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:
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.
“Fire! Where?” he cried.
“Where! Why, you are on fire. Blazing!”
He ran out and looked up at the tongues of flame and volleys of smoke. “Shut the gate,” he roared. “Call the police. Fire! fire!” And he dashed back, and calling to the other keepers to unlock all the doors they had keys of, ran up to the garrets to see what could be done. He came out awe-stricken at what he saw. He descended hastily to the third floor. Now the third floor of that wing was occupied principally by servants. In fact, the only patients at that time were Dodd and Alfred. Rooke called to the men below to send Hayes up to No. 75 with his key directly; he then ran down to the next floor—of which he had keys—and opened all the doors, and said to the inmates with a ghastly attempt at cheerfulness, belied by his shaking voice, “Get up, gentlemen; there is a ball and supper going on below.” He was afraid to utter the word “fire” to them. The other keepers were as rapid, each on his beat, and soon the more rational patients took the alarm and were persuaded or driven out half-dressed into the yard, where they cowered together in extremity of fear; for the fire began to roar overhead like a lion, and lighted up the whole interior red and bright. All was screaming and confusion; and then came a struggle to get the incurable out from the basement story. There was no time to handcuff them. The keepers trusted to the terror of the scene to cow them, and so opened the doors and got them out anyhow. Wild, weird forms, with glaring eyes and matted hair, leaped out and ran into the hall, and laughed, and danced, and cursed in the lurid reflection of the fires above. Hell seemed discharging demons. Men recoiled from them. And well they did; for now the skylight exploded, and the pieces fell tinkling on the marble hall fast as hail. The crowd recoiled and ran; but those awful figures continued their gambols. One picked up the burning glass and ground it in his hands that bled directly: but he felt neither burn nor cut. The keepers rushed in to withdraw them from so dangerous a place: all but one obeyed with sudden tameness: that one struggled and yelled like a demon. In the midst of which fearful contest came a sudden thundering at a door on the third floor.
“What is that?” cried Rooke.
“It is Mr. Hardie,” screamed the Robin. “You have left him locked in.”
“I told Hayes to let him out long ago.”
“But Hayes hasn't got the key. You've got it.”
“No, no. I tell you Hayes has got it.”
“No, no! Murder! murder! They are dead men. Run for Mrs. Archbold, somebody. Run! Here, hammers, hammers! for God's sake, come and help me, break the door. Oh, Rooke, Rooke!”
“As I'm a man Hayes has got the key,” cried Rooke, stamping on the ground, and white with terror.
By this time Garrett had got a hammer, and he and Wales rushed wildly up the stairs to batter in the strong door if they could. They got to the third floor, but with difficulty; the smoke began to blind them and choke them, and fiery showers fell on them, and drove them back smarting and choking. Garrett sank down gasping at the stair-foot. Wales ran into the yard uttering pitiful cries, and pointing wildly upwards; but before he got there, a hand had broken through the glass of a window up in the third floor, the poor white hand of a perishing prisoner, and clutched the framework and tore at it.
At this hand a thousand white faces were now upturned amid groans of pity and terror, such as only multitudes can utter. Suddenly those anxious faces and glistening eyes turned like one, for an attempt, wild and unintelligible, but still an attempt, was about to be made to save that hand and its owner out of the very jaws of death.
Now amongst the spectators was one whose life and reason were at stake on that attempt.
Mrs. Dodd was hurrying homeward from this very neighbourhood when the fire broke out. Her son Edward was coming at nine o'clock to tea, and, better still, to sleep. He was leaving the fire brigade. It had disappointed him; he found the fire-escape men saved the lives, the firemen only the property. He had gone into the business earnestly too; he had invented a thing like a treble pouch hook, which could be fastened in a moment to the end of a rope, and thrown into the window, and would cling to the bare wall, if there was nothing better, and enable him to go up and bring life down. But he had never got a chance to try it; and, per contra, he was on the engine when they went tearing over a woman and broke her arm and collar-bone in the Blackfriars Road; and also when they went tearing over their own fire-dog, and crippled him. All this seemed out of character, and shocked Edward; and then his mother could not get over the jacket.
In a quarter of an hour he was to take off the obnoxious jacket for ever, and was now lounging at the station smoking a short pipe, when a man galloped up crying “Fire!”
“All right!” said Edward, giving a whiff. “Where?”
“Lunatic Asylum. Drayton House.”
Guess how long before the horses were to, and the engine tearing at a gallop down the road, and the firemen shouting “Fire! fire!” to clear the way, and Edward's voice the loudest.
When the report of fire swept townward past Mrs. Dodd, she turned, and saw the glow.
