Several circumstances, apart from his health, may also be assumed to have disposed him just then to think of getting away from Tanyrallt. He had just finished Queen Mab; and the act of completing an intellectual enterprise, that has engaged a scholar’s faculties for several months, is often followed by a yearning for diversion in new scenes. At war with some of his neighbours, living on uneasy terms with others, and sick of the embankment folly, that had for some time been fruitful of annoyances, he may well have wished to fly off from a place that had lost the charms of novelty. Pecuniary considerations may also have disposed him to fly from Tremadoc. If he remained at Tanyrallt for another six months, Mr. Madocks would be pressing him for payment of a certain deferred rent; Mr. Williams would be pressing him for the settlement of certain other small affairs of business; and the projectors of the new embankment would be asking when he would find it convenient to pay the promised 500l. Another affair, that may be presumed to have troubled Shelley in the middle of February, 1813, was the near approach of the day when Daniel Hill would appear at Tanyrallt with a reasonable expectation of being again taken into the service of the master, who had caused him to be imprisoned in North Devon. It is not suggested that Shelley was meditating flight from North Wales in order to get out of Daniel Hill’s way. By showing that Shelley had given Daniel Hill timely information where to find him, the servant’s arrival at Tanyrallt on the 26th of February, 1813, would of itself be sufficient to show the injustice of any such suggestion. But though he was ready to befriend the Irishman, who had suffered so much in his service, Shelley may well have wished to leave his corner of Carnarvonshire, as soon as Daniel should appear in Mr. Leeson’s neighbourhood. The inquisitive, prying, malevolent, relentless Mr. Leeson would, of course, think it his duty to learn whence Daniel had come, and what he had been doing since his master’s arrival at Tremadoc. Shelley had reason to apprehend that Mr. Leeson (already in correspondence with the Solicitor of the Treasury about the poet) would receive official information of Daniel’s recent trouble, and his master’s not remote activity in North Devon. In which case there would be talk in Tremadoc, that would make Tanyrallt an especially disagreeable place of abode for Daniel Hill’s master.
Such was the position of affairs in North Wales, when, during the night of 26th February, 1813 (and within a few hours of the Barnstaple gaol-bird’s appearance at the villa, fit for an Italian prince), Tanyrallt became the scene of certain curious incidents. The weather was cold and stormy, the wind in its violence made an uproar loud as thunder about the gables and chimneys of Tanyrallt Lodge, and the rain fell in torrents, when Shelley loaded a pair of pistols, under strong impression that he should have occasion to use them during the night. Having loaded the weapons, the poet went to bed between the hours of ten and eleven p.m., and remained in bed for about half-an-hour, when, on hearing a noise in one of the parlours, he rose from Harriett’s side, and, taking his pistols, went downstairs. A minute or two later, the sound of a pistol-shot was heard in the house. This pistol-shot was followed at a brief interval by a second explosion of the same kind. Audible to Harriett in her bedroom, to Miss Westbrook in her bedroom, and to the domestic servants (three maids and Daniel Hill), who, though in the act of going to rest, had not yet got into their beds, the firing caused the ladies and servitors to assemble hurriedly in the chief parlour of the house, where Shelley gave them this stirring account of what had taken place.
On getting to the bottom of the stairs he went to the billiard-room, where the noise of steps was audible. Following these steps he went through the billiard-room into the little room, called ‘the office,’ where he saw a man in the act of quitting the room through the glass-door, opening into the shrubbery. Shelley was so fortunate as to avoid the shot of the pistol, which the retreating miscreant fired at him. Shelley did his best to return the shot, but by ill-luck his pistol only flashed in the pan. The next incident of the affair was that the assassin knocked Shelley down;—an incident that afforded the assassin an opportunity of flying into the outer darkness. Instead of making off, the assassin grappled with Shelley and struggled with him on the floor. During this struggle, the narrator drew his second pistol and fired a shot, that caused the man to shriek, as he rose from the floor and went away into the shrubbery. The assassin had fled, but not without being wounded in the shoulder, if Shelley estimated rightly the effect of his second shot. A very remarkable incident of the affair was, that, after seeming to be wounded in the shoulder, and just before turning to fly, the assassin delivered himself of this rather too melodramatic utterance:—‘By God, I will be revenged! I will murder your wife; I will ravish your sister! By God, I will be revenged!’
