_The Doctor caught, and caged.--Woodruffs removal, and where to._
Not long did they wait. Scarcely had the clock struck seven before the
professional gentleman of whom they were in expectation was introduced
into the room.
He addressed himself very familiarly to the Squire, but scarcely cast
a look upon Colin, whom, “disguised as a gentleman,” he did not seem to
recollect, until such time as Mr. Lup-ton formally introduced him to the
Doctor by name. Then, indeed, he started, and looked perplexed in what
manner to regard the young man, whether as friend or foe.
“Happy to see you, Mr. Clink,” said he. “I have been anxious to meet
with you now for some time past. If I am not mistaken, you are the same
gentleman who did me the honour to climb the wall of my premises by
night, a while ago?”
“The very same, sir,” replied Colin.
“Ah!--indeed! Well, that's plain, at all events. You hear that, Mr.
Lupton?”
The Squire assumed an air of astonishment at the scene before him,
in order to encourage the Doctor in what appeared likely to prove
a somewhat ludicrous mistake. It was evident he fancied he had
unexpectedly got Colin “on the hip,” and was drawing from him a
confession of his guilt before the very face of a witness and a
magistrate; while the well-played expression of Mr. Lupton's countenance
tended powerfully to confirm the notion.
“But, sir,” said the Doctor, very blandly addressing the last-named
gentleman, “you have business with me, which I will not interrupt. Only,
as I have a serious charge to make against this young gentleman, and
have most unexpectedly met with him here--”
“I beg by all means you will proceed,” objected the Squire; “and be
assured, if you have any charge to make against him, I shall most gladly
hear it; for I have taken him into my confidence, in consequence of
certain good qualities which seemed to be displayed in him. And if I am
deceived--”
“Sir,” said the Doctor, gravely, “I deeply fear you are. You know who he
is, of course?”
“Why, sir, who is he?” demanded Mr. Lupton, with feigned amazement.
“Who is he, sir! I 'll tell you, sir, who he is. That young man,
sir,--he, sir,--he is neither more nor less, sir, than the son of a
little huckster woman in your own village, sir. I know it for a fact;
for I attended his mother myself.”
“And what then, Doctor?”
“Besides that, Mr. Lupton, he is an incipient housebreaker. I charge him
with having made a burglarious attempt on my premises at Nabbfield,
for which he was obliged to fly the country; and you, sir, with all due
deference, as a magistrate, will see the propriety of putting his person
in a position of security.”
“Then you feel convinced his intention was to rob you?” asked the
Squire.
“Nay, sir,” replied the Doctor, “the thing speaks for itself. A young
man forms a plan to enter my premises: comes at ten o'clock at
night,--a burglarious hour, according to law; climbs my outer wall by a
rope-ladder--”
“It seems more like a love affair,” interrupted the Squire.
“So I thought myself,” answered Rowel, “at first; because I found some
fragments of a letter, which had previously been thrown over the wall;
but I could make nothing material of them.”
“Have you those fragments by you?”
“I have a copy of them, which I kept in case of need,” said the Doctor.
“Perhaps you will read it, Mr. Rowel, for my satisfaction,” observed
Mr. Lupton.
“Certainly,” replied he; and drawing from his pocket-book a paper
containing some scattered portions of the letter which Colin Clink had
addressed to James Woodruff, and the torn fragments of which Rowel had
detected after James had buried them in the earth, he handed it in the
following shape to the Squire:--
“The young woman--is necessary--in your yard until ten o'clock at
night.--If you should--try -- ----until you do succeed------stand----
thickest------in the corner. Colin Clink--will do his best to get--
Fanny will be able----any night--at ten o'clock.”
No sooner had Mr. Lupton perused this precious fragment than he
pronounced the whole to have been unequivocally a love affair. There
could be no doubt about the matter remaining in the mind of any
commentator of ordinary sagacity who weighed well the general drift of
the text in hand.
Rowel objected to this interpretation, and persisted in expressing his
opinion that, the young man harboured no good motives; although, in
fact, he felt secretly as assured of the real object of the attempt as
was Colin himself.
“But perhaps,” said he, addressing Colin, “perhaps you will so far
oblige Mr. Lupton as to explain what really were your motives on that
occasion?”
“He need not be at that trouble,” observed Mr. Lupton, “or at least not
until I have asked you, Doctor, a few questions which, I dare say, you
can readily answer if you please.”
“Oh, yes; certainly, sir. Ask anything you think proper. I shall have
great pleasure indeed in affording you every information in my power.
And allow me to add, my good sir, how deeply I feel the honour you have
done me in demanding my attendance, while you are surrounded by so much
of the first talent, knowledge, and experience that the profession can
boast of. I trust the case is not a very serious one. Allow me, sir.”