“Oh dear,” said she, “that must be somewhere near Drayton House.” And full of the tender fears that fill such bosoms as hers for those they love, she could not go home till she had ascertained that it was not Drayton House. Moreover, Edward's was the nearest station; she had little hope now of seeing him to tea. She sighed, and retraced her steps, and made timid inquiries, but could gain no clear information. Presently she heard galloping behind her, and the fireman's wild sharp cry of fire. An engine drawn by two powerful brown horses came furiously, all on fire itself with red paint and polished steel gleaming in the lights; helmeted men clustered on it, and out of one of these helmets looked a face like a fighting lion's, the eyes so dilated, the countenance in such towering excitement, the figure half rising from his seat as though galloping was too slow and he wanted to fly. It was Edward. Mother and son caught sight of one another as the engine thundered by, and he gave her a solemn ardent look, and pointed towards the fire; by that burning look and eloquent gesture she knew it was something more than a common fire. She trembled and could not move. But this temporary weakness was followed by an influx of wild vigour; she forgot her forty-two years, and flew to hover round the fire as the hen round water. Unfortunately she was too late to get any nearer than the road outside the gates, the crowd was so dense. And, while her pale face and anxious eyes, the eyes of a wife and a mother, were bent on that awful fire, the human tide flowed swiftly up behind her, and there she was wedged in. She was allowed her foot of ground to stand and look like the rest—no more. Mere unit in that mass of panting humanity, hers was one of the thousands of upturned faces lurid in the light of the now blazing roof. She saw with thousands the hand break the window and clutch the frame; she gasped with the crowd at that terrible and piteous sight, and her bosom panted for her fellow-creature in sore peril. But what is this? The mob inside utter a great roar of hope; the crowd outside strain every eye.
A gleaming helmet overtops the outer wall. It is a fireman mounting the great elm-tree in the madhouse yard. The crowd inside burst in a cheer. He had a rope round his loins; his face was to the tree. He mounted and mounted like a cat; higher, and higher, and higher, till he reached a branch about twelve feet above the window and as many distant from it laterally; the crowd cheered him lustily. But Mrs. Dodd, half distracted with terror, implored them not to encourage him. “It is my child!” she cried despairingly; “my poor reckless darling! Come down, Edward; for your poor mother's sake, come down.”
“Dear heart,” said a woman, “it is the lady's son. Poor thing!”
“Stand on my knee, ma'am,” said a coal-heaver.
“Oh no, sir, no. I could not look at him for the world. I can only pray for him. Good people, pray for us!” And she covered her face, and prayed and trembled and sobbed hysterically. A few yards behind was another woman, who had arrived later, yet like her was wedged immovable. This woman was more terror-stricken than Mrs. Dodd; and well she might; for she knew who was behind that fatal window: the woman's name was Edith Archbold. The flames were now leaping through the roof, and surging up towards heaven in waves of fire six feet high. Edward, scorched and half blinded, managed to fasten his rope to the bough, and, calculating the distances vertical and lateral he had to deal with, took up rope accordingly, and launched himself into the air.
The crowd drew their breath so hard it sounded like a murmur. To their horror he missed the window, and went swinging back.
There was a cry of dismay. But Edward had never hoped to leap into the window; he went swinging by the rope back to the main stem of the tree, gave it a fierce spang with his feet, and by this means and a powerful gesture of his herculean loins got an inch nearer the window: back again, and then the same game; and so he went swinging to and fro over a wider and wider space; and, by letting out an inch of cord each swing, his flying feet came above the window-ledge, then a little higher, then higher still; and now, oh sight strange and glorious—as this helmeted hero, with lips clenched and great eyes that stared unflinchingly at the surging flames, and gleamed supernaturally with inward and outward fire, swang to and fro on his frail support still making for the window—the heads of all the hoping, fearing, admiring, panting crowd went surging and waving to and fro beneath; so did not their hearts only but their agitated bodies follow the course of his body, as it rushed to and fro faster and faster through the hot air starred with snow-flakes, and hail, of fire. And those his fellow-men for whom the brave fireman made this supernatural effort, did they know their desperate condition? Were they still alive? One little hour ago Alfred sat on the bed, full of hope. Every minute he expected to hear the Robin put a key into the door. He was all ready, and his money in his pocket. Alas! his liberator came not; some screw loose again. Presently he was conscious of a great commotion in the house. Feet ran up and down. Then came a smell of burning. The elm-tree outside was illuminated. He was glad at first; he had a spite against the place. But soon he became alarmed, and hammered at the door and tried to force it. Impossible. “Fire!” rang from men's voices. Fire crackled above his head; he ran about the room like a wild creature; he sprang up at the window and dashed his hand through, but fell back. He sprang again and got his hand on some of the lighter woodwork; he drew himself up nearly to the window, and then the wood gave way and he fell to the ground, and striking the back of his head, nearly stunned himself; the flames roared fearfully now; and at this David, who had hitherto sat unconcerned, started up, and in a stentorian voice issued order upon order to furl every rag of sail and bring the ship to the wind. He thought it was a tempest. “Oh hush! hush!” cried Alfred in vain.. A beam fell from the roof to the floor, precursor of the rest. On this David thought the ship was ashore, and shouted a fresh set of orders proper to the occasion, so terribly alike are the angry voices of the sister-elements. But Alfred implored him, and got him to kneel down with him, and held his hand, and prayed.
