'Silence!' cried a voice of tremendous power; and immediately the keeper stood beside us. He rudely seized the old man's arm, and the flush of animation was instantly blanched by fear. I saw the reverend form of age thus bow before brute violence, and I forgot for a moment that I was powerless to defend. 'Inhuman!' I exclaimed; 'will you not reverence grey hairs and misfortune?'
Without deigning me a look, the keeper led his captive away; while I followed him with eyes in which the tears of alarm now mingled with those of pity. He presently returned, and sternly commanded me to go with him. Eager as I was for my dismission, I yet trembled while I obeyed. We reached the door of my cell; and though I expected to pass it, I involuntarily recoiled. 'Go in!' said the keeper, in a voice of terrible authority.
'Here!' I exclaimed, with a start of agony. 'Oh, Heaven! did you not say—did you not promise——'
'Ay, ay,' interrupted the man; 'but I must see you a little quieter first. Get in, get in!'
'No, no! I will not! Though I perish, I will not!'
A withering smile crossing that dark countenance, he seized me with a force which reduced me to the helplessness of infancy; and regardless of the shriek wrung from me by hopeless anguish, he bore me into the cell, shook off my imploring hold, and departed. I heard the dreary creaking of the bolt; and I heard no more. I fell down senseless.
When I revived, I found myself supported by the arm of a person who was administering restoratives to me. The first accents to which I were sensible were those of the keeper; who said, as if in answer to some question, 'She has been almost as high this morning ever.'
'So, so!' returned the other. 'Well! she'll do for the present, so I must be gone. Keep an eye on her, and tell me how she comes on. And harkye, give her a better place—if they don't pay for it, I will. I am sure she is a gentlewoman.'
In the hope that I might now effectually appeal to justice or to pity, I made a strong effort to rouse myself; but my compassionate attendant was gone. The keeper, however, who perhaps was severe only from a mistaken sense of duty, had been alarmed into treating me with more caution. He watched me till I was completely revived; and as soon as I could make the necessary exertion, removed me to a different part of the building.
My new place of confinement, though somewhat larger and better furnished than the first, was equally contrived to prevent all chance of escape. But I quickly discovered that I had, by the change, gained a treasure, which, whoever would estimate, must like me be cut off from the sympathies of living being. A swallow had built her nest in my window. I saw her feed her nurslings day by day. I watched her leaving her nest, and longed for her return. Her twittering awoke me every morning; and I knew the chirp which invited her young to the food she had brought. Their first flight was an event in my life as well as in theirs; for the interests of kindred are scarcely stronger than those which we take in the single living thing, however mean, whose feelings we can make our own.