CHAPTER CLXXXIX.

SCENES IN THE LUNATIC ASYLUM.

Thus terminated the extraordinary manuscript which Lord William Trevelyan found in the wardrobe, and the perusal of which occupied him nearly two hours.

He was undecided how to dispose of the papers. Should he return them to the place where they had been concealed?--should he destroy them?--should he take them away with him, in the hope of being one day enabled to discover their writer, and by restoring them to him convince him that they had fallen into the possession of an honourable man, who, though having had the curiosity to read them, would, nevertheless, religiously keep the secret which they contained?

For, from the abrupt termination of the manuscript, Lord William very naturally concluded that the unfortunate author had succeeded in effecting his escape from the lunatic-asylum very shortly after he had penned the last words in the narrative; and the young nobleman, therefore, considered it to be possible, though perhaps not very probable, that he might sooner or later encounter Mr. Macdonald in the great and busy world.

Lord William had likewise another motive for retaining the papers.

The reader has seen enough of him to be aware that there was in his disposition much of the same chivalrous spirit and philanthropic principle which characterised the Earl of Ellingham; and it was therefore natural that he should become suddenly impressed with the idea of adopting measures, in due course, for the purpose of fully exposing the atrocious system of quackery that was carried on by pseudo-medical advertisers.

He remembered that the newspapers contained many advertisements announcing such works as the one which had proved the means of ensnaring the unfortunate Mr. Macdonald; and he was resolved to lose no time in employing his solicitor to institute all the necessary inquiries into the characters, histories, proceedings, and social positions of the scoundrels who thus accumulated large fortunes by means of the most atrocious quackery, deceit, rascality, and extortion.

The manuscript which chance had this night thrown in his way, contained so many important particulars, and furnished such a complete clue to the entire ramifications of the dark iniquity which the young nobleman was determined to expose, that he regarded it as a powerful auxiliary to the crusade he was about to undertake; and this consideration, added to the motives already mentioned, decided him in retaining possession of the document.

It was now one o’clock in the morning; and a profound silence reigned throughout the lunatic asylum.

Lord William noiselessly opened the door of his chamber, and looked forth into the long passage, which was partially lighted by a single lamp that had been left burning.

No living being was to be seen; and nothing disturbed the dead stillness of the hour and the place.

It now struck the young nobleman that the door of the chamber which he was anxious to enter--namely, No. 12, in the same passage as his own apartment--was most probably locked; and, in this case, he made up his mind to force it at all risks.

A little farther reflection suggested to him that, inasmuch as he had seen the housekeeper with only a single key in her hand, it was probable that this key was a pass to all the chambers; and he thence inferred that the key of his own room might perhaps fit the lock of the door belonging to No. 12.

At all events this was the first experiment that he resolved to try; and, without any longer delay, he proceeded as cautiously as possible down the passage, until he reached the chamber which he hoped and believed to be the one occupied by his friend.

There was a bolt outside the door: this was immediately drawn back;--and Trevelyan essayed the key.

To his indescribable joy, the key turned easily in the lock; and, with a beating heart, the nobleman entered the room--closing the door behind him.

The chamber was quite dark: but Trevelyan speedily groped his way to the window and drew aside the curtains, so as to permit the powerful moonlight to pour its silver flood into the room.

He now approached the bed--and there, to his delight, he beheld the well-known, though worn and wasted, countenance of his friend Sir Gilbert Heathcote, who was wrapped in slumber.

Lord William shook him gently; the baronet awoke with a sudden start and ejaculation; but at the same instant a friendly voice said, hurriedly, “Fear nothing! ’tis I--Trevelyan--and I am come to deliver you from this accursed place.”

Sir Gilbert, who had raised his head from the pillow, fell back again, and closed his eyes for a few moments. He fancied that he was dreaming. He could not believe that those welcome words had in reality sounded in his ears, or that the moonlight had shown him the form of his friend by the bed-side.

Trevelyan did not choose to interrupt the baronet’s reverie immediately; he comprehended the prudence of allowing him to collect his scattered ideas, and compose his thoughts.

“Is it really you, my dear young friend?” Sir Gilbert asked abruptly; and, starting up in the bed, he seized Trevelyan’s hand, and gazed fixedly upon his countenance.

