is somewhat crude. Everybody called him Dick but his mother. His wife, and sometimes his children, would indulge in the familiar expression, but his mother never. By her he was always mentioned by the one name. Richard she called him the very day he was born; and on the night he died she was heard in the solitude of her chamber sobbing out her sorrow, “O Richard! Richard! my poor lost Richard! Would God I had died for thee, my son, my son! “It was in the autumn of 18—I first made his acquaintance. The village in which he lived was one of those narrow strips of a place that have grown up along the great highway which led from London to B—. His house was along the road. Behind his dwelling was the smithy. Proceeding there on one occasion after a visit to his house, his wife quietly suggested that I should not go then. “He is drunk,” she said. “He is mad,” added a neighbor. “The devil is in him,” said a third. And so, acting upon their suggestion, I retraced my steps.
“A bad un, that, sir,” said a decrepit old man, as I turned to depart.
“Do you know him?” said I.
“Know un? Shud think I did. Know’d un ever since a wer’ a child.”
So with this bit of information I commenced plying my questions about this unfortunate man. I found that Dick was a child of godly parents—that, as a boy, he was of a free, almost of a wild, rollicking disposition—that at one time he gave promise of a useful life, and even went so far as to make a profession of religion, and, as the old man remarked, “Enjoyed it, too”; that at length he fell in love with a goodly, godly girl, and made her his wife; and that shortly after their marriage he gave way to bad companions and the drink, until at length he became, as the old man observed, “a very brute of a man.”
“Hold! hold!” I replied; “draw it mild. Not quite so bad as that, to be sure.”
“‘Old, ‘old, where you will,” said the old man, in a pet; “but by the time you’ve know’d un as long as I ‘ave, my name ain’t Billy Brown if you don’t say so, too. Why, sur, he is the biggest villain out. Know his wife? Shud think I did. She wer’ the purtiest little crittur as a child I ever cast eyes upon. And so good. Born religious, she wer’, if there ever wet’ one. Why, I saw ‘er t’other day, poor thing, weeping like a child. ‘Es a drunk, Sue?’ said I. ‘Well, doan’t ‘e see,’ said she, he went out this morning on an empty stomach, and the veriest thimbleful has made’n troublesome like.’ But lor, sur, I know’d what it meant. He es breaking ‘er ‘eart by inches, ‘e es; and if ‘e don’t break his neck some day, my name ain’t what it es. So good day, sur, good day.”
In another hour Dick had leaped upon his horse, and was off. The old feelings had come back; and in spite of pleading wife and weeping children, he was gone.
It was late that night when there came dashing down the street a riderless horse. “Stop him!” shouted one. “Stand clear!” bawled another; whilst on and on rushed the horse, until at length, foaming and trembling, it stopped at the smithy door.
“My goodness!” exclaimed a neighbor, “what’s up? Here’s the hoss, but no Dick.”
Away a mile and a half down the road Dick had alighted at the “First and Last.” Calling for a glass of half-and-half, he quaffed it at a draft. Asking for another, he served it much the same; and then with the finish of a third, he rose to depart.
“Steady, old feller, st-e-a-dy,” said a bantering few who were tippling at the bar.
“I—I’ll st-e-a-dy you,” said Dick with an oath, as with a slash of his whip he aimed it at the knot of men from whom the taunt had come. But the blow had missed its mark, and with a wild Ha! ha! ha!” they said, “Go it again!”
Mad with excitement, and missing his revenge on the men, he slashed it on his horse. Mounting as best he could, and striking his spurs into his steed before he was well into his saddle, he exclaimed, “I’ll ride thee to hell!” when the animal reared, and Dick fell with a heavy thud to the ground.
“Hark! what’s that?” shouted the publican; and amid the breathless silence of the house, the quick clatter, clatter of the runaway horse fell softer and still softer on their ear.
“Missus, quick! bring us a light,” said the publican, “there’s something wrong”; and so saying he rushed to the door. Groping his way through the darkness to a huge mass of something which lay motionless in the road, he put his hand and felt the face of a man, and with “Here, men, quick! for God’s sake, help! “he raised the head of the fallen, and placed it for a time between his knees.
“Oh,” said the publican, as the flickering light fell upon the face of the unfortunate man, “it’s Dick! Why, he’s dead!” And so, bearing him up in their arms, they carried him back to the “First and Last.”
The next day a coroner’s inquest was held. Certain facts were elicited; and after a protracted investigation of the case, in which it was found that the fall had dislocated his neck, a verdict of “Accidental death” was returned.
But was the death “accidental?”