CHAPTER XLI

ON Alfred's leaving Silverton, Mrs. Archbold was prostrated. It was a

stunning blow to her young passion, and left her weary, desolate.

But she was too strong to lie helpless under disappointed longings. Two

days she sat stupefied with the heartache; after that she bustled about

her work in a fervour of half-crazy restlessness, and ungovernable

irritability, quenched at times by fits of weeping. As she wept apart,

but raged and tyrannised in public, she soon made Silverton House

Silverton Oven, especially to those who had the luck to be of her sex.

Then Baker timidly remonstrated; at the first word she snapped him up

and said a change would be good for both of them. He apologised; in

vain: that very day she closed by letter with Dr. Wolf, who had often

invited her to be his “Matron.” Her motive, half hidden from herself,

was to be anywhere near her favourite.

Installed at Drayton House, she waited some days, and coquetted

woman-like with her own desires, then dressed neatly but soberly, and

called at Dr. Wycherley's; sent in a note explaining who she was with a

bit of soft sawder, and asked to see Alfred.

She was politely but peremptorily refused. She felt this rebuff

bitterly. She went home stung and tingling to the core. But Bitters

wholesome be: offended pride now allied with strong good sense to wither

a wild affection; and, as it was no longer fed by the presence of its

object, her wound healed, all but the occasional dull throbbing that

precedes a perfect cure.

At this stage of her convalescence Dr. Wolf told her in an off-hand

way that Mr. Hardie, a patient of doubtful insanity, was coming to

his asylum, to be kept there by hook or by crook. (She was entirely in

Wolf's confidence, and he talked of these things to her in English.)

The impenetrable creature assented outwardly, with no sign of emotion

whatever, but one flash of the eye, and one heave of the bosom swiftly

suppressed. She waited calmly and patiently till she was alone; then

yielded to joy and triumph; they seemed to leap inside her. But this

very thing alarmed her. “Better for me never to see him again,” she

thought. “His power over me is too terrible. Ah, good-bye to the peace

and comfort I have been building up! He will scatter them to the winds.

He has.”

She tried not to think of him too much. And, while she was so

struggling, Wolf let out that Alfred was to have morphia at dinner the

first day--morphia, the accursed drug with which these dark men in these

dark places coax the reason away out of the head by degrees, or with a

potent dose stupefy the victim, then act surprise, alarm; and make his

stupor the ground for applying medical treatment to the doomed wretch.

Edith Archbold knew the game, and at the word morphia, Pity and Passion

rose in her bosom irresistible. She smiled in Dr. Wolf's face, and hated

him; and secretly girt herself up to baffle him, and protect Alfred's

reason, and win his heart through his gratitude.

She received him as I have related, to throw dust in Dr. Wolf's eyes:

but she acted so admirably that some went into Alfred's. “Ah,” thought

he, “she is angry with herself for her amorous folly; and, with the

justice of her sex, she means to spite poor me for it.” He sighed;

for he felt her hostility would be fatal to him. To give her no fresh

offence, he fell into her manner, and treated her with a world of

distant respect. Then again, who else but she could have warned him

against poison? Then again, if so, why look so cold and stern at him? He

cast one or two wistful glances at her; but the artful woman of thirty

was impenetrable in public to the candid man of twenty-one. Even her

passion could not put them on an equality.

That night he could not sleep. He lay wondering what would be the next

foul practice, and how he should parry it.

He wrote next morning to the Commissioners that two of their number,

unacquainted with the previous proceedings of the Board, had been

surprised into endorsing an order of transfer to an asylum bearing

a very inferior character to Dr. Wycherley's; the object of this was

clearly foul play. Accordingly, Dr. Wolf had already tried to poison his

reason, by drugging his beer at dinner. He added that Dr. Wycherley

had now signed a certificate of his sanity, and implored the Board to

inspect it, and discharge him at once, or else let a solicitor visit him

at once, and take the requisite steps towards a public inquiry.

While waiting anxiously for the answer, it cost him all his philosophy

to keep his heart from eating itself. But he fought the good fight

of Reason; he invited the confidences of the quieter mad people, and

established a little court, and heard their grievances, and by impartial

decisions and good humour won the regard of the moderate patients and

of the attendants, all but three; Rooke, the head keeper, a morose burly

ruffian; Hayes, a bilious subordinate, Rooke's shadow; and Vulcan, a

huge mastiff that would let nobody but Rooke touch him; he was as big

as a large calf, and formidable as a small lion, though nearly toothless

with age. He was let loose in the yard at night, and was an element in

the Restraint system; many a patient would have tried to escape but for

Vulcan. He was also an invaluable howler at night, and so cooperated

with Dr. Wolf's bugs and fleas to avert sleep, that vile foe to insanity

and all our diseases, private asylums included.

Alfred treated Mrs. Archbold with a distant respect that tried her hard.

But that able woman wore sweetness and unobtrusive kindness, and bided

her time.

In Drayton House the keeperesses eclipsed the keepers in cruelty to the

poorer patients. No men except Dr. Wolf and his assistant had a pass-key

into their department, so there was nobody they could deceive, nobody

they held worth the trouble. In the absence of male critics they showed

their real selves, and how wise it is to trust that gentle sex in the

dark with irresponsible power over females. With unflagging patience

they applied the hourly torture of petty insolence, needless

humiliation, unreasonable refusals to the poor madwomen; bored them with

the poisoned gimlet, and made their hearts bleeding pin-cushions. But

minute cruelty and wild caprice were not enough for them, though these

never tired nor rested; they must vilify them too with degrading and

savage names. Billingsgate might have gone to school to Drayton House.

_Inter alia,_ they seemed in love with a term that Othello hit upon;

only they used it not once, but fifty times a day, and struck decent

women with it on the face, like a scorpion whip; and then the scalding

tears were sure to run in torrents down their silly, honest, burning

cheeks. But this was not all; they had got a large tank in a flagged

room, nominally for cleanliness and cure, but really for bane and

torture. For the least offence, or out of mere wantonness, they would

drag a patient stark naked across the yard, and thrust her bodily

under water again and again, keeping her down till almost gone with

suffocation, and dismissing her more dead than alive with obscene and

insulting comments ringing in her ears, to get warm again in the cold.

This my ladies called “tanking.”

In the ordinary morning ablutions they tanked without suffocating. But

the immersion of the whole body in cold water was of itself a severe

trial to those numerous patients in whom the circulation was weak;

and as medical treatment, hurtful and even dangerous. Finally, these

keeperesses, with diabolical insolence and cruelty, would bathe twenty

patients in this tank, and then make them drink that foul water for

their meals.

“The dark places of the land are full of horrible cruelty.”

One day they tanked so savagely that Nurse Eliza, after months of sickly

disapproval, came to the new redresser of grievances, and told.

What was he to do? He seized the only chance of redress; he ran panting

with indignation to Mrs. Archbold, and blushing high, said imploringly,

“Mrs. Archbold, you used to be kindhearted----” and could say no more

for something rising in his throat.

Mrs. Archbold smiled encouragingly on him, and said softly, “I am the

same I always was--to you Alfred.”

“Oh, thank you; then pray send for Nurse Eliza, and hear the cruelties

that are being done to the patients within a yard of us.”

“You had better tell me yourself, if you want me to pay any attention.”

“I can't. I don't know how to speak to a lady of such things as are done

here. The brutes! the cowardly she-devils! Oh, how I should like to kill

them.”

Mrs. Archbold laughed a little at his enthusiasm (fancy caring so what

was done to a pack of women), and sent for Nurse Eliza. She came and

being questioned told Mrs. Archbold more than she had Alfred. “And,

ma'am,” said she, whimpering, “they have just been tanking one they

had no business to touch; it is Mrs. Dale, her that is so close on her

confinement. They tanked her cruel they did, and kept her under water

till she was nigh gone. I came away; I couldn't stand it.”

Alfred was walking about in a fury, and Nurse Eliza, in making this last

revolting communication, lowered her voice for him not to hear, but his

senses were quick. I think he heard, for he turned and came quickly to

them.

“Mrs. Archbold, you are strong and brave--for a woman; oh, do go in to

them and take them by the throat and shake the life out of them, the

merciless, cowardly beasts! Oh that I could be a woman for an hour, or

they could be men, I'd soon have my foot on some of the wretches.”

Mrs. Archbold acted Ignition. “Come with me both of you,” she said, and

they were soon in the female department. Up came keeperesses directly,

smirking and curtseying to her, and pretending not to look at Adonis.

“Which of you nurses tanked Mrs. Dale?” said she sternly.

“'Twasn't I, ma'am, 'twasn't I.”

“Oh, fie!” said Eliza to one, “you know you were at the head of it.”

She pointed out two as the leaders. The Archbold instantly had them

seized by the others--who, with treachery equal to their cowardice,

turned eagerly against their fellow-culprits, to make friends with

Power--and, inviting all the sensible maniacs who had been tanked, to

assist or inspect, she bared her own statuesque arms, and, ably aided,

soon plunged the offenders, screaming, crying, and whining, like

spaniel bitches whipped, under the dirty water. They swallowed some, and

appreciated their own acts. Then she forced them to walk twice round

the yard with their wet clothes clinging to them, hooted by the late

victims.

“There,” said Alfred, “let that teach you men will not own hyaenas in

petticoats for women.”

Poor Alfred took all the credit of this performance; but in fact, when

the Archbold invited him to bear a hand, he showed the white feather.

_“I_ won't touch the blackguardesses,” said he, haughtily turning it off

on the score of contempt. _“You_ give it them! Again, again! Brava!”

Mosaic retribution completed, Mrs. Archbold told the nurses if ever

“tanking recurred she would bundle the whole female staff into the

street, and then have them indicted by the Commissioners.”

These virtuous acts did Edith Archbold for love for a young man. Whether

mad women or sane, women pregnant, or the reverse, were tanked or not,

she cared at heart no more than whether sheep were washed or no in

Ettrick's distant dale. She was retiring with a tender look at Alfred,

and her pulse secretly unaccelerated by sheep-washing of she-wolves,

when her grateful favourite appealed to her again:

“Dear Mrs. Archbold, shall we punish and not comfort? This poor Mrs.

Dale!”

The Archbold could have boxed his ears. “Dear boy,” she murmured

tenderly, “you teach us all our duty.” She visited the tanked one,

found her in a cold room after it, shivering like ague, and her teeth

chattering. Mrs. Archbold had her to the fire, and got her warm clothes

and a pint of wine, and probably saved her life and her child's--for

love of a young man.

Why I think Mrs. Dale would otherwise have left this shifting scene,

Mrs. Carey, the last woman in her condition they tanked and then turned

into a flagged cell that only wanted one frog of a grotto, was found

soon after moribund; on which they bundled her out of the asylum to die.

She did die next day, at home, but murdered by the asylum; and they told

the Commissioners she died through her friends taking her away from the

asylum too soon. The Commissioners had nothing to do but believe this,

and did believe it. Inspectors who visit a temple of darkness, lies,

cunning, and hypocrisy, four times a year, know mighty little of what

goes on there the odd three hundred and sixty-one days, five hours,

forty-eight minutes, and fifty-seven seconds.*

* Arithmetic of my boyhood. I hear the world revolves some

minutes quicker now.