And, even while they kneeled and Alfred prayed, Death and Life met and fought for them. Under the door, tight as it was, and through the keyhole, struggled a hot stifling smoke, merciful destroyer running before fire; and the shadow of a gigantic figure began to flicker in from the outside, and to come and go upon the wall. Alfred did not know what that was, but it gave him a vague hope: he prayed aloud as men pray only for their bodies. (The crowd heard him and hushed itself breathless.)
The smoke penetrated faster, blinding and stifling; the giant shadow came and went. But now the greater part of the roof fell in with an awful report; the blazing timbers thundered down to the basement with endless clatter of red-hot tiles; the walls quivered, and the building belched skyward a thousand jets of fire like a bouquet of rockets: and then a cloud of smoke. Alfred gave up all hope, and prepared to die. Crash! as if discharged from a cannon, came bursting through the window, with the roar of an applauding multitude and a mother's unheeded scream, a helmeted figure, rope in hand, and alighted erect and commanding on the floor amidst a shower of splinters and tinkling glass. “Up, men, for your lives,” roared this fire-warrior, clutching them hard, and dragged them both up to their feet by one prodigious gesture: all three faces came together and shone in the lurid light; and he knew his father and “the Wretch,” and “the Wretch” knew him. “Oh!” “Ah!” passed like pistol shots; but not a word: even this strange meeting went for little, so awful was the moment, so great are Death and Fire. Edward clawed his rope to the bed; up to the window by it, dropped his line to fireman Jackson planted express below, and in another moment was hauling up a rope ladder: this he attached, and getting on it and holding his own rope by way of banister, cried, “Now, men, quick, for your lives.” But poor David called that deserting the ship, and demurred, till Alfred assured him the captain had ordered it. He then submitted directly, touched his forelock to Edward, whom he took for that officer, and went down the ladder; Alfred followed.
Now the moment those two figures emerged from the burning pile, Mrs. Dodd, already half dead with terror for her son, saw and knew her husband: for all about him it was as light as day.
What terror! what joy! what gratitude! what pride! what a tempest of emotions!
But her fears were not ended: Edward, not to overweight the ladder, went dangling by his hands along the rope towards the tree. And his mother's eyes stared fearfully from him to the other, and her heart hung trembling on her husband descending cautiously, and then on his preserver, her son, who was dangling along by the hands on that frail support. The mob cheered him royally, but she screamed and hid her face again. At last both her darlings were safe, and then the lusty cheers made her thrill with pride and joy, till all of a sudden they seemed to die away, and the terrible fire to go out; and the sore-tried wife and mother drooped her head and swooned away, wedged in and kept from falling by the crowd.
Inside, the mob parted and made two rushes, one at the rescued men, one at the gallant fireman. Alfred and David were overpowered with curiosity and sympathy. They had to shake a hundred honest hands, and others still pressing on hurried them nearly off their feet.
“Gently, good friends; don't part us,” said Alfred.
“He is the keeper,” said one of the crowd.
“Yes, I'm his keeper: and I want to get him quietly away. This excitement will do him harm else; good friends, help me out by that door.”
“All right,” was the cry, and they rushed with him to the back door. Rooke, who was about twenty yards off saw and suspected this movement. He fought his way and struggled after Alfred in silence. Presently, to his surprise, Alfred unlocked the door and whipped out with David, leaving the door open. Rooke shouted and halloaed: “Stop him! he is escaping,” and struggled madly to the door. Now another crowd had been waiting in the meadows; seeing the door open they rushed in and the doorway was jammed directly. In the confusion Alfred drew David along the side of the wall; told him to stay quiet, bolted behind an outhouse, and then ran across country for the bare life.
To his horror David followed him, and with a madman's agility soon caught him.
He snorted like a spirited horse, and shouted cheerily, “Go ahead, messmate; I smell blue water.”
“Come on, then,” cried Alfred, half mad himself with excitement, and the pair ran furiously, and dashed through hedges and ditches, torn, bleeding, splashed, triumphant; behind them the burning madhouse, above them the spangled sky, the fresh free air of liberty blowing in their nostrils, and rushing past their ears.
Alfred's chest expanded, he laughed for joy, he sang for joy, he leaped as he went; nor did he care where he went. David took the command, and kept snuffing the air, and shaping his course for blue water. And so they rushed along the livelong night.
Free.
CHAPTER XLIV
A REPORT came round that the asylum was open in the rear. A rush was made thither from the front: and this thinned the crowd considerably; so then Mrs. Dodd was got out by the help of some humane persons, and carried into the nearest house, more dead than alive. There she found Mrs. Archbold in a pitiable state. That lady had been looking on the fire, with the key in her pocket, by taking which she was like to be a murderess: her terror and remorse were distracting, and the revulsion had thrown her into violent hysterics. Mrs. Dodd plucked up a little strength, and characteristically enough tottered to her assistance, and called for the best remedies, and then took her hand and pressed it, and whispered soothingly that both were now safe, meaning David and Edward. Mrs. Archbold thought she meant Alfred and David: this new shock was as good for her as cold water: she became quieter, and presently gulped out, “You saw them? You knew them (ump) all that way off?”
