STRANGER THAN FICTION THE MISSSING HAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 200, 23 April 1887, Page 8

STRANGER THAN FICTION THE MISSSING HAND.

Soon after my arrival in Nc f w York, in ISSG, I made the acquaintance of a young American smgeon named Joseph B. Tomlinsfti, who had seived during the war, and who had since joined the staff of the Bellevue Hospital. I was anxious to see something of the famous battlefields of Virginia, and, as Tomlinson had just been granted two months' leave of absence, I without much difficulty prevailed on him to accompany me to the South, and to act as my guide, philosopher, and friend during my wandering. He was a pleasant and amusing 1 companion, full of good spirits, and fond of exercising his undoubted gift of humour, especially when he had an opportunity of flavouring it with a touch of the grim find horrible. With him I enjoyed myself to the utmost, and saw all that was to be seen in the historical stretch of country that lies between Washington and the Appomato, and westward as far as the lower slopes of the Alloghanios. When w o returned together, instead of at once going on to Canada, as 1 had originally intended, 1 remained for some weeks in Tsew Yoik, .seeing Tomlinson almost every day, either at his 100 ms in the hospital, or at the hotel in which I was staying. We had become \e<y intimate, and, I confers, 1 looked foiward with no small regiet to the prospect of bidding him good-bye ; for at twenty )ouno men make warm friendships. One morning I found upon my breakfast table a note horn him. " ISIy dear ISmith," lie "uroU, '■ I'm going to .--end you to-day a * notion ' io take home with you a& a memento of tiu-> lenuukable country. Prosen eit can-fully. The workmanship of it is. mote beautiful than you can imagine. J guess it won't be of much use to you, but, anyway , ir is a genuine curiosity.' 1 I saw roiulinson in the course of the day, but he ivfiwd to tell me to what his letter alluded. '• When you get back," he said, laughiuyh , " you w ill find the present, and then \ou w ill know all about it." At night 1 asked the clerk at the desk in the hall of the hotel whether a parcel addies^ed to me hid aimed dining my absence. He ham led me a little package, about t'l'oe inches, -square and about one ineb Jiiek, and, ha\ ing also obtained from him tlie key of my loom, 1 went rp to bed. When I wa» halt undre^-ed I opened the my-tenou-, piesv.ut. It was w lapped up in a good Mi my thiekiu v«es of ti.->ue paper, and .-o long hj-. T in i caching the kernel of the j/a'-ket that I beg \n to -aspect that, after all, theie was nothing in it. At last, how l > or, I came upon ,i ma--s of -oft. cottonwool, horn the midst oi which a white object tumbled out, and fell with a dead sound upon the iloor, wheie the rays from the £i- jet did not lc.ich it. I stooped to pick it up. It was cold and clammy ; and a.s Iluldit to t lie light, 1 t-aw to my horror that n n.i- a httle human hand. In ed scarcely s ;i y that I very quickly dropped it again. This time, however, it fell upon the table, .rid, w hen I had recox ered from the -.hock, I wn>. able to examine it w ithout touching it. Yes ; it m,i- beyond doubt a hand, i\ little, dimple' l baby's hand, that had been cleanly se%^ied fiom the arm .it the \rrist. It was a suny joke of Tomliiisoii's, I thought, to send it to me. 1 did nob quite know what to do with it. li" 1 tlnew it out of the window , it might be found by tin" police, and I might be arrested on suspicion of murder and mutilating. Ir. op the otlh;' hind, 1 left it on my table, J felt ceitdin that all night long I .should be tormented with nightmare With -omu shrinking of heart, theivfoie, 1 wiapped it up, and placed it in ad'.iwei, dereimined, if possible, to get rid of it on the monow. But, "when I tell --yep, that little hand came forth and pio-oeuted me in my dreams for houis together, i seemed to see the piattling baby to whom it belonged, and in fifty diffeivil ways to witness the barbaroumunlatior oi the poor child. A- eaiH" as ] > i^-iblo nevt morning 1 walked to tlw hospital and called upon Tomlm'-oii. " l Well, <»U Mlow ; it is a curiosity, i-n t it *> ' wue his gtueting v.okK, ""It "u '^ a \ei \ pool joke of youis to >t nd it, ' I i "plied with -ome indignation. " I dz earned about it all night. I have b. ought it ba<-k to you." " What '.' You v, on't ha\e it ?" he laughed. "(Jive it r o me, then. I'll have it made ii.to u paperweight for you." " Ko, 1 don't want it on any terms, thank- None of your gruesome relics for me ' W hi'ie on eaith did you get if" " It i- „'i inten\-.ting story," said Tomhn^nn. l¥ Yesterday morning they brought the pooi child into the hospital with its little hand hanging to its wrist by a mere ,->!i7 ed o + fl"-b «.ml skin The mother, in a fct oi ma ii,ess, hid done the deed with a table-knife. When the surgeon came round at nudflaj we took it oft altogether. It v. as iiu) -oi^ibl'j to si\e it, of course. It -seenr- th.it the woman is the wife of an Englishman who \olunteered into the Austnan and was killed in the late .wai with Prussia. She, being an American, came ovei huie: but not finding her fiiends. .