The entire gallery was, however, devoted to those persons who, having committed dread deeds, had been acquitted on the ground of insanity.
It was to the lesser compartment that Holford was assigned.
And now he was an inmate of the criminal division of Bethlem Hospital,—he who was as sane as his keeper, and who could, therefore, the more keenly feel, the more bitterly appreciate the dread circumstances of his present condition!
And who were his companions? Men that had perpetrated appalling deeds—horrible murders—in the aberration of their intellects!
Was this the triumph that he had achieved by his regicide attempt? had he earned that living tomb as the sacrifice to be paid for the infamous notoriety which he had acquired?
Oh! to return to his pot-boy existence—to wait on the vulgar and the low—to become once more a menial unto menials,—rather than stay in that terrible place!
Or else to be confined for life in a gaol where no presence of madness might tend to drive him mad also!—Yes—that were preferable—oh! far preferable to the soul-harrowing scene where man appeared more degraded and yet more formidable than the brutes!
Yes—yes: transportation—chains—the horrors of Norfolk Island,—any thing—any thing rather than immurement in the criminal wards of Bethlem!
Vain and useless regrets for the past!—futile and ineffective aspirations for the future!