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.

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“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!”