“Now, Alfred,” said Mrs. Archbold, “I can't be everywhere, or know

everything; so you come to me when anything grieves you, and let me be

the agent of your humanity.”

She said this so charmingly he was surprised into kissing her fair

hand; then blushed, and thanked her warmly. Thus she established a chain

between them. When he let too long elapse without appealing to her, she

would ask his advice about the welfare of this or that patient; and so

she cajoled him by the two foibles she had discerned in him--his vanity

and his humanity.

Besides Alfred, there were two patients in Drayton House who had never

been insane; a young man, and an old woman; of whom anon. There were

also three ladies and one gentleman, who had been deranged, but had

recovered years ago. This little incident, Recovery, is followed in a

public asylum by instant discharge; but, in a private one, Money, not

Sanity, is apt to settle the question of egress. The gentleman's

case was scarce credible in the nineteenth century: years ago, being

undeniably cracked, he had done what Dr. Wycherley told Alfred was a

sure sign of sanity: _i.e.,_ he had declared himself insane; and had

even been so reasonable as to sign his own order and certificates, and

so imprison himself illegally, but with perfect ease; no remonstrance

against that illegality from the guardians of the law! When he got what

plain men call sane, he naturally wanted to be free, and happening

to remember he alone had signed the order of imprisonment, and the

imaginary doctor's certificates, he claimed his discharge from illegal

confinement. Answer: “First obtain a legal order for your discharge.”

On this he signed an order for his discharge. “That is not a legal

order.”--“It is as legal as the order on which I am here.” “Granted;

but, legally or not, the asylum has got you; the open air has not

got you. Possession is ninety-nine points of Lunacy law. Die your own

illegal prisoner, and let your kinsfolk eat your land, and drink your

consols, and bury you in a pauper's shroud” All that Alfred could do for

these victims was to promise to try and get them out some day, D.V. But

there was a weak-minded youth, Francis Beverley, who had the honour

to be under the protection of the Lord Chancellor. Now a lunatic or a

Softy, protected by that functionary, is literally a lamb protected by

a wolf, and that wolf _ex officio_ the cruellest, cunningest old mangler

and fleecer of innocents in Christendom. Chancery lunatics are the

richest class, yet numbers of them are flung among pauper and even

criminal lunatics, at a few pounds a year, while their committees bag

four-fifths of the money that has been assigned to keep the patient in

comfort.

Unfortunately the protection of the Chancellor extends to Life and

Reason, as well as Fleece; with the following result:

In public asylums about forty per cent. are said to be cured.

In private ones twenty-five per cent, at least; most of them poorish.

Of Chancery Lunatics not five per cent.

Finally, one-third of all the Chancery Lunatics do every six years

exchange the living tombs they are fleeced and bullied in for dead tombs

where they rest; and go from the sham protection of the Lord Chancellor

of England to the real protection of their Creator and their Judge.

These statistics have been long before the world, and are dead figures

to the Skimmer of things, but tell a dark tale to the Reader of

things, so dark, that I pray Heaven to protect me, and all other weak

inoffensive persons, from the protection of my Lord Chancellor in this

kind.

Beverley was so unfortunate as to exist before the date of the above

petition: and suffered the consequences.

He was an aristocrat by birth, noble on both sides of his house, and

unluckily had money. But for that he would have been a labouring man,

and free. My Lord Protector committed him with six hundred pounds a year

maintenance money to the care of his committee, the Honourable Fynes

Beverley.

Now this corporate, yet honourable individual, to whom something was

committed, and so Chancery Lane called him in its own sweet French the

thing committed, was a gentleman of birth, breeding, and intelligence.

He undertook to take care of his simple cousin; and what he did take

care of was himself.

THE SUB-LETTING SWINDLE.

I. The Honourable Fynes Beverley, Anglo-French committee, or crown

tenant, sub-let soft Francis for L. 300 a year, pocketed L. 300, and

washed his hands of Frank.

2. Mr. Heselden, the sub-tenant, sub-let the Softy of high degree for L.

150, pocketed the surplus, and washed his hands of him.

3. The L. 150 man sub-let him to Dr. Wolf at L. 60 a year, pouched the

surplus, and washed his hands of him.

And now what on earth was left for poor Dr. Wolf to do? Could he

sub-embezzle a Highlander's breeks? Could he subtract more than her skin

from off the singed cat? Could he peel the core of a rotten apple? Could

he pare a grated cheese rind? Could he flay a skinned flint? Could he

fleece a hog after Satan had shaved it as clean as a bantam's egg?

Let no man dare to limit genius; least of all the genius of extortion.

Dr. Wolf screwed comparatively more out of young Frank than did any of

the preceding screws. He turned him into a servant of all work and half

starved him; money profit, L. 45 out of the L. 60, or three-fourths,

whereas the others had only bagged one-half. But by this means he got a

good servant without wages, and on half a servant's food, clearing L. 22

and L. 12 in these two items.

Victim of our great national vice and foible, Vicariousness, this

scion of a noble house, protected in theory by the Crown, vicariously

sub-protected by the Chancellor, sub-vicariously sub-sham protected by

his kin, was really flung unprotected into the fleece market, and might

be seen--at the end of the long chain of subs. pros, vices, locos,

shams, shuffles, swindles, and lies--shaking the carpets, making the

beds, carrying the water, sweeping the rooms, and scouring the sordid

vessels, of thirty patients in Drayton House, not one of whom was his

equal either in birth or wealth; and of four menials, who were all his

masters and hard ones. His work was always doing, never done. He was not

the least mad nor bad, but merely of feeble intellect all round. Fifty

thousand gentlemen's families would have been glad of him at L. 300

a year, and made a son and a brother of him. But he was under the

vicarious protection of the Lord Chancellor. Thin, half-starved,

threadbare, out at elbows, the universal butt, scoffed at by the very

lunatics, and especially ill treated by the attendants whose work he did

gratis, he was sworn at, jeered, insulted, cuffed and even kicked, every

day of his hard, hard life. And yet he was a gentleman, though a soft

one; his hands, his features, his carriage, his address, had all an

indefinable stamp of race. How had it outlived such crushing, degrading

usage? I don't know; how does a daisy survive the iron roller? Alfred

soon found him out, and to everybody's amazement, especially Frank's,

remonstrated gently but resolutely and eloquently, and soon convinced

the majority, sane and insane, that a creature so meek and useful

merited special kindness, not cruelty. One keeper, The Robin, _alias_

Tom Wales, an ex--prize fighter, was a warm convert to this view. Among

the maniacs only one held out, and said contemptuously he couldn't see

it.

“Well,” said Alfred, “lay a finger on him after this, and I'll lay a

hand on you, and aid your intellectual vision.”

Rooke and Hayes treated remonstrance with open and galling contempt. Yet

the tide of opinion changed so, they did not care to defy it openly: but

they bullied poor Beverley now and then on the sly, and he never told.

He was too inoffensive for this world. But one day, as Alfred was

sitting with his door ajar, writing a letter of earnest expostulation to

the Commissioners, who had left his first unanswered, he heard Hayes at

the head of the stairs call roughly, “Frank! Frank!”

“Sir,” replied the soft little voice of young Beverley.

“Come, be quick, young shaver.”

“I'm coming, sir,” and up ran Beverley.

“Here, take this tray downstairs.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stop, there's a bit of bread for you.” And Hayes chucked him a crust,

as one throws it to another man's dog.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Beverley, stooping down for it, and being

habitually as hungry as a ratcatcher's tyke, took an eager bite in that

position.

“How dare you eat it there,” said Hayes brutally: “take it to your own

crib: come, mizzle.” And with that lent him a contemptuous kick behind,

which owing to his position sent him off his balance flat on the tray; a

glass broke under him. Poor young Mr. Beverley uttered a cry of dismay,

for he knew Hayes would not own himself the cause. Hayes cursed him for

an awkward idiot, and the oath went off into a howl, for Alfred ran out

at him brimful of Moses, and with a savage kick in the back and blow on

the neck, administered simultaneously, hurled him head foremost down

the stairs. Alighting on the seventh step, he turned a somersault, and

bounded like a ball on to the landing below, and there lay stupefied. He

picked himself up by slow degrees, and glared round with speechless awe

and amazement up at the human thunderbolt that had shot out on him and

sent him flying like a feather. He shook his fist, and limped silently

away all bruises and curses, to tell Rooke and concert vengeance.

Alfred, trembling still with ire, took Beverley to his room (the boy was

as white as a sheet), and encouraged him, and made him wash properly,

brushed his hair, dressed him in a decent tweed suit he had outgrown,

and taking him under his arm, and walking with his own nose haughtily in

the air, paraded him up and down the asylum, to show them all the best

man in the house respected the poor soft gentleman. Ah, what a grand

thing it is to be young! Beverley clung to his protector too much like a

girl, but walked gracefully and kept step, and every now and then looked

up at Alfred with a loving adoration, that was sweet, yet sad to see.

Alfred marched him to Mrs. Archbold, and told his tale; for he knew

Hayes would misrepresent it, and get him into trouble. She smiled on the

pair; gently deplored her favourite's impetuosity, entreated him not to

go fighting with that great monster Rooke, and charmed him by saying,

“Well, and Frank _is_ a gentleman, when he is dressed like one.”

“Isn't he?” said Alfred eagerly. “And whose fault is it he is not always

dressed like one? Whose fault that here's an earl's nephew, 'Boots in

Hell'?”

“Not yours, Alfred, nor mine,” was the honeyed reply.

In vain did Mr. Hayes prefer his complaint to Dr. Wolf. The Archbold had

been before him, and the answer was, “Served you right.”

These and many other good deeds did Alfred Hardie in Drayton House. But,

as the days rolled on, and no answer came from the Commissioners, his

own anxiety, grief, and dismay left him less and less able to sympathise

with the material but smaller wrongs around him. He became silent,

dejected.

At last he came to Mrs. Archbold, and said sternly his letters to the

Commissioners were intercepted.

“I can't believe that,” said she. “It is against the law.”

So it was: but law and custom are two.

“I am sure of it,” said he; “and may the eternal curse of Heaven light

on the cowardly traitor and miscreant who has done it.” And he stalked

gloomily away.

When he left her, she sighed at this imprecation from his lips; but did

not repent. “I _can't_ part with him,” she said despairingly; “and if

I did not stop his poor dear letters, Wolf would:” and the amorous

crocodile shed a tear, and persisted in her double-faced course.

By-and-by, when she saw him getting thinner and paler, and his bright

face downcast and inexpressibly sad, she shared his misery: ay, shed

scalding tears for him: yet could not give him up; for her will was as

strong as the rest of her was supple; and hers was hot love, but not

true love like Julia's.

Perhaps a very subtle observer, seeing this man and woman wax pale and

spiritless together in one house, might have divined her secret. Dr.

Wolf, then, was no such observer, for she made him believe she had a

rising _penchant_ for him. He really had a strong one for her.