“Yes, it is no dream,” responded Lord William, pressing the baronet’s hand with all the fervour of his generous friendship; “I am here to effect your escape, and there is no time to be lost.”

Still the baronet could scarcely believe the joyful announcement thus made to him; and Trevelyan, duly impressed with the necessity of tranquilising and reassuring his friend’s mind as much as possible ere the attempt at departure should be made,--fearing likewise that the baronet’s intellect had been somewhat impaired by the sense of wrong and the horrors of imprisonment in a lunatic asylum,--began to speak upon such topics as were calculated to direct his thoughts into a salutary channel.

“My dear Heathcote,” he said, “endeavour to call to your aid as much calmness and self-possession as possible; for a single inadvertence or false step may ruin our project by alarming the house. Remember that the place is as well protected and defended, and probably as well watched, as a gaol: and we must proceed with caution--courage--and coolness.”

“But how did you find your way into the establishment?” enquired Sir Gilbert, his ideas becoming more settled.

“By pretending to be insane,” answered Trevelyan; “and I have succeeded in thoroughly duping the Doctor.”

“Oh! my generous--my noble-hearted friend!” exclaimed the baronet: “how can I ever sufficiently prove my gratitude----”

“Hush! speak not with excitement!” interrupted Trevelyan. “I am only doing towards you what you would unhesitatingly perform for me under the same circumstances. And now--as I am anxious to relieve your mind as much as possible from any uneasiness or suspense that it may experience--I must at once inform you that Mrs. Sefton is in good health, and at this moment in the happy expectation of shortly seeing you again; for she is aware of the scheme which I have adopted to restore you to liberty.”

“Heaven be thanked for these assurances!” exclaimed Sir Gilbert: then, after a few moments’ pause, he said, “I need scarcely ask you to explain how you became acquainted with Mrs. Sefton. She was no stranger to the friendship subsisting between you and me--and I therefore conclude that, alarmed by my sudden and inexplicable disappearance, she sought your counsel and assistance.”

“All has occurred precisely as you conjecture,” answered Trevelyan. “But do you now feel equal to the task----”

“Of making an effort to recover my freedom?” ejaculated Sir Gilbert, leaping from the couch. “Let us not lose another moment! The atmosphere of this place seems oppressive, and heavy to breathe. I pant--I yearn--I long for liberty.”

Thus speaking, the baronet began hastily to put on his attire, and in a few minutes he was dressed.

“Now,” said Trevelyan, “we must decide upon the course to be adopted. Doubtless there is a porter to keep watch all night in the hall?” he added, interrogatively.

“Yes,” answered Sir Gilbert: “and I am also certain that a man patrols the garden. Besides, the keepers inside the house are as wakeful and as watchful as the fiends of Pandemonium; and the least noise will bring half-a-dozen strong and desperate fellows upon us. For my part, I have not the slightest objection to embrace the alternative of fighting our way through all opposition----”

“But the consequences of defeat would be most disastrous,” interrupted Trevelyan. “The Doctor would thereby gain an excuse for coercing both you and me; and although I am as it were my own prisoner, yet I have sworn not to quit these walls unless accompanied by you.”

“Generous friend!” exclaimed Sir Gilbert. “Were we well armed, we might bid defiance to the Doctor and all his gang: but weaponless--powerless as we are----”

“Do not despond, Heathcote,” said Trevelyan, observing that the baronet spoke in a mournful tone: “the task that I have undertaken, I will accomplish! There appear to me to be two modes of procedure. The first is to descend as noiselessly as possible to the hall--seize upon the porter--master him--and then effect our escape by the front-door. The other is to force away the bars from the window of this room--make a rope of the bed-clothing--descend into the garden--and take our chance with the watchman. Either project is attended with the risk of creating an alarm: but it is for you to decide, from your knowledge of the premises and the habits of its inmates, which scheme is the more feasible.”

“The former,” responded Sir Gilbert, after a few moments’ deep reflection. “The watchman in the garden would probably observe us at the window, removing the bars; and an alarm would thus be raised even before we were prepared to attempt an escape by those means. On the other hand, the porter sleeps in the hall:--of _this_ fact I am well assured, because I saw the bed temporarily made up for him there on the night that I was brought hither:--therefore our chances of success lie in that direction.”

