costly and more efficacious. A few days later the gentleman returned to thank me for my advice and, introducing himself as Colonel Brookes, late of the East India Company's service, asked me to do him the kindness of dining at his newly purchased house in Front Street.
Colonel Brookes proved to be a reserved and gentle man, the veteran of many hard-fought campaigns against the Pindaries and Mahrattas. He was considerate, generous and wealthy, but unmarried and, though a Staffordshire man, had been so long absent from our shores as to have very few friends or acquaintances left in the county. I took a liking to the Colonel and presently introduced him to Dr Edward Knight, the most competent physician in Stafford, and old Mr Wright, the brewer; and we were very glad of him to make a fourth at short whist in our twice-weekly sessions, and thus fill the place vacated by the late Captain Browne, R.N., recently dead of an apoplexy. We found the Colonel to be a keen and skilful player, with a fine sense of sportsmanship, and though he never became our intimate in the rollicking style of poor Captain Browne, we congratulated ourselves on our acquisition. He opened his heart most fully to Dr Knight, with whom he discovered that he had been a fellow-scholar at the Grammar School some fifty years before, and who was married to a cousin of his. When Dr Knight inquired privately one day: ' Colonel, may I be permitted to ask a perhaps indiscreet question—why is it that you have never married?', he heaved a deep sigh and took fully a minute to answer.
Then he explained that he had been one of five brothers, of which he was now the sole survivor. 'They each and all died by pistol shot,' he added.
'They were inveterate duellists, I suppose ?' Dr Knight suggested.
The Colonel shook his head mournfully.
'Ah, so they fell in battle?' pursued Dr Knight.
Again a shake of the head. 'We Brookes are a melancholy breed, Sir,' the Colonel at last forced himself to say, 'and each of my broth ers in turn, wh en the unhappiness of living th is life out proved too great for him, blew out his own brains. That is the reason why I have never married; I cannot wish either to perpetuate the family taint of suicide by begetting children, or to bring disgrace on their mother. For though I have fought successfully against the temptation of self-murder all my life, and though its recurrence has become both less frequent and less violent with advancing age, I can never be sure that it will not one day leap upon me like a lurking tiger. Indeed, only the other evening
Emotion prevented the Colonel from completing the sentence, but Dr Knight made him promise that if he ever felt a return of the evil, he would promise on his honour to call without delay at the surgery, whatever the hour, for consolation and friendly support. Colonel Brookes pledged him his word as a soldier, and appeared to be very much heartened by the old Doctor's evident sympath y.
I had, by the way, also introduced Colonel Brookes to the Mr Thomas Weaver of whom I spoke just now: a competent solicitor, then entrusted with my own business affairs, who seemed willing enough to undertake the Colonel's. Mr Weaver advised him to buy a property in the town consisting of seventeen acres of land, valued at three to four hundred pounds the acre; also of nine fine dwelling houses at the back of St Mary's Church, the leases of winch brought in a handsome income, or at least handsome in comparison with the purchase price. The largest of these had lately become unoccupied at the expiration of its lease.
Now, though Colonel Brookes was a model citizen in all other respects, chronic ill-health had blunted neither his sexual appetite nor his virility; and when he engaged a widow and her daughter to act, respectively, as his cook and his parlour-maid, trouble soon ensued. Disdaining the widow, a buxom woman of forty who had already set her cap at him, he made surreptitious love to the seventeen-year-old
Colonel Brookes proved to be a reserved and gentle man, the veteran of many hard-fought campaigns against the Pindaries and Mahrattas. He was considerate, generous and wealthy, but unmarried and, though a Staffordshire man, had been so long absent from our shores as to have very few friends or acquaintances left in the county. I took a liking to the Colonel and presently introduced him to Dr Edward Knight, the most competent physician in Stafford, and old Mr Wright, the brewer; and we were very glad of him to make a fourth at short whist in our twice-weekly sessions, and thus fill the place vacated by the late Captain Browne, R.N., recently dead of an apoplexy. We found the Colonel to be a keen and skilful player, with a fine sense of sportsmanship, and though he never became our intimate in the rollicking style of poor Captain Browne, we congratulated ourselves on our acquisition. He opened his heart most fully to Dr Knight, with whom he discovered that he had been a fellow-scholar at the Grammar School some fifty years before, and who was married to a cousin of his. When Dr Knight inquired privately one day: ' Colonel, may I be permitted to ask a perhaps indiscreet question—why is it that you have never married?', he heaved a deep sigh and took fully a minute to answer.
Then he explained that he had been one of five brothers, of which he was now the sole survivor. 'They each and all died by pistol shot,' he added.
'They were inveterate duellists, I suppose ?' Dr Knight suggested.
The Colonel shook his head mournfully.
'Ah, so they fell in battle?' pursued Dr Knight.
Again a shake of the head. 'We Brookes are a melancholy breed, Sir,' the Colonel at last forced himself to say, 'and each of my broth ers in turn, wh en the unhappiness of living th is life out proved too great for him, blew out his own brains. That is the reason why I have never married; I cannot wish either to perpetuate the family taint of suicide by begetting children, or to bring disgrace on their mother. For though I have fought successfully against the temptation of self-murder all my life, and though its recurrence has become both less frequent and less violent with advancing age, I can never be sure that it will not one day leap upon me like a lurking tiger. Indeed, only the other evening
Emotion prevented the Colonel from completing the sentence, but Dr Knight made him promise that if he ever felt a return of the evil, he would promise on his honour to call without delay at the surgery, whatever the hour, for consolation and friendly support. Colonel Brookes pledged him his word as a soldier, and appeared to be very much heartened by the old Doctor's evident sympath y.
I had, by the way, also introduced Colonel Brookes to the Mr Thomas Weaver of whom I spoke just now: a competent solicitor, then entrusted with my own business affairs, who seemed willing enough to undertake the Colonel's. Mr Weaver advised him to buy a property in the town consisting of seventeen acres of land, valued at three to four hundred pounds the acre; also of nine fine dwelling houses at the back of St Mary's Church, the leases of winch brought in a handsome income, or at least handsome in comparison with the purchase price. The largest of these had lately become unoccupied at the expiration of its lease.
Now, though Colonel Brookes was a model citizen in all other respects, chronic ill-health had blunted neither his sexual appetite nor his virility; and when he engaged a widow and her daughter to act, respectively, as his cook and his parlour-maid, trouble soon ensued. Disdaining the widow, a buxom woman of forty who had already set her cap at him, he made surreptitious love to the seventeen-year-old
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