While Alfred's visible misery pulled at her heart-strings, and sometimes

irritated, sometimes melted her, came curious complications; one of

which requires preface.

Mrs. Dodd then was not the wife to trust blindly where her poor husband

was concerned. She bribed so well that a keeperess in David's first

asylum told her David had been harshly used by an attendant. She

instantly got Eve Dodd to take him away: and transfer him to a small

asylum nearer London, and kept by a Mrs. Ellis. “Women are not cruel to

men,” said the sagacious Lucy Dodd.

But, alas! if women are not cruel where sex comes in and mimics that

wider sentiment, Humanity, women are deadly economical. Largely gifted

with that household virtue, Mrs. Ellis kept too few servants, and,

sure consequence in a madhouse, too many straitjackets, hobbles, muffs,

leg-locks, bodybelts, &c. &c. Hence half her patients were frequently

kept out of harm's way by cruel restraints administered, not out of

hearty cruelty, but female parsimony. Mrs. and Miss Dodd invaded the

house one day when the fair economist was out, and found seven patients

out of the twelve kept out of mischief thus: one in a restraint

chair, two hobbled like asses, two chained like dogs, and two in

straight-waistcoats, and fastened to beds by webbing and straps; amongst

the latter, David, though quiet as a lamb.

Mrs. Dodd cried over him as if her heart would break, and made Miss Dodd

shift him to a large asylum, where I believe he was very well used. But

here those dreadful newspapers interfered; a prying into sweet secluded

spots. They diversified Mrs. Dodd's breakfast by informing her that the

doctor of this asylum had just killed a patient; the mode of execution

bloodless and sure, as became fair science. It was a man between sixty

and seventy; an age at which the heart can seldom stand very much

shocking, or lowering, especially where the brain is diseased. So

they placed him in a shower-bath, narrow enough to impede respiration,

without the falling water, which of necessity drives out air. In short a

vertical box with holes all round the top.

Here the doctor ordered him a cold shower-bath of unparalleled duration:

half an hour. To be followed by an unprecedented dose of tartar emetic.

This double-barrelled order given, the doctor went away. (Formula.)

The water was down to forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Half an hour's

shower-bath at that temperature in a roomy bath would kill the youngest

and strongest man in her Majesty's dominions.

For eight-and-twenty mortal minutes the poor old man stood in this

vertical coffin under this cold cascade. Six hundred gallons of icy

water were in that his last hour, his last half-hour, discharged upon

his devoted head and doomed body.

He had to be helped away from this death-torrent he had walked into in

high spirits, poor soul.

Even this change awakened no misgivings, no remorse; though you or I, or

any man or woman picked at hazard out of the streets, would at once

have seen that he was dying, he was duly dozed by the fire with four

spoonfuls of antimonial tincture--_to mak' sicker._ But even the

“Destructive Art of Healing” cannot slay the slain. The old man cheated

the emetic; for, before it could hurt him, he died of the bath; And his

body told its own sad tale; to use the words of a medical eye-witness,

it was “A PIECE OF ALABASTER.” The death-torrent had driven the whole

circulation from the surface.*

* This mode of execution is well known in the United States.

They settle refractory prisoners with it periodically. But

half an hour is not needed; twenty minutes will do the

trick. _“Harper's Weekly,_” a year or two ago, contained an

admirable woodcut of a negro's execution by water. In this

remarkable picture you see the poor darkie seated powerless,

howling and panting his life away under the deadly cascade,

and there stands the stolid turnkey, erect, formal, stiff as

a ramrod, pulling the deadly string with a sort of drill

exercise air, and no more compunction nor reflection than if

he himself was a machine constructed to pull strings or

triggers on his own string being pulled by butcher or fool.

A picture well studied, and so worth study.

Mrs. Dodd was terrified, and in spite of Sampson's assurance that this

was the asylum of all others they would not settle another patient in

until the matter should have blown over, got Eve Dodd to write to Dr.

Wolf, and offer L. 300 a year if he would take David at once, and treat

him with especial consideration.

He showed this letter triumphantly to Mrs. Archbold, and she, blinded

for a moment by feeling, dissuaded him from receiving Captain Dodd. He

stared at her. “What, turn away a couple of thousand pounds?”

“But they will come to visit him; and perhaps see him.”

“Oh, that can be managed. You must be on your guard: and I'll warn

Rooke. I can't turn away money on a chance.”

One day Alfred found himself locked into his room. This was unusual:

for, though they called him a lunatic in words, they called him sane

by all their acts. He half suspected that the Commissioners were in the

house.

Had he known who really was in the house, he would have beaten himself

to pieces against the door.

At dinner there was a new patient, very mild and silent, with a

beautiful large brown eye, like some gentle animal's.

Alfred was very much struck with this eye, and contrived to say a kind

word to him after dinner. Finding himself addressed by a gentleman,

the new comer handled his forelock and made a sea scrape, and announced

himself as William Thompson; he added with simple pride, “Able Seaman;”

then touching his forelock again, “Just come aboard, your honour.” After

this, which came off glibly, he was anything but communicative. However,

Alfred contrived to extract from him that he was rather glad to leave

his last ship, on account of having been constantly impeded there in his

duties by a set of lubbers, that clung round him and kept him on deck

whenever the first lieutenant ordered him into the top.

The very next day, pacing sadly the dull gravel of his prison yard,

Alfred heard a row; and there was the able seaman struggling with

the Robin and two other keepers. He wanted to go to his duties in the

foretop: to wit, the fork of a high elm-tree in the court-yard. Alfred

had half a mind not to interfere. “Who cares for _my_ misery?” he said.

But his better nature prevailed, and he told the Robin he was sure going

up imaginary rigging would do Thompson more good than harm.

On this the men reluctantly gave him a trial, and he went up the tree

with wonderful strength and agility, but evident caution. Still Alfred

quaked when he crossed his thighs tight over a limb of the tree forty

feet from earth, and went carefully and minutely through the whole

process of furling imaginary sails. However, he came down manifestly

soothed by the performance, and, singular phenomenon, he was quite cool;

and it was the spectators on deck who perspired.

“And what a pleasant voice he has,” said Alfred; “it quite charms my

ear; it is not like a mad voice. It is like--I'm mad myself.”

“And he has got a fiddle, and plays it like a hangel, by all accounts,”

said the Robin; “only he won't touch it but when he has a mind.”

At night Alfred dreamed he heard Julia's sweet mellow voice speaking to

him; and he looked, and lo! it was the able seaman. He could sleep no

more, but lay sighing.

Ere the able seaman had been there three days, Mrs. Dodd came

unexpectedly to see him; and it was with the utmost difficulty Alfred

was smuggled out of the way. Mrs. Archbold saw by her loving anxiety

these visits would be frequent, and, unless Alfred was kept constantly

locked up, which was repugnant to her, they would meet some day. She

knew there are men who ply the trade of spies, and where to find them;

she set one of them to watch Mrs. Dodd's house, and learn her habits, in

hopes of getting some clue as to when she might be expected.

Now it so happened that, looking for one thing, she found another which

gave her great hopes and courage. And then the sight of Alfred's misery

tried her patience, and then he was beginning half to suspect her of

stopping his letters. Passion, impatience, pity, and calculation,

all drove her the same road, and led to an extraordinary scene, so

impregnated with the genius of the madhouse--a place where the passions

run out to the very end of their tether--that I feel little able to

describe it. I will try and indicate it.

One fine Sunday afternoon, then, she asked Alfred languidly would he

like to walk in the country.

“Would I like? Ah, don't trifle with a prisoner,” said he sorrowfully.

She shook her head. “No, no, it will not be a happy walk. Rooke, who

hates you, is to follow us with that terrible mastiff, to pull you down

if you try to escape. I could not get Dr. Wolf to consent on any other

terms. Alfred, let us give up the idea. I fear your rashness.”

“No, no, I won't try to escape--from you. I have not seen a blade of

grass this six months.”

The accomplished dissembler hesitated, yielded. They passed through

the yard and out at the back door, which Alfred had so often looked

wistfully at; and by-and-by reached a delicious pasture. A light golden

haze streamed across it. Nature never seemed so sweet, so divine, to

Alfred before; the sun as bright as midsummer, though not the least hot,

the air fresh, yet genial, and perfumed with Liberty and the smaller

flowers of earth. Beauty glided rustling by his side, and dark eyes

subdued their native fire into softness whenever they turned on him; and

scarce fifty yards in the rear hung a bully and a mastiff ready to tear

him down if he should break away from beauty's light hand, that rested

so timidly on his. He was young, and stout-hearted, and relished his

peep of liberty and nature, though blotted by Vulcan and Rooke. He

chatted to Mrs. Archbold in good spirits. She answered briefly, and

listlessly.

At last she stopped under a young chestnut-tree as if overcome with a

sudden reflection, and turning half away from him leaned her head and

hand upon a bough, and sighed. The attitude was pensive and womanly. He

asked her with innocent concern what was the matter; then faintly should

he take her home. All her answer was to press his hand with hers that

was disengaged, and, instead of sighing, to cry.

The novice in woman's wiles set himself to comfort her--in vain; to

question her--in vain at first; but by degrees she allowed him to learn

that it was for him she mourned; and so they proceeded on the old, old

plan, the man extorting from the woman bit by bit just so much as she

wanted all along to say, and would have poured in a stream if let quite

alone.

He drew from his distressed friend that Dr. Wolf for reasons of his own

had made special inquiries about the Dodds; that she had fortunately

or unfortunately heard of this, and had questioned the person employed,

hoping to hear something that might comfort Alfred. “Instead of that,”

said she, “I find Miss Dodd is like most girls; out of sight is out of

mind with her.”

“What do you mean?” said Alfred, trembling suddenly.

“Do not ask me. What a weak fool I was to let you see I was unhappy for

you.”

“The truth is the truth,” gasped Alfred; “tell me at once.”

“Must I? I am afraid you will hate me; for I should hate any one who

told me your faults. Well, then--if I must--Miss Dodd has a beau.”

“It is a lie!” cried Alfred furiously.

“I wish it was. But she has two in fact, both of them clergymen.

However, one seems the favourite; at least they are engaged to be

married; it is Mr. Hurd, the curate of the parish she lives in. By what

I hear she is one of the religious ones; so perhaps that has brought the

pair to an understanding.”

At these words a cold sickness rushed all over Alfred, beginning at his

heart. He stood white and stupefied a moment; then, in the anguish of

his heart, broke out into a great and terrible cry; it was like a young

lion wounded with a poisoned shaft.

Then he was silent, and stood stock still, like petrified despair.

Mrs. Archbold was prepared for an outburst: but not of this kind. His

anguish was so unlike a woman's that it staggered her. Her good and

bad angels, to use an expressive though somewhat too poetical phrase,

battled for her. She had an impulse to earn his gratitude for life,

to let him out of the asylum ere Julia should be Mrs. Hurd, and even

liberty come too late for true love. She looked again at the statue of

grief by her side; and burst out crying in earnest.

