“I was born,” answered Peter, “in one of the Orkney Islands, and am now going back on foot, as you see me; only as I supposed very possibly I might find you here, or, at least, hear something of you, I came partly out of my way in order to do so; and, in fact, I was making inquiries of those clowns at the very time that you made it your business to come up to me.”
Mr. Colin Lupton certainly felt more on hearing this story than he expressed in words to the relater of it. But by his actions its effect upon him may be judged, as he insisted on poor Peter being well lodged for the night, and before his departure on the following day, made him such a present as, most probably, would entitle him to be considered a man of some small substance in the little Orkney Island, towards which he shortly afterwards finally steered his course.
Having now brought the fortunes of most of the principal characters who have figured in these pages to a close, it only remains for me to relate some few stray scraps of information upon subjects on which the reader may not now feel fully satisfied.
It will, perhaps, be remembered, that the last time we parted with Doctor Rowel,—that infamous agent in as infamous a description of practice as ever man carried on and escaped the gallows,—we left him in a state of high mental excitement, bound in his carriage and conveyed by his friends to the house of his brother, on the borders of Sherwood forest. To reduce that excitement, or even to prevent its eventually increasing to a state of violent and confirmed madness, all medicine, restraint, or care, was found unavailing; and, eventually, he was confined for life in a public institution for the reception of demented individuals. There he raved almost continually about an imaginary skeleton, in an imaginary box, which he supposed to be placed close to his bedside. He declared it lied for having told such tales of him; and often gave utterance to certain unintelligible jargon, wherein the names of Woodruff, of his sister Frances, and of his niece, were mingled in curious confusion. Sometimes he would roll on the ground, and cry out, as though some powerful hand was on his throat, and a weight upon his breast—telling, almost, that the fearful struggle between his former prisoner and himself, yet retained doubtful hold upon his mind, and yet occasionally punished him over again, more severely perhaps than even at the period of its actual occurrence. Altogether he continued to exhibit to the very last a picture of misery and horror, not easily, even if it were needful, to be described.
With respect to Mrs. Luptons early friend, Miss Mary Shirley, her entire devotion to that unfortunate lady, through a long period of years, the tenderness with which she had comforted her in her afflictions, and the constancy with which she had maintained the spirits of that unhappy wife, endeared her to all who in the least were acquainted with her merits. For a while she took upon herself, at Mrs. Jane's earnest entreaty, and in conjunction with herself, the management of Colin's little family.