And the Doctor drew up his chair near that of Mr. Luptons, and
solicitously extended his fingers in order to feel his pulse. The
last-named gentleman pretended not to observe this invitation, as he
remarked, in reply to the Doctor's concluding words.
“I am afraid, Mr. Rowel, the case _is_ a very serious one indeed.”
“Indeed! Let us hope for the best. It is of no use to be down-hearted.
Now, sir, explain the symptoms, if you please.”
“The first symptom, then,” replied the Squire, “is this:--that youth
with whom you have been talking appears to have well founded reasons for
believing, that for many years you have kept imprisoned in your house,
as a lunatic, a man of perfectly sound mind, who never ought to have
been there.”
The Doctor's countenance underwent a sudden change, as this remark came
so unexpectedly upon him.
“Sir!” he exclaimed, “you are not serious?”
“I certainly am not joking,” replied Mr. Lupton.
“Then am I to believe it possible,” rejoined the Doctor, “that you, sir,
can have _descended_, I may say, so far as to listen to the idle tales
and ridiculous nonsense which such a boy as this may have picked up
amongst the gossips and old women of a village, about matters of which
they cannot possibly know anything? It surely, sir, cannot be needful
for me to disabuse your mind of prejudices of this kind,--to inform you
how the suspicions and conjectures of the ignorant and vulgar are apt to
attach to any professional man, associated so peculiarly as I am with a
very unfortunate class of patients.”
“I anticipate all you would say,” observed the Squire, “and sufficiently
appreciate the force of your remarks. At the same time I should be glad
to know whether you have or have not a patient named Woodruff confined
on your premises?”
“Emphatically, then, sir,” replied the Doctor, “I HAVE NOT.”
“And never had?”
“That I will not say.”
“You have removed him?”
“There is no such individual in my care.”
“Is he at liberty?”
“I think, Mr. Lupton,” replied the Doctor, very smoothly, “you will
allow that, without offence, I may decline, after what has been said, to
give any farther explanation of a purely professional affair, for which
I do not hold myself responsible, save as a matter of courtesy, to any
man or any power in existence.”
“Sir,” replied the Squire, more seriously, “where any reason exists for
even the slightest suspicion,--I do not say that wrong _has_ been
done, but that it _may_ possibly exist,--I beg to state, that the
responsibility you disclaim cannot be set aside, and, if need be,
must absolutely make itself be felt; and that some suspicion I _do_
entertain, it is needless to scruple at avowing.”
“Did I not feel assured,” answered Rowel, “from the many years during
which I have enjoyed the honour of Mr. Lupton's acquaintance, that he
can scarcely intend to offer me a deliberate insult, the course I ought
to adopt--”
“Whatever course you may think proper to adopt,” interrupted the Squire,
“will not alter mine. A very remarkable disclosure has been made to me
respecting a patient in your keeping, as well as regarding the death of
the late lawyer of Bramleigh.”
Those words startled and excited the Doctor in an extreme degree. They
seemed to strike him as might a sudden sickness that turns the brain
giddy; and starting from his chair, with his eyes fixed fiercely on
Colin, he advanced towards him, exclaiming, “What other falsehoods, you
villain, have you dared to utter concerning me or mine? If there be law,
sir, in the land for such infamous slander, such base defamation as
this, I 'll punish you for it, you rogue, though it cost me my very
life! Have you dared to say that _I_ had anything to do with Skinwell's
death, sir?”
“I have said to Mr. Lupton, what I will say again,” replied Colin,
“because I believe it to be true, and that is, that you helped to kill
him.”
“It's a lie!--a lie!--a d--d lie! you slanderous vagabond!”
The Doctor would inevitably have committed a personal assault upon Colin
of a very violent nature, had he not in the very midst of his rage been
still restrained from so doing by certain prudential reasons, arising
from the evident strength and capability of the young man to turn
again, and, in every human probability, convert the chastiser into the
chastised. He therefore contented himself with fuming and fretting about
the room as might some irritated cur, yet haunted with the spectre of a
tin-pot appended to his tail. In the midst of this, the “very whirlwind
of his passion,” he snatched up his hat, as though unexpectedly seized
with an idea of the propriety of taking his leave; but Mr. Lupton had
kept an eye upon him.
“Not yet, sir, if you please,” observed the Squire, interposing
himself between the Doctor and the door. “I must perform an exceedingly
unpleasant office; but nevertheless, Mr. Rowel, it has become my duty to
tell you that, for the present, you are my prisoner.”
“I deny it, sir!” exclaimed the Doctor. “I am no man's prisoner!”
“That we will soon ascertain,” replied Mr. Lupton, as he rapped loudly
on the table, while the Doctor used his best endeavours to force his way
out.