This was unfortunate. Shallow pity exuding in salt water leaves not

enough behind to gush forth in good deeds.

She only tried to undo her own work in part; to comfort him a little

with commonplaces. She told him in a soothing whisper there were other

women in the world besides this inconstant girl, others who could love

him as he deserved.

He made no answer to all she could say, but just waved his hand once

impatiently. Petty consolation seemed to sting him.

She drew back discouraged; but only for a while. He was silent.

With one grand serpentine movement she came suddenly close to him, and,

standing half behind him, laid her hand softly on his shoulder, and

poured burning love in his ear. “Alfred,” she murmured, “we are both

unhappy; let us comfort one another. I had pity on you at Silverton

House, I pity you now: pity _me_ a little in turn: take me out of this

dreadful house, out of this revolting life, and let me be with you. Let

me be your housekeeper, your servant, your slave. This news that has

shocked you so has torn the veil from my eyes. I thought I had cooled

my love down to friendship and tender esteem; but no, now I see you as

unhappy as myself, now I can speak and wrong no one, I own I--oh Alfred

my heart burns for you, bleeds for you, yearns for you, sickens for you,

dies for you.”

“Oh, hush! hush! Mrs. Archbold. You are saying things you will blush for

the next moment.”

“I blush now, but cannot hush; I have gone too far. And your happiness

as well as mine is at stake. No young girl can understand or value

such a man as you are: but I, like you, have suffered; I, like you, am

constant; I, like you, am warm and tender; at my age a woman's love is

bliss to him who can gain it; and I love you with all my soul, Alfred.

I worship the ground you walk on, my sweet, sweet boy. Say you the word,

dearest, and I will bribe the servants, and get the keys, and sacrifice

my profession for ever to give you liberty (see how sweet the open face

of nature is, sweeter than anything on earth, but love); and all I ask

is a little, little of your heart in return. Give me a chance to make

you mine for ever; and, if I fail, treat me as I shall deserve; desert

me at once; and then I'll never reproach you; I'll only die for you; as

I have lived for you ever since I first saw your heavenly face.”

The passionate woman paused at last, but her hot cheek and heaving bosom

and tender convulsive hand prolonged the pleading.

I am afraid few men of her own age would have resisted her; for

voice and speech and all burning, melting, and winning; and then, so

reasonable, lads; she did not stipulate for constancy.

But Alfred turned round to her blushing and sorrowful. “For shame!” he

said; “this is not love: you abuse that sacred word. Indeed, if you

had ever really loved, you would have pitied me and Julia long ago, and

respected our love; and saved us by giving me my freedom long ago. I am

not a fool: do you think I don't know that you are my jailer, and the

cunningest and most dangerous of them all?”

“You cruel, ungrateful!” she sobbed.

“No; I am not ungrateful either,” said he more gently. “You have always

come between me and that kind of torture which most terrifies vulgar

souls: and I thank you for it. Only if you had also pitied the deeper

anguish of my heart, I should thank you more still. As it is, I forgive

you for the share you have had in blasting my happiness for life; and

nobody shall ever know what you have been mad enough in an unguarded

moment to say; but for pity's sake talk no more of love, to mock my

misery.”

Mrs. Archbold was white with ire long before he had done this sentence.

“You insolent creature,” said she; “you spurn my love; you shall feel my

hate.”

“So I conclude,” said he coldly: “such love as yours is hard by hate.”

“It is,” said she: “and I know how I'll combine the two. To-day I loved

you, and you spurned me; ere long you shall love me and I'll despise

you; and not spurn you.”

“I don't understand you,” said Alfred, feeling rather uneasy.

“What,” said she, “don't you see how the superior mind can fascinate the

inferior? Look at Frank Beverley--how he follows you about and fawns on

you like a little dog.”

“I prefer his sort of affection to yours.”

“A gentleman and a man would have kept that to himself; but you are

neither one nor the other; or you would have taken my offer, and then

run away from me the next day, you fool. A man betrays a woman; he

doesn't insult her. Ah, you admire Frank's affection; well, you shall

imitate it. You couldn't love me like a man; you shall love me like a

dog.”

“How will you manage that, pray?” he inquired with a sneer.

“I'll drive you mad.”

She hissed this fiendish threat out between her white teeth.

“Ay, sir,” she said, “hitherto your reason has only encountered men. You

shall see now what an insulted woman can do. A lunatic you shall be ere

long, and then I'll make you love me, dote on me, follow me about for a

smile: and then I'll leave off hating you, and love you once more, but

not the way I did five minutes ago.”

At this furious threat Alfred ground his teeth, and said, “Then I give

you my honour that the moment I see my reason the least shaken, I'll

kill you: and so save myself from the degradation of being your lover on

any terms.”

“Threaten your own sex with that,” said the Archbold contemptuously;

“you may kill me whenever you like; and the sooner the better. Only, if

you don't do it very quickly, you shall be my property, my brain-sick,

love-sick slave.”

CHAPTER XLI

AFTER a defiance so bitter and deadly, Alfred naturally drew away from

his inamorata. But she, boiling with love and hate, said bitterly, “We

need not take Mr. Rooke into our secrets. Come, sir, your arm!”

He stuck it out ungraciously, and averted his head; she took it,

suppressed with difficulty a petty desire to pinch, and so walked by

his side. He was as much at his ease as if promenading jungles with a

panther. She felt him quiver with repugnance under her soft hand; and

prolonged the irritating contact. She walked very slowly, and told him

with much meaning she was waiting for a signal. “Till then,” said she,

“we will keep one another company;” biting the word with her teeth as it

went out.

By-and-by a window was opened in the asylum, and a table-cloth hung out.

Mrs. Archbold pointed it out to Alfred; he stared at it; and after that

she walked him rapidly home in silence. But, as soon as the door was

double-locked on him, she whispered triumphantly in his ear--

“Your mother-in-law was expected to-day; that signal was to let me know

she was gone.”

“My mother-in-law!” cried the young man, and tried in vain to conceal

his surprise and agitation.

“Ay; your mother-in-law, that shall never be. Mrs. Dodd.”

“Mrs. Dodd here!” said Alfred, clasping his hands. Then he reflected,

and said coolly: “It is false; what should she come here for?”

“To see your father-in-law.”

“My father-in-law? What, is he here, too?” said Alfred with an

incredulous sneer.

“Yes, the raving maniac that calls himself Thompson, and that you took

to from the first: he is your precious father-in-law--that shall never

be.”

Alfred was now utterly amazed, and bewildered. Mrs. Archbold eyed him in

silent scorn.

“Poor man,” said he at last; and hung his head sorrowfully. “No wonder

then his voice went so to my heart. How strange it all is! and how will

it all end?”

“In your being a madman instead of an insolent fool,” hissed the viper.

At this moment Beverley appeared at the end of the yard. Mrs. Archbold

whistled him to her like a dog. He came running zealously. “Who was that

called while I was out?” she inquired.

“A polite lady, madam: she said sir to me, and thanked me.”

“That sounds like Mrs. Dodd,” said the Archbold quietly.

“Ah, but,” continued Frank, “there was another with her a beautiful

young lady; oh, so beautiful!”

“Miss Julia Dodd,” said the Archbold grimly.

Alfred panted, and his eyes roved wildly in search of a way to escape

and follow her; she could not be far off.

“Anybody else, Frank?” inquired Mrs. Archbold.

“No more ladies, madam; but there was a young gentleman all in black. I

think he was a clergyman--or a butler.”

“Ah, that was her husband that is to be; that was Mr. Hurd. She can go

nowhere without him, not even to see her old beau.”

At these words, every one of them an adder, Alfred turned on her

furiously, and his long arm shot out of its own accord, and the

fingers opened like an eagle's claw. She saw, and understood, but

never blenched. Her vindictive eye met his dilating flashing orbs

unflinchingly.

“You pass for a woman,” he said, “and I am too wretched for anger.”

He turned from her with a deep convulsive sob, and, almost staggering,

leaned his brow against the wall of the house.

She had done what no man had as yet succeeded in; she had broken his

spirit. And here a man would have left him alone. But the rejected

beauty put her lips to his ear, and whispered into them, “This is only

the beginning.” Then she left him and went to his room and stole all

his paper, and pens, and ink, and his very Aristotle. He was to have no

occupation now, except to brood, and brood, and brood.

As for Alfred, he sat down upon a bench in the yard a broken man: up to

this moment he had hoped his Julia was as constant as himself. But no;

either she had heard he was mad, and with the universal credulity had

believed it, or perhaps, not hearing from him at all believed herself

forsaken; and was consoling herself with a clergyman. Jealousy did not

as yet infuriate Alfred. Its first effect resembled that of a heavy

blow. Little Beverley found him actually sick, and ran to the Robin.

The ex-prizefighter brought him a thimbleful of brandy, but he would not

take it. “Ah no, my friends,” he said, “that cannot cure me; it is not

my stomach; it is my heart. Broken, broken!”

The Robin retired muttering. Little Beverley kneeled down beside him,

and kissed his hand with a devotion that savoured of the canine. Yet it

was tender, and the sinking heart clung to it. “Oh, Frank!” he cried,

“my Julia believes me mad, or thinks me false, or something, and she

will marry another before I can get out to tell her all I have endured

was for loving her. What shall I do? God protect my reason! What will

become of me?”

He moaned, and young Frank sorrowed over him, till the harsh voice of

Rooke summoned him to some menial duty. This discharged, he came running

back; and sat on the bench beside his crushed benefactor without saying

a word. At last he delivered this sapient speech: “I see. You want to

get out of this place.”

Alfred only sighed hopelessly.

“Then I must try and get you out,” said Frank. Alfred shook his head.

“Just let me think,” said Frank solemnly; and he sat silent looking

like a young owl: for thinking soon puzzled him, and elicited his

intellectual weakness, whereas in a groove of duties he could go

as smoothly as half the world, and but for his official, officious

Protector, might just as well have been Boots at the Swan, as Boots and

Chambermaid at the Wolf.

So now force and cunning had declared war on Alfred, and feebleness

in person enlisted in his defence. His adversary lost no time; that

afternoon Rooke told him he was henceforth to occupy a double bedded

room with another patient.

“If he should be violent in the middle of the night, sing out, and we

will come--if we hear you,” said the keeper with a malicious smile.

The patient turned out to be the able seaman. Here Mrs. Archbold aimed

a double stroke; to shake Alfred's nerves, and show him how very mad his

proposed father-in-law was. She thought that, if he could once be forced

to realise this, it might reconcile him to not marrying the daughter.

The first night David did get up and paraded an imaginary deck for four

mortal hours. Alfred's sleep was broken; but he said nothing, and David

turned in again, his watch completed.

Not a day passed now but a blow was struck. Nor was the victim passive;

debarred writing materials, he cut the rims off several copies of the

_Times,_ and secreted them: then catching sight of some ink-blots on the

back of Frank's clothes-brush, scraped them carefully off, melted them

in a very little water, and with a toothpick scrawled his wrongs to

the Commissioners; he rolled the slips round a half-crown, and wrote

outside, “Good Christian, keep this half-crown, and take the writing to

the Lunacy Commissioners at Whitehall, for pity's sake.” This done, he

watched, and when nobody was looking, flung his letter, so weighted,

over the gates; he heard it fall on the public road.