“Knew them?” said Mrs. Dodd; “why one was my husband, and the other my son.” Mrs. Archbold gave a sigh of relief. “Yes, madam,” continued Mrs. Dodd, “the young fireman, who went and saved my husband, was my own son, my Edward; my hero; oh, I am a happy wife, a proud mother.” She could say no more for tears of joy, and while she wept deliciously, Mrs. Archbold cried too, and so invigorated and refreshed her cunning, and presently she perked up and told Mrs. Dodd boldly that Edward had been seeking her, and was gone home; she had better follow him, or he would be anxious. “But my poor husband!” objected Mrs. Dodd.
“He is safe,” said the other; “I saw him (ump) with an attendant.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Dodd, with meaning, “that other my son rescued was an attendant, was he?”
“Yes.” (Ump.)
She then promised to take David under her especial care, and Mrs. Dodd consented, though reluctantly, to go home.
To her surprise Edward had not yet arrived, and Julia was sitting up, very anxious; and flew at her with a gurgle, and kissed her eagerly, and then, drawing back her head, searched the maternal eyes for what was the matter. “Ah, you may well look,” said Mrs. Dodd. “Oh, my child! what a night this has been;” and she sank into a chair, and held up her arms. Julia settled down in them directly, and in that position Mrs. Dodd told all the night's work, told it under a running accompaniment of sighs and kisses, and ejaculations, and “dear mammas” and “poor mammas,” and bursts of sympathy, astonishment, pity and wonder. Thus embellished and interrupted, the strange tale was hardly ended, when a manly step came up the stairs, and both ladies pinched each other, and were still as mice, and in walked a fireman with a wet livery, and a face smirched with smoke. Julia flew at him with a gurgle of the first degree, and threw her arms round his neck, and kissed both his blackened cheeks again and again, crying, “Oh my own, my precious, my sweet, brave darling, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, you are a hero, a Christian hero, that saves life, not takes it—” Mrs. Dodd checked her impetuous career by asking piteously if his mother was not to have him. On this, Julia drew him along by the hand, and sank with him at Mrs. Dodd's knees, and she held him at arm's length and gazed at him, and then drew him close and enfolded him, and thanked God for him; and then they both embraced him at once, and interwove him Heaven knows how, and poured the wealth of their womanly hearts out on him in a torrent, and nearly made him snivel. But presently something in his face struck Mrs. Dodd accustomed to read her children. “Is there anything the matter, love?” she inquired anxiously. He looked down and said, “I am dead sleepy, mamma, for one thing.”
“Of course he is, poor child,” said Julia, doing the submaternal; “wait till I see everything is comfortable,” and she flew off, turned suddenly at the door with “Oh, you darling!” and up to his bedroom and put more coals on his fire, and took a swift housewifely look all round.
Mrs. Dodd seized the opportunity. “Edward, there is something amiss.”
“And no mistake,” said he drily. “But I thought if I told you before her you might scold me.”
“Scold you, love? Never. Hush! I'll come to your room by-and-by.”
Soon after this they all bade each other good night; and presently Mrs. Dodd came and tapped softly at her son's door, and found him with his vest and coat off, and his helmet standing on the table reflecting a red coal; he was seated by the fire in a brown study, smoking. He apologised, and offered to throw the weed away. “No, no,” said she, suppressing a cough, “not if it does you good.”
“Well, mother, when you are in a fix, smoke is a soother, you know, and I'm in a regular fix.”
“A fix,” sighed Mrs. Dodd resignedly, and waited patiently all ears.
“Mamma,” said the fire-warrior, becoming speculative under the dreamy influence of the weed, “I wonder whether such a muddle ever was before. When a man is fighting with fire, what with the heat and what with the excitement, his pulse is at a hundred and sixty, and his brain all in a whirl, and he scarce knows what he is doing till after it is done. But I've been thinking of it all since. (Puff.) There was my poor little mamma in the mob; I double myself up for my spring, and I go at the window, and through it; now, on this side of it I hear my mother cry, 'Edward come down;' on the other side I fall on two men perishing in an oven; one is my own father, and the other is, who do you think? 'The Wretch.'”
Mrs. Dodd held up her hands in mute amazement.
“I had promised to break every bone in his skin at our first meeting; and I kept my promise by saving his skin and bones, and life and all.” (Puff.)
Mrs. Dodd groaned aloud. “I thought it was he,” she said faintly. “That tall figure, that haughty grace! But Mrs. Archbold told me positively it was an attendant.”
“Then she told you a cracker. It was not an attendant, but a madman, and that madman was Alfred Hardie, upon my soul! Our Julia's missing bridegroom.”
He smoked on in profound silence waiting for her to speak. But she lay back in her chair mute and all relaxed, as if the news had knocked her down.
“Come, now,” said Edward at last; “what is to be done? May I tell Julia? that is the question.”