“Such also is my idea,” observed Trevelyan. “Let us proceed at once--and permit me to take the lead.”

The young nobleman and the baronet stole cautiously forth from the chamber, treading so lightly that their steps raised not a sound to disturb the silence which prevailed throughout the establishment.

They descended to the first floor in safety: and there they paused for a few minutes on the landing, listening with suspended breath.

The deep and regular respiration of the porter now reached their ears from the hall below; and they thus obtained the assurance that the man slumbered.

Exchanging looks of satisfaction, they descended the last flight of stairs;--and, by the hall lamp, they perceived the porter comfortably ensconced in a truckle-bed that was made up for him in a convenient corner. The light fell on his rubicund countenance, which was surmounted by a cotton nightcap: but the brawny arm that lay outside the coverlid, and the tracing of his form as shaped by the bed-clothes, showed full well that he was a man of herculean stature and proportionate strength.

Nothing daunted--but resolving upon a desperate effort to accomplish the purpose he had in view--Lord William Trevelyan led the way into the hall; and he had just ascertained the fact that there was a bunch of large keys peeping forth from beneath the sleeping porter’s pillow, when the door of the supper-room suddenly opened, and Mr. Sheepshanks staggered forth.

The reverend gentleman carried a candle in his hand; and, by his flushed countenance, vacant stare, and unsteady walk, he was evidently in a pretty advanced state of intoxication. In fact--and there is no necessity to disguise the matter--the pious minister had sate up to enjoy himself alone; and he had carried his libations to such an extent that he was now, at two o’clock in the morning, most awfully drunk.

The moment Lord William caught sight of the inebriate minister, he sprang upon him--placed his hand tightly over his mouth--and, thrusting him back into the supper-room, said in a low but hasty and threatening tone, “Move hence at your peril!”

He then closed and locked the door.

But in the short and decided scuffle an untoward accident had occurred.

The candlestick had dropped from Mr. Sheepshanks’ hand on the marble floor of the hall; and the consequence was that the porter sprang up, and was out of bed in a trice.

Sir Gilbert Heathcote rushed upon him: but not in time to prevent the man from springing a huge rattle and crying, “Help! help!”

Lord William Trevelyan hesitated not a moment how to act. He darted to the truckle-bed--seized the keys from beneath the pillow--and sprang to the door, leaving Sir Gilbert Heathcote wrestling desperately with the porter.

The reader will remember that there were two doors; and the young nobleman had only just time to open the first or inner one, when a rapid glance cast behind showed him his friend Sir Gilbert upon the floor, completely overpowered by the huge porter, who had placed his knee upon the baronet’s chest.

It was Trevelyan’s hope that his friend would have been able to keep the porter engaged in the struggle until he could have opened both the doors, when he would have turned to the scene of strife, to rescue the baronet; but scarcely had he observed that Sir Gilbert was already vanquished, when four of the keepers rushed down stairs into the hall.

With the rapidity and force of a tiger springing upon its prey, Lord William rushed on the huge porter, hurled him to a distance, and raised up the prostrate baronet.

All this was the work of an instant: but in another moment the keepers sprang upon the two friends, and closed with them.

The baronet was again borne down; but Trevelyan, who now saw that the conflict was really becoming desperate, used the bunch of heavy door-keys with such effect that he speedily disabled the two keepers who had assailed him,--stretching one senseless on the floor, and compelling the other to beat a retreat with the blood pouring down his face.

To turn his attention to the two men who were dragging away Sir Gilbert Heathcote, was the intrepid young nobleman’s next step; and in a few moments the baronet, once more rescued from the enemy, was by the side of his intrepid friend.

“Take the keys and open the front door!” cried Trevelyan, impetuously pushing Sir Gilbert towards that extremity of the hall where the means of egress lay. “Escape, in the name of heaven!--think not of me!”

And having thrust the keys into his friend’s hand, Lord William seized the Doctor’s gold-headed cane, which hung to a hat-peg in the hall; and placing himself between the front-door and the keepers, he cried, “Beware how you provoke me--for I shall not hesitate to defend myself to the death!”

But scarcely were these words uttered, when the two keepers from whom he had rescued the baronet, returned to the charge, aided by the burly porter.

