CHAPTER III
FRI. NOV. 9. Charley’s Paddock. Binney. Catastrophe.
WHAT fatality impelled me to fix on the 9th, above all other days in the month? Why didn’t I glance over the record of each 9th, before committing myself by a promise to review and annotate the entries of that date? For, few and evil as the days of the years of my pilgrimage have undeniably been, the 9th of November, ’83, is one of those which I feel least satisfaction in recalling. Moreover, I incur a certain risk in thus unbosoming myself, as will become apparent to the perfidious reader who hungrily shadows me through this compromising story. But it may be graven with a pen of iron, that, at my age, no man shirks a promise, or tells a fib, for the first time; and so, “Sad, but Strong”—the family motto of the Colonnas, that offshoot of our tribe which settled in Italy in the year One—I answer to my bail.
One reservation I must make, however. For reasons which will too soon become manifest, it is expedient to conceal the exact locality of the unhappy experience now about to be disclosed; but I think I shall be on the safe side in setting forth that it was somewhere between Echuca and Albury.
Any person who happens to have preserved the files of the —— Express may find, on the second page of the issue of Nov. 12th, the following local intelligence:—
On the night of Friday last the inhabitants of
—— were thrown into a state of excitement which may better be imagened than described by the appearance of a lunatic
in puris naturalibus whose mania was evidently homicidal. During the earlier portion of the night the unfortunate man was seen from time to time by quite a number of people in places many miles apart. Some of the pleasure-seekers returning from the picnic held by the Sunday School Teachers’ Re-union (noticed elsewhere in our columns) saw him scuttling along the three-chain road at a breaknəck pace, others saw him dodging behind trees or endeavouring to conceal himself in scrub. At about 9 o’clock in the evening one of the picnic party, an athlete of some repute, made a plucky and determined attempt to capture the madman, and succeeded in overpowering him. This accomplished
secundem artem, an impulse of humanity prompted Mr. K
—— (for as some of our readers have already guessed, the gentleman referred to was Mr. K
——, of the firm of D
—— and S
——, Drapers,
——) to divest himself of part of his own clothing for the benefit of his prisoner. The latter, when Mr. K
—— attempted to force the clothing upon him, rent the air with horrible shrieks heard by many others of the party, and by exertion of the unnatural strength which insanity confers, broke from his captor and escaped. Mr. K
—— humorously comments on the difficulty of hoiding a nude antagonist. If we were inclined to be facetious on the subject we might suggest that
mens sana in corpore sano is not an infallible rule. Late in the evening the maniac
horresco referrens made a furious attack on the residence of Mr. G
—— who was unfortunately absent at the time. Mrs. G
—— with the splendid courage which distinguishes the farmer’s wife, kept him at bay till some wild impulse drove him to seek “fresh fields and pastures new.” The black trackers