_Fanny is deceived by the doctor.--A scene in Rowel's “Establishment for
the Insane” at Nabbfield._
Poor girl! What pains she takes--if not to “curse herself,” at least
to form that paradise out of the chaos of her own thoughts, which her
supposed benefactor, the physician, never intended to realize. She was
deceived, utterly and deeply deceived; and deceived, too, by the
very means which the doctor had recommended to her apparently for the
attainment of success. For, great as some of our modern diplomatists
have incontestably been considered in their noble and polite art, I much
question whether the man more capable of aspiring to higher honours in
it than Doctor Rowel of Nabbfield, is not yet to be born.
As the doctor rode homewards, after his interview with Fanny, he several
times over, and with inexpressible inward satisfaction, congratulated
and complimented himself upon having achieved such a really fine stroke
of policy at a very critical moment, as no other man living could, he
verily believed, have at all equalled. Within the space of a few brief
moments he had, to his infinite astonishment, discovered, in the person
of a serving girl, one whom he himself had endeavoured, while she was
yet an infant, to put out of the way; and upon whose father he had
perpetrated one of the most atrocious of social crimes, for the sole
purpose of obtaining the management of his property while he lived, and
its absolute possession on his decease. He had ascertained that the
girl retained some indistinct recollection of the forcible arrest
and carrying away of her parent, of which he himself had been the
instigator; and thus suddenly he found himself placed in a position
which demanded both promptitude and ingenuity in order to secure his
own safety and the permanency of all he held through this unjust tenure.
Since any discovery by Fanny of what had passed between them would
inevitably excite public question and inquiry, the very brilliant idea
had instantaneously suggested itself to his mind that--as in-the girl's
continued silence alone lay his own hopes of security--no project could
be conceived more likely to prove successful in obtaining and preserving
that silence, than that of representing it as vital to her own dearest
interest to keep the subject deeply locked for the present in her own
bosom. This object, he flattered himself, he had already succeeded
in achieving, without exciting in the mind of Fanny herself the least
suspicion of his real and ultimate purpose. At the same time he inwardly
resolved not to stop here, but to resort to every means in his power
calculated still more deeply to bind the unsuspecting young woman to the
preservation of that silence upon the subject, which, if once broken,
might lead to the utter overthrow of a system which he had now
maintained for many years.
Elated with the idea of his own uncommon cleverness, he cantered along
the York road from the moor with corresponding briskness; turned down
a green lane to the left, cleared several fences and a pair of gates
in his progress, and reached within sight of his “Establishment for
the Insane” at Nabbfield, as the last light of another unwished-for and
unwelcome sun shot through the barred and grated windows of the house,
and served dimly to show to the melancholy habitants of those cells the
extent of their deprivations and their misery.
Far advanced as it was in the evening, the doctor had not yet dined; his
professional duties, together with some other causes already explained,
having detained him beyond his usual hour. Nevertheless, for reasons
best known to himself, but which, it may be supposed, the events of
the afternoon had operated in producing, the doctor had no sooner
dismounted, and resigned his steed to the care of a groom, who appeared
in waiting the instant that the clatter of his hoofs sounded on the
stones of the yard, than, instead of retiring to that removed portion
of the building, in which, for the purpose of being beyond reach of the
cries of those who were kept in confinement, his own private apartments
were situated, he demanded of one of the keepers the key of a particular
cell. Having obtained it,--
“Shall I attend you, sir?” asked the man.
“No, Robson. James is harmless. I will see him into his cell myself
to-night.”
“He is in the patient's yard, sir,” replied the keeper.
“Very well--very well. Wait outside; and, if I want assistance, I will
call you.”
The man retired, while Doctor Rowel proceeded down a long and
ill-lighted passage, or corridor, in which were several angular turns
and windings; and when nearly lost in the gloom of the place, he might
have been heard to draw back a heavy bolt, and raise a spring-latch
like an iron bar, which made fast the door that opened upon the yard, or
piece of ground to which the keeper had alluded.
It was just at that brief but peculiar time at the turn of day and
night, which every observer of Nature must occasionally have remarked,
when the light of the western atmosphere, and that of a rayless moon
high up the southern heaven, mingle together in subdued harmony,
and produce a kind of illumination, issuing from no given spot, but
pervading equally the whole atmosphere,--like that which we might
imagine of a fairy's palace,--without any particular source, neither
wholly of heaven nor of earth, but partaking partially of each.
