THE CONFESSIONS OF A MADMAN, WHICH, NEVERTHELESS, EMBRACE A VERY WISE
CAUTION--RALPH GETS HIS LIBERTY-TICKET--VERY NEEDLESS, AS HE IS
DETERMINED HENCEFORWARD TO PRESERVE HIS LIBERTY--AND, BEING TREATED SO
UNCIVILLY AS A SAILOR, DETERMINES TO TURN CIVILIAN HIMSELF.
Here Captain Reud interrupted the speaker, and told him that Joshua was
a prisoner under punishment, and waiting only for convalescence to
receive the remainder of his six dozen lashes. At hearing this, his
lordship appeared truly shocked; and, drawing Reud aside, they conversed
for some minutes, in whispers.
At the conclusion of this conference, Captain Reud stepped forward, and,
regarding Joshua with a look of much severity, he said: "Young man, for
the sake of other parties, and of other interests, your errors are
overlooked. Your discharge from this ship shall be made out
immediately. If you are the person you claim to be, your three or four
months' pay can be of no consequence to you. Have you sufficient money
to proceed to London immediately?"
"Much more than sufficient, sir."
"I thought so. Proceed to London to the lawyer's. If you are no
impostor, I believe that a father's forgiveness awaits you. Forget that
you were ever in this ship. My clerk will make out your discharge
immediately. Take care of yourself. You are watched. There is a
wakeful eye upon you: if you swerve from the course laid down for you,
and go not immediately to Mr ---'s office, be assured that you will be
again in irons under the half-deck. Have I, my lord, correctly
expressed your intentions?"
"Correctly, Captain Reud."
"Joshua Daunton, get your bag ready; and, in the meantime, I will give
the necessary orders to the clerk. You may go."
With an ill-concealed triumph on his countenance, Joshua Daunton bowed
submissively to all but myself. To me he advanced with an insulting
smile and an extended hand. I shrank back loathingly.
"Farewell, brother Ralph. I told you that I should be in London before
you. Will you favour me with any commands? Well--your pride is not
unbecoming--I will not resent it for your father's sake; and, for his
and for your sake, I will forgive the juggle that has hitherto placed
the natural son--that is, I believe, the delicate paraphrase--in the
station of the rightful heir. Farewell."
I made no reply: he left the cabin, and, in an hour after, the ship. I
shall not advantage myself of that expression, so fully naturalised in
novels, that "my feelings might be conceived, but cannot be expressed:"
for they _can_ be expressed easily enough--in two words,--stupefied
indignation. After Joshua had departed, the other persons remaining in
the after-cabin followed shortly after, with the exception of myself;
for Reud told me to stay where I then was, until he should see me again.
In the course of an hour, Lord Whiffledale went on shore with his
_cortege_; and Captain Reud returned into the after-cabin, which I had
been, during his absence, disconsolately pacing. He was a little
flushed with the wine he had taken, but perfectly sane. He came up to
me kindly, and, placing his hands upon my shoulders, looked me fully and
sorrowfully in the face. There was no wild speculation in his eyes;
they looked mild and motherly. The large tears gathered in each
gradually, and, at length, overflowing the sockets, slowly trickled down
his thin and sallow cheeks. He then pressed his right hand heavily on
the top part of his forehead, exclaiming, in a voice so low, so
mournful, and so touching, that my bosom swelled at its tones, "It is
here;--it is here!"