Before he could resort to any violence in order to effect this object,
the door was thrown back, and two servants of the law entered. A
warrant, which Mr. Lupton had taken care to have prepared beforehand,
was produced by one of them, and in the course of a very comfortable
space of time the Doctor was placed in a coach, and driven on his way
to certain particularly appropriate lodgings, which the country has
provided for ladies and gentlemen who chance to have been so unlucky as
to be inveigled into the commission of offences of a criminal nature.
The removal of James Woodruff from the Doctor's establishment at
Nabbfield has been before briefly alluded to; while the declaration made
by that worthy to Mr. Lupton that he had no such person confined on his
premises, has borne evidence to the fact.
It was quite true. For, after the attempt which Colin had so
unsuccessfully made to effect Mr. Woodruff's escape, Doctor Rowel became
convinced--as the secret was out--that his troublesome charge would
no longer be safe within the precincts of the asylum at Nabbfield. He
therefore seized the earliest opportunity that the needful arrangements
would permit, to convey him secretly by night from thence to the
residence of the Doctor's own brother,--an old-fashioned brick mansion
of very ample dimensions, which stood upon the borders of a heathy
waste, which formerly constituted one of the finest portions of the old
forest of Sherwood, in the northern part of Nottinghamshire.
It was even still studded with the dying remains of ancient oaks,
which had sheltered many a bold archer in times gone by, but which now
sufficed only to give additional dreariness to the solitary landscape,
that stretched in picturesque undulations, but open as the ocean north
and eastwards for many miles.
The removal, however, of James Woodruff from his previous confinement to
this place had not been effected without Fanny's knowledge; and, for
the possession of this fact, it is believed, she was indebted to the
friendly agency of Mrs. Rowel. Not knowing in her present dilemma what
other step to take, Fanny was no sooner made acquainted with the removal
which Rowel contemplated, than she forthwith communicated it to her
master, the young man who had succeeded to the business of the deceased
Mr. Skinwell, one Sylvester by name; and a man who, though but a
crest-fallen looking affair outside, had yet, when occasion needed, a
pretty considerable amount of spirit at command within. No sooner was
he informed of the particulars of the affair than he volunteered his
immediate assistance. He and Fanny were fully prepared on the intended
night of Woodruff's removal, quietly to follow the vehicle that
contained him until it should arrive at its ultimate destination; after
having ascertained which, they would be prepared to take the most prompt
steps within their power to insure his restoration to his liberty,
property, and friends. In accordance with this arrangement they had
acted, and at a convenient distance had followed in a gig, and, as they
thought, unobserved. On Sylvester's subsequently making application
at the house already described, and to which he had seen the carriage
containing Woodruff driven, he found Doctor Rowel there, who expressed
great surprise at seeing him, and on being informed of the nature of
his mission, at once frankly declared that Mr. Sylvester was totally
mistaken. In proof whereof, and to establish his own innocence the
more completely, he conducted him up-stairs into a chamber where lay
a gentleman sick in bed, and who the Doctor averred, was the identical
person he had brought in his carriage the night before, and whom he had
thus removed to his brother's for the benefit of the purer air of the
forest. Beyond this Sylvester saw nothing to warrant Fanny's suspicions;
while the girl herself declared on seeing him that that man certainly
was not the father of whom they were in search. In fact, so admirably
had the Doctor managed matters, that Fanny began to think herself that
she was labouring under some very strange mistake; more especially when,
on the question being put to him, the sick man himself concurred in
the statement made by the Doctor, and solemnly averred that he had, as
previously stated, been brought from Nabbfield the preceding night. And
so far he spoke the literal truth; for, in fact, the sick man was
no other than Robson, the Doctor's assistant, fitted with a very
consumptive and deranged-looking night-cap, a bedgown slipped over his
shirt, and a big bottle of hot water at his heels to make him look
like an invalid; while James Woodruff himself, very shortly after
his arrival, had been again removed--in consequence of the Doctor's
suspicions that he was followed--to another and a more secret place in
the very heart of the waste, where, it was confidently trusted, he might
be safely kept the remainder of his days, beyond the possibility of
human discovery.
In consequence of the success of the Doctor's stratagem, Fanny and Mr.
Sylvester returned disappointed and out of spirit to their home.
Such, in substance, was the brief story related by Fanny to Colin on
the occasion of her visit to town; and which he had a few days before
communicated to Mr. Lupton.
Whether the arrest of Doctor Rowel, when it became known amongst his
friends, and to the brother, of whom we have above spoken, might not
have precipitated some tragical conclusion or other of Woodruff's
life,--is doubtful, perhaps highly probable; had not a singular and very
mysterious communication concerning him been made to Colin, and from a
quarter equally mysterious, some month or so after the occurrences above
described.