One can imagine how poor little Harriett shuddered and cried, ‘Oh, the wretch!’ It is more difficult to realize Miss Westbrook’s sensations. Of course, the party of seven did not separate immediately after hearing Shelley’s horrible tale. On the contrary, they remained in the parlour for about two hours, before Shelley (thinking it highly improbable that the wounded assassin would return before the morning, to execute his atrocious menaces) advised the two ladies to retire to rest. In accordance with this advice, the women went off to bed, leaving Shelley and Daniel Hill to sit up and keep guard, in case the villain should make a second attack.
In declaring it improbable that the assassin, with a bullet in his shoulder, would return before daybreak to murder Harriett and ravish her sister, the author of Zastrozzi showed how imperfectly he realized the possibilities of the position. After returning to her bed at about one a.m., Harriett had occupied it just upon three hours, when at about 4 a.m., she heard a third pistol explosion, which caused her immediately to rise from her couch, and run downstairs to her husband, who received her with a thrilling statement of his narrow escape from death by the pistol that had just gone off. His story was this:—He had sent Daniel Hill out of the room to see what o’clock it was, when, in the servant’s absence, he heard a noise at the parlour window, and, on approaching the window, saw a man thrust his arm through the glass and fire a pistol at him. Hence the broken window and the explosion that had brought Harriett from her bedroom. Thank Heaven! instead of bedding itself in his body, the pistol’s ball had passed through his flannel night-shirt, without even grazing his skin. Had he not been standing sideways towards the window, Shelley said he must have been killed. In support of these statements, he pointed to the broken window and the holes made in his flannel night-dress by the bullet. Further, he assured Harriett that, after so narrowly escaping death, he aimed and pulled the trigger of his pistol, but it would not go off:—this being the second time for him to draw trigger, with no result save a flash in the pan. His pistol having failed him again, Shelley aimed a blow at his assailant with an old sword, which the miscreant had almost succeeded in wresting from him, when Daniel Hill rushed into the room. On Daniel Hill’s appearance, the twice-baffled assassin let go his hold of the old sword, and again disappeared in the darkness. All this took place during the night of Friday, 26th February, 1813. On Saturday, the 27th instant, Shelley went off with his marvellous story (differing in important particulars from the narrative of the previous pages) to the Solicitor-General of the county, who lived at a distance of some twelve miles from the scene of the outrage.
My account of what took place, and of what was alleged by Shelley to have taken place in Tanyrallt Lodge on the night of 26th February, 1813, is made from the statements of what may be called the circular letter which Mrs. Shelley sent at her husband’s request, to divers of his friends, whom they wished to inform precisely of a matter, likely to be greatly misrepresented. As this letter was intended to be the enduring and authoritative record of the strange and perplexing business, I have used it for my narrative. It should, however, be observed, that the account of the matter so given by the Shelleys, some ten or fourteen days after the affair, differs materially from what Shelley himself seems to have told the Solicitor-General and Mr. Madocks of the affair on the 27th of February. Medwin’s report of what Mr. Madocks told him of Shelley’s own statement, is to this effect:—That, whilst sitting in the study on the eventful night, Shelley ‘heard a noise at the window, saw one of the shutters gradually unclosed, and a hand advanced into the room armed with a pistol;’ that the weapon having missed fire, Shelley ran to seize the ruffian who had pulled the trigger; that, on passing through the door into the garden, to get at the villain, Shelley found himself face to face with his assailant; that the villain made a second attempt to shoot Shelley with a pistol, which, like the other pistol, missed fire; that, after this second essay at shooting, the poet and his assailant wrestled with one another desperately in the garden, till the latter escaped from the lawn to the shrubbery, and disappeared. The inaccurate Medwin’s report of what Mr. Madocks told him at Florence long after 1813, is, of course, to be read with suspicion and distrust. On one or two points of his account of the affair, Medwin is guilty of mistakes of fact, for which he alone is to be held accountable. But it was not in Shelley’s power to tell the exciting story twice in the same fortnight, or on two following days, without discrepancies. That his story to Mr. Madocks on 27th February, 1813, gave particulars of ‘long and painful wrestling on the lawn’ is more than probable; the lawn having been trodden and rolled upon by some person or persons, so as to give it the appearance of having been the scene of violent wrestling.