-is she had expected, she lost her Jiead, and, in spile of her love for her baby, injured the child an J have told you. I guess tliat they will .send her to an asylum until she got> cured.'' " Poor woman ; and how is the baby ?" I aked. "Oli, the baby will probably do well enough. We have a nurse for it, as it is only thiee months old. Come and have a look at it." I followed Tomlinson into a bright and cheerful ward in which, near a stove, sat a woman who was tenderly rocking the -little sufferer in her arms. The maimed stump of the child's wrist was swathed in bandages, but I was astonished to see how well the tiny patient looked. Its face, though perfectly white, was intelligent and lively ; and it bore no traces of pain. " It couldn't be doing better, sir," said the kindly Irish nurse ; " I'm taking i^lre of It os if it were my own, poor little thing." I gave the woman a five-dollar bill, and told Tomlinson that I should be happy to do for the child anything that lay in my power. "Don't worry yourself on that score," laughed the good-natured American. " Every man on the staff of the hospital is ready to be a father to the baby. But, when we find out who its mother's friends are, they will probably see to everything. I fancy that they are well-to-do people." "Well, here's the hand," I said, as I took the packet from my pocket. " And now I must be off." " 1 shall have it made into a paper- weight for you," said Toralinson. " There is a man on the Bowery who is great at pi-e-serving and embalming, and mummifying, and all that, and J 'll get him to fix it up for you." *' Confound your unwholesome tastes," I ejaculated. "No ! throw it away or bury it ; I don't want it to haunt me. Goodbye !" And I hurried to meet a literary friend, who had promised to show me over the '"Herald" Office. Three weeks afterwards I sailed for Liverpool. Tomlinson saw me off, accompanying me on board the steamer, and saying his last words to me in my

stele-room, then he went ashore, and, as 1 the vessel was towed from ih& slip, wared his hand to me and disappeared. When 1 ,, an hour or so later, 1 went below to arrange my luggage in the craftiped space which is allotted to the Atlantic oyager, I found a strange parcel addressed to'ine and lying in my berth. It contained a neat box nude of American walnut, and in the box was the baby's hand, mounted in silver, spread upon a small slab of black marble, and looking as if it were a piece 1 of dolieatoly-carved ivory rather than a mass of skin and cartilage. This time I was enchanted with it, for it was a really beautiful object. All the fulness and chubbiness of contour hadt been wonderfully preserved, and my horror of it vanished at onco and for ever. From ' that day until this the baby's hand has always lain upon my writing-table. As I write now, it keeps these sheets from fluttering away from me. j Six or seven years ago an English surgeon saw it and admired it. "It is splendidly pi esorved," he said; " and certainly tho specimen was worth mounting. I have ne\ or before scon a hand Avith so long a ring-linger." And then, for tho first time, I no Diced that the ring-linger was absolutely longer than tho middle one. Last year I wont down to Sir Rupert Dudley's delightful place in JMoorshire, my hospitable friend, the baronet, having, according to his Avont, united me to assist at the annual slaughter of his partridges. For eight 01 nine months I had not quitted my bachelor chambers in tho Templo for more than a few houts at a time, and, like the majority of Londoner in autumn, 1 was heartily glad to get away for a season from the grime and smoke of the metropolis Sir Rupert's house it is a rambling Elizabethan place called The Sticks — Avas full of guests. Viscount Comberwell, Avho had just returned from a voyage round tho world, and w ho had shot all kinds of game in all kinds of climes, sva.s there. So was Hib Highness the Maharajah of Barracouta, an Anglicised Hindoo potentate, who Avas said to po«>se«.