"Ralph, my good Ralph," said he, after he had seated himself; weeping
all the while bitterly, "we will take leave of each other now. We are
true brothers in sorrow--our afflictions are the same--you have lost
your identity, and I mine. Ever since that cursed night at Aniana, John
Reud's soul was loosened from his body; I have the greatest trouble to
keep it fixed to my corporeal frame; it goes away, in spite of me, at
times, and some other soul gets into this withered carcass, and plays me
sad tricks--sad tricks, Rattlin--sad tricks. My identity is gone, and
so, poor youth, is yours. We will part friends. These tears are not
all for you--they are for myself; too. I do not mind crying before you
now, for it is not the true John Reud that is now weeping. You think
that I have been a tyrant to you--but, I tell you, Rattlin, there is a
tyrant in the ship greater than I--it is that horrible Dr Thompson. He
is plotting to take away my commission, and to get me into a madhouse!--
oh, my God!--my God! remove from me this agony. Hath Thine awful storm
no thunderbolt--Thy wave no tomb! Must I die on the straw, like a beast
of burden worn to death by loathsome toil?--and so many swords to have
flashed harmlessly over my head, so many balls to have whistled idly
past my body! But, God's will be done! Bear yourself, my dear body,
carefully in the presence of all medical men. They have the eye of the
fanged adder. You know that your identity also has been questioned; but
your fate is happier than mine, for you can hear, see, touch, your
double; but mine always eludes me, when I come home, after an excursion,
to my own temple. But, if I were you, when I got hold of the thing that
says it is, and is _not_, yourself, I would grind it, I would crush it,
I would destroy it!"
"I will, so may Heaven help me at my utmost need!"
"Well said, my boy, well said--because he has no right to get himself
flogged, and thus give a wretched world an opportunity of saying that
Ralph Rattlin had been brought to the gangway. But do not let this cast
you down. You will do well yet--while I--Oh, that I had a son!--I might
then escape. God bless you!--I must pray for strength of mind--strength
of mind--mark me, strength of mind. Go, my good boy; if misfortunes
should overtake you, and they leave me anything better than a dark cell
and clanking chains, come and share it with me. Now go (and he wrung my
hands bitterly), and tell Doctor Thompson I wish to speak with him, and
just hint to him how rationally and pleasantly we have been discoursing
together--and remember my parting words--deport yourself warily before
the doctors, carefully preserve your identity, and sometimes think on
your poor captain."
This last interview with Captain Reud, for it was my last, would have
made me wretched, had it not been swallowed up by a deeper wretchedness
of my own.
Early next morning, we weighed, and made sail for Sheerness. On
anchoring in the Medway, Captain Reud went on shore; and, as I shall
have no more occasion to refer to him, I shall state at once, that the
very fate he so feared awaited him. Six months after he had left the
_Eos_, he died raving mad, in a private receptacle for the insane.
At Sheerness we were paid off.
As I went over the side of the _Eos_ for the last time, I was tempted to
shake the dust from off my feet, for, of a surety, it had lately been an
accursed abode to me.
In order entirely to elude all observation from my late companions, I
abandoned everything I had on board, not worth much, truly, with the
exception of my sextant and telescope; and took on shore with me only
the clothes (miserable they were) in which I stood. I went to no hotel
or inn; but, seeing a plain and humble house in which there were
lodgings to let for single men, I went and hired a little apartment that
contained a press bedstead. I took things leisurely and quietly. I was
now fully determined to discover my parentage; and, after that event,
entirely to be governed by circumstances as to my future course of life,
and the resuming of the naval profession.
My first operations were sending for a tailor, hatter, and those other
architects so essential in building up the outer man. The costume I now
chose was as remote from official as could be made. I provided myself
with one suit only, leaving the rest of my wardrobe to be completed in
London.
Knowing that I had an active and intelligent enemy who had two days the
start of me, I was determined to act with what I thought caution. I had
more than a half-year's stipend due to me; I accordingly drew for it
upon the lawyer, nearly 75 pounds, intimating to him, at the same time,
by letter, my arrival in England, and asking if he had any instructions
as to my future disposal. This letter was answered by return of post,
written with all the brevity of business, stating that no such
instructions had been received, and inclosing an order on the Sheerness
Bank for the money.
So far all was highly satisfactory. It proved two things: first, that
Joshua Daunton had not yet carried his machinations in the quarter from
which arose the supplies; and, secondly, that I should now have
considerable funds wherewith to prosecute my researches. In the space
of three days, behold me dressed in the fashionable costume of the
period--blue coat, broad yellow buttons, yellow waistcoat with ditto,
white corduroy continuations, tied with several strings at the knees,
and topped boots. It was in the reign of the "bloods" and the
"ruffians," more ferocious species of coxcombs than our dandies, and
much more annoying.