[Editor: This is section 3 of “Barcroft Boake: A Memoir ”, by A. G. Stephens, published in Where the Dead Men Lie and Other Poems (1897).]
[Barcroft Boake’s mock hanging]
Nearly a year intervenes; and Boake writes to his father a remarkable letter giving particulars of a mock hanging by which he nearly lost his life. This incident made an indelible impression on his mind, and I have no doubt that in brooding over it he familiarised the idea of suicide by hanging which he subsequently adopted. (The first paragraph is given literatim as in the original.)
Rocklands, Adaminiby,
16th July, 1888.My Dear Father
it is some time since I let you hear how I was getting on, though I wrote to Grannie and Addie not so long since but have not heard from them for some time, as usual the weather is the all-engrossing topic, we have had one very heavy fall of snow and numerous light ones, the snow was on the ground for four days before it began to thaw, and our poor horses got a starving I can assure you we made a pair of shoes and tried our hands at snowshoeing, it must be grand sport from what I can see of it, we got some awfull spills you will be going along fine, and suddenly your feet will give a jump and shoot straight from under you leaving you on the broad of your back it is extremely amusing for the bystanders, things are very dull everywhere now, just the same old routine of work during the week and spending the Sunday at Rosedale.
Last Saturday night, though, we had high tragedy, when, through a piece of silly foolishness, I was within an ace of losing my life. It has been a bit of a lesson for me not to indulge in foolish practical jokes. Boydie and I were in the kitchen talking and fooling with Miss B—— and young Ted the rouseabout; and I forget what started it, but we said we would both hang ourselves. There was a gamble that they hung the sheep on hanging to a beam with a loose end of rope. I, like a fool, made a slip-knot in it, and, tieing a handkerchief over my face, said good-bye to them all and put the noose round my neck (Boydie was hanging himself with his handkerchief) and let the noose tighten round my throat. Miss B—— ran out of the kitchen round to her room. I was swinging, as I said, with the rope pretty tight round my neck, with my weight on my hands; and the last I remember is Miss B—— leaving.
Then I lost all consciousness of the outer world, but seemed to be dreaming. I felt no pain, but seemed to be pondering on the strangeness of this world and the people, and what a wonderful thing science was. But gradually I seemed to get a feeling of irritation and tried not to think, but I had to; thoughts seemed to crowd before my eyes like the passing of a train, so quickly that it was pain to watch them. Then, I suppose, there was a blank; and the next thing I thought I was on the Milson’s Point boat. I could hear water splashing, and felt her gradually slow off as she drew alongside the wharf. Then I knew something had happened to me. I could see people all round me, and I knew at once I was on the boat and had been struck down by heart-disease (Dr. Cox told me once that I had a weak heart) and I dreamily thought, Well, I am going to die at last; and then the boat seemed to be sinking down, down, and I could feel the water rush over me and feel it wet on my cheek. There seemed to be some fearful weight crushing my chest in. It got worse and worse, and gradually I woke to the reality that I was lying on the floor with everyone round me bathing my hands and temples, while I was having a mortal struggle for breath.
Oh! it was an awful struggle — ten times worse than the hanging. I would sink back on the floor, and then suddenly be convulsed and nearly sit up in my struggle to breathe; and they told me the sounds I made were something sickening. I felt as if my chest was smashed in with a blow and would not expand — I never want to go through it again. At last I got better, and was able to swallow a little brandy, and got all right after a time — but my neck! I have a rope mark now all round it, and the next day (yesterday, that is) the muscles were swollen like great ropes, and the headache I had Saturday night and yesterday was enough to drive me mad.
After Miss B—— went out of the kitchen Boydie took the handkerchief off his neck, and he and young Ted sat laughing at me. Neither of them knew I had been holding on to the rope with my hands; they both thought I had it tied round my shoulders. When they saw me my hands were stretched by my sides, the fingers just moving convulsively. It was very dark, so they could not see that I was hanging by my neck. At last Ted said, ‘Come on, we’ll cut him down,’ and was very nearly letting me down whop. They made some delay, and Miss B—— came back and said, ‘This is beyond a joke, Mr. Boake,’ and still they thought I was shamming; so they cut me down, and it was not till they took the handkerchief off and found I was black in the face, and blood oozing from the mouth, that they found out it was no joke, but real earnest.
I can tell you I gave them a fright. It took nearly half-an-hour to bring me to. I think a very few seconds would have cooked me. Of course, I suppose I was a damn fool to put the rope round my neck, but still a fellow often does things without thinking, but they don’t always have such awful consequences. I am as right as the bank now, barring a red ring round my neck and a big splotch under my left ear where the knot came — so you need not be frightened; but my sensations were so curious that I wish I could explain them to you more accurately.
Give my love to Grannie and Addie, and write soon. I have not heard from you for a long time.
Your loving son,
BARTIE.
It is interesting to compare this account with one which is the best example of Boake’s meditated prose style. Nearly four years later, and so me six weeks before his death, he paid a visit to Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney, and subsequently penned the following sketch, left among his papers, and published in The Bulletin of 28th May, 1892, a few days after his body had been found hanging to a tree on the shore of Middle Harbour.