& pailful- of jeAvels, and Avho had with him a suite of nine gentlemen, each one of Avhom seemed duskier than the the rest. And among the other visitors Avere Colonel John Dawe and his shreAV of a Avifo, Lady Euphcmia ; Count Alphonse de la Rouge-Cantenac, a Breton nobleman who \\ as generally believed to make a precarious liA't'lihood by playing curds at shortlived London clubs ; Lad) < trundle and her tAvo stupid sons ; Mi> Copleston Vere and her two plain dau»htei», each of whom, by the way, has four thousand a year of her own ; that ancient dame, Dionysia, Countess of Fribbleham : Mis and Miss Shooter ; Mi« o Viola Pickering, the most incuiable flirt in the llnee kingdoms, and several others. It Avas u pleasant enough party ; and although, on one occasion, the French count, who is Aery short-sighted, and never files at a bird on the wing, managed to put the best jjart of a charge of >hot into my hat, I, fiom the iirst, enjoyed myself amazingly. We were out every day starting (hieetly after breakfast, and and a-> the Aveather was lovely, Aye all spent the be->t part of our time, including our evenings, in the open air. 1 talked scandal Avith Lady FiibMeham until that highly ridiculous old lady giew tired of me, and handed me over to Claia Shooter, upon as horn, until that moment, De La Rouge Cantenac had been graciously bestowing his attentions. Miss Shooter seemoti, I know not Avhy, to prefer my society to his, and I certainly prefenedhers to Lady Fribbleham's. Perhaps Clara's profoicncc Avas OAving to the fact that, although I Avas nearing forty, I played tennis, and because she Avns> passionately fond of it, and never got much satisfaction out of playing Avith the Count, Avho, 1 belieA r e, wore coi.sets. At any rate, do la Rouge-Cantenac soon began to regard me Avith"eA'identdisfavour,and I am by no means certain that I have not to thank his jealousy for the shots A\hich narroAvly missed my head and entirely spoilt my hat. Mis-, Shooter Avas a charming but rather dangerous companion for a man Avho, like my-elf, had determined to live and die in single-bU'^ednes^. She as as a^ active as a fawn, as sAveetly amusing as a child, and yet as clever, and, considei ing her age, as Avell-read as any Avoman i kneAv. The ladies iiadgiOAvn Avoary of coming out to meet v*. at luncheon the other day, And Lady Fribbleham one morning proposed that as many of us as chose to do so should di ivo OA-ei to Bickerslade, a village tAvelve miles aAv.iy that is celebrated for its fine old chinch, containing, among other antiquities, s,on<e good specimens of Avood can-ing. Who would go ? I wab anxious to see Bickerslade church : so also Avere sea eral others ; and soon after breakfast, eight or ten of us, including de la Ronge-Cantonae, Mis and Miss Shooter, and the plain Misses Vere, staited oil on a coach which Avas dexterously tooled by young (-Jeorge Dudley. We put u]> the horses at the little village inn, and sti oiled aAvay in tAvos and throes. Do la RougeCantenae, avlio, during the drive, had sat on the back scat of the coach Avith Miss Shooter, and had had a loav but I rather excited com-eivation with her, avas in a very bad humour : and 1 Avas exceedingly annoyed to find that he persisted in accompanying h^i and me in our rambles. J ! She, hoAvever, Avas more than usually polite to him, and J, although he scarcely be- ! haA'ed Avith ordinary civility, affected to take no notice of his sour temper. We went at once to the church, of which I Aye had obtained a key fiom the clerk. The chief treasures of the place were, as Aye had been informed, to be found in the vestry, Avhcre Aye discoA'ered five or six beautifullycarved and very massive oaken chests. On a table in the middle of the room lay some old registers, yelloAV and mouldy Avith years ; and, catching sight of a familiar name on the open page, I began to examine the volume, De la Rouge-Can - I tenac and Miss Shooter meanwhile admiring the coffers, several of which Avere unlocked. Suddenly I heard a dull thud, an exclamation in French, and, starting up, I saAv to my dismay, that the heavy lid of one of the chests had fallen down, crushing the fingers of Miss Shooter's left hand. In an instant I released her. She had not uttered a cry. " Are you much hurt ?" 1 asked anxiously. But, instead of replying, she blushed, and, clasping the mangled lingers I Avith her right hand, turned to the Frenchman and said, haughtily, "Sir, you may leave me ; and, remember, I do not desire ever to have another word Avith you." Whereupon, to my great astonishment, the Count groAv red in tho face, bowed stiffly, and, Avithout opening his lips, quitted the J vestry. " Are you much hurt ?" I repeated. "Oh ! It is nothing," sho replied, Avith a slight but troubled smile. i " Let me see to it. Let me at least cut | off your gWe ?" " No, if you please. Don't think any I more of it. It is really nothing. " And she nervously lifted the maimed hand into the pocket of her jacket. "lam very sorry," I said. " How did it happen ? Let us go back to the inn, Miss Shooter." " Can you keep a secret, Mr Smith ?" she asked, smiling more freely than before. "It is very stupid ; but I don't much care about having it generally known. The truth is that, fortunately for me, my left hand is a false one."

