SAMPSON'S placard was on Barkington walls, and inside the asylum Alfred
was softening hearts and buying consciences, as related; so, in fact, he
had two strings to his bow.
But mark how strangely things turn; these two strings got entangled. His
father, alarmed by the placard, had called at the pawnbroker's shop, and
told him he must move Alfred directly to a London asylum. Baker raised
objections; Mr. Hardie crushed them with his purse, _i.e.,_ with his
son's and victim's sweetheart's father's money. So then, as Baker after
all could not resist the project, but only postpone it for a day or two,
he preferred to take a handsome present, and cooperate. He even connived
at Mr. Hardie's signing the requisite name to the new order. This the
giddy world calls forgery; but, in these calm retreats, far from the
public's inquisitive eye, it goes for nothing. Why, Mrs. Archbold had
signed Baker's name and Dr. Bailey's more than a hundred several times
to orders, statements, and certificates; depriving Englishmen of their
liberty and their property with a gesture of her taper fingers;
and venting the conventional terms, “Aberration,” “Exaltation,”
“Depression,” “Debility,” “Paralysis,” “Excitable,” “Abnormal,” as
boldly and blindly as any male starling in the flock.
On the very night, then, of Alfred's projected escape, two keepers came
down from Dr. Wycherley's asylum to Silverton station: Baker met them
and drove them to Silverton House in his dog-cart. They were to take
Alfred up by the night train; and, when he came into the kitchen with
Brown, they suspected nothing, nor did Baker or Cooper, who presently
emerged from the back kitchen. Brown saw, and recovered his wits
partially. “Shall I go for his portmanteau, sir?” stammered he, making
a shrewd and fortunate guess at what was up. Baker assented; and soon
after went out to get the horse harnessed. On this Mrs. Archbold, pale,
sorrowful, and silent hitherto, beckoned Alfred into the back kitchen,
and there gave him his watch and his loose money. “I took care of them
for you,” said she; “for the like have often been stolen in this place.
Put the money in your shoes; it may be useful to you.”
He thanked her somewhat sullenly; for his disappointment was so deep and
bitter that small kindnesses almost irritated him.
She sighed. “It is cruel to be angry with _me,_” she said: “I am not the
cause of this; it is a heavier blow to me than to you. Sooner or
later you will be free--and then you will not waste a thought on me, I
fear--but I must remain in this odious prison without your eyes and your
smile to lighten me, yet unable to forget you. Oh, Alfred, for mercy's
sake, whisper me one kind word at parting; give me one kind look to
remember and dote upon.”
She put out both hands as eloquently as she spoke, and overpowered his
prudence so far that he took her offered hands--they were as cold now as
they were burning hot the last time--and pressed them, and said--
“I shall be grateful to you while I live.”
The passionate woman snatched her hands away. “Gratitude is too cold for
me,” she cried; “I scorn even yours. Love me or hate me.”
He made no reply. And so they parted.
“Will you pledge your honour to make no attempt at escape on the road?”
asked the pawnbroker on his return.
“I'll see you d----d first,” replied the prisoner.
On this he was handcuffed, and helped into the dog-cart.
They went up to town by the midnight train; but, to Alfred's
astonishment and delight did not take a carriage to themselves.
However, station after station was passed, and nobody came into their
carriage. At last they stopped at a larger station, and a good many
people were on the platform: Alfred took this opportunity and appealed
in gentle but moving terms to the first good and intelligent face he
saw. “Sir,” said he, “I implore your assistance.”
The gentleman turned courteously to him. The keepers, to Alfred's
surprise, did not interrupt.
“I am the victim of a conspiracy, sir; they pretend I am mad: and are
taking me by force to a madhouse, a living tomb.”
“You certainly don't appear to be mad,” said the gentleman.
The head keeper instantly showed him the order and a copy of the
certificates.
“Don't look at _them,_ sir,” cried Alfred; “they are signed by men who
were bribed to sign them. For pity's sake, sir, judge for yourself. Test
my memory, my judgment, by any question you please. Use your own good
sense; don't let those venal rogues judge for you.”
The gentleman turned cold directly.
“I could not take on me to interfere,” said he. The unsworn affidavits
had overpowered his senses. He retired with a frigid inclination. Alfred
wrung his handcuffed hands, and the connecting chain rattled.
The men never complained: his conduct was natural; and they knew their
strength. At the next station he tested a snob's humanity instead of a
gentleman's. He had heard they were more tender-hearted. The answer was
a broad grin, repeated at intervals.
Being called mad was pretty much the same thing as being mad to a mind
of this class: and Alfred had admitted he was called mad.
At the next station he implored a silvery-haired old gentleman. Old age,
he had heard, has known griefs, and learned pity.
The keeper showed the certificates.
“Ah!” said Senex; “poor young man. Now don't agitate yourself. It is
all for your good. Pray go quietly. Very painful, very painful.” And
he hobbled away as fast as he could. It is by shirking the painful some
live to be silvery old.
Next he tried a policeman. Bobby listened to him erect as a dart.
The certificates were shown him.
He eyed them and said sharply, “All right.” Nor could Alfred's
entreaties and appeals to common sense attract a word or even a look
from him. Alfred cried “Help! murder! If you are Englishmen, if you are
Christians, help me.”
This soon drew a crowd round him, listening to his fiery tale of wrong,
and crying “Shame, shame! Let him go.” The keepers touched their heads,
winked, and got out and showed the certificates; the crowd melted away
like wax before those two suns of evidence (unsworn). The train moved
on.
It was appalling. How could he ever get free? Between his mind and that
of his fellows there lay a spiritual barrier more impassible than the
walls of fortified cities.
