g that I
called for brandy, when I really called to the others who were helping:
"I have brandy here." The Mr. Dickenson 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.
Dickenson 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 assure 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 associate 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
God, either have just finished, or be just finishing, 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