THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

Westport Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 3240, 1 August 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

On the moining of the 10th of November, Richard Buller, Esq., Q.C., received two communications. The one contained an intimation that in consideration of his distinguished talents, he was about to be raised to the bench to fill a vacancy created by death. What the contents of the second document might be no one about him was ever able to say, for Richard Buller, Esq., Q.C., went-straight up stairs to his bedroom and cut his throat. Looked at in a certain light, the catastrophe was a very awful one ; considered critically by anyone aeeustomed to newspaper reading, it was a very ordinary affair. If anyone interested in statistics took the trouble' to notft the number of respectable gentlemen who pus themselves to death annually without apparent rhyme or reason, the result would be astonishing. Now, Richard Bul'er's case was one of the very ordinary ones. There were the usual paragraphs in the papers, and the usual inquest, at which the usual negative evidence was tendered, and the result was the usual verdict, " We find that the deceased committed suicide in a moment of temporary insanity." Given twelve fools, a coroner in a hurry for his dinner, and a highly respectable, corpse, what other verdict could be expected ? And yet Dick Buller, as he was affectionately termed by his lirge circle of acquaintances, wa? as sane when he cut a Gordian knot by severing his own windpipe as ever he had been in the v>hole course of his career. The act was directly due to the influence of one of the two communications which he received that fatal morning. To speak correctly, it was the combined effect of both. One informed him that he was to be officially gazetted one of her Majesty's judges, and the other .

Let 08 go back a long, long way, and make Mr. Buller's acquaintance at a very earlv date in his career. Dick Bailer's death certificate records his age as fifty-eight, and the coroner's inquiries as to the cause of Me death were limited to a year. We must- 100 l for that cause in events which occurred five-and-thirty years ago. Then he was a young man about town, a clever, dissipated fellow, leading the evil life which nine-tenths of the male population of civilised countries do lean —that is, when they have the leisure and the means. At a time when it seemed probabk that his mind was unhinged by drink and profligacy, he was entrapped into a marriage with a vulgar, designing woman of low birth and coarse animal beauty. To what a depth ol mad recklessness he must have descended to consent to such a foul alliance only he himself knew, for he repented in a week, and locked his secret in his bosom. A wee'. of the woman's society, knowing that she war. his lawful wife and bound to him for life, filled him with such loathing and reraorf; that the sight of her became hateful to him. She saw it, and offered him his liberty at a price. He jumped at the bait. He never saw the cruel hook concealed so artfully behind ii. and on that hook he wriggled for the rest of his days. He allowed her a hundred ami fifty ponnds a year hush money, and fancied he had got off cheaply. Once free of the incubus, he led an altered life. He became :\ sober, hard-working student of the law, and labored night and day to qualify himself for his profession. In duo time he was called to the Bar, and ho prospered. The lesson of his youth had been severe. He had drunk the draught of pleasure at a gulp, dregs and all; and now the whole labor of his life was to get the bitter taste of those dregs out of hia mouth. His whole mind was concentrated on one object—his work; and his earnestness won him the esteem and confidence of all. So rapid was his rise that at the age of ei<mt-and-thirty ho was a fashionable counsel, 'ani the best cases were invariably brought to hin;. During all these years the allowance to h'n wife was regularly paid. There was alwajs the dread that she might make public use of his name; but as the years wore on and she made no sign, he grew confident and fearless. It was in his eight-and-thirtieth year that ba did the second foolish thing in his life. Ho fell in love with a lady, high-born, amiabl ■, and beautiful. He had so long looked upon himself as a bachelor that the occurrence w; 3 a natural one; it was only whoa he refleoted on his actual position that the folly of inducing his passion was forced home to him. Th i attachment of the rising young barrister for the beautiful Maud Worthingtoa somehow ( r other began to bo whispered about, and subsequent events proved that his wife heard cf it. She was a cruel, unscrupulous, designing wom..n, and she saw the opportunity of "reaping a golden harvest at last. She went and wligu her quarter's allowance became di > Buller's lasvyer'a could not find her, and she never came to claim it. For four quarters the money lay idle at their bankers, and then they began to make serious inquiries. The result pointed almost conclusivelv to the fact that Mrs. Buller was dead. Her husband felt sure that she was. Ha was certain she would have claimed her allowance if alive, and his lawyers agreed with him. Common sense was also in favour of the argument. Ho let two years slip away, growing more confident as each quarter's allowance became due andrernainid unolaimed. At the end of the second year he proposed to Maud Worthington with a light heart, feeling on the day he was accepted that the error of his youth was atoned for, and that a merciful Providence had lifted the burthen from his heart and had bidden the sun rise once more and illumine his life wi'h its long-vanished radiance. He married, aid was happy. He went fearlessly with his wi;e into society, and fate smiled upon him more warmly than ever. He was on the road to fortune; he had a vast establishment; he was a Q.C., and, to crown all, a year after his marriage there was given to him a little child, to add one more blessing to many which Fortune had showered into his lap. And from that day he never knew one happy moment more. He went straight from home that memorable morning to his chambers in the Temple, and there he fouud a la lv deeply veiled waiting for him. It was his wife. He sat chilled and speechless and listened to her story. She had been to Amerir a, she said, on a theatrical tour, and had not troubled about her allowance. She had returned now to claim it, and had heard of his marriage. She wished for an explanation. She told her story calmly and cruelly. lie saw through the hideous plot in a moment, and he could have struck her to the ground where she stood. She was the same crafty, heartless creature that she had been in the days when he first fell into her clutches. She only wanted her price. A thousand down, and double the former allowance. Her terms were agreed to. He dared not dispute them, and she went her way. But frosa that moment Dick Buller was an altered man. Society noticed it, and wondered; his wife noticed it and wept. Still, he lived his life quietly and sensibly, and made no sign."Only he trembled now at every knock, he got nervous over opening his letters, he avoided going into the world more than he could help, and there came upon his face a stern, settled look of care that some put down to work, and some to ill-health, but none to the right cause. The sword of Damocles was suspended above his head by the slenderest of threads, and at any moment it might fall. More children were born to him, and this heightened his despair. Alone in his study of a night he would face the situation, and see it in all its ghastly reality. The woman he loved best in the world might be dishonoured, his children declared J)a9tards, and his name ruined at a