" A false one !" I exclaimed. " 1 never suspected it. The** happily you are not hurt," " No ; not in tho lei Mb. I hurt my hand by an- accident when I A*as a child ; and today I am very glad of it ;•: for, do you know, I am- quite certain Sliat the Covmt intended to do me an injury. He was hoWing; the lid of that chest, and' he let it fall. Ho told me, while we were'driving here,, that - -" " That what ?" I asked, for she hesitated. " Well ; J had bettor tell yotx', I suppose ; for I am still more than half afraid. of him. Ho asked me to marry him, and I- refused him, and he told mo that he would never forgive me." Miss Shooter said this with a ddgreo of nervousnness that showed me sho was really afraid. "You need be under no further apprehension," I said*. "He shall not annoy you any more. " " But you won't betray my secret ?" she pleaded, wimringly \ and she held out. her right ungloved hand. "No !" I replied ; and, as I clasped lac finger, I noticed* but not, perhaps, with a start of surprise, that the ring-finger was longer than the middle one. " Are you a believer in palmistry ?" I asked, still holding her hand. We were now in the church-pwch. " No ; of course not 1" I examined the palm, and hazarded, ' ' Why, Miss Shooter,, you surely lost your hand in America ?" It was her turn to .start. "How do you know that ? But I suppose that my aunt has told you." ' ' No ; bhe did not tell me, and my true reason for knowing must, be a secret for the present. " That day we saw no more of the Count until the evening. ITe had walked back alone to The Stacks, and on tho following morning he departed. When we returned 1 went to the nearest telegraph o(h'ee and wired up to the Temple, the result being that on the next clay a small package reached mo by parcel- po^t. In the meantime ML?s Shooter had kept her left arm in a feling, and had, privately, of course, sent to a surgical instrument maker in London to have her artificial hand repaired. At 1 1 o'clock everyone was on the lawn. I went out and begged Miss Shooter to accompany me to tho library. " Can you be.v a little shock ?" I asked. "Do you mind my showing you a great curiosity ?" "It it i.^ nothing very dreadful." "Well, it is a little dreadful. But I shall »how you. It will interest you." And I allowed her my paper-weight. "That, I believe, is your litble hand," i .said, and I told her the whole history of my trea&ure. " How maivellous !"' hhe exclaimed, when 1 had ended. " Yen, it is indeed mine. What a docn'j poor little thing it is ! 1 should so much like to have it, Mr Smith, if " " Oh, you may ha-\e it," 1 said. " Thank you ! Thank you &o much " "But there is a. condition. You must give me the other."' i I need not tell you the rest of the story I at length, for in the end she did give me the other, and. we were married la&t Christmap. The tale is a bit of family history now, and I ought not;, perhaps, to> reveal it, even j although I have Clara's permission to do so. | But L think that the extraordinary recovery j of that missing little hand deserves to be chronicled in type. 1 need only add, by way of explanation, that shortly after I quitted New York, the child in the Bellevue Hospital was claimed by its mother's relations, who, if course of time, sent it over to England to be adopted by its dead father's childless brother, Colonel Gregory Shooter, of the Moorfthire Regiment.