I Was extremely affected by this plea. I could only answer, that Mr.
Raymond must himself be the best judge of the course it became him to
hold; I trusted the case was not so desperate as he imagined.
This subject was pursued no further, and was in some degree driven from
my thoughts by an incident of a very extraordinary nature.
I have already mentioned the animosity that was entertained against me
by the infernal portress of this solitary mansion. Gines, the expelled
member of the gang, had been her particular favourite. She submitted to
his exile indeed, because her genius felt subdued by the energy and
inherent superiority of Mr. Raymond; but she submitted with murmuring
and discontent. Not daring to resent the conduct of the principal in
this affair, she collected all the bitterness of her spirit against me.
To the unpardonable offence I had thus committed in the first instance,
were added the reasonings I had lately offered against the profession of
robbery. Robbery was a fundamental article in the creed of this hoary
veteran, and she listened to my objections with the same unaffected
astonishment and horror that an old woman of other habits would listen
to one who objected to the agonies and dissolution of the Creator of the
world, or to the garment of imputed righteousness prepared to envelope
the souls of the elect. Like the religious bigot, she was sufficiently
disposed to avenge a hostility against her opinions with the weapons of
sublunary warfare.
Meanwhile I had smiled at the impotence of her malice, as an object of
contempt rather than alarm. She perceived, as I imagine, the slight
estimation in which I held her, and this did not a little increase the
perturbation of her thoughts.
One day I was left alone, with no other person in the house than this
swarthy sybil. The thieves had set out upon an expedition about two
hours after sunset on the preceding evening, and had not returned, as
they were accustomed to do, before day-break the next morning. This was
a circumstance that sometimes occurred, and therefore did not produce
any extraordinary alarm. At one time the scent of prey would lead them
beyond the bounds they had prescribed themselves, and at another the
fear of pursuit: the life of a thief is always uncertain. The old woman
had been preparing during the night for the meal to which they would
expect to sit down as soon as might be after their return.
For myself, I had learned from their habits to be indifferent to the
regular return of the different parts of the day, and in some degree to
turn day into night, and night into day. I had been now several weeks in
this residence, and the season was considerably advanced. I had passed
some hours during the night in ruminating on my situation. The character
and manners of the men among whom I lived were disgusting to me. Their
brutal ignorance, their ferocious habits, and their coarse behaviour,
instead of becoming more tolerable by custom, hourly added force to my
original aversion. The uncommon vigour of their minds, and acuteness of
their invention in the business they pursued, compared with the
odiousness of that business and their habitual depravity, awakened in me
sensations too painful to be endured. Moral disapprobation, at least in
a mind unsubdued by philosophy, I found to be one of the most fertile
sources of disquiet and uneasiness. From this pain the society of Mr.
Raymond by no means relieved me. He was indeed eminently superior to the
vices of the rest; but I did not less exquisitely feel how much he was
out of his place, how disproportionably associated, or how contemptibly
employed. I had attempted to counteract the errors under which he and
his companions laboured; but I had found the obstacles that presented
themselves greater than I had imagined.
What was I to do? Was I to wait the issue of this my missionary
undertaking, or was I to withdraw myself immediately? When I withdrew,
ought that to be done privately, or with an open avowal of my design,
and an endeavour to supply by the force of example what was deficient in
my arguments? It was certainly improper, as I declined all participation
in the pursuits of these men, did not pay my contribution of hazard to
the means by which they subsisted, and had no congeniality with their
habits, that I should continue to reside with them longer than was
absolutely necessary. There was one circumstance that rendered this
deliberation particularly pressing. They intended in a few days removing
from their present habitation, to a haunt to which they were accustomed,
in a distant county. If I did not propose to continue with them, it
would perhaps be wrong to accompany them in this removal. The state of
calamity to which my inexorable prosecutor had reduced me, had made the
encounter even of a den of robbers a fortunate adventure. But the time
that had since elapsed, had probably been sufficient to relax the
keenness of the quest that was made after me. I sighed for that solitude
and obscurity, that retreat from the vexations of the world and the
voice even of common fame, which I had proposed to myself when I broke
my prison.