Another day he secreted a spoonful of black currant preserve, diluted it

with a little water, and wrote a letter, and threw it into the road as

before: another day, hearing the Robin express disgust at the usage to

which he was now subjected, he drew him apart, and offered him a

hundred pounds to get him out. Now the ex-prizefighter was rather a

tender-hearted fellow, and a great detester of foul play. What he saw

made him now side heartily with Alfred; and all he wanted was to be

indemnified for his risk.

He looked down and said, “You see, sir, I have a wife and child to think

of.”

Alfred offered him two hundred pounds.

“That is more than enough, sir,” said the Robin; “but you see I can't do

it alone. I must have a pal in it. Could you afford as much to Garrett?

He is the likeliest; I've heard him say as much as that he was sick of

the business.”

Alfred jumped at the proposal: he would give them two hundred apiece.

“I'll sound him,” said the Robin; “don't you speak to him, whatever. He

might blow the gaff. I must begin by making him drunk, then he'll tell

me his real mind.”

One fine morning the house was made much cleaner than usual; the

rotatory chair, in which they used to spin a maniac like a teetotum, the

restraint chairs, and all the paraphernalia were sent into the stable,

and so disposed that, even if found, they would look like things

scorned and dismissed from service: for Wolf, mind you, professed the

non-restraint system.

Alfred asked what was up, and found all this was in preparation for the

quarterly visit of the Commissioners: a visit intended to be a surprise;

but Drayton House always knew when they were coming, and the very names

of the two thunderbolts that thought to surprise them.

Mrs. Archbold communicated her knowledge in off-hand terms. “It is only

two old women: Bartlett and Terry.”

The gentlemen thus flatteringly heralded arrived next day. One an aged,

infirm man, with a grand benevolent head, bald front and silver hair,

and the gold-headed cane of his youth, now a dignified crutch: the other

an ordinary looking little chap enough, with this merit--he was what

he looked. They had a long interview with Mrs. Archbold first, for fear

they should carry a naked eye into the asylum. Mr. Bartlett, acting on

instructions, very soon inquired about Alfred; Mrs. Archbold's face put

on friendly concern directly. “I am sorry to say he is not so well as he

was a fortnight ago--not nearly so well. We have given him walks in the

country, too; but I regret to say they did him no real good; he came

back much excited, and now he shuns the other patients, which he used

not to do.” In short, she gave them the impression that Alfred was a

moping melancholiac.

“Well, I had better see him,” said Mr. Bartlett, “just to satisfy the

Board.”

Alfred was accordingly sent for, and asked with an indifferent air how

he was.

He said he was very well in health, but in sore distress of mind at his

letters to the Commissioners being intercepted by Mrs. Archbold or Dr.

Wolf.

Mrs. Archbold smiled pityingly. Mr. Bartlett caught her glance, and

concluded this was one of the patient's delusions. (Formula.)

Alfred surprised the glances, and said, “You can hardly believe this,

because the act is illegal. But a great many illegal acts, that you

never detect, are done in asylums. However, it is not a question of

surmise; I sent four letters in the regular way since I came. Here

are their several dates. Pray make a note to inquire whether they have

reached Whitehall or not.”

“Oh, certainly, to oblige you,” said Mr. Bartlett, and made the note.

Mrs. Archbold looked rather discomposed at that.

“And now, gentlemen,” said Alfred, “since Mrs. Archbold has had a

private interview, which I see she has abused to poison your mind

against me, I claim as simple justice a private interview to disabuse

you.”

“You are the first patient ever told me to walk out of my own

drawing-room,” said Mrs. Archbold, rising white with ire and

apprehension, and sweeping out of the room.

By this piece of female petulance she gave the enemy a point in the

game; for, if she had insisted on staying, Mr. Bartlett was far too weak

to have dismissed her. As it was, he felt shocked at Alfred's rudeness:

and so small a thing as justice did not in his idea counterbalance so

great a thing as discourtesy; so he listened to Alfred's tale with the

deadly apathy of an unwilling hearer. “Pour on: I will endure,” as poor

Lear says.

As for Dr. Terry, he was pictorial, but null; effete; emptied of brains

by all-scooping-Time. If he had been detained that day at Drayton House,

and Frank Beverley sent back in his place to Whitehall, it would have

mattered little to him, less to the nation, and nothing to mankind.

At last Mr. Bartlett gave Alfred some hopes he was taking in the truth;

for he tore a leaf out of his memorandum-book, wrote on it, and passed

it to Dr. Terry. The ancient took it with a smile, and seemed to make

an effort to master it, but failed; it dropped simultaneously from his

finger and his mind.

Not a question was put to Alfred; so he was fain to come to an end;

he withdrew suddenly, and caught Mrs. Archbold at the keyhole. “Noble

adversary!” said he, and stalked away, and hid himself hard by: and no

sooner did the inspectors come out, and leave the coast clear, than he

darted in and looked for the paper Mr. Bartlett had passed to Dr. Terry.

He found it on the floor: and took it eagerly up; and full of hope, and

expectation, read these words:

WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE STUFF THE MATRON'S GOWN IS MADE OF? I SHOULD

LIKE TO BUY MRS. BARTLETT ONE LIKE IT.

Alfred stood and read this again, and again he searched for some hidden

symbolical meaning in the words. High-minded, and deeply impressed with

his own wrongs, he could not conceive a respectable man, paid fifteen

hundred a year to spy out wrongs, being so heartless hard as to write

this single comment during the earnest recital of a wrong so gigantic

as his. Poor Alfred learned this to his cost, that to put small men

into great places is to create monsters. When he had realised the bitter

truth, he put the stony-hearted paper in his pocket, crept into the

yard, and sat down, and, for all he could do, scalding tears ran down

his cheeks.

“Homunculi quanti sunt!” he sobbed; “homunculi quanti sunt!”

Presently he saw Dr. Terry come wandering towards him alone. The

Archbold had not deigned to make him safe; senectitude had done that.

Alfred, all heart--sick as he was, went to the old gentleman out of

veneration for the outside of his head--which was Shakespearian--and

pity for his bodily infirmity; and offered him an arm. The doctor

thanked him sweetly, and said, “Pray, young man, have you anything to

communicate?”

Then Alfred saw that the ancient man had already forgotten his face, and

so looking at him with that rare instrument of official inspection,

the naked eye, had seen he was sane; and consequently taken him for a

keeper.

How swiftly the mind can roam, and from what a distance gather the

materials of a thought! Flashed like lightning through Alfred's mind

this line from one of his pets, the Greek philosophers:

[Greek text]

“And this is the greatest stroke of art, to turn an evil into a good.”

Now the feebleness of this aged Inspector was an evil: the thing then

was to turn it into a good. Shade of Plato, behold how thy disciple

worked thee! “Sir,” said he, sinking his voice mysteriously, “I have:

but I am a poor man: you won't say I told you: it's as much as my place

is worth.”

“Confidence, strict confidence,” replied Nestor, going over beaten

tracks; for he had kept many a queer secret with the loyalty which does

his profession so much honour.

“Then, sir, there's a young gentleman confined here, who is no more mad

than you and I; and never was mad.”

“You don't say so.”

“That I do, sir: and they know they are doing wrong, sir, for they stop

all his letters to the Commissioners; and that is unlawful, you know.

Would you like to take a note of it all, sir?”

The old fogie said he thought he should, and groped vaguely for his

note-book: he extracted it at last like a loose tooth, fumbled with it,

and dropped it: Alfred picked it up fuming inwardly.

The ancient went to write, but his fingers were weak and hesitating, and

by this time he had half forgotten what he was going to say. Alfred's

voice quavered with impatience; but he fought it down, and offered as

coolly as he could to write it for him: the offer was accepted, and he

wrote down in a feigned hand, very clear--

“DRAYTON HOUSE, _Oct. 5._--A sane patient, Alfred Hardie, confined here

from interested motives. Has written four letters to the Commissioners,

all believed to be intercepted. Communicated to me in confidence by

an attendant in the house. Refer to the party himself, and his

correspondence with the Commissioners from Dr. Wycherley's: also to

Thomas Wales, another attendant; and to Dr. Wycherley: also to Dr.

Eskell and Mr. Abbott, Commissioners of Lunacy.”

After this stroke of address Alfred took the first opportunity of

leaving him, and sent Frank Beverley to him.

Thus Alfred, alarmed by the hatred of Mrs. Archbold, and racked with

jealousy, exerted all his intelligence and played many cards for

liberty. One he kept in reserve; and a trump card too. Having now no ink

nor colouring matter, he did not hesitate, but out penknife, up

sleeve, and drew blood from his arm, and with it wrote once more to the

Commissioners, but kept this letter hidden for an ingenious purpose.

What that purpose was my reader shall divine.

CHAPTER XLII

WE left Julia Dodd a district visitor. Working in a dense parish she

learned the depths of human misery, bodily and mental.

She visited an honest widow, so poor that she could not afford a

farthing dip, but sat in the dark. When friends came to see her they

sometimes brought a candle to talk by.

She visited a cripple who often thanked God sincerely for leaving her

the use of one thumb.

She visited a poor creature who for sixteen years had been afflicted

with a tumour in the neck, and had lain all those years on her back with

her head in a plate; the heat of a pillow being intolerable. Julia found

her longing to go, and yet content to stay: and praising God in all the

lulls of that pain which was her companion day and night.

But were I to enumerate the ghastly sights, the stifling loathsome

odours, the vulgar horrors upon horrors this refined young lady faced,

few of my readers would endure on paper for love of truth what she

endured in reality for love of suffering humanity, and of Him whose

servant she aspired to be.

Probably such sacrifices of selfish ease and comfort are never quite in

vain; they tend in many ways to heal our own wounds: I won't say that

bodily suffering is worse than mental; but it is realised far more

vividly by a spectator. The grim heart-breaking sights she saw arrayed

Julia's conscience against her own grief; the more so when she found

some of her most afflicted ones resigned, and even grateful. “What,”

said she, “can they, all rags, disease and suffering, bow so cheerfully

to the will of Heaven, and have I the wickedness, the impudence, to

repine?”

And then, happier than most district visitors, she was not always

obliged to look on helpless, or to confine her consolations to good

words. Mrs. Dodd was getting on famously in her groove. She was high in

the confidence of Cross and Co., and was inspecting eighty ladies, as

well as working; her salary and profits together were not less than five

hundred pounds a year, and her one luxury was charity, and Julia its

minister. She carried a good honest basket, and there you might see her

Bible wedged in with wine and meat, and tea and sugar: and still,

as these melted in her round, a little spark of something warm would

sometimes come in her own sick heart. Thus by degrees she was attaining

not earthly happiness, but a grave and pensive composure.

Yet across it gusts of earthly grief came sweeping often; but these she

hid till she was herself again.

