This evening I began writing a new ballade, in the French manner. I think it very good.
Rampole moved in his chair, and looked up uneasily, to be met by the staring light across the meadow. Below him on the lawn he heard Dr. Fell expounding some point in connection with the drinking customs of England, and the protesting rumble of the rector. Then he continued reading, skimming the pages. They were far from complete. A number of entire years were omitted altogether, and in others there were merely some jottings. But the parade of horror, cruelty, high-sounding preachments, and miserly chucklings over twopence saved, while old Anthony scribbled away at his verses. these were only a prelude.
A change was coming over the writer. He began to scream to his journal.
They call me a "limping Herrick," do they? [he writes in 1812]. A "Dryden in falsetto." But I begin to think of a plan. I do heartily abhor and curse each of those to which I have the misfortune to be bound by ties of blood. There are things one can buy and things one can do to defeat them. By which I am reminded that the rats are growing thicker lately. They come into my room, and I can see them beyond the circle of my lamp as I write.
He has grown a new literary style with the passing years, but his rage grows like a mania. Under the year 1814 there is only one entry:
I must go slowly with the buying. Each year, each year. The rats seem to know me now.
Out of all the rest, of them, one passage brought Rampole up with a shock.
June 23. 1 am wasting, and I find it difficult to sleep. Several times I have believed to hear a knocking on the outside of the iron door which leads to my balcony. But there is no person there when I open it. My lamp smokes worse, and I believe to feel things in my bed. But I have the beauties safe. It is good that I am strong in the arms.
Now the wind rushed fully in at the window, almost blowing the sheets from Rampole's hands. He had a sudden horrible feeling as though they had been jerked away from him; and the ticking and scrambling of the bugs outside did not add to his easiness. The lamp flame jumped slightly, but resumed its steady yellow glow. Lightning illuminated the prison, followed in an instant by a full crash of thunder….
Not yet through with Anthony's journal, and the diary of another Starberth still to come. But he was too fascinated to read faster; he had watched the one-eyed old governor shrivel up with the years, wearing now his tall hat and tight-waisted coat, and carrying the gold-headed cane he mentioned frequently. All of a sudden, the dogged quiet of the diary was broken!
July 9. Oh Lord Jesus, sweet dispenser of mercy to the helpless, look upon me and aid me! I do not know why, but my sleep is gone, and I can thrust a finger between the bones of these ribs. Will they eat my pets?
Yesterday we hanged a man for murder, as already noticed. He wore a blue-and-white striped waistcoat to the gallows. The crowd booed me.
I sleep now with two rush-lights burning. There is a soldier on guard at my door. But last night, the while I was making out my report upon this execution, I heard patterings in my room, to the which I tried to pay no heed. I had trimmed my bedside candle, — put on my nightcap, and prepared to read in bed, when I noted a movement among the bedclothes. Whereupon I took my loaded pistol from the table and called to the soldier to throw back the clothes. And when he had done it, doubtless thinking me mad, I saw in the bed a large grey rat looking up at me with his eyes. He was wet, and there was a large pool of black water there; and the rat was gorged fat, and seemed to be trying to shake loose from his sharp teeth a flimsy of blue-and-white striped cloth.
This rat the soldier killed with the butt of his musket, the rat being not well able to run across the floor. Nor would I sleep in the bed that night. I had them kindle a great fire, and dozed before it in a chair with warm rum. I thought that I was just falling asleep when I heard a murmur as of many voices on the balcony outside my iron door — though this is impossible, so many feet from the ground — and a low voice whispered at the keyhole, "Sir, will you come out and speak with us?" And, as I looked, methought there was water running under the door.
Rampole sat back with a constriction at his throat and. the palms of his hands damp. He was not even startled when the storm broke, the rain sheeting down into the dark lawn and hissing among the trees. He heard Dr. Fell cry: "Get those chairs in! We can watch from the dining-room!' — and the rector replying with something unintelligible. His eyes were fixed on the pencilled note at the end of the journal; Dr. Fell's handwriting, for it bore the initials G.F.
He was found dead on the morning of Sept. 10, 1820. The night before had been stormy, with a high wind, and it is improbable that the turnkeys or soldiers would have heard any cry had he made one. He was found lying with his neck broken across the stone coping around the well. Two of the spikes on this coping had been driven entirely through his body and impaled him with his head pointing down into the well.
There was some suggestion of foul play. No signs of any struggle were visible, however; and it was pointed out that, had he been attacked, even several assailants would have had their hands full. Despite his age, he was widely celebrated for the almost incredible strength of his arms and shoulders. This is a curious fact, since he seemed to develop it after he had taken over the governorship of the prison, and it steadily increased with the years. Latterly he remained always at the prison, rarely visiting his family at the Hall. The eccentric behavior of his later life influenced the findings of the coroner's jury, which were: "Death by misadventure while of unsound mind."
— G.F., Yew Cottage, 1923.
Putting his tobacco-pouch on the loose sheets to keep them from blowing, Rampole sat back again. He was staring out at the drive of the rain, visualizing that scene. Automatically he lifted his eyes to the window of the Governor's Room. Then he sat for an instant motionless….
The light in the Governor's Room was out.
Only a sheet of rain flickering in darkness before him. He got up spasmodically, feeling so weak that he could not push the chair away, and glanced over his shoulder at the travelling-clock.
It was not yet ten minutes to twelve. A horrible sensation of unreality, and a feeling as though the chair were entangled in his legs. Then he heard Dr. Fell's shout from downstairs somewhere. They had seen it, too. It couldn't have been out more than a second. The face of the clock swam; he couldn't take his eyes from those placid small hands, or hear anything but the casual ticking in