Yet, at the very next station, with characteristic tenacity of purpose,
he tried again; for he saw a woman standing near, a buxom country woman
of forty. Then he remembered that the Naked Eye was not yet an extinct
institution among her sex. He told her his tale, and implored her to use
her own eyes. She seemed struck, and did eye him far more closely
than the men had: and told the keepers they ought to be ashamed of
themselves; he was no madman, for she had seen madmen. They showed her
the certificates.
“Oh, I am no scholar!” said she contemptuously; “ye can't write my two
eyes out of my head.”
The keeper whipped off Alfred's cap and showed his shaven crown.
“La! so he is,” said she, lowering her tone; “dear heart, what a pity.
And such a pretty young gentleman.” And after that all he could say only
drew the dew of patient pity to her eyes.
The train went on, and left her standing there, a statue of negative
clemency. Alfred lost heart. He felt how impotent he was. “I shall
die in a madhouse,” he said. He shivered in a corner, hating man, and
doubting God.
They reached Dr. Wycherley's early in the morning. Alfred was shown into
a nice clean bedroom, and asked whether he would like to bathe or sleep.
“Oh, a bath,” he said; and was allowed to bathe himself. He had not been
long in the water when Dr. Wycherley's medical assistant tapped at the
door, and then entered without further ceremony--a young gentleman with
a longish down on his chin, which, initiated early in the secrets
of physiology, he was too knowing to shave off and so go to meet his
trouble. He came in looking like a machine, with a note-book in his
hand, and stood by the bath side dictating notes to himself and jotting
them down.
“Six contusions: two on the thorax, one on the abdomen, two on the
thighs, one near the patella; turn, please.” Alfred turned in the water.
“A slight dorsal abrasion; also of the wrists; a severe excoriation of
the ankle. Leg-lock, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Iron leg-lock. Head shaved. Large blister. Good! Any other injuries
external or internal under old system?”
“Yes, sir, confined as a madman though sane, as _you,_ I am sure, have
the sense to see.”
“Oh, never mind that; we are all sane here--except the governor and I.”
He whipped out, and entered the condition of the new patient's body with
jealous minuteness in the case-book. As for his mind, he made no inquiry
into that: indeed he was little qualified for researches of the kind.
At breakfast Alfred sat with a number of mad ladies and gentlemen, who
by firmness, kindness, and routine, had been led into excellent habits:
the linen was clean and the food good. He made an excellent meal,
and set about escaping: with this view he explored the place. Nobody
interfered with him; but plenty of eyes watched him. The house was on
the non-restraint system. He soon found this system was as bad for
him as it was good for the insane. Non-restraint implied a great many
attendants, and constant vigilance. Moreover, the doors were strong, the
windows opened only eight inches, and that from the top: their framework
was iron, painted like wood, &c. It was next to impossible to get
into the yard at night: and then it looked quite impossible to get any
further, for the house was encompassed by high walls.
He resigned all hope of escape without connivance. He sounded a keeper;
the man fired at the first word. “Come, none of that, sir; you should
know better than tempt a poor man.”
Alfred coloured to the eyes and sighed deeply. To have honour thrown
in his face, and made the reason for not aiding him to baffle a
dishonourable conspiracy! But he took the reproof so sweetly, the
man was touched, and by-and-bye, seeing him deeply dejected, said
good-naturedly, “Don't be down on your luck, sir. If you are really
better, which you don't look to have much the matter now, why not write
to the Commissioners and ask to be let out?”
“Because my letters will be intercepted.”
“Ay, to your friends; but not to the Commissioners of Lunacy. Not in
this house, any way.”
“God bless you!” cried Alfred impetuously. “You are my benefactor; you
are an honest fellow; give me your hand.”
“Well, why not? Only you mustn't excite yourself. Take it easy.”
(Formula.)
“Oh, no cant among friends!” said Alfred: “wouldn't you be excited at
the hope of getting out of prison?”
“Well, I don't know but I might. Bound I am as sick of it as you are.”
Alfred got paper and sketched the letter on which so much depended.
It took him six hours. He tore up two; he cooled down the third, and
condensed it severely: by this means, after much thought, he produced
a close and telling composition. He also weeded it of every trait and
every term he had observed in mad people's talk, or the letters they
had shown him. So there was no incoherency, no heat, no prolixity, no
“spies,” no “conspiracy,” no italics. A simple, honest, earnest story,
with bitter truth stamped on every line; a sober, strong appeal from a
sore heart but hard head to the arbiters of his fate.
To the best of my belief no madman, however slightly touched, or however
cunning, ever wrote a letter so gentle yet strong, so earnest yet calm,
so short yet full, and withal so lucid and cleanly jointed as this was.
And I am no contemptible judge; for I have accumulated during the last
few years a large collection of letters from persons deranged in
various degrees, and studied them minutely, more minutely than most
Psychologicals study anything but Pounds, Shillings, and Verbiage.
The letter went, and he hoped but scarcely expected an answer by return
of post. It did not come. He said to his heart, “Be still;” and waited.
Another day went by; and another: he gnawed his heart and waited: he
pined, and waited on. The Secret Tribunal, which was all a shallow
legislature had left him, “took it easy.” Secret Tribunals always do.
But, while the victim-suitor longed and pined and languished for one
sound from the voice of Justice and Humanity, and while the Secret
Tribunal, not being in prison itself all this time, “took it easy,”
events occurred at Barkington that bade fair to throw open the prison
doors and bring father and son, bride and bridegroom, together again
under one roof.
But at what a price.