To her mother and brother she was kinder, sweeter, and dearer, if

possible, than ever. They looked on her as a saint; but she knew better;

and used to blush with honest shame when they called her so. “Oh don't,

pray don't,” she would say with unaffected pain. “Love me as if I was an

angel; but do not praise me; that turns my eyes inward and makes me see

myself. I am not a Christian yet, nor anything like one.”

Returning one day from her duties very tired, she sat down to take off

her bonnet in her own room, and presently heard snatches of an argument

that made her prick those wonderful little ears of hers which could

almost hear through a wall. The two concluding sentences were a key to

the whole dialogue.

“Why disturb her?” said Mrs. Dodd. “She is getting better of 'the

Wretch;' and my advice is, say nothing: what harm can that do?”

“But then it is so unfair, so ungenerous, to keep anything from the poor

girl that may concern her.”

At this moment Julia came softly into the room with her curiosity hidden

under an air of angelic composure.

Her mother asked after Mrs. Beecher, to draw her into conversation. She

replied quietly that Mrs. Beecher was no better, but very thankful for

the wine Mrs. Dodd had sent her. This answer given, she went without any

apparent hurry and sat by Edward, and fixed two loving imploring eyes on

him in silence. Oh, subtle sex! This feather was to turn the scale, and

make him talk unquestioned. It told. She was close to him too, and mamma

at the end of the room.

“Look here, Ju,” said he, putting his hands in his pockets, “we two have

always been friends as well as brother and sister; and somehow it does

not seem like a friend to keep things dark;” then to Mrs. Dodd: “She is

not a child, mother, after all; and how can it be wrong to tell her

the truth, or right to suppress the truth? Well then, Ju, there's an

advertisement in the _'Tiser,_ and it's a regular riddle. Now mind,

I don't really think there is anything in it; but it is a droll

coincidence, very droll; if it wasn't there are ladies present, and

one of them a district visitor, I would say, d--d droll. So droll,”

continued he, getting warm, “that I should like to punch the

advertiser's head.”

“Let me see it, dear,” said Julia. “I dare say it is nothing worth

punching about.”

“There,” said Edward. “I've marked it.”

Julia took the paper, and her eye fell on this short advertisement:

AILEEN AROON.--DISTRUST APPEARANCES.

Looking at her with some anxiety, they saw the paper give one sharp

rustle in her hands, and then quiver a little. She bowed her head over

it, and everything seemed to swim. But she never moved: they could

neither of them see her face, she defended herself with the paper.

The letters cleared again, and, still hiding her face, she studied and

studied the advertisement.

“Come, tell us what you think of it,” said Edward. “Is it anything? or a

mere coincidence?”

“It is a pure coincidence,” said Mrs. Dodd, with an admirable imitation

of cool confidence.

Julia said nothing; but she now rose and put both arms round Edward's

neck, and kissed him fervidly again and again, holding the newspaper

tight all the time.

“There,” said Mrs. Dodd: “see what you have done.”

“Oh, it is all right,” said Edward cheerfully. “The British fireman

is getting hugged no end. Why, what is the matter? have you got the

hiccough, Ju?”

“No; no! You are a true brother. I knew all along that he would explain

all if he was alive: and he is alive.” So saying she kissed the _'Tiser_

violently more than once; then fluttered away with it to her own room

ashamed to show her joy, and yet not able to hide it.

Mrs. Dodd shook her head sorrowfully: and Edward began to look rueful,

and doubt whether he had done wisely. I omit the discussion that

followed. But the next time his duties permitted him to visit them Mrs.

Dodd showed him the _'Tiser_ in her turn, and with her pretty white

taper finger, and such a look, pointed to the following advertisement:

AILEEN AROON.--I _do_ DISTRUST

APPEARANCES. But if you ever loved me

explain them at once. I have something for

you from your dear sister.

“Poor simple girl,” said Mrs. Dodd, “not to see that, if he could

explain at all, he _would_ explain, not go advertising an enigma after

acting a mystification. And to think of my innocent dove putting in that

she had something for him from his sister; a mighty temptation for such

a wretch!”

“It was wonderfully silly,” said Edward; “and such a clever girl, too;

but you ladies can't stick to one thing at a time; begging your pardon,

mamma.”

Mrs. Dodd took no notice of this remark.

“To see her lower herself so!” she said. “Oh, my son, I am mortified.”

And Mrs. Dodd leaned her cheek against Edward's, and sighed.

“Now don't you cry, mammy,” said he sorrowfully. “I'll break every bone

in his skin for your comfort.”

“Heaven forbid!” cried Mrs. Dodd anxiously; “what, are you not aware she

would hate you?”

“Hate me: her brother!”

“She would hate us all if we laid a finger on that wretch. Pray

interfere no more, love; foolish child, talking to me about women, and

it is plain you know nothing of their hearts: and a good thing _for_

you.” She then put on maternal authority (nobody could do it more

easily) and solemnly forbade all violence.

He did not venture to contradict her now; but cherished his resolution

all the more, and longed for the hour when he might take “the Wretch” by

the throat, and chastise him, the more publicly the better.

Now, the above incident that revealed Julia's real heart, which she

had been hiding more or less all this time from those who could not

sympathise with her, took eventually a turn unfavourable to “the

Wretch.” So he might well be called. Her great and settled fear had

always been that Alfred was dead. Under the immediate influence of his

father's cunning, she had for a moment believed he was false; but so

true and loving a heart could not rest in that opinion. In true love so

long as there is one grain of uncertainty, there is a world of faith and

credulous ingenuity. So, as Alfred had never been seen since, as nobody

could say he was married to another, there was a grain of uncertainty as

to his unfaithfulness, and this her true heart magnified to a mountain.

But now matters wore another face. She was sure he had written the

advertisement. Who but he, out of the few that take the words of any

song to heart, admired Aileen Aroon? Who but he out of the three or four

people who might possibly care for that old song, had appearances to

explain away? And who but he knew they took in the _Morning Advertiser?_

She waited then for the explanation she had invited. She read the

advertising column every day over and over.

Not a word more.

Then her womanly pride was deeply wounded. What, had she courted an

explanation where most ladies would have listened to none; and courted

it in vain!

Her high spirit revolted. Her heart swelled against the repeated insults

she had received: this last one filled the bitter cup too high.

And then her mother came in and assured her he had only inserted that

advertisement to keep her in his power. He has heard you are recovering,

and are admired by others more worthy of your esteem.

Julia cried bitterly at these arguments, for she could no longer combat

them.

And Mr. Hurd was very attentive and kind. And when he spoke to Julia,

and Julia turned away, her eye was sure to meet Mrs. Dodd's eye

imploring her secretly not to discourage the young man too much. And so

she was gently pulled by one, and gently thrust by another, away from

her first lover and towards his successor.

It is an old, old story. Fate seems to exhaust its malice on our first

love. For the second the road is smoother. Matters went on so some

weeks, and it was perfectly true that Mr. Hurd escorted both ladies one

day to Drayton House, at Julia's request, and not Mrs. Dodd's. Indeed,

the latter lady was secretly hurt at his being allowed to come with

them.

One Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Dodd went alone to Drayton House by

appointment. David was like a lamb, but, as usual, had no knowledge of

her. Mrs. Archbold told her a quiet, intelligent, patient had taken

a great fancy to him, and she thought this was adding much to his

happiness. “May I see him to thank him?” asked Mrs. Dodd. “Oh,

certainly,” said Mrs. Archbold; “I'll inquire for him.” She went out but

soon returned, saying, “He is gone out for a walk with the head keeper:

we give him as much air and amusement as we can; we hope soon to send

him out altogether cured.” “Truly kind and thoughtful,” said Mrs. Dodd.

Soon after, she kissed Mrs. Archbold, and pressed a valuable brooch

upon her: and then took leave. However, at the gate she remembered her

parasol. Mrs. Archbold said she would go back for it. Mrs. Dodd would

not hear of that: Mrs. Archbold insisted, and settled the question by

going. She was no sooner in the house, than young Frank Beverley came

running to Mrs. Dodd, and put the missing parasol officiously into her

hand. “Oh, thank you, sir,” said she; “will you be so kind as to tell

Mrs. Archbold I have it.” And with this they parted, and the porter

opened the gate to her, and she got into her hired cab. She leaned her

head back, and, as usual was lost in the sorrowful thoughts of what had

been, and what now was. Poor wife, each visit to Drayton House opened

her wound afresh. On reaching the stones, there was a turnpike This

roused her up; she took out her purse and paid it. As she drew back

to her seat, she saw out of the tail of her feminine eye the edge of

something white under her parasol. She took up the parasol, and found a

written paper pinned on to it: she detached this paper, and examined it

all over with considerable curiosity. It consisted of a long slip about

an inch and a quarter broad, rolled like tape, and tied with

packthread. She could not see the inside, of course, but she read

the superscription: it was firmly but clearly written, in red ink

apparently.

Of the words I shall only say at present that they were strong and

simple, and that their effect on the swift intelligence and tender heart

of Mrs. Dodd was overpowering. They knocked at her heart; they drew from

her an audible cry of pity more eloquent than a thousand speeches: and

the next moment she felt a little faint; for she knew now the appeal was

not in red ink, but in something very fit to pass between the heart of

woe and the heart of pity. She smelt at her salts, and soon recovered

that weakness: and next her womanly bosom swelled so with the milk of

human kindness that her breath came short. After a little struggle she

gushed out aloud, “Ah, that I will, poor soul; this very moment.”

Now, by this time she was close to her own house.

She stopped the cab at her door, and asked the driver if his horse was

fresh enough to carry her to the Board of Lunacy: “It is at Whitehall,

sir,” said she. “Lord bless you, ma'am,” said the cabman, “Whitehall?

Why, my mare would take you to Whitechapel and back in an hour, let

alone Whitehall.”

Reassured on that point Mrs. Dodd went in just to give the servant an

order: but as she stood in the passage, she heard her children's voices

and also a friend's; the genial, angry tones of Alexander Sampson, M. D.

She thought, “Oh, I _must_ just show them all the paper, before I go

with it;” and so after a little buzz about dinner and things with Sarah,

mounted the stairs, and arrived among them singularly _apropos,_ as it

happened.

Men like Sampson, who make many foes, do also make stauncher friends

than ever the Hare does, and are faithful friends themselves. The

boisterous doctor had stuck to the Dodds in all their distresses; and

if they were ever short of money, it certainly was not his fault: for

almost his first word, when he found them in a lodging, was, “Now, ye'll

be wanting a Chick. Gimme pen and ink, and I'll just draw ye one; for

a hundre.” This being declined politely by Mrs. Dodd, he expostulated.

“Mai--dear--Madam, how on airth can ye go on in such a place as London

without a Chick?”

He returned to the charge at his next visit and scolded her well for her

pride. “Who iver hard of refusing a Chick? a small inoffensive chick,

from an old friend like me? Come now, behave! Just a wee chick, I'll let

y' off for fifty.”

“Give us your company and your friendship,” said Mrs. Dodd; “we value

them above gold: we will not rob your dear children, while we have as

many fingers on our hands as other people.”

