Wood engraving illustration for the story "plucky dick pluckless" by charles temple, once a week magazine, volume 8, page 530. In this story, dick dyvart, an officer, has arranged to get the novel experience of driving a hearse. At one point a shot fired by boys shooting sparrows grazes the horses and frightens them into a mad gallop, but dyvart manages to control their flight and would be able to get them to stop, if not that he hears the corpse, shaken about in the bounding hearse, begin to swear, whereupon "i was paralysed with fear. Whether the reins dropped from my hands i cannot tell. Certainly i lost all power over them. I had urged the horses up the rise. I could not check them in time, they thundered down the corresponding descent the other side. We ran against a tree. A crash. I was hurled off my seat. The hearse was smashed. Its broken bits and the mad horses disappeared i know not where. I and the shattered coffin rolled down a steep bank. ". Date: 2 May 1863.
Loading...