The passage-door was thrown back, and the doctor stood upon its
threshold. A yard some forty feet square, surrounded by a wall about six
yards high, and floored with rolled gravel, like the path of a garden,
was before him. Near the centre stood a dismal-looking yewtree, its
trunk rugged, and indented with deep natural furrows, as though four or
five shoots had sprung up together, and at last become matted into one;
its black lines of foliage, harmonizing in form with the long horizontal
clouds of the north-west quarter, which now marked the close approach of
night. Nothing else was to be seen. As the eye, however, became somewhat
more accustomed to the peculiar dusky light which pervaded this place,
the figure of a man standing against the tree-trunk became visible; with
his arms tightly crossed upon his breast, and bound behind him as though
they had almost grown into his sides; and his hair hanging long upon his
shoulders, somewhat like that of a cavalier, or royalist, of the middle
of the seventeenth century.
The doctor raised his voice, and called, in a lusty tone, “Woodruff!”
The patient returned no answer, nor did he move.
“James Woodruff!” again shouted the doctor.
A slight turn of the head, which as quickly resumed its previous
attitude, was the only response made to the doctor's summons.
Finding that he could not call this strange individual to him, Doctor
Rowel stepped across the yard, and advanced up to him.
“James,” said he mildly, “it is time you were in your cell.”
The man looked sternly in his face, and replied, “I have been there some
thousands of times too often already.”
“Never heed that,” answered Rowel. “You _must_ go to rest, you know.”
“_Must_ go--ay? Ah! and so I must. I am helpless. But, had I one hand
free--only one hand--nay, with one finger and thumb, I would first put
you to rest where you should never wake again! When am I to go free?”
“Will you go to your room?” said the doctor, without regarding his
question.
“I ask again,” cried the alleged madman, “as I have asked every day past
counting, when am I to be loosed of this accursed place? How long is
this to last?”
“Only until you are better,” remarked, with deep dissimulation, this
worthy member of the faculty.
“Better!” exclaimed Woodruff, with rising passion, as he tugged to
loosen his arms from the jacket which bound him, though as ineffectually
as a child might have tugged at the roots of an oak sapling. “I could
curse you again and doubly for that word, but that I _have_ cursed till
language is weak as water, and words have no more meaning. I am sick of
railing. Better! Till I am _better!_ Thief!--liar!--villain!--for you
are all these, and a thousand more,--I am well. You know it. Sound in
mind and body,--only that these girths have crippled me before my time.
How am I mad? I can think, reason, talk, argue,--hold memory of past
life. I remember, villain! when you and your assassins seized me;
stole my child from me; swore that I was mad; and brought me here,
now seventeen years ago; and all in order that you might rob me of my
property!--I remember that. Is that madness? I remember, before that,
that I married your sister. Was it not so? I remember that she died, and
left me a little pattern of herself, that called you uncle. Was not that
so? Where is that child? What has become of her? Or are you a murderer
besides? All this I remember: and I know now that I have power of will,
and aptness to do all that man's mind is called to do. How, then, am
I mad? Oh! for one hand free! One hand and arm. Only one! Give me that
half chance to struggle with you. Let us end it so, if I am never to go
free again. Take two to one; and if you kill me, you shall stand free
of the scaffold; for I will swear with my last breath that you did it in
self-defence. Do that. Let me have one grapple--a single gripe--and, if
you can master me, why God forgive you!”
The doctor smiled, as in contempt of the impotent ravings and wild
propositions of his brother-in-law; for such, it is almost needless
to state, James Woodruff was. But the alleged maniac continued his
discourse.
“Then, as you are such a rank, arrant coward, give me my whole liberty;
let me go beyond this house, and I will never touch you. I will not
ruffle a hair of your accursed head. Do that, and I will leave you to
God for the reward of all you have done to me and mine. Set me free!
Untie my limbs, and let me out this night! It is dark. Nobody can tell
where I came from. Let me go, and I will never mention your name in
complaint, nor lift a hand against you. Think, man,--do but think! To
spend seventeen years of nights in that dungeon, and seventeen years of
days on this speck of ground! To you who have been at liberty to walk,
and breathe freely, and see God's creation, it may be idle; but I have
seen nothing of seventeen springs but their light skies; nor of summers,
but their heat and their strong shadows; nor of autumn, but the random
leaves which the wind whirled over into this yard; nor of winter,
but its snow and clouds. I want to be upon the green earth,--the
grass,--amongst the fields. I want to see my wife's grave again!--some
other human face than yours I--and--and--Man,--if you be man,--I want to
find my daughter!”
