The man retired, while Doctor Rowel proceeded down a long and ill-lighted passage, or corridor, in which were several angular turns and windings; and when nearly lost in the gloom of the place, he might have been heard to draw back a heavy bolt, and raise a spring-latch like an iron bar, which made fast the door that opened upon the yard, or piece of ground to which the keeper had alluded.
It was just at that brief but peculiar time at the turn of day and night, which every observer of Nature must occasionally have remarked, when the light of the western atmosphere, and that of a rayless moon high up the southern heaven, mingle together in subdued harmony, and produce a kind of illumination, issuing from no given spot, but pervading equally the whole atmosphere,—like that which we might imagine of a fairy's palace,—without any particular source, neither wholly of heaven nor of earth, but partaking partially of each.
The passage-door was thrown back, and the doctor stood upon its threshold. A yard some forty feet square, surrounded by a wall about six yards high, and floored with rolled gravel, like the path of a garden, was before him. Near the centre stood a dismal-looking yewtree, its trunk rugged, and indented with deep natural furrows, as though four or five shoots had sprung up together, and at last become matted into one; its black lines of foliage, harmonizing in form with the long horizontal clouds of the north-west quarter, which now marked the close approach of night. Nothing else was to be seen. As the eye, however, became somewhat more accustomed to the peculiar dusky light which pervaded this place, the figure of a man standing against the tree-trunk became visible; with his arms tightly crossed upon his breast, and bound behind him as though they had almost grown into his sides; and his hair hanging long upon his shoulders, somewhat like that of a cavalier, or royalist, of the middle of the seventeenth century.
The doctor raised his voice, and called, in a lusty tone, “Woodruff!”
The patient returned no answer, nor did he move.
“James Woodruff!” again shouted the doctor.
A slight turn of the head, which as quickly resumed its previous attitude, was the only response made to the doctor's summons.
Finding that he could not call this strange individual to him, Doctor Rowel stepped across the yard, and advanced up to him.
“James,” said he mildly, “it is time you were in your cell.”
The man looked sternly in his face, and replied, “I have been there some thousands of times too often already.”