Marked for the Knife

About two years before the startling revelations respecting the dissecting trade in Edinburg had placed the legal supply of “subjects” upon its present satisfactory footing, there occurred to my elder brother, at that time a delicate boy of about 14, a singular adventure, involving such a shock to his nerves as, the doctors believed, very much hastened his death, which occurred in less than a year after it.

We then resided in a large white house, with a row of poplars in front, close to one of our canals. Within a stone’s-throw of our hall-door was a lock and a lock-house, and then followed, in the London direction, one of the longest and most solitary levels to be met with in the United Kingdom.

The canal, at a point about 70 yards from the lock, makes a slight deflection. The consequence is that neither the lock nor our house is visible from the long, straight level that follows, and which is closely fenced between tall hedges and old trees.

My brother had been ordered walking exercise, and my father generally appointed the path beside the level I have described for his walk. The traffic, never very active, was, at that time, in a state little better than extinct. Not more than three or four boats passed in a day, and chiefly, owing to its perfect quietude, it had been chosen for the walk of our solitary invalid.

It was now summer, and the hour of his daily walk was from five to seven; the earlier hours of the afternoon being pronounced too hot for exercise.

On the evening in question he set out alone. His… Read More