Discipline Part 30

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.

But I could not be answerable to let you out just now, for fear of bringing back your fever.'

With this a.s.surance I was obliged for the present to be contented. Yet a horrible fear sometimes returned, that he would only beguile me with false hope from day to day; and when he next brought my homely repast, I again urged him to fix a time for my release. 'I am recovering strength so rapidly,' said I, 'that I am sure in a few days I may remove.'

'Oh yes!' answered he; 'I think in a fortnight at farthest you will be quite well; provided you keep quiet, and don't fret yourself about fancies.'

While he spoke, I fixed my eyes earnestly upon him, to see whether I could discover any sign of mental reservation; but he spoke with all the appearance of good faith, and I was satisfied.

My spirits now reviving with my health and my hopes I endeavoured to view my condition with something more than resignation. 'Surely,' said I to myself, 'it should even be my choice to dwell for a time amidst scenes of humiliation, if here I can find the weapons of my warfare against the stubborn pride of nature and of habit. And whatever be _my_ choice, this place has been selected for me by Him whose will is my improvement. Let me not then frustrate his gracious purpose. Let me consider what advantage he intends me in my present state. Alas! why have I so often deferred to seasons of rare occurrence the lessons which the events of the most ordinary life might have taught me?'

Carefully I now reviewed my actions, my sentiments, and my purposes, as they had lately appeared to me in the antic.i.p.ation of a righteous sentence. What tremendous importance did each then a.s.sume! The work perhaps of a moment seemed to extend its influence beyond the duration of worlds. The idle word, uttered with scarcely an effort of the will, indicated perhaps a temper which might colour the fate of eternity. In a few days, I learnt more of myself than nineteen years had before taught me; for the light which gleamed upon me, as it were from another world, was of power to show all things in their true form and colour. I saw the insidious nature, the gigantic strength, the universal despotism of my bosom sin. I saw its power even in actions which had veiled its form; its stamp was upon sentiments which bore not its name; its impression had often made even 'the fine gold become dim.' Its baleful influence had begun in my cradle, had increased through my childhood, had dictated alike the enmities and the friendships of my youth. It had rejected the counsels of Miss Mortimer; trifled with the affections of Maitland; spurned the authority of my father; and hurried me to the brink of a connection in which neither heart nor understanding had part. It had embittered the cup of misfortune; poisoned the wounds of treachery; and dashed from me the cordial of human sympathy. It had withheld grat.i.tude in my prosperity; it had robbed my adversity of resignation. It had mingled even with the tears of repentance, while the proud heart unwillingly felt its own vileness; it had urged, I fear, even the labours of virtue, with the hope of earning other than unmerited favour.

It had eluded my pursuit, resisted my struggles, betrayed my watchfulness. It had driven me from an imaginary degradation among 'mine own people,' to desolation, want, and dependence, among strangers. When were greater sacrifices extorted by self-denial, that 'lion in the way'

which has scared so many from the paths of peace? Even the employment, which, by an undeserved good fortune, I had obtained, was degraded into slavery by the temper which represented my employer as alike below my grat.i.tude and my indignation; while the pleasure with which pride contemplates its own eminence had blinded me to the awful danger denounced against those who cherish habitual contempt for the meanest of their brethren.

I now saw that, even with the despised Mrs Boswell, I had need to exchange forgiveness; since, against the evils which she had inflicted on me, I had to balance a scorn even more galling than injury. Of the injustice of this scorn I became sensible, when I considered that it was directed less against her faults than her understanding; less against the baseness of her means than the insignificance of her ends; since what was at once the excuse and the mitigation of her vices formed the only reason why they were less endurable to me than the craft and the cruelty of politicians and conquerors. When I remembered that a few hours of sickness had sufficed to reduce me in intellect far below even the despised Mrs Boswell; that a derangement of the animal frame, so minute as to baffle human search, might blot the rarest genius from the scale of moral being; while I shrunk from the harrowing ravings of creatures who could once reason and reflect like myself, I felt the force of the warning which forbids the wise to 'glory in his wisdom.' I admitted as a principle what I had formerly owned as an opinion, that the true glory of man consists not in the ingenuity by which he builds systems, or unlocks the secrets of nature, or guides the opinions of a wondering world; but in that capacity of knowing, loving, and serving G.o.d, of which all are by nature equally dest.i.tute, and which all are equally and freely invited to receive.

The reflections of those few days it would require months to record.

They furnished indeed my sole business, devotion my sole pleasure. My cell contained no object to divert my attention; and the stated returns of the keeper were the only varieties of my condition. My strength, however, gradually returned. I was able to rise from my bed, and to walk, if the size of my apartment had admitted of walking.[19]

It may well be believed that I counted the hours of my captivity, and I did not fail to remind the keeper daily of his promise. It was not till the day preceding that which he had fixed for my liberation, that I discovered any sign of an intention to retract.

'To-morrow I shall breathe the air of freedom,' said I to him exultingly, while I was taking my humble repast.

'I am sure you have air enough where you are,' returned the man.

'Oh but you may well imagine how a prisoner longs for liberty!'

'You are no more a prisoner than any body else that is not well. I am sure, though I were to let you out, you are not fit to go about yet.'

'Though you were to----Oh Heaven! you do not mean to detain me still!

You will keep your promise with me!'

'Oh yes,' said the man, with that voice of horrible soothing which made my blood run cold; 'never fear, you shall get out to-morrow;' and, regardless of my endeavours to detain him, he instantly left me.

'You shall get out to-morrow,' I repeated a thousand times, in distressful attempt to convince myself that a promise so explicit could not be broken. Yet the horrible doubt returned again and again. Drops of agony stood upon my forehead as I looked distractedly upon those narrow walls, and thought they might inclose me for ever. 'G.o.d of mercy,' I cried, casting myself wildly on my knees, 'wilt thou permit this? Hast thou supported me hitherto only to forsake me in my extremity of need?

Oh no! I wrong thy goodness by the very thought.'

Well may our religion be called the religion of hope; for who can remember that 'unspeakable gift' which every address to Heaven must recall to the Christian's view, without feeling a trust which outweighs all causes of fear? By degrees I recovered composure, then hope, then cheerfulness; and when, at the keeper's evening visit, I had extorted from him another renewal of his promise, I was so far satisfied as to prepare myself by a quiet sleep for the trials which awaited my waking.

The next morning a bright sun was gleaming through my grated window; and anxiously I watched the lingering progress of its shadow along the wall.

Long, long, I listened for the heavy tread of the keeper; thought myself sure that his hour of coming was past; and dreaded that his stay was ominous of evil. When at last I heard the welcome sounds of his approach, and felt that at last the moment of certainty was come, a faintness seized me, and I remained motionless, unable to enquire my doom.

The man looked keenly at the fixed eye which wanted power to turn from him. 'I thought as much,' said he triumphantly. 'I'll lay a crown you don't wish to go out to-day.'

'Oh yes, indeed!' I cried, starting up with sudden hope and animation: 'I would go this instant!'

The man again examined my face inquisitively. 'Eat your breakfast then,'