On the present occasion Dr. Sampson, whose affectionate respect for the

leading London physicians has already displayed itself, was inveighing

specially against certain specialists, whom, in the rapidity of his

lusty eloquence, he called the Mad Ox. He favoured Julia and Edward with

a full account of the maniform enormities he had detected them in during

thirty years' practice; and so descended to his present grievance. A

lady, an old friend of his, was being kept in a certain asylum month

after month because she had got money and relations, and had once been

delirious. “And why was she delirious? because she had a brain fever,

she got well in a fortnight.” This lady had thrown a letter over

the wall addressed to him; somebody had posted it: he had asked the

Commissioners to let him visit her; they had declined for the present.

“Yon Board always sides with the strong against the weak,” said he. So

now he had bribed the gardener, and made a midnight assignation with the

patient; and was going to it with six stout fellows to carry her off by

force. “That is my recipe for alleged Insanity,” said he. “The business

will be more like a mejaeval knight carrying off a namorous nun out of

a convint, than a good physician saving a pashint from the Mad Ox.

However, Mrs. Saampson's in the secret; I daunt say sh' approves it; for

she doesn't. She says, 'Go quietly to the Board o' Commissioners.' Sis

I, 'My dear, Boards are a sort of cattle that go too slow for Saampson,

and no match at all for the Mad Ox.'”

At this conjuncture, or soon after, Mrs. Dodd came in with her paper in

her hand, a little flurried for once, and after a hasty curtsey, said--

“Oh, Doctor Sampson, oh, my dears, what wickedness there is in the

world! I'm going to Whitehall this moment; only look at what was pinned

on my parasol at Drayton House.”

The writing passed from hand to hand, and left the readers looking very

gravely at one another. Julia was quite pale and horror-stricken.

All were too deeply moved, and even shocked, to make any commonplace

comment; for it looked and read like a cry from heart to hearts.

_“If you are a Christian, if

you are human, pity a sane

man here confined in, fraud,

and take this to the Board of

Lunacy at Whitehall. Torn

by treachery from her I love,

my letters all intercepted, pens

and paper kept from me, I

write this with a toothpick

and my blood on a rim of

'The Times.' Oh God, direct

it to some one who has suf-

fered, and can feel for an-

other's agony._”

Dr. Sampson was the first to speak. “There,” said he, under his breath:

“didn't I tell you? This man is sane. There's sanity in every line.”

“Well, but,” said Edward, “do you mean to say that in the present day--”

“Mai--dearr--sirr. Mankind niver changes. Whativer the muscles of man

_can_ do in the light, the mind and conscience of man will consent to do

in the dark.”

Julia said never a word.

Mrs. Dodd, too, was for action not for talk. She bade them all a hasty

adieu, and went on her good work.

Ere she got to the street door, she heard a swift rustle behind her; and

it was Julia flying down to her, all glowing and sparkling with her old

impetuosity, that had seemed dead for ever. “No, no,” she cried, panting

with generous emotion; “it is to me it was sent. _I_ am torn from him

I love, and by some treachery I dare say: and _I_ have suffered--oh you

shall never know what I have suffered. Give it _me,_ oh pray, pray, pray

give it _me. I'll_ take it to Whitehall.”

CHAPTER XLIII

IF we could always know at the time what we are doing.

Two ladies carried a paper to Whitehall out of charity to a stranger.

Therein the elder was a benefactress to a man she had never spoken of

but as “the Wretch;” the younger held her truant bridegroom's heart,

I may say, in her hand all the road and was his protectress. Neither

recognised the hand-writing; for no man can write his own hand with a

toothpick.

They reached Whitehall, and were conducted upstairs to a gentleman of

pleasant aspect but powerful brow, seated in a wilderness of letters.

He waved his hand, and a clerk set them chairs: he soon after laid down

his pen, and leaned gravely forward to hear their business. They saw

they must waste no time; Julia looked at her mother, rose, and took

Alfred's missive to his desk, and handed it him with one of her eloquent

looks, grave and pitiful. He seemed struck by her beauty and her manner.

“It was pinned on my parasol, sir, by a poor prisoner at Drayton House,”

said Mrs. Dodd.

“Oh, indeed,” said the gentleman, and began to read the superscription

with a cold and wary look. But thawed visibly as he read. He opened the

missive and ran his eye over it. The perusal moved him not a little: a

generous flush mounted to his brow; he rang the bell sharply. A clerk

answered it; the gentleman wrote on a slip of paper, and said earnestly,

“Bring me every letter that is signed with that name, and all our

correspondence about him.”

He then turned to Mrs. Dodd, and put to her a few questions, which drew

out the main facts I have just related. The papers were now brought in.

“Excuse me a moment,” said he, and ran over them. “I believe the man

is sane,” said he, “and that you will have enabled us to baffle a

conspiracy, a heartless conspiracy.”

“We do hope he will be set free, sir,” said Mrs. Dodd piteously.

“He shall, madam, if it is as I suspect. I will stay here all night but

I will master this case; and lay it before the Board myself without

delay.”

Julia looked at her mother, and then asked if it would be wrong to

inquire “the poor gentleman's name?”

“Humph!” said the official; “I ought not to reveal that without his

consent. But stay! he will owe you much, and it really seems a pity he

should not have an opportunity of expressing his gratitude. Perhaps you

will favour me with your address: and trust to my discretion. Of course,

if he does not turn out as sane as he seems, I shall never let him know

it.”

Mrs. Dodd then gave her address; and she and Julia went home with a glow

about the heart selfish people, thank Heaven, never know.

Unconsciously these two had dealt their enemy and Alfred's a heavy blow;

had set the train to a mine. Their friend at the office was a man of

another stamp than Alfred had fallen in with.

Meantime Alfred was subjected to hourly mortifications and irritations.

He guessed the motive, and tried to baffle it by calm self-possession:

but this was far more difficult than heretofore, because his temper was

now exacerbated and his fibre irritated by broken sleep (of this poor

David was a great cause), and his heart inflamed and poisoned by that

cruel, that corroding passion jealousy.

To think, that while he was in prison, a rival was ever at his Julia's

ear, making more and more progress in her heart! This corroder was his

bitter companion day and night; and perhaps of all the maddeners human

cunning could have invented this was the worst. It made his temples beat

and his blood run boiling poison. Indeed, there were times when he was

so distempered by passion that homicide seemed but an act of justice,

and suicide a legitimate relief. For who could go on for ever carrying

Hell in his bosom up and down a prison yard? He began to go alone! to

turn impatiently from the petty troubles and fathomless egotism of those

afflicted persons he had hitherto forced his sore heart to pity. Pale,

thin, and wo-begone, he walked the weary gravel, like the lost ones in

that Hall of Eblis whose hearts were a devouring fire. Even an inspector

with a naked eye would no longer have distinguished him at first sight

from a lunatic of the unhappiest class, the melancholiac.

“Ipse suum cor edens hominum vestigia vitans.”

Mrs. Archbold looked on and saw this sad sight, not with the pity it

would once have caused, but with a sort of bitter triumph lightened by

no pleasure, and darkened by the shadow of coming remorse. Yet up to

this time she had shown none of that inconstancy of purpose which marks

her sex; while she did go far to justify the poet's charge:

“Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

Rooke had a hint to provoke Alfred to violence such as would justify

them in subjecting so popular a patient to bodily restraint, composing

draughts, and other quick maddeners. Rooke entered into the game

zealously from two motives; he was devoted to Mrs. Archbold, and he

hated Alfred, who had openly defied him, and mortified his vanity about

Frank Beverley.

One Saturday Alfred was ordered out to walk with Rooke and Hayes and

Vulcan. He raised no objection: suspected, felt homicidal, suppressed

the impulse, and by this self-command he got time to give that letter to

Beverley with instructions.

But, all the walk, he was saying to himself that Julia was in the house,

and he was kept away from her, and a rival with her; this made him

sicken and rage by turns. He came back in a state verging on fury.

On entering the yard poor Beverley, who had done his bit of cunning, and

by reaction now relapsed into extra simplicity, came running, and said,

“I've done it; she has got it.”

“What have you done? Who has got what?” cried Rooke.

“Don't tell, Frank.”

“If you don't I'll shake your life out, ye young blackguard,” cried

Rooke, seizing him and throttling him till he was black in the face.

Alfred's long-pent fury broke out: he gnashed his teeth and dashed his

fist in Rooke's face.

Rooke staggered back and bellowed with pain and anger, then rushing

at him incautiously, received a stinger that staggered him, and nearly

closed his right eye. He took the hint, and put himself in a posture

that showed he was skilled in the art of self-defence. He stopped two

blows neatly, and returned a heavy one upon the ribs. Alfred staggered

back some steps, but steadied himself, and, as Rooke rushed in too

hastily to improve his advantage, caught him heavily on the other eye,

but lost his own balance a little, which enabled Rooke to close; then

came a sharp short rally of re-echoing blows, and Rooke, not to be

denied, got hold of his man, and a wrestling bout ensued, in which

Alfred being somewhat weakened by misery and broken rest, Rooke's great

weight and strength enabled him, after a severe struggle, to fall with

his antagonist under him, and knock the breath out of his body for the

moment. Then Hayes, who had stood prudently aloof, came in and helped

handcuff him. They could not walk up and down him for the Robin, who

stood by with a professional air to see fair play.

“Ah, cold iron is your best chance,” he said satirically. “Never you

mind, sir: you hit quick and well: I'd back _you_ at long odds in the

ring: both his peepers are in deep mourning.” He added, “A cow can beat

a man wrestling.”

When Alfred was handcuffed they turned him loose. It soon transpired,

however, that he was now a dangerous maniac (Formula) and to be confined

in the noisy ward.

On hearing this he saw the trap he had fallen into; saw and trembled. He

asked himself what on earth he should do; and presently the saying came

back to him, “And this is the highest stroke of art, to turn evil into

good.” He argued thus: Wolf's love of money is my great evil; he will

destroy me for money, do anything for money. Then suppose I offer him

money to be honest. He begged an interview with Dr. Wolf on business.

This was accorded at once. He asked the doctor plump whether he received

a large sum to detain him under pretence of insanity.

“Not very, considering the trouble you sometimes give, Mr. Hardie,” was

the dry reply.

“Well, then, Justice shall outbid rascality for once. I am a sane man,

and you know it; a man of my word, and you know it. I'll give you a

thousand pounds to let me out of this place.”

Dr. Wolf's eyes sparkled.

“You shall have any bond or security you like; and the money within a

week of my deliverance.”

Dr. Wolf said he should be delighted to do it, if he could

conscientiously.

At this piece of hypocrisy Alfred's cheek reddened, and he could not

speak.

“Well, well, I do see a great change in you for the better,” said Dr.

Wolf. “If, as I suspect, you are convalescent, I will part with you

without a thousand pounds or a thousand pence.”

Alfred stared. Had he mistaken his man?

“I'll tell you what, though,” said the smooth doctor. “I have got two

pictures, one by Raphael, one by Correggio.”

“I know them,” said the quick-witted Alfred; “they are worth more than a

thousand pounds.”

