The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume Ii Part 36

My dearest Macready, ever yours most affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]

GAD'S HILL, _Monday, June 12th, 1865._

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

[_So far in his own writing._]

Many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.[15] This is not all in my own hand, because I am too much shaken to write many notes. Not by the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was--it did not go over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge--but by the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible.

[_The rest in his own writing_.]

Ever your affectionate Friend.

P.S.--My love to Mrs. Macready.

[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Tuesday, June 13th, 1865._

MY DEAR MITTON,

I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been quite up to writing.

I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. It was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies were my fellow-pa.s.sengers, an old one and a young one. This is exactly what pa.s.sed. You may judge from it the precise length of the suspense: Suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a half-emptied balloon might. The old lady cried out, "My G.o.d!" and the young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat opposite and the young one on my left), and said: "We can't help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray don't cry out." The old lady immediately answered: "Thank you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul I will be quiet." We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, and stopped. I said to them thereupon: "You may be sure nothing worse can happen. Our danger _must_ be over. Will you remain here without stirring, while I get out of the window?" They both answered quite collectedly, "Yes," and I got out without the least notion what had happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution and stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone, and nothing below me but the line of rail. Some people in the two other compartments were madly trying to plunge out at window, and had no idea that there was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else!

The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them: "Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don't know me." One of them answered: "We know you very well, Mr. d.i.c.kens." "Then," I said, "my good fellow, for G.o.d's sake give me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I'll empty this carriage." We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water.

Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with blood (I think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful cut across the skull that I couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the gra.s.s, and he said, "I am gone," and died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I asked her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded, and I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next time I pa.s.sed her she was dead. Then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who evidently had not the least remembrance of what really pa.s.sed), came running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water.

I don't want to be examined at the inquest, and I don't want to write about it. I could do no good either way, and I could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course, I would rather not do. I am keeping very quiet here. I have a--I don't know what to call it--const.i.tutional (I suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS. of a number with me, and clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty words of recollection I feel the shake and am obliged to stop.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Jones.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Sat.u.r.day, June 17th, 1865_.[16]

SIR,

I beg you to a.s.sure the Committee of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Inst.i.tution, that I have been deeply affected by their special remembrance of me in my late escape from death or mutilation, and that I thank them with my whole heart.

Faithfully yours and theirs.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Hulkes.]

GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, June 18th, 1865._

MY DEAR MRS. HULKES,

I return the _Examiner_ with many thanks. The account is true, except that I _had_ brandy. By an extraordinary chance I had a bottle and a half with me. I slung the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat full of water in my hands. But I can understand the describer (whoever he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith, and supposing that I called for brandy, when I really called to the others who were helping: "I have brandy here." The Mr. d.i.c.kenson mentioned had changed places with a Frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before the accident. The Frenchman was killed, and a labourer and I got Mr.

d.i.c.kenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he was jammed upside down. He was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards, and of course I didn't tell him. In the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of his pockets were shaken empty! He had no watch, no chain, no money, no pocket-book, no handkerchief, when we got him out. He had been choking a quarter of an hour when I heard him groaning. If I had not had the brandy to give him at the moment, I think he would have been done for.

As it was, I brought him up to London in the carriage with me, and couldn't make him believe he was hurt. He was the first person whom the brandy saved. As I ran back to the carriage for the whole full bottle, I saw the first two people I had helped lying dead. A bit of shade from the hot sun, into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead in it as living.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Wednesday, June 21st, 1865._

MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,

I need not a.s.sure you that I regard the unanimous desire of the Town Council Committee as a great honour, and that I feel the strongest interest in the occasion, and the strongest wish to a.s.sociate myself with it.

But, after careful consideration, I most unwillingly come to the conclusion that I must decline. At the time in question I shall, please G.o.d, either have just finished, or be just finis.h.i.+ng, my present book.

Country rest and reflection will then be invaluable to me, before casting about for Christmas. I am a little shaken in my nervous system by the terrible and affecting incidents of the late railway accident, from which I bodily escaped. I am withdrawing myself from engagements of all kinds, in order that I may pursue my story with the comfortable sense of being perfectly free while it is a-doing, and when it is done.

The consciousness of having made this engagement would, if I were to make it, render such sense incomplete, and so open the way to others.

This is the real state of the case, and the whole reason for my declining.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Lehmann.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Tuesday, June 29th, 1865._

DEAR MRS. LEHMANN,

Come (with self and partner) on either of the days you name, and you will be heartily welcomed by the humble youth who now addresses you, and will then cast himself at your feet.

I am quite right again, I thank G.o.d, and have even got my voice back; I most unaccountably brought somebody else's out of that terrible scene.

The directors have sent me a Resolution of Thanks for a.s.sistance to the unhappy pa.s.sengers.

With kind regards to Lehmann, ever yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"

_Friday, July 7th, 1865._

MY DEAR FITZGERALD,

I shall be delighted to see you at Gad's Hill on Sunday, and I hope you will bring a bag with you and will not think of returning to London at night.