A BAD QUARTER OF AN HOUR.
I stood on the gallows the other day and read — neatly painted on a beam — the names of those men whom a well-meaning Government has thence helped on their way to the happy hunting-grounds. Unfortunately it was daylight at the time of my visit; otherwise I am convinced that I should have been vouchsafed an opportunity of comparing notes with one or more of those gentlemen who, like myself, have enjoyed the advantages of a short shrift and a long rope.
I have had what the author of ‘Our Mutual Friend’ calls ‘a turn-up with death’ at various periods of a somewhat chequered existence; but never was the contest so prolonged, or the result so doubtful, as on the following occasion.
Never mind the why, when, or how of the matter: let it suffice that the noose tightened around my throat and severed my connection with the outer world. I no longer possessed a body: nothing was left of me but my head; and that reposed in the centre of a vast cycloramic enclosure whose walls, inscribed with the names and signs of the various arts and sciences, spun round with a waving, snakelike motion that made my eyes throb with a violent pain — nor could I turn them away, hypnotised as I was by the giddy horror of that resistless velocity.
As I stared at those flying columns of dancing figures I was overwhelmed by a sense of the inutility of man’s existence: I perceived the absurdity of his aspirations and the poverty of his knowledge. I reviewed the progress of the centuries — not mentally, but actually — inscribed in detail upon the moving walls of that amphitheatre; and then, just as the triumphant thought came to me that I was about to be vouchsafed a peep into futurity, something snapped, the light died away, and I felt myself sinking down … down … down…
* * * * * I was on board a ferry-boat which lay near the Milson’s Point wharf — the old one where, as a child, I used to watch for my father. I knew perfectly what had happened: we had crashed into one of the outstanding piers, and were sinking fast. I could hear the wash of the waves as they danced over the sponson and broke on the deck, and found myself struggling for life among a mad crowd of shrieking women and shouting men. Suddenly the clank of the engines ceased; and with a scream I leaped towards the land — just in time — for the boiler burst with a roar, scattering boat and passengers to the four winds…
* * * * * I was lying on the floor: friends were round me rubbing my hands and dashing water over my face. I knew what had happened — I was dying; the sword had fallen at last. The doctor always said my heart was affected: now I knew him to be right. Was this Death? How strange it felt to be going … going …! ‘Oh! but I didn’t want — I wouldn’t die! I hadn’t said good-bye to Jessie. Where is she? — quick! quick! Oh! I can’t breathe! What’s pressing my chest? Let me up! Oh! oh!’ . . . and I came to life.
They had cut me down in the nick of time. It was only a matter of seconds: I was so far on my journey to the other world that it took half an hour of rubbing and pumping to recall me to earth. They tell me that my first words were singularly appropriate to the occasion: as I opened my eyes I smiled and murmured cheerfully, ‘Ain’t I a fool!’ — an opinion of my conduct which I still retain.
The foregoing account of my short excursion to the debatable land ’twixt life and death reads tamely enough on paper, and in fact has but one very questionable recommendation, that of truth.
Source:
Barcroft Boake, Where the Dead Men Lie and Other Poems, Sydney (NSW): Angus and Robertson, 1897, pp. 170-176
Editor’s notes:
ain’t = (vernacular) are not, isn’t (“ain’t” can be a contraction of: am not; are not, aren’t; has not, hasn’t; have not, haven’t; is not, isn’t)
awfull = an archaic form of “awful”
Dr. = an abbreviation of “Doctor” (plural: Drs.)
futurity = the future, at a future time; future generations, posterity; the quality or state of being in the future; a future condition, event, or prospect
Grannie = (also spelt: Granny) an abbreviation of “Grandmother”
happy hunting-grounds = the afterlife (derived from the belief held by some American Indian tribes that the souls of their dead would go to a paradise containing hunting grounds with an abundance of prey, being a place where they would experience a pleasant life involving much hunting and feasting); can also refer to any field of activity, area, or place which is considered to be wonderful, profitable, productive, or full of enjoyment
inutility = uselessness, unprofitableness; someone or something which is useless or unusable
literatim = (Latin) letter for letter; literally; (in the contest of copying text) letter by letter
rouseabout = an unskilled worker, someone employed to carry out odd jobs or unskilled tasks, especially used regarding someone working in a shearing shed
sham = a pretence, a fraud, a fake, a deception; a hoax, a deceptive trick; a spurious imitation, a counterfeit object, something or someone which is falsely represented as the genuine article; bogus, false
shamming = pretending, faking, feigning, playacting, deceiving, hoaxing
thence = from that place or point, from there (therefrom); from that time (thereafter, thenceforth); from that circumstance, fact, reason, or source (therefore); from that source; following that
’twixt = (vernacular) a contraction of “betwixt” (i.e. between) (can be spelt with or without an apostrophe: ’twixt, twixt)
vouchsafed = to be granted or given something; to receive an agreement or promise; to be allowed or permitted to do something (past tense of “vouchsafe”)
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