advance. I felt every moment as if about to be clasped from behind by a loathsome spectre. Exhausted, and wet with perspiration, I rejoined my comrades. Balfour remained in the same condition, and Fletcher exclaimed, “Thank God you are come! I have been dreadfully frightened with this living ghost. What is the matter with him, and what is it all about?”
I now hurriedly explained what had occurred, and told him to get home as fast as he could.
We drove rapidly back, entered once more the deserted streets, and reached the lecture-rooms in safety. I ran up the stairs to unlock the door, and, raking the embers of the nearly extinguished fire, lit a candle, and descended for Balfour. He seemed partially to comprehend that he was to leave the gig. Both assisting, we got him upstairs; and then Fletcher drove off to the stable. I now proceeded to examine more closely into Balfour’s condition. He was deathly pale; his pupils, widely dilated, were insensible to the action of light; his extremities cold. I laid him on the floor, bathed his face and head with cold water, and poured more brandy down his throat, until by degrees his consciousness partially returned. I was right glad when Fletcher’s springy step was heard upon the stairs. After nearly two hours of watchful care and continued endeavours, Balfour was much recovered; still there was an unpleasant, unearthly stare about his face, with a slight squint. At times he talked incoherently, alluding to some deadly sin he fancied he had committed, for which there was no hope of forgiveness. Dawn at last stole through the gloom, and dimmed our wasted, flaring candle. When the daylight was fully established, I sent Fletcher for a carriage, and putting Balfour into it, drove with him to his home. The family were not yet up, and directing the servant to get him to bed as quickly as possible, I hastened to Mr. Bromfield, our anatomical professor, and begged him to return with me as soon as possible. He attended to my request at once, and on the way I detailed to him the adventure. Mr. Bromfield listened attentively to my recital. He considered that Balfour’s unusual terrors were due to his having been unwell before we started; that I had myself been infected by my comrade’s fear, and that the whole thing was but the result of our disordered imaginations. I made no answer to these observations; and though I inwardly wished that the matter could be thus satisfactorily explained, I knew better. We now arrived at Balfour’s house. When Mr. Bromfield had seen and examined the patient, he expressed great alarm. He said: “There is much more in this than I at first thought. I consider him in immediate danger.” He remained with poor Balfour to see that the remedial measures which he had ordered were promptly carried out, and to break the matter to his friends. For my part, I returned in a sad and subdued state of mind, and felt more than half inclined never again to attempt these adventures. Fatigue and excitement had quite upset me, and truly glad I was to find myself once more in my own lodgings. I undressed and jumped into bed, but essayed in vain to sleep. Whenever I dozed off, the horrible scene with Balfour in the dissecting room came before me, or I fancied myself in the churchyard starting at every noise. At last I could bear these half-waking horrors no longer; so I determined to get up and go to lecture, for it was just ten o’clock, the hour for its commencement.
Our professor was there when I arrived. After the demonstration was over, he signed us to remain in our places; and having alluded with great feeling to Balfour’s alarming state, he went on to say:
“I know, gentlemen, the sad necessity which impels you in a stern sense of duty, to procure by your own exertions subjects for dissection, without which it is impossible that you should attain those high objects of professional ambition which a worthy student ever sets before him. Oh, who shall approach the holy tabernacle of human life framed after God’s own image, and dare to invade that mystical sanctuary with ignorant and unskilful hand? Who, in the red battle-field, shall dare to practise this noblest of all the arts, without a thorough understanding of the wonderful fabric he is to save, or to restore? Who, in the civil hospital, or in the sacred chamber of private life, may dare to enter, and not bear with him, in a well balanced mind, that store of practical knowledge which nothing save dissection—constant, laborious dissection—of the human body, and the unwearying study of post mortem appearances, can afford him? I say, if he hold not the attainment of this knowledge as the one great object of his life, let the student at once abandon his professional career, and seek elsewhere for a more congenial pursuit. Gentlemen, our studies need no excuse. I feel that all and each of you regard your comfort, your health, even your lives, as secondary to a sacred duty. In your hands, gentlemen, will by and by rest the grave responsibility of life and death,—a responsibility to be seriously yet cheerfully accepted by the well educated and practical surgeon. I, too, have a grave responsibility, not only as a surgeon, but as a teacher, and yet I must ask the students to suspend their important labours for a time. I feel it a duty, under present distressing circumstances, to require your promises not to engage for the present in any further attempt to procure subjects. The difficulties and dangers which beset the inquiring student in the prosecution of his anatomical researches are a great reproach to this enlightened age; but I entertain a confident hope that the representations of practical and scientific men may influence the Legislature, and that a better mode of supplying anatomical schools with subjects will speedily remedy the present evils we so much deplore.
“Gentlemen, the most perfect silence is necessary as to the events of last night. From the necessarily hurried manner with which the party left the churchyard, traces of their attempt may possibly draw the attention of the authorities, and lead to a public inquiry.”
Mr. Bromfield having finished his address, we all pledged ourselves in the way he required, and the meeting broke up.
Returning wearily to my lodgings I was startled by a placard, signed by the churchwardens of