Such were the meditations which now occupied my mind. At length I grew
fatigued with continual contemplation, and to relieve myself pulled out
a pocket Horace, the legacy of my beloved Brightwel! I read with avidity
the epistle in which he so beautifully describes to Fuscus, the
grammarian, the pleasures of rural tranquillity and independence. By
this time the sun rose from behind the eastern hills, and I opened my
casement to contemplate it. The day commenced with peculiar brilliancy,
and was accompanied with all those charms which the poets of nature, as
they have been styled, have so much delighted to describe. There was
something in this scene, particularly as succeeding to the active
exertions of intellect, that soothed the mind to composure. Insensibly a
confused reverie invaded my faculties; I withdrew from the window, threw
myself upon the bed, and fell asleep.
I do not recollect the precise images which in this situation passed
through my thoughts, but I know that they concluded with the idea of
some person, the agent of Mr. Falkland, approaching to assassinate me.
This thought had probably been suggested by the project I meditated of
entering once again into the world, and throwing myself within the
sphere of his possible vengeance. I imagined that the design of the
murderer was to come upon me by surprise, that I was aware of his
design, and yet, by some fascination, had no thought of evading it. I
heard the steps of the murderer as he cautiously approached. I seemed to
listen to his constrained yet audible breathings. He came up to the
corner where I was placed, and then stopped.
The idea became too terrible; I started, opened my eyes, and beheld the
execrable hag before mentioned standing over me with a butcher's
cleaver. I shifted my situation with a speed that seemed too swift for
volition, and the blow already aimed at my skull sunk impotent upon the
bed. Before she could wholly recover her posture, I sprung upon her,
seized hold of the weapon, and had nearly wrested it from her. But in a
moment she resumed her strength and her desperate purpose, and we had a
furious struggle--she impelled by inveterate malice, and I resisting for
my life. Her vigour was truly Amazonian, and at no time had I ever
occasion to contend with a more formidable opponent. Her glance was
rapid and exact, and the shock with which from time to time she impelled
her whole frame inconceivably vehement. At length I was victorious, took
from her the instrument of death, and threw her upon the ground. Till
now the earnestness of her exertions had curbed her rage; but now she
gnashed with her teeth, her eyes seemed as if starting from their
sockets, and her body heaved with uncontrollable insanity.
"Rascal! devil!" she exclaimed, "what do you mean to do to me?"
Till now the scene had passed uninterrupted by a single word.
"Nothing," I replied: "begone, infernal witch! and leave me to myself."
"Leave you! No: I will thrust my fingers through your ribs, and drink
your blood!--You conquer me?--Ha, ha!--Yes, yes; you shall!--I will sit
upon you, and press you to hell! I will roast you with brimstone, and
dash your entrails into your eyes! Ha, ha!--ha!"
Saying this, she sprung up, and prepared to attack me with redoubled
fury. I seized her hands, and compelled her to sit upon the bed. Thus
restrained, she continued to express the tumult of her thoughts by
grinning, by certain furious motions of her head, and by occasional
vehement efforts to disengage herself from my grasp. These contortions
and starts were of the nature of those fits in which the patients are
commonly supposed to need three or four persons to hold them. But I
found by experience that, under the circumstances in which I was
placed, my single strength was sufficient. The spectacle of her emotions
was inconceivably frightful. Her violence at length however began to
abate, and she became convinced of the hopelessness of the contest.
"Let me go!" said she. "Why do you hold me? I will not be held."
"I wanted you gone from the first," replied I.
"Are you contented to go now?"
"Yes, I tell you, misbegotten villain! Yes, rascal!"
I immediately loosed my hold. She flew to the door, and, holding it in
her hand, said, "I will be the death of you yet: you shall not be your
own man twenty-four hours longer!" With these words she shut the door,
and locked it upon me. An action so totally unexpected startled me.
