Part 30 (1/2)

Cowper.

I was awakened as from the deepest sleep, by a cry wild and horrible. It was followed by shouts of dissonant laughter, unlike the cheering sounds of human mirth. They seemed but the body's convulsion, in which the spirit had no part. I started and listened;--a ceaseless hum of voices wearied my ear.

A recollection of the past came upon me, mixed with a strange uncertainty of my present state. The darkness of midnight was around me; why then was its stillness broken by more than the discords of day? I spoke, in hopes that some attendant might be watching my sick-bed;--no one answered to my call. I half-raised my feeble frame to try what objects I could discern through the gloom. High above my reach, a small lattice poured in the chill night wind; but gave no light that could show aught beyond its own form and position. As I looked fixedly towards it, I perceived that it was grated. 'Am I then a prisoner?' thought I.

'But it matters not. A narrower cell will soon contain all of poor Ellen that a prison can confine.' And, worn out with my effort, I laid myself down with that sense of approaching dissolution, which sinks all human situations to equality.

I closed my eyes, and my thoughts now flew unbidden to that unknown world from which, in these days of levity, they had shrunk affrighted; and to which, even in better times they had often been turned with effort.

Presently a female voice, as if from the adjoining chamber, began a plaintive song; which now died away, now swelled in mournful caprice, till, as it approached the final cadence, it wandered with pathetic wildness into speech. I listened to the hopeless lamentation;--heard it quicken into rapid utterance, sink into the low inward voice, then burst into causeless energy;--and I felt that I was near the haunt of madness.

The shuddering of horror came over me for a moment. But one thought alone has power to darken the departing spirit with abiding gloom. The worst earthly sorrows play over her as a pa.s.sing shadow, and are gone.

'Poor maniac!' thought I, 'thou and the genius which now guides and delights mankind will soon alike be as I am.'

But why record the feeble disjointed efforts of a soul struggling with her clog of earth? Oh, had my strivings to enter the strait gate been _then_ to begin, where should I, humanly speaking, have found strength for the endeavour? My mind, weakened with my body, could feel, indeed, but could no longer reason; it could keenly hope and fear, but it could no longer exercise over thought that guidance which makes thinking a rational act. Worn out at last with feelings too strong for my frame, I sunk to sleep; and, in spite of the dreariest sounds which rise from human misery, slept quietly till morning.

Then the daylight gave a full view of my melancholy abode. Its extent was little more than sufficient to contain the low flock-bed on which I lay. The naked walls were carved with many a quaint device; and one name was written on them in every possible direction, and joined with every epithet of endearment. Well may I remember them; for often, often, after having studied them all, have I turned wearily to study them again.

As I lay contemplating my prison, a step approached the door; the key grated in the lock; and a man of a severe and swarthy countenance stood before me. He came near, and offered me some food of the coa.r.s.est kind, from which my sickly appet.i.te turned with disgust; but when he held a draught of milk and water to my lips, I eagerly swallowed it, making a faint gesture of thanks for the relief. The stern countenance relaxed a little! 'You are better this morning,' said the man.

'I soon shall be so,' answered I, with a languid smile.

Without farther conference he was turning to depart; when, recollecting that I should soon need other cares, and shrinking with womanly reluctance from owing the last offices to any but a woman, I detained him by a sign. 'I have a favour to beg of you,' said I. 'I shall not want many.'

'Well!' said the man, lingering with a look of idle curiosity.

'When I am gone,' said I, 'will you persuade some charitable woman to do whatever must be done for me; for I was once a gentlewoman, and have never known indignity.'

The man promised without hesitation to grant my request. Encouraged by my success, I proceeded. 'I have a friend, too; perhaps you would write to him.'

'Oh yes--who is he?' said the man, looking inquisitively.

'Mr Maitland, the great West India merchant. Tell him that Ellen Percy died here; and dying, remembered him with respect and grat.i.tude.'

The man looked at me with a strong expression of surprise, which quickly gave place to an incredulous smile; then turned away, saying carelessly, 'Oh, yes, I'll be sure to tell him;' and quitted the cell.

During that day, my trembling hopes, my solemn antic.i.p.ations, were interrupted only by the return of the keeper, to bring my food at stated hours. But on the following day, I became sensible of such amendment, that the natural love of life began to struggle with the hopes and the fears of 'untried being.'

With the prospect of prolonged existence, however, returned those anxieties which, in one form or another, beset every heart that turns a thought earthward. The idea of confinement in such a place of imprisonment, perhaps perpetual, mingled the expectations of recovery with horror. To live only to be sensible to the death of all my affections, of all my hopes, of all my enjoyments!--To retain a living consciousness in that place where was no 'knowledge, nor work, nor device.'--To look back upon a dreary blank of time, and forward to one unvaried waste!--To pine for the fair face of nature! perhaps to live till it was remembered but as a dream! Gracious Heaven! what strength supported me under such thoughts of horror? Language cannot express the fearful anxiety with which I awaited the return of the only person who could relieve my apprehensions.

The moment he appeared, I eagerly accosted him. 'Tell me,' I cried, 'why I am here: surely I am no object for such an inst.i.tution as this. Mr and Mrs Boswell know that my fever was caught in attending their own child.'

'To be sure they do,' said the man soothingly.

'Why then have they sent me to such a place as this?'

The man was silent for a moment, and then answered, 'Why, what sort of a place do you take it for? You don't think this is a madhouse, do you?'

Seeing that I looked at him with surprise and doubt, he added, 'This is only an asylum, a sort of infirmary for people who have your kind of fever.'

I now perceived that he thought it necessary to humour me as a lunatic.

'For mercy's sake,' I cried, 'do not trifle with me. You may easily convince yourself that I am in perfect possession of my reason; do so then, and let me be gone. This place is overpowering to my spirits.'

'The moment you get well,' returned the man coolly, 'you shall go. We would not keep you after that, though you would give us ever so much.