“Not for the world,” said Mrs. Dodd, shocked into energy. “Would you blight her young life for ever, as mine is blighted?” She then assured him that, if Alfred's sad state came to Julia's ears, all her love for him would revive, and she would break with Mr. Hurd, and indeed never marry all her life. “I see no end to her misery,” continued Mrs. Dodd, with a deep sigh; “for she is full of courage; she would not shrink from a madhouse (why she visits lazar-houses every day); she would be always going to see her Alfred, and so nurse her pity and her unhappy love. No, no; let me be a widow with a living husband, if it is God's will: I have had my happy days. But my child she shall not be so withered in the flower of her days for any man that ever breathed; she shall not, I say.” The mother could utter no more for emotion.
“Well,” said Edward, “you know best. I generally make a mess of it when I disobey you. But concealments are bad things too. We used to go with our bosoms open. Ah!” (Puff.)
“Edward,” said Mrs. Dodd, after some consideration, “the best thing is to marry her to Mr. Hurd at once. He has spoken to me for her, and I sounded her.”
“Has he? Well, and what did she say?”
“She said she would rather not marry at all, but live and die with me. Then I pressed her a little, you know. Then she did say she could never marry any but a clergyman, now she had lost her poor Alfred. And then I told her I thought Mr. Hurd could make her happy, and she would make me happy if she could esteem him; and marry him.”
“Well, mamma, and what then?”
“Why then, my poor child gave me a look that haunts me still—a look of unutterable love, and reproach, and resignation, and despair, and burst out crying so piteously I could say no more. Oh! oh! oh! oh!”
“Don't you cry, mammy dear,” said Edward. “Ah, I remember when a tear was a wonder in our house.” And the fire-warrior sucked at his cigar, to stop a sigh.
“And n—now n—ot a d—day without them,” sighed Mrs. Dodd “But you have cost me none, my precious boy.”
“I'm waiting my time. (Puff.) Mamma, take my advice; don't you fidget so. Let things alone. Why hurry her into marrying Mr. Hurd or anybody? Look here; I'll keep dark to please you, if you'll keep quiet to please me.”
At breakfast time came a messenger with a line from Mrs. Archbold, to say that David had escaped from Drayton House, in company with another dangerous maniac.
Mrs. Dodd received the blow with a kind of desperate resignation. She rose quietly from the table without a word, and went to put on her bonnet, leaving her breakfast and the note; for she did not at once see all that was implied in the communication. She took Edward with her to Drayton House. The firemen had saved one half of that building; the rest was a black shell. Mrs. Archbold came to them, looking haggard, and told them two keepers were already scouring the country, and an advertisement sent to all the journals.
“Oh, madam!” said Mrs. Dodd, “if the other should hurt him, or lead him somewhere to his death?”
Mrs. Archbold said she might dismiss this fear; the patient in question had but one illusion, and, though terribly dangerous when thwarted in that, was most intelligent in a general way, and much attached to Mr. Dodd; they were always together.
A strange expression shot into Mrs. Dodd's eye: she pinched Edward's arm to keep him quiet, and said with feigned indifference—
“Then it was the one who was in such danger with my husband last night?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Archbold off her guard. It had not occurred to her that this handsome, fashionably-dressed young gentleman, was the fireman of last night. She saw her mistake, though, the moment he said bluntly, “Why, you told my mother it was an attendant.”
“Did I, madam?” asked Mrs. Archbold, mighty innocently: “I suppose I thought so. Well, I was mistaken, unfortunately.”
Mrs. Dodd was silent a moment, then, somewhat hastily bade Mrs. Archbold good-bye. She told the cabman to drive to an old acquaintance of ours, Mr. Green. He had set up detective on his own account. He was not at his office, but expected. She sat patiently down till he came in. They put their heads together, and Green dashed down to the asylum with a myrmidon, while Mrs. Dodd went into the City to obtain leave of absence from Cross and Co. This was politely declined at first, but on Mrs. Dodd showing symptoms of leaving them altogether, it was conceded. She returned home with Edward, and there was Mr. Green: he had actually traced the fugitives by broken fences, and occasional footsteps in the side clay of ditches, so far as to leave no doubt they had got upon the great south-eastern road. Then Mrs. Dodd had a female inspiration. “The Dover road! Ah! my husband will make for the sea.”
“I shouldn't wonder, being a sailor,” said Green. “It is a pleasure to work with a lady like you, that puts in a good hint. Know anything about the other one, ma'am?”
Mrs. Dodd almost started at this off-hand question. But it was a natural one for Green to ask.
She said gravely, “I do. To my cost.”
Green's eye sparkled, and he took out his note-book. “Now where is he like to make for?”
Mrs. Dodd seemed to wince at the question, and then turned her eyes inward to divine. The result was she gave a downright shudder, and said evasively, “Being with David, I hope and pray he will go towards the coast.”
“No, no,” said Green, “it won't do to count on that altogether. How do we know which of the two will lead the other? You must please to put Mr. Dodd out of the question, ma'am, for a moment. Now we'll say No. 2 had escaped alone: where would he be like to run to?”
Mrs. Dodd thus pressed, turned her eyes more and more inward, and said at last in a very low voice, and with a sort of concentrated horror—“He will come to my house.”
