The Man in Black: An Historical Novel of the Days of Queen Anne

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

We must now turn on more to Sir Philip Hastings as he sat in his lonely room in prison. Books had been allowed him, paper, pen, and ink, and all that could aid to pass the time; but Sir Philip had matter for study in his own mind, and the books had remained unopened for several days. Hour after hour, since his interview with Secretary Vernon, and day after day he had paced that room to and fro, till the sound of his incessant footfall was a burthen to those below. His hair had grown very white, the wrinkles on his brow had deepened and become many, and his head was bowed as if age had pressed it down. As he walked, his eye beneath his shaggy eyebrow was generally bent upon the floor, but when any accidental circumstance caused him to raise it--a distant sound from without, or some thought passing through his own mind--there was that curious gleam in it which I have mentioned when describing him in boyhood, but now heightened and rendered somewhat more wild and mysterious. At those moments the expression of his eyes amounted almost to fierceness, and yet there was something grand, and fixed, and calm about the brow which seemed to contradict the impatient, irritable look.

At the moment I now speak of there was an open letter on the table, written in his daughter's hand, and after having walked up and down for more than one hour, he sat down as if to answer it. We must look over his shoulder and see what he writes, as it may in some degree tend to show the state of his mind, although it was never sent.

"MY CHILD" (it was so he addressed the dear girl who had once been the joy of his heart): "The news which has been communicated to you by Marlow has been communicated also to me, but has given small relief. The world is a prison, and it is not very satisfactory to leave one dungeon to go into a larger.

"Nevertheless, I am desirous of returning to my own house. Your mother is very ill, with nobody to attend upon her but yourself--at least no kindred. This situation does not please me. Can I be satisfied that she will be well and properly cared for? Will a daughter who has betrayed her father show more piety towards a mother? Who is there that man can trust?"

He was going on in the same strain, and his thoughts becoming more excited, his language more stern and bitter every moment, when suddenly he paused, read over the lines he had written with a gleaming eye, and then bent his head, and fell into thought. No one can tell, no pen can describe the bitter agony of his heart at that moment. Had he yielded to the impulse--had he spoken ever so vehemently and fiercely, it would have been happier for him and for all. But men will see without knowing it in passing through the world, conventional notions which they adopt as principles. They fancy them original thoughts, springing from their own convictions, when in reality they are bents--biases given to their minds by the minds of other men. The result is very frequently painful, even where the tendency of the views received is good. Thus a shrub forced out of its natural direction may take a more graceful or beautiful form, but there is ever a danger that the flow of the sap may be stopped, or some of the branches injured by the process.

"No," said Sir Philip Hastings, at length, with a false sense of dignity thus acquired, "no, it is beneath me to reproach her. Punish her I might, and perhaps I ought; for the deed itself is an offence to society and to human nature more than to me. To punish her would have been a duty, even if my own heart's blood had flowed at the same time, in those ancient days of purer laws and higher principles; but I will not reproach without punishing. I will be silent. I will say nothing. I will leave her to her own conscience," and tearing the letter he had commenced to atoms, he resumed his bitter walk about the room.

It is a terrible and dangerous thing to go on pondering for long solitary hours on any one subject of deep interest. It is dangerous even in the open air, under the broad, ever-varying sky, with the birds upon the bough, and the breeze amongst the trees, and a thousand objects in bright nature to breathe harmonies to the human heart. It is dangerous in the midst of crowds and gay scenes of active life so to shut the spirit up with one solitary idea, which, like the fabled dragon's egg, is hatched into a monster by long looking at it. But within the walls of a prison, with nothing to divert the attention, with nothing to solicit or compel the mind even occasionally to seek some other course, with no object in external nature, with the companionship of no fellow being, to appeal to our senses or to awake our sympathies, the result is almost invariable. An innocent man--a man who has no one strong passion, or dark, all-absorbing subject of contemplation, but who seeks for and receives every mode of relief from the monotony of life that circumstances can afford may endure perfect solitude for years and live sane, but whoever condemns a criminal--a man loaded with a great offence--to solitary confinement, condemns him to insanity--a punishment far more cruel than death or the rack. Hour after hour again, day after day, Sir Philip Hastings continued to beat the floor of the prison with untiring feet. At the end of the third day, however, he received formal notice that he would be brought into court on the following morning, that the indictment against him would be read, and that the attorney-general would enter a _nolle prosequi_. Some of these forms were perhaps unnecessary, but it was the object of the government at that time to make as strong an impression on the public mind as possible without any unnecessary effusion of blood.

The effect upon the mind of Sir Philip Hastings, however, was not salutary. The presence of the judges, the crowd in the court, the act of standing in the prisoners' dock, even the brief speech of the lawyer commending the lenity and moderation of government, while he moved the recording of the _nolle prosequi_, all irritated and excited the prisoner. His irritation was shown in his own peculiar way, however; a smile, bitter and contemptuous curled his lip. His eye seemed to search out those who gazed at him most and stare them down, and when he was at length set at liberty, he turned away from the dock and walked out of the court without saying a word to any one. The governor of the jail followed him, asking civilly if he would not return to his house for a moment, take some refreshment, and arrange for the removal of his baggage. It seemed as if Sir Philip answered at all with a great effort; but in the end he replied laconically, "No, I will send."

Two hours after he did send, and towards evening set out in a hired carriage for his own house. He slept a night upon the road, and the following day reached the Court towards evening. By that time, however, a strange change had come over him. Pursuing the course of those thoughts which I have faintly displayed, he had waged war with his own mind--he had struggled to banish all traces of anger and indignation from his thoughts--in short, fearing from the sensations experienced within, that he would do or say something contrary to the rigid rule he had imposed upon himself, he had striven to lay out a scheme of conduct which would guard against such a result. The end of this self-tutoring was satisfactory to him. He had fancied he had conquered himself, but he was very much mistaken. It was only the outer man he had subdued, but not the inner.