The story, of course, flew like wildfire. In Tremadoc it was received with general incredulity and derision, as a tale made up by young Mr. Shelley, in order to have a pretext for leaving the neighbourhood in a trice without paying his bills; but Shelley and Harriett begged their friends to understand that the story would not have been received in this insulting way, had it not been for the malevolent action of Mr. Leeson, who hastened to assure the Tremadoc shopkeepers they were being trifled with by an impostor.
The affair having been reported by Shelley to the Solicitor-General, it became the subject of careful investigation. Not only was the evidence of the alleged attack sifted, but it was sifted by persons peculiarly qualified to examine it. The Solicitor-General of the county (an expert in evidence touching assaults and other outrages against the law), keen-witted Mr. Madocks (a man of affairs, familiar with the people of the neighbourhood), Mr. Williams (Mr. Madocks’s agent, a shrewd Welshman), Mr. Williams’s brother (a man of similar shrewdness) were amongst the persons to look into the matter. All these persons were friendly to Shelley, though they had for some time thought him given to talk too fast. All four were on familiar terms with him. The Solicitor-General received the Shelleys into his own house, and entertained them there from 27th February to the day in the first week of March, on which they left North Wales for Ireland. Consequently the investigation was directed, made, carried out by the gentleman, who was at the moment of the investigation Shelley’s host. Mr. Madocks and the Messrs. Williams had a distinct interest in keeping on friendly terms with Shelley, and doing all that was just for the maintenance of his credit. Consequently the investigation was in the hands of Shelley’s especial friends. Yet the unanimous verdict of local opinion was that no attack had been made, and that Shelley’s allegations respecting the attacks said to have been made on him during the night of the 26th of February were baseless and untruthful,—their untruthfulness being referable either to delusion or falsehood on his part. No single voice (except the voices of Harriett, Miss Westbrook, Shelley, doubtless Daniel Hill, and possibly the other servants of the house,) was raised in Carnarvonshire against the result of an investigation, which, be it observed, was (from the wetness of the ground about the lodge, at the time of the alleged assaults) made under peculiarly favourable conditions. With the single exception of Mr. Hookham (who seems, at least for a moment, to have believed the wild story), Shelley’s London friends were no less unanimous in thinking the verdict of the inquisitors a just one. Hogg says of the alleged attack, ‘Persons acquainted with the localities and with the circumstances, and who had carefully investigated the matter, were unanimous in the opinion, that no such attempt was ever made. I never met with any person who believed in it.’ In the summer of 1813 (within a few months of the alleged attack), Peacock, who had made Shelley’s acquaintance in the previous autumn, went from London to Wales, and prosecuted inquiries on the spot respecting this Tanyrallt business; the result being that he had no doubt the attacks were never made, and that Shelley’s perplexing part in the affair was referable to ‘semi-delusion,’—the condition of mind in which Shelley, according to Peacock, was partly deluded and partly untruthful.
How could the investigators come to any other conclusion on the main question than that the attacks had not been made?
(1) It did not escape them that Shelley, living in a peaceful nook of Carnarvon, loaded his pistols before going to bed under circumstances, indicating in some degree a mental predisposition to find an occasion for using the weapons during the night.