The Dead Alive

The Dead Alive, by Wilkie
Collins

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Title: The Dead Alive
Author: Wilkie Collins

Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7891] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 31, 2003]
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD
ALIVE ***

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THE DEAD ALIVE.
By Wilkie Collins
CHAPTER I.
THE SICK MAN.
"HEART all right," said the doctor. "Lungs all right. No organic
disease that I can discover. Philip Lefrank, don't alarm yourself. You
are not going to die yet. The disease you are suffering from
is--overwork. The remedy in your case is--rest."
So the doctor spoke, in my chambers in the Temple (London); having
been sent for to see me about half an hour after I had alarmed my clerk
by fainting at my desk. I have no wish to intrude myself needlessly on
the reader's attention; but it may be necessary to add, in the way of
explanation, that I am a "junior" barrister in good practice. I come from
the channel Island of Jersey. The French spelling of my name (Lefranc)
was Anglicized generations since--in the days when the letter "k" was
still used in England at the end of words which now terminate in "c."

We hold our heads high, nevertheless, as a Jersey family. It is to this
day a trial to my father to hear his son described as a member of the
English bar.
"Rest!" I repeated, when my medical adviser had done. "My good
friend, are you aware that it is term-time? The courts are sitting. Look
at the briefs waiting for me on that table! Rest means ruin in my case."
"And work," added the doctor, quietly, "means death."
I started. He was not trying to frighten me: he was plainly in earnest.
"It is merely a question of time," he went on. "You have a fine
constitution; you are a young man; but you cannot deliberately
overwork your brain, and derange your nervous system, much longer.
Go away at once. If you are a good sailor, take a sea-voyage. The ocean
air is the best of all air to build you up again. No: I don't want to write a
prescription. I decline to physic you. I have no more to say."
With these words my medical friend left the room. I was obstinate: I
went into court the same day.
The senior counsel in the case on which I was engaged applied to me
for some information which it was my duty to give him. To my horror
and amazement, I was perfectly unable to collect my ideas; facts and
dates all mingled together confusedly in my mind. I was led out of
court thoroughly terrified about myself. The next day my briefs went
back to the attorneys; and I followed my doctor's advice by taking my
passage for America in the first steamer that sailed for New York.
I had chosen the voyage to America in preference to any other trip by
sea, with a special object in view. A relative of my mother's had
emigrated to the United States many years since, and had thriven there
as a farmer. He had given me a general invitation to visit him if I ever
crossed the Atlantic. The long period of inaction, under the name of
rest, to which the doctor's decision had condemned me, could hardly be
more pleasantly occupied, as I thought, than by paying a visit to my
relation, and seeing what I could of America in that way. After a brief

sojourn at New York, I started by railway for the residence of my
host--Mr. Isaac Meadowcroft, of Morwick Farm.
There are some of the grandest natural prospects on the face of creation
in