Mr. Green booked this eagerly. The lady's emotion was nothing to him; the hint was invaluable, the combination interesting. “Well, ma'am,” said he, “I'll plant a good man in sight of your door: and I'll take the Dover road directly with my drag. My teeth weren't strong enough for the last nut you gave me to crack: let us try this one. Tom Green isn't often beat twice running.”
“I will go with you, Mr. Green.”
“Honoured and proud, ma'am. But a lady like you in my dog-cart along o' me and my mate!”
Mrs. Dodd waived this objection almost contemptuously; she was all wife now.
It was agreed that Green should drive round for her in an hour. He departed for the present, and Edward proposed to go in the dog-cart too, but she told him no; she wanted him at home to guard his sister against “the Wretch.” Then seeing him look puzzled, “Consider, Edward,” said she, “he is not like your poor father: he has not forgotten. That advertisement, Aileen Aroon, it was from him, you know. And then why does he attach himself so to poor papa? Do you not see it is because he is Julia's father? 'The Wretch' loves her still.”
Edward from puzzled looked very grave. “What a head you have got, mamma!” he said. “I should never have seen all this: yet it's plain enough now, as you put it.”
“Yes, it is plain. Our darling is betrothed to a maniac; that maniac loves her, and much I fear she loves him. Some new calamity is impending. Oh, my son, I feel it already heavy on my heart. What is it to be? Is your father to be led to destruction, or will that furious wretch burst in upon your sister, and kill her, or perhaps kill Mr. Hard, if he catches them together? What may not happen now? The very air seems to me swarming with calamities.”
“Oh, I'll take care of all that,” said Edward. And he comforted her a little by promising faithfully not to let Julia go out of his sight till her return.
She put on a plain travelling-dress. The dog-cart came. She slipped fifty sovereigns into Mr. Green's hands for expenses, and off they went at a slapping pace. The horse was a great bony hunter of rare speed and endurance, and his long stride and powerful action raised poor Mrs. Dodd's hopes, and the rushing air did her good. Green, to her surprise, made few inquiries for some miles on the Dover road; but he explained to her that the parties they were after had probably walked all night. “They don't tire, that sort,” said Mr. Green.
At Dartford they got a doubtful intimation, on the strength of which he rattled on to Rochester. There he pulled up, deposited Mrs. Dodd at the principal inn till morning, and scoured the town for intelligence.
He inquired of all the policemen; described his men, and shrewdly added out of his intelligence, “Both splashed and dirty.”
No, the Bobbies had not seen them.
Then he walked out to the side of the town nearest London, and examined all the dealers in food. At last he found a baker who, early that morning, had sold a quartern loaf to two tall men without hats, “and splashed fearful;” he added, “thought they had broken prison; but 'twas no business of mine: they paid for the bread right enough.”
On hearing they had entered Rochester hatless, the shrewd Mr. Green made direct to the very nearest slop-shop; and his sagacity was rewarded: the shopkeeper was a chatterbox, and told him yes, two gents out on a frolic had bought a couple of hats of him, and a whole set of sailor's clothes. “I think they were respectable, too; but nothing else would satisfy him. So the young one he humoured him, and bought them. I took his old ones in exchange.”
At that Green offered a sovereign for the old clothes blindfold. The trader instantly asked two pounds, and took thirty shillings.
Green now set the police to scour the town for a gentleman and a common sailor in company, offered a handsome reward, and went to bed in a small inn, with David's clothes by the kitchen fire. Early in the morning he went to Mrs. Dodd's hotel with David's clothes, nicely dried, and told her his tale. She knew the clothes directly, kissed them, and cried over them: then gave him her hand with a world of dignity and grace: “What an able man! Sir, you inspire me with great confidence.”
“And you me with zeal, ma'am,” said the delighted Green. “Why I'd go through fire and water for a lady like you, that pays well, and doesn't grudge a fellow a bit of praise. Now you must eat a bit, ma'am, if it's ever so little, and then we'll take the road; for the police think the parties have left the town, and by their night's work they must be good travellers.”
The dog-cart took the road, and the ex-hunter stepped out thirteen miles an hour.
Now at this moment Alfred and David were bowling along ahead with a perfect sense of security. All that first night, the grandest of his life, Alfred walked on air, and drank the glorious exhilarating breath of Freedom. But, when the sun dawned on them, his intoxicating joy began to be dashed with apprehension: hatless and bemired, might they not be suspected and detained by some officious authority?
But the slop-shop set that all right. He took a double-bedded room in The Bear, locked the door, put the key under his pillow, and slept till eleven. At noon they were on the road again, and as they swung lustily along in the frosty but kindly air, Alfred's chest expanded, his spirits rose, and he felt a man all over. Exhilarated by freedom, youth, and motion, and a little inflated by reviving vanity, his heart, buoyant as his foot, now began to nurse aspiring projects: he would indict his own father, and the doctors, and immolate them on the altar of justice and publicly wipe off the stigma they had cast on him, and meantime he would cure David and restore him to his family.
