CHAP. XXIII.

Kerr Gowrie was now better lodged, fed, and permitted to take exercise without being obliged to go into the yard, where so many sad sights and sounds assailed him. In these respects his condition was improved: but he had still to undergo the silent, torturing visits of either Dr. Schurman or his assistant Schiff two days in the week. The sight of them always roused his choler to a degree, which he could hardly suppress but two keepers standing withinside of the door during their short visits, and the knowledge that to kick the intruder out of the room would be of no use, and only subject him to a strait-waistcoat and a week's imprisonment, with starvation on bread and water in one of the worst cells, made him put violent force on himself. Several times he begged to be allowed ink and paper. But this was refused, as was likewise a request for his books and telescope. He did not know what fate had befallen everything belonging to him. Thus his situation remained most melancholy. He knew that there were many of the unhappy inmates in chains, others subject to the harshest discipline. In this his condition differed from theirs, and he tried to fix his thoughts upon it, and to bear his long imprisonment with patience, hoping that the doctors might at last discover their mistake and release him.

Vain delusion! Seldom did the inexorable gates of the madhouses in those days suffer the escape of the victims committed to them even when returning reason took possession of her lost throne; and Kerr Gowrie felt with consternation at the end of two years that, in spite of the injustice of the charge against him, and the patience he exhibited, his chance of being freed was as far distant as ever. Still he struggled to keep up his spirits and invigorate his frame, by availing himself of the walk that was permitted him, in a spot so well enclosed as to need no keeper's presence. We must give a description of this bit of ground, where, be it winter or summer, cold or hot, half of his days were now spent.

The madhouse stood, as we said before, on a tongue of land which ran out into a dark, still

lake. The only way to reach it was along a narrow neck which joined it to the mainland, and on each side of which the lake spread out its waters. The front of the building, shut in with a high wall, faced into the country, the lake surrounding it except for the narrow neck. The spot of ground intended for recreation was at the back, stretching into the lake. The only mode of entrance into it was through an iron door, opening from a dark flagged passage leading from one of the yards. A low wall with iron palisades, so as not to exclude the view, enclosed this small space of ground which, raised about twenty feet above the lake, stood upon a sheer perpendicular rock, made more inaccessible by masonry, wherever nature had produced any cavity, or unevenness on the face of the declivity.

A few stunted trees and shrubs were scattered over the surface of the ground, which rose and fell into little mounds and dells. More trees had been planted, as might be seen by a withered stump here and there; but the barrenness of the spot rendered it unfavourable for their growth; in it, however, were several walks, one entirely round it, and stone seats in various directions.

Such was the spot appropriated to the unfortunate inmates for the purposes of health and recreation, and from which it was impossible they could escape; and here it was that Kerr Gowrie, at present the only patient permitted to enter it, spent hours in every day, musing on the past (for alas! he had but little hope for the future), his Bible and tablets his only consolation. Often, in his day-dreams, did Marion Leslie come before him, tearful, entreating, clinging to him, her betrothed, as he had last seen her, when, tearing himself from his beloved, he placed her in the arms of Lucy. Often in this solitary spot did a soft voice-a woman's voice-the voice of Marion Leslie, seem to whisper in his ear, to his heart. It came on the wings of the wind, in the rustling of the leaves, in the monotonous plash of the waters. It seemed to rouse him, make him start, sigh, exclaim-" No, I could not have acted otherwise: I could not have accepted such sacrifice!"