The foremost was instantaneously felled by a blow vigorously dealt with the cane; and, following up his advantage quickly as the eye can wink, Trevelyan darted at the other keeper, whom he also levelled on the spot. But in the next moment the gallant young nobleman was in the grasp of the porter; and, dropping the cane as no longer useful in a close tussle, he addressed himself with all his might to this last and most desperate single combat.

The scene was very exciting; and all that we have yet described since the first moment that the conflict commenced, did not occupy more than two minutes.

Scarcely had the intrepid nobleman and the herculean porter closed together, when the Doctor, attired in his dressing-gown and slippers, and with his cotton night-cap on his head, appeared at the bottom of the stairs, holding a chamber-candle in his hand.

At the same instant Sir Gilbert Heathcote had succeeded in opening the front door; and the morning breeze poured into the hall, in a manner doubtless highly refreshing to the porter, who, be it remembered, had nothing on but his shirt--_his_ cap having fallen off in the conflict which he had maintained with the baronet in the first instance.

Two of the discomfited keepers, animated by the presence of the Doctor--or perhaps rendered ashamed of their pusillanimity--now returned to the attack upon Trevelyan, who was just on the point of hurling the porter to the ground. But Sir Gilbert, having made the entrance free, rushed back to help his friend; and the contest was again renewed with desperate energy,--the other two keepers, who had by this time recovered their senses, joining in the struggle.

And hard would it have gone with Trevelyan and the baronet against such odds, had not two new-comers suddenly appeared upon the scene.

For, the front door standing wide open, and the lamp being alight in the hall, two gentlemen who were passing by the house at the time beheld the extraordinary proceedings that were taking place within; and the foremost, perceiving in an instant that the odds were two to five,--namely, Trevelyan and the baronet against the four keepers and the porter,--exclaimed at the top of a stentorian voice, “Be Jasus! Frank, and we’ll just give a helping hand to the waker side!”

With these words, the redoubtable Captain O’Blunderbuss--nerved with all the courage attributed by Sir Walter Scott to Lord Marmion--“plunged into the fight.”

Or, in less poetical language, he darted into the hall--levelled the herculean porter with a well-directed blow between the eyes--and sent a couple of keepers sprawling over the aforesaid porter in an instant.

Frank Curtis, having imbibed just sufficient poteen to subdue his habitual cowardice and arm him with the bastard though not the less effectual valour which strong drink inspires, unhesitatingly followed the example of his gallant leader, and bore his part in the fray; so that in less than a minute a complete diversion was effected in favour of Lord William Trevelyan and Sir Gilbert Heathcote, the enemy being utterly discomfited.

“Villains! murderers! robbers!” shouted the infuriate Doctor, as loud as he could bawl; and then the screams and shrieks of the affrighted female servants were heard echoing from the stairs and landing-places.

“Let us depart!” cried Lord William Trevelyan; and, in a very few moments, he pushed the baronet, the captain, and Frank Curtis, out of the front door,--he himself pausing only for a single second to secure the keys.

In another instant he was outside the house; and closing the door behind him, he locked it so as to prevent the Doctor and his myrmidons from instituting an immediate pursuit.

“Be Jasus! and this is the rummest lar-r-k I iver had in all my life!” ejaculated Captain O’Blunderbuss, panting for breath.

“Come with us, gentlemen,” said Lord William, hastily addressing that gallant officer and Frank Curtis: “you have rendered us a signal service--and we must know you better. We have likewise certain necessary explanations to give you relative to the strange scene in which you took so generous a part. But come away directly--there is not a moment to be lost--a hue and cry may be raised!”

“Be the power-rs! and is it bur-r-glars ye are?” cried the Captain, somewhat regretting the precipitation with which he had mixed himself up in the late affray.

“No--no: far from _that_!” exclaimed Lord William, laughing heartily at the idea. “But let us get as quickly as we can out of this neighbourhood.”

And away the four gentlemen scampered into the Cambridge Road, down which they sped until they reached Mile End, where they fortunately found a night-cab waiting for a fare.

Into the vehicle they got; and Lord William Trevelyan exclaimed, as an instruction to the driver, “Park Square, Regent’s Park!”

Away the cab went; and both Captain O’Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis, who had heard the aristocratic address thus given, were seized with an insatiable curiosity to learn who their new acquaintances could be.