He loved this harmless companion of his cell, his danger, and his flight; loved him for Julia's sake, loved him for his own. Youth and vanity whispered, “I know more about madness than the doctors; I have seen it closer.” It struck him David's longing for blue water was one of those unerring instincts that sometimes guide the sick to their cure. And then as the law permits the forcible recapture of a patient—without a fresh order or certificates—within fourteen days of his escape from an asylum, he did not think it prudent to show himself in London till that time should have elapsed. So, all things considered, why not hide a few days with David in some insignificant seaport, and revel in liberty and blue water with him all day long, and so by associations touch the spring of memory, and begin the cure? As for David, he seemed driven seaward by some unseen spur; he fidgeted at all delay; even dinner fretted him; he panted so for his natural element. Alfred humoured him, and an hour after sunset they reached the town of Canterbury. Here Alfred took the same precautions as before, and slept till nine o'clock.
When he awoke, he found David walking to and fro impatiently. “All right, messmate,” said Alfred, “we shall soon be in blue water.” He made all haste, and they were on the road again by ten, walking at a gallant pace.
But the dog-cart was already rattling along about thirty miles behind them. Green inquired at all the turnpikes and vehicles; the scent was cold at first, but warmer by degrees, and hot at Canterbury. Green just baited his gallant horse, and came foaming on, and just as the pair entered the town of Folkestone, their pursuers came up to the cross-roads, not five miles behind them.
Alfred went to a good inn in Folkestone and ordered a steak, then strolled with David by the beach, and gloried in the water with him. “After dinner we will take a boat, and have a sail,” said he. “See, there's a nice boat, riding at anchor there.”
David snuffed the breeze and his eye sparkled, and he said, “Wind due east, messmate.” And this remark, slight as it was was practical, and gave Alfred great delight: strengthened his growing conviction that not for nothing had this charge been thrown on him. He should be the one to cure his own father; for Julia's father was his: he had no father now. “All right,” said he gaily, “we'll soon be on blue water: but first we'll have our dinner, old boy, for I am starving.” David said nothing and went rather doggedly back to the inn with him.
The steak was on the table. Alfred told the waiter to uncover and David to fall to, while he just ran upstairs to wash his hands. He came down in less than two minutes; but David was gone, and the waiter standing there erect and apathetic like a wooden sentinel.
“Why, where is he?” said Alfred.
“Gent's gone out,” was the reply.
“And you stood there and let him? you born idiot. Which way is he gone?”
“I don't know,” said the waiter angrily, “I ain't a p'liceman. None but respectable gents comes here, as don't want watching.” Alfred darted out and scoured the town; he asked everybody if they had seen a tall gentleman dressed like a common sailor. Nobody could tell him: there were so many sailors about the port; that which in an inland town would have betrayed the truant concealed him here. A cold perspiration began to gather on Alfred's brow, as he ran wildly all over the place.
He could not find him, nor any trace of him. At last it struck him that he had originally proposed to go to Dover, and had spoken of that town to David, though he had now glanced aside, making for the smaller ports on the south coast: he hired a horse directly, and galloped furiously to Dover. He rode down to the pier, gave his horse to a boy to hold, and ran about inquiring far David. He could not find him: but at last he found a policeman, who told him he thought there was another party on the same lay as himself: “No,” said the man correcting himself, “it was two they were after, a gentleman and a sailor. Perhaps you are his mate.”
Alfred's blood ran cold. Pursued! and so hotly: “No, no,” he stammered; “I suspect I am on the same business.” Then he said cunningly (for asylums teach the frankest natures cunning), “Come and have a glass of grog and tell me all about it.” Bobby consented, and under its influence described Mrs. Dodd and her companions to him.
But not everybody can describe minutely. In the bare outlines, which were all this artist could furnish him, Alfred recognised at once, whom do you think? Mrs. Archbold, Dr. Wolf, and his arch enemy Rooke, the keeper. Doubtless his own mind, seizing on so vague a description, adapted it rather hastily to what seemed probable. Mrs. Dodd never occurred to him, nor that David was the sole, or even the main object of the pursuit. He was thoroughly puzzled what to do. However, as his pursuers had clearly scoured Dover, and would have found David if there, he made use of their labours and galloped back towards Folkestone. But he took the precaution to inquire at the first turnpike, and there he learned a lady and two men had passed through about an hour before in a dog-cart; it was a wonder he had missed them. Alfred gnashed his teeth; “Curse you,” he muttered. “Well, do my work in Folkestone, I'll find him yet, and baffle you.” He turned his horse's head westward and rode after David. Convinced that his lost friend would not go inland, he took care to keep near the cliffs, and had ever an eye on the beach when the road came near enough.
About eight miles west of Folkestone he saw a dog-cart going down a hill before him: but there was only a single person in it. However, he increased his pace and got close behind it as it mounted the succeeding hill which was a high one. Walking leisurely behind it his quick eye caught sight of a lady's veil wrapped round the iron of the seat.
That made him instantly suspect this might be the dog-cart after all. But, if so, how came a stranger in it? He despised a single foe, and resolved to pump this one and learn where the others were.
While he was thinking how he should begin, the dog-cart stopped at the top of the hill, and the driver looked seaward at some object that appeared to interest him.