He flung himself on the ground, and groaned as in utter despair.
The doctor was accustomed to witness these fits of frenzy, and therefore
paid no farther attention now than consisted in an effort to raise the
man again upon his feet, and a renewed solicitation to him to retire
into his room.
“No,” said he; “I have something to speak of yet. I have come to another
determination. In my mind, villain! there has been seventeen years of
rebellion against your wrong; and I have sworn, and have kept my oath
till now, that you should never compel me to give up my rights, in
virtue of my wife, to you. But time has outworn the iron of my soul: and
seventeen years of this endurance cannot be set against all the wealth
of the world. What is it to me? To dig the earth, and live on roots; but
to be free with it; to go and come as I list; to be at liberty, body
and limb! This would be paradise compared with the best palace that ever
Mammon built in hell. Now, take these straps from off me, and set me
free. Time is favourable. Take me into your house peaceably and quietly,
and I will make over to you all I have, as a free gift. What you have
stolen, you shall keep. Land, houses, gold, everything; I will not
retain of them a grain of sand, a stone, or a sparkle of metal. But let
me out! Let me see this prison behind me!”
“It would be the act of a lunatic, and of no effect,” replied the
doctor.
“How lunatic? To give that which is of no use to me for that which is
dearer than life? Besides, I am sane--sound of mind.”
“No,” interrupted the doctor, “you are wrong on one question. Your
disease consists in this very thing. You fancy I keep you confined in
order to hold your property myself.”
“_Fancy_ you do!” savagely exclaimed Woodruff, stamping the ground with
rage; “this contradiction is enough to drive me mad. I _know_ it!
_You_ know it. There is no fancy in the case. It is an excuse, a vile
pretence, a lie of seventeen years' standing. It was a lie at first.
Will you set me free?”
“It cannot be,” said the doctor; “go to your room.”
“It _shall_ be!” replied Woodruff; “I will not go.”
“Then I must call assistance,” observed Rowel, as he attempted to
approach the door at which he had entered.
“You shall not!” replied the patient, placing himself in front of the
doctor, as though resolutely bent on preventing his approach to the
door, although he had not the least use of his arms, which might have
enabled him to effect his purpose.
“Stand aside, fool!” Rowel exclaimed, as he threw out his right arm in
order to strike off the intruder. But Woodruff anticipated him; and, by
a sudden and dexterous thrust of his foot in a horizontal line, knocked
the doctor's legs from under him, and set him sprawling on the ground.
Woodruff fell upon him instantly, in order to keep him down, and to
stifle the loud cries of “Robson! Robson!” which were now issuing in
rapid succession from the doctor's larynx. At the same time a tremendous
struggle, rendered still more desperate by the doctor's fears, took
place on the ground; during which the unhappy Woodruff strove so
violently to disengage his hands from the ligatures of the waistcoat
which bound him, that the blood gushed copiously from his mouth
and nostrils. His efforts were not altogether unavailing. He partly
disengaged one hand; and, with a degree of activity and energy only to
be accounted for from the almost superhuman spirit which burned within
him, and for which his antagonist, with all his advantages, was by no
means an equal match, he succeeded in planting his forefinger and thumb,
like the bite of a crocodile upon the doctor's throat.
[Illustration: 301]
“Swear to let me free, or I 'll kill you!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,--y--e--s,--I sw--ear!” gurgled through the windpipe of Dr. Rowel
as he kicked and plunged like a horse in a bog to shake off his foe. The
light of a lamp flashed upon them, and Robson rushed into the yard.
“Let me out!” again demanded Woodruff.
“I will; I will!” replied the doctor.
Before Robson could interfere, the grasp upon his neck was loosed, and
Woodruff stood quietly upon his feet. The doctor soon followed.
“Seize him, Robson!” said he; and, in an instant, before Woodruff was
aware, the strong man had him grasped as in a vice.
“You swore to set me free!” cried the patient.
“Yes,” replied the doctor, with a triumphant sneer, as he followed the
keeper until he had pitched Woodruff into his room, and secured the
entrance; “Yes,” he repeated, staring maliciously at his prisoner
through the little barred opening in the door,--“yes, you shall be let
out--_of this cell into that yard again_, when you have grown a little
tamer!”