'Help the girl!' exclaimed the keeper. 'A woman almost as big as I am, crying for a swallow's nest. Well, as I shall answer, I thought you had got quite well almost.'
Aware too late of the impression which my ill-timed weakness had given, I did my utmost, at his subsequent visits, to repair my error; but prejudice, even in its last stage of decay, is more easily revived than destroyed, and I saw that he remained at best sceptical.
The day came which was to decide my fate. No lover waiting the sentence of a cautious mistress,—no gamester pausing in dread to look at the decisive die,—no British mother trembling with the Gazette in her hand,—ever felt such anxiety as I did, at the approach of my medical judge. With as much coherence, however, as I could command, I related to him the circumstances to which I attributed my confinement. He heard me with attention, questioned, and cross-examined me. 'Have you any objection,' said he, 'to my making enquiries of Mr Boswell?'
'None, certainly,' said I, 'if you cannot otherwise convince yourself that I ought to be set at liberty; else I should be unwilling to add to his domestic discomfort. I am persuaded that he has no part in this cruelty.'
The surgeon remained with me long; talking on various subjects, and ingeniously contriving to withdraw my attention from the ordeal which I was undergoing. The keeper, to justify his own sagacity, detailed with exaggeration every instance he had witnessed of my supposed eccentricity. 'To this good day,' said he, 'she'll be crying one minute, and singing the next.'
'Mr Smith,' said the doctor, shaking his head gravely, 'if you shut up all the women who change their humour every minute, who will make our shirts and puddings?'
He related the transports of my premature gratitude. 'By the time you are a little older, Miss Percy,' said the doctor, 'you will guess better how far sympathy will go; and then you will not run the risk of being thought crazy, by showing more sensibility than other people.'
Other instances of my extravagance were not more successful; for the doctor's prejudice had fortunately taken the other side. 'You know, Mr Smith,' said he, 'that I always suspected this was not a case for your management; and that if I had been in the way when admission was asked for this lady, she would never have been here.' My departure was therefore authorised; and, at my earnest request, it was fixed for that day.
And who shall paint the rapture of the prisoner, who tells himself, what yet he scarcely dares believe, 'This day I shall be free?' Who shall utter the gratitude which swells the heart of him whom this day has made free? That I was to go I knew not whither,—to subsist I knew not how,—could not damp the joys of deliverance. The wide world was indeed before me; but even that of itself was happiness. The free air,—the open face of heaven,—the unfettered grace of nature,—the joyous sport of animals,—the cheerful tools of man,—sounds of intelligence, and sights of bliss were there; and the wide world was to me, the native land of the exile, lovely with every delightful recollection, and populous with brethren and friends.