“Of course they are, but I would take a thousand pounds from you.”

“Throw me in my liberty, and I'll make it guineas.”

“We will see about that.” And with this understanding the men of

business parted. Dr. Wolf consulted Mrs. Archbold then and there.

“Impossible,” said she; “the law would dissolve such a bargain, and you

would be exposed and ruined.”

“But a thousand pounds!” said the poor doctor.

“Oh, he offered me more than that,” said Mrs. Archbold.

“You don't mean to say so; when was that?”

“Do you remember one Sunday that I walked him out, to keep clear of Mrs.

Dodd? Have you not observed that I have not repeated the experiment?”

“Yes. But I really don't know why.”

“Will you promise me faithfully not to take any notice if I tell you?”

The doctor promised.

Then she owned to him with manifest reluctance that Alfred had taken

advantage of her kindness, her indiscretion, in walking alone with him,

and made passionate love to her. “He offered me not a thousand pounds,”

said she, “but his whole fortune, and his heart, if I would fly with him

from _these odious walls;_ that was his expression.”

Then seeing out of a corner of her eye that the doctor was turning

almost green with jealousy, this artist proceeded to describe the

love scene between her and Alfred, with feigned hesitation, yet minute

detail. Only she inverted the parts: Alfred in her glowing page made the

hot love; she listened abashed, confused, and tried all she could think

of to bring him to better sentiments. She concluded this chapter of

history inverted with a sigh, and said, “So now he hates me, I believe,

poor fellow.”

“Do you regret your refusal?” asked Dr. Wolf uneasily.

“Oh no, my dear friend. Of course, my judgment says that few women at my

age and in my position would have refused. But we poor women seldom go

by our judgments.” And she cast a tender look down at the doctor's feet.

In short, she worked on him so, that he left Alfred at her disposition,

and was no sooner gone to his other asylum six miles off; than the

calumniated was conducted by Hayes and Rooke through passage after

passage, and door after door, to a wing of the building connected with

the main part only by a covered way. As they neared it, strange noises

became audible. Faint at first, they got louder and louder. Singing,

roaring, howling like wolves. Alfred's flesh began to creep. He stopped

at the covered way: he would have fought to his last gasp sooner than go

further, but he was handcuffed. He appealed to the keepers; but he had

used them both too roughly: they snarled and forced him on, and shut him

into a common flagged cell, with a filthy truckle-bed in it, and all the

vessels of gutta-percha. Here he was surrounded by the desperate order

of maniacs he at present scarcely knew but by report. Throughout that

awful night he could never close his eyes for the horrible unearthly

sounds that assailed him. Singing, swearing, howling like wild beasts!

His right-hand neighbour reasoned high of faith and works, ending each

pious argument with a sudden rhapsody of oaths and never slept a wink.

His left-hand neighbour alternately sang, and shouted, “Cain was a

murderer, Cain was a murderer;” and howled like a wolf, making night

hideous. His opposite neighbour had an audience, and every now and

then delivered in a high nasal key, “Let us curse and pray;” varying it

sometimes thus: “Brethren, let us work double tides.” And then he would

deliver a long fervent prayer, and follow it up immediately with a

torrent of blasphemies so terrific, that coming in such a contrast they

made Alfred's body wet with perspiration to hear a poor creature so defy

his Creator. No rest, no peace. When it was still, the place was

like the grave; and ever and anon, loud, sharp, tremendous, burst a

thunderclap of curses, and set those poor demented creatures all

yelling again for half-an-hour, making the tombs ring. And at clock-like

intervals a harmless but dirty idiot, who was allowed to roam the

ward, came and chanted through the keyhole, “Everything is nothing, and

nothing is everything.”

This was the only observation he had made for many years.

His ears assailed with horrors, of which you have literally no

conception, or shadow of a conception, his nose poisoned with ammoniacal

vapours, and the peculiar wild-beast smell that marks the true maniac,

Alfred ran wildly about his cell trying to stop his ears, and trembling

for his own reason. When the fearful night rolled away, and morning

broke, and he could stand on his truckle-bed and see the sweet

hoar-frost on a square yard of grass level with his prison bars, it

refreshed his very soul, and affected him almost to tears. He was then,

to his surprise, taken out, and allowed to have a warm bath and to

breakfast with David and the rest; but I suspect it was done to watch

the effect of the trial he had been submitted to. After breakfast,

having now no place to go, he lay on a bench, and there exhausted nature

overpowered him, and he fell fast asleep.

Mrs. Archbold came by on purpose, and saw him. He looked very pale and

peaceful. There was a cut on his forehead due to Rooke's knuckles. Mrs.

Archbold looked down, and the young figure and haughty face seemed so

unresisting and peaceful sad, she half relented, and shed some bitter

tears. That did not, however, prevent her setting her female spies to

watch him more closely than ever.

He awoke cold but refreshed, and found little Beverley standing by

him with wet eyes. Alfred smiled and held out his hand like a captive

monarch to his faithful vassal. “They shan't put you in the noisy ward

again,” sobbed Frank. “This is your last night here.”

“Hy, Frank, you rascal, my boots!” roared Rooke from an open window.

“Coming, sir--coming!”

Alfred's next visitor was the Robin. He came whispering, “It is all

right with Garrett, sir, and he has got a key of the back gate; but you

must get back to your old room, or we can't work.”

“Would to Heaven I could, Robin; another night or two in the noisy ward

will drive me mad, I think.”

“Well, sir, I'll tell you what you do: which we all have to do it at

odd times: hold a candle to the devil: here she comes: I think she is

everywhere all at one time.” The Robin then sauntered away, affecting

nonchalance: and Alfred proceeded to hold the candle as directed. “Mrs.

Archbold,” said he timidly rising from his seat at her approach.

“Sir,” said she haughtily, and affecting surprise.

“I have a favour to ask you, madam. Would you be so kind as to let me go

back to my room?”

“What, you have found I am not so powerless as you thought!”

“I find myself so weak, and you so powerful that--you can afford to be

generous.”

“I have no more power over you than you have over me.”

“I wish it was so.”

“I'll prove it,” said she. “Who has got the key of your room? Hayes?”

She whistled, and sent for him; and gave him the requisite order before

Alfred. Alfred thanked her warmly.

She smiled, and went away disposed to change her tactics, and, having

shown him how she could torment, try soothing means, and open his heart

by gratitude.

But presently looking out of her window she saw the Robin and him

together; and somehow they seemed to her subtle, observant eyes, to be

plotting. The very suspicion was fatal to that officer. His discharge

was determined on. Meantime she set her spies to watch him, and tell her

if they saw or heard anything.

Now Mrs. Archbold was going out to tea that evening, and, as soon as

ever this transpired, the keepers secretly invited the keeperesses to

a party in the first-class patients drawing-room. This was a rare

opportunity, and the Robin and Garrett put their heads together

accordingly.

In the dusk of the evening the Robin took an opportunity and slipped a

new key of the back gate into Alfred's hand, and told him “the trick was

to be done that very night:” he was to get Thompson to go to bed early;

and, instead of taking off his clothes, was to wait in readiness. “We

have been plying Hayes already,” said the Robin, “and, as soon as _she_

is off, we shall hocuss him, and get the key; and, while they are all

larking in the drawing-room, off you go to Merrimashee.”

“Oh, you dear Robin! You have taken my breath away. But how about

Vulcan?”

“Oh, we know how to make him amiable: a dog-fancier, a friend of mine,

has provided the ondeniable where dogs is concerned: whereby Garrett

draws the varmint into the scullery, and shuts him in, while I get the

key from the other. _It's_ all right.”

“Ah, Robin,” said Alfred, “it sounds too good to be true. What? this my

last day here!”

The minutes seemed to creep very slowly till eight o'clock came. Then he

easily persuaded David to go to bed; Hayes went up and unlocked the

door for them: it closed with a catch-lock. Hayes was drunk, but full of

discipline, and insisted on the patients putting out their clothes; so

Alfred made up a bundle from his portmanteau, and threw it out. Hayes

eyed it suspiciously, but was afraid to stoop and inspect it closer: for

his drunken instinct told him he would pitch on his head that moment: so

he retired grumbling and dangling his key.

At the end of the corridor he met Mrs. Archbold full dressed, and with

a candle in her hand. She held the candle up and inspected him; and a

little conversation followed that sobered Mr. Hayes for a minute or two.

Mrs. Archbold was no sooner gone to her little tea-party than all the

first-class ladies and gentlemen were sent to bed to get a good sleep

for the good of their health, and the keepers and keeperesses took their

place and romped, and made such a row, sleep was not easy within hearing

of them. They sat on the piano, they sang songs to a drum accompaniment

played on the table, they danced, drank, flirted, and enjoyed themselves

like schoolboys. Hayes alone was gloomy and morose: so the Robin and

Garrett consoled him, drank with him, and soothed him with the balm

of insensibility: in which condition they removed him under charitable

pretences, and searched his pockets in the passage for the key of

Alfred's room.

To their infinite surprise and disappointment it was not upon him.

The fact is, Mrs. Archbold had snatched it from him in her wrath, and

put it in her own pocket. How far her suspicions went, how much her

spies had discovered, I really don't know; but somehow or other she was

uneasy in her mind, and, seeing Hayes in such a state, she would not

trust him during her absence, but took the key away with her.

The Robin and Garrett knew nothing of this, and were all abroad, but

they thought Rooke must have the key; so they proceeded to drink with

him, and were just about to administer a really effective soporific in

his grog, when they and all the merry party were suddenly startled by

violent ringing at the bell, and thundering and halloaing at the hall

door. The men jumped to their feet and balanced themselves, and looked

half wild, half stupid. The women sat, and began to scream: for they had

heard a word that has terrors for us all: peculiar terrors for them.

This alarm was due to a personage hitherto undervalued in the

establishment.

Mr. Francis Beverley had been THINKING. So now, finding all the patients

boxed up, and their attendants romping in the drawing-room, he lighted

seven fires, skilfully on the whole, for practice makes perfect; but,

singular oversight, he omitted one essential ingredient in the fire, and

that was the grate.

To be plain, Mr. Francis made seven bonfires of bed-curtains,

chairs, and other combustibles in the servants' garrets, lighted them

contemporaneously, and retired to the basement, convinced he had taken

the surest means to deliver his friend out of Drayton House: and with a

certain want of candour that characterises the weak, proceeded to black

his other bad master's shoes with singular assiduity.

There was no wind to blow the flame; but it was a clear frost; and soon

fiery tongues shot out of three garret-windows into the night, and

lurid gleams burnished four more, and the old house was burning merrily

overhead, and ringing with hilarity on the first floor.

But the neighbours saw, pointed, wondered, comprehended, shouted, rang,

knocked, and surged round the iron gate. “Fire! fire! fire!” and “Fire!”

went down the road, and men on horseback galloped for engines; and the

terror-stricken porter opened and the people rushed in and hammered at

the hall doors, and when Rooke ran down and opened, “Fire!” was the word

that met him from a score of eager throats and glittering eyes.