On his body a small diary had been found. It was inscribed:
"Willie Ferguson, from his mother.
Springfield, Jan. 1, 18—."
Will—Fergus-on, Springfield,—18— Will—Springfield—from—his—mother. 18—Will, Willie, Will. Will Ferguson. He had sworn never to forget him. He is keeping his oath! Will—W-i-l-l F-e-r-g-u-s-o-n. There it is; on the walls, on the ceiling, up and down, over and across! Everywhere, everywhere, the name, the weary, weary name!
He has spelt it, over and over, forward and backward, fast and slow, loud and softly, again and again, till his brain spins; and sparks, like wicked little sprites, dance before his strained eyes, and now, cowering among his pillows, he strives to hide from that terrible pursuing name. "Smothering? they mean to smother him, do they?" He starts from his pillow, and, wild and eager, peers about his chamber. Blood! blood everywhere! The bed-spread is dabbled with it; it trickles down the walls; it lies in clotted pools upon the floor! In the window sits an Angora cat, white, mottled with red; she laps hungrily from an ever-brimming basin of blood! A knife is hanging yonder. It is a dirk-knife, bright and new. Its handle is lettered. With aching eyes he spells, "J-a-c-k, f-r-o-m W-i-l-l. C-a-n-t-o-n, 18—." Let him but reach that knife and hurl it into the sea! He is bound; he struggles; but cannot get free; and there still is the knife, horribly familiar, with the name staring at him from its heft, until every letter becomes a mocking serpent's tongue, hissing over and over in his tormented ear: "Will! Will! Will Ferguson!" He shivers; his brain is on fire; he can no longer look nor listen; he can but moan piteously: "Mercy! mercy! God have mercy!" They are putting a glass to his lips. He is terribly thirsty; and here is no blood; only an innocent saffron-tinged liquid. He drains it with eager lips. He is cooler now. The room grows dusky. He can no longer see that accursed dirk. Somebody had swabbed the floor, and they have unbound him.
A balmy evening wind, just the very idle land whisper that strayed among the leaves that night while he and Will sauntered through Boston Common, wanders in at the open casement. It winnows the hot air, it breathes upon his fevered brow, "like the benediction that follows after prayer." He sleeps, and, in his dream, is again with Will, and on board the Ohio. Becalmed in the Gulf Stream, hard by the lovely "Land of Flowers," lies the huge, idle craft. It is the Sabbath, and the sailors,—idle as the ship,—gathering in lazy groups, have pleasant talk of wives and sweethearts (for they are homeward bound). Will, half-reclined upon a coil of rope, reads aloud from his red pocket Testament. He has chanced upon this passage, from the dream of the Patmos seer: "And them that had gotten the victory ... stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." The "victory!" Ah! that is a hard thing to get! Shall he, John Gravesend, ever hold in his hand a harp of God? While he turns the text over in his mind, looking wistfully far out across the glassy deep, Will silently rises, walks swiftly astern, and, without a farewell word, drops quietly into the sea. He strives to follow. In vain! His limbs are holden in leaden heaviness. Wrestling with this demon of slumber, he at last awakes. Springing to his feet, he searches eagerly the empty, moonlit room. He calls, softly, "Will, Will!" No answer! He fancies a gentle sigh beneath his window. Will is there, sure enough, waiting for him in the pleasant moonlight. He need but drop softly to the ground to join him. Slight iron bars cross the window; he is strong; he wrenches at them manfully. They yield! They are displaced, and now only this paltry sash and a bit of glass between him and Will! These are soon demolished. The window is low, and, noiselessly dropping into the yard beneath, he calls softly, "Will! Will!" No response. Strange! A moment ago he was there! It is cool and quiet out here beneath the summer moon, and Will cannot be far off,—over that wall, perhaps. He scales it. "Not here? Well, he will run on a bit, and come up with him." And run on he does. On and on, through that long summer night. Across dewy-scented garden-plots, over trim cut lawns, whose tender grass is as velvet to his bare, fleeting feet. Through moist, wide meadows, and across low, babbling brooks, till, at last, he is upon the long, white road. Fleet as a hound upon the flying scent, pausing but to listen, and whisper, huskily, to the heedless night, "Will! Will! Will!" he hurries on. A half-clad, phantom-like form, breathlessly pursuing a phantom. The moon sets. The stars are paling in the still, sweet dawn, when, in the purlieu of a tangled wood, pale and spent, foam gathering on his lips, blood trickling from his torn feet, he pauses; and, tottering feebly into an odorous covert of blossoming underwood, falls prone upon the earth. An angel, with broad and kindly wing, the gentlest of all God's ministering host, descends to brood tenderly this desolate creature,—Sleep, messenger of peace, forerunner of that eternal quietude that somewhere stays for all earth's life-worn children!
On the ensuing morning, sensation craving readers of the Boston Morning Chronicle read, with characteristic relish, the following:
GREAT EXCITEMENT!!!
A Murderer Pretends Insanity and Escapes!
The citizens of Taunton and its vicinity were this morning startled by tidings of the escape of a patient from our State Lunatic Hospital. The man was entered, for treatment, from Charles Street Jail, and his name is John Gravesend.
Our readers will, no doubt, recall him to memory as the abandoned wretch who, not long since, was arrested in this city for the murder of young Ferguson, a mere lad, whom he enticed into one of the North Street dens, and there, after robbing his victim of a large sum of money, butchered the ill-fated boy. The mother of Ferguson, as will be remembered, died soon after of a broken heart. While awaiting the award of his crime, Gravesend—having successfully feigned insanity—was consigned to the State asylum. On the night of the 15th, the asylum watchman making his round at ten o'clock, found Gravesend, as he supposed, in a sound sleep. At two, the rascal was gone. Being a man of great muscular power, he had displaced the grating of his window, and thus made good his escape. The wretch has been tracked for several miles, and we are informed that two efficient detectives, assisted by hospital employés, are now in full pursuit. Other outrages are imputed to this daring villain, and it is hinted that he is concerned in a certain mysterious murder, that yet thrills our community with horror. Great alarm prevails in the vicinity, and it is hoped that the fugitive will be speedily secured.
This "bloodthirsty" monster was, on the afternoon succeeding his escape, found slumbering as placidly as the leaf-strewn "Babes in the Wood," in that flowery covert to which we have already tracked him.
From this long trance-like slumber—the crisis of his mental malady—John Gravesend awoke, with strained, aching limbs, and brain yet hazy from delirium. Restored to the asylum and treated for his malady, he gradually returned from that labyrinthian world in which, for more than two months, his mind had wearily wandered.