Whither was she gone? What was it she intended? To perish by the
machinations of such a hag as this was a thought not to be endured.
Death in any form brought upon us by surprise, and for which the mind
has had no time to prepare, is inexpressibly terrible. My thoughts
wandered in breathless horror and confusion, and all within was uproar.
I endeavoured to break the door, but in vain. I went round the room in
search of some tool to assist me. At length I rushed against it with a
desperate effort, to which it yielded, and had nearly thrown me from the
top of the stairs to the bottom.
I descended with all possible caution and vigilance, I entered the room
which served us for a kitchen, but it was deserted. I searched every
other apartment in vain. I went out among the ruins; still I discovered
nothing of my late assailant. It was extraordinary: what could be become
of her? what was I to conclude from her disappearance! I reflected on
her parting menace,--"I should not be my own man twenty-four hours
longer." It was mysterious! it did not seem to be the menace of
assassination. Suddenly the recollection of the hand-bill brought to us
by Larkins rushed upon my memory. Was it possible that she alluded to
that in her parting words? Would she set out upon such an expedition by
herself? Was it not dangerous to the whole fraternity if, without the
smallest precaution, she should bring the officers of justice in the
midst of them? It was perhaps improbable she would engage in an
undertaking thus desperate. It was not however easy to answer for the
conduct of a person in her state of mind. Should I wait, and risk the
preservation of my liberty upon the issue?
To this question I returned an immediate negative. I had resolved in a
short time to quit my present situation, and the difference of a little
sooner or a little later could not be very material. It promised to be
neither agreeable nor prudent for me to remain under the same roof with
a person who had manifested such a fierce and inexpiable hostility. But
the consideration which had inexpressibly the most weight with me,
belonged to the ideas of imprisonment, trial, and death. The longer they
had formed the subject of my contemplation, the more forcibly was I
impelled to avoid them. I had entered upon a system of action for that
purpose; I had already made many sacrifices; and I believed that I would
never miscarry in this project through any neglect of mine. The thought
of what was reserved for me by my persecutors sickened my very soul; and
the more intimately I was acquainted with oppression and injustice, the
more deeply was I penetrated with the abhorrence to which they are
entitled.
Such were the reasons that determined me instantly, abruptly, without
leave-taking, or acknowledgment for the peculiar and repeated favours I
had received, to quit a habitation to which, for six weeks, I had
apparently been indebted for protection from trial, conviction, and an
ignominious death. I had come hither pennyless; I quitted my abode with
the sum of a few guineas in my possession, Mr. Raymond having insisted
upon my taking a share at the time that each man received his dividend
from the common stock. Though I had reason to suppose that the heat of
the pursuit against me would be somewhat remitted by the time that had
elapsed, the magnitude of the mischief that, in an unfavourable event,
might fall on me, determined me to neglect no imaginable precaution. I
recollected the hand-bill which was the source of my present alarm, and
conceived that one of the principal dangers which threatened me was the
recognition of my person, either by such as had previously known me, or
even by strangers. It seemed prudent therefore to disguise it as
effectually as I could. For this purpose I had recourse to a parcel of
tattered garments, that lay in a neglected corner of our habitation. The
disguise I chose was that of a beggar. Upon this plan, I threw off my
shirt; I tied a handkerchief about my head, with which I took care to
cover one of my eyes; over this I drew a piece of an old woollen
nightcap. I selected the worst apparel I could find; and this I reduced
to a still more deplorable condition, by rents that I purposely made in
various places. Thus equipped, I surveyed myself in a looking-glass. I
had rendered my appearance complete; nor would any one have suspected
that I was not one of the fraternity to which I assumed to belong. I
said, "This is the form in which tyranny and injustice oblige me to seek
for refuge: but better, a thousand times better is it, thus to incur
contempt with the dregs of mankind, than trust to the tender mercies of
our superiors!"