fc'.vt.c . A:l tLii Wa-j dearest to him on earth might be wrecked in an instant by a, v.'oid Ham a, vihs an! unscrupulous >voman. The years passed on and the reins •veje drawn tighter. As his public fame •:nd his position improved, so did the of his persecutor increase. He had no option. He was at her mercy, and he knew it. He could onlv defeat her machinations by sacrificing his wife and children, and disgracing himself for ever. He endured in silence, paid in secret, and fortified himself with the idea that God in His mercy would one day sweep the fiend with the flaming sword from the realms of peace, which he longed to enter again, and give him rest in his old age. And even if the woman died, and he broke the ghastly tidings to the mother of his children, the hideous blot upon their birth could never be wiped out. At last he gave up thinking about it. It was so awful arid so hopeless, that, by a superhuman effort, he banished it from his mind, and, hiding it, tried to believe that it was not. So it came about that he purchased the woman's silence year by year at a higher price, haunted ever and anon by nameless dread that all might yet be in vain. His children grew a\). His sons went into the world, and were proud of their father's honoured name; it was a passport to them wherever they went. Hi 3 daughters, fair, innocent creatures, twined themselves about his heart like the gentle ivy round the stalwart oak, and he felt each night, as he kissed them and looked into their loving eyes, that for them to learn their shame would kill him, for he could never meet their gaze again should that fatal knowledge corns. A year before the appointment to the vacant judgeship came, the woman he had married in his wild youth, grown old and hardened in her wickedness, conceived ono of those| .fierce desires for vengeance that come to some evil natures when the capacity for enjoying the world's pleasure is gone. She had not squandered the wealth she had tortareal out of her victim, and now she had ample to suffice her for the rest of her life. She had played with the fish upon the hook long enough, and now she felt spiteful and thought she would kill it. " What have I done," she wrote, " that I should be hidden from the world all these years—l, your lawful wife—while you flaunt your mistress and bastards about and impose them upon society? It i 3 I who should be presented at Court. It is I who should be received as the honored wife of the famous Quien's Counsel, not the womau who has usurped my place." Mr. Buller grew terrified at the violence of these letters. Was the blow to come at last, now, when his long and laborious life had told upon him, and he stood in need of quiet ann repoao, and now when his wife and children were dearer to him tha# ever ? He fought the spectre off. He satisfied himself that it was only talk. But the letters grow more violent than ever, and then came vague threats of a sensational exposure. His sleep was now disturbed by fearful dreams. He began to grow pale and look ill; but still he struggled on, hiding his anguish as best he could from his dear ones. On the morning that he received the announcement of his promotion to the judgship he received a letter from his pensioned wife. It was brief and to the purpose:— " 1 read in the papers that you are to ae made a judge. You will be knighted, and that woman will be called Lady Buller. It shall natbe 1 She has robbed me too long. I demand that you acknowledge me before the world as your wife. Your mistress and your bastards shall masquerade at my expense no more. To-morrow I will proclaim myself by my lawful title and denounce you to the world you have so long imposed upon. Curse your paltry gold! It was mine by right. Now I want my title, too, and I mean to have it—and by G— I will 1 I swear it." The sword of Damocles had fallen. * » « *

Previous to cutting his throat, Eichard Buller wrote a letter which never appeared in evidence. It was to his real wife, and it told her what he was going to do. "So long as you keep my secret," it said, " my solicitors have instructions to pay you a large yearly sum out of my estate. Betray me, and it will cease, for I have purposely protected those 1 have so grievously wronged against the consequences of my act." The woman's motive for revenge being gone, she accepted the bribe, and to this day, when the suicide of the great Queen's Counsel is alluded to, no one has a notion that ten minutes before his death he wrote a letter which offered conclusive proof, not only of his sanity, but of his worldly tact and business ability, and at the same time put into written evidence a very adequate motive for the ghastly act which terminated his career. Over how many hpsds hangs there a sword of Damocles at this moment, and how few, save the threatened victims, suspect its presence !By G. R. Sims, in " The Social Kaleidoscope,"