It was a glorious scene. Viewed from so great a height the sea expanded like ocean, and its light-blue waters sparkled and laughed innumerable in the breeze. “A beautiful sight, sir,” said the escaped prisoner, “you may well stop to look at it.” The man touched his hat and chuckled. “I don't think you know what I am looking at, sir,” he said politely.
“I thought it was the lovely sea view; so bright, so broad, so free.
“No, sir; not but what I can enjoy that a bit, too: but what I'm looking at is an 'unt. Do you see that little boat? Sailing right down the coast about eight miles off. Well, sir, what do you think there is in that boat? But you'll never guess. A madman.”
“Ah!”
“Curious, sir, isn't it: a respectable gentleman too he is, and sails well; only stark staring mad. There was two of 'em in company: but it seems they can't keep together long. Our one steals a fisherman's boat, and there he goes down channel. And now look here, sir; see this steam-tug smoking along right in front of us: she's after him, and see there's my governor aboard standing by the wheel with a Bobby and a lady: and if ever there was a lady she's one;” here he lowered his voice. “She's that mad gentleman's wife, sir, as I am a living sinner.”
They both looked down on the strange chase in silence. “Will they catch her?” asked Alfred at last, under his breath.
“How can we be off it? steam against sails. And if he runs ashore, I shall be there to nab him.” Alfred looked, and looked: the water came into his eyes. “It's the best thing that can befall him now,” he murmured. He gave the man half-a-crown, and then turned his horse's head and walked him down the hill towards Folkestone. On his arrival there he paid for his horse, and his untasted dinner, and took the first train to London, a little dispirited; and a good deal mortified; for he hated to be beat. But David was in good hands, that was one comfort; and he had glorious work on hand, love and justice. He went to an out of the way inn in the suburbs, and, when he had bought a carpet-bag and some linen and other necessaries, he had but one sovereign left.
His heart urged him vehemently to go at once and find his Julia: but alas! he did not even know where she lived; and he dared not at present make public inquiries: that would draw attention to himself, and be his destruction; for Wolf stood well with the police, and nearly always recaptured his truant patients by their aid before the fourteen days had elapsed. He determined to go first to a solicitor: and launch him against his enemies, while compelled to shirk them in his own person. Curious position! Now, amongst his father's creditors was Mr. Compton, a solicitor, known for an eccentric, but honourable man, and for success in litigation. Mr. Compton used to do his own business in Barkington, and employ an agent in London: but Alfred remembered to have heard just before his incarceration that he had reversed the parts, and now lived in London. Alfred found him out by the Directory, and called at his chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He had to wait some time in the outer office listening to a fluent earnest client preaching within: but presently a sharp voice broke in upon the drone, and, after a few sentences, Mr. Compton ushered out a client with these remarkable words: “And as for your invention, it has been invented four times before you invented it, and never was worth inventing at all. And you have borrowed two hundred pounds of me in ninety loans, each of which cost me an hour's invaluable time: I hold ninety acknowledgments in your handwriting; and I'll put them all in force for my protection;” with this he turned to his head clerk: “Mr. Colls, take out a writ against this client; what is your Christian name, sir? I forget.”
“Simon,” said the gaping client, off his guard.
“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Compton with sudden politeness: then resuming hostilities—“A writ in the Common Pleas against Simon Macfarlane: keep it in your drawer, Colls, and if ever the said Macfarlane does me the honour to call on me again serve him with it on the spot; and, if not, not; good morning, sir.” And with this he bolted into his own room and slammed its door. 'The clerks opened the outer door to Mr. Macfarlane with significant grins, and he went out bewildered sorely, yea even like one that walketh abroad in his sleep. “Now, sir,” said Mr. Colls cheerfully to Alfred. But the new client naturally hesitated now: he put on his most fascinating smile, and said: “Well, Mr. Colls, what do you advise? Is this a moment to beard the lion in his den?”
At Alfred's smile and address Colls fell in love with him directly, and assured him sotto voce, and with friendly familiarity, that now was his time. “Why, he'll be as sweet as honey now he has got rid of a client.” With this he took Alfred's name, and ushered him into a room piled with japanned tin boxes, where Mr. Compton sat, looking all complacency, at a large desk table, on which briefs, and drafts, and letters lay in seeming confusion. He rose, and with a benignant courtesy invited Alfred to sit down and explain his business.
The reader is aware our Oxonian could make a close and luminous statement. He began at the beginning, but soon disposed of preliminaries and came to his capture at Silverton. Then Mr. Compton quietly rang the bell, and with a slight apology to Alfred requested Colls to search for the draft of Mrs. Holloway's will. Alfred continued. Mr. Compton listened keenly, noted the salient points on a sheet of brief-paper, and demanded the exact dates of every important event related.
The story finished, the attorney turned to Colls, and said mighty coolly, “You may go. The will is in my pocket: but I made sure he was a madman. They generally are, these ill-used clients.” (Exit Colls) “Got a copy of the settlement, sir, under which you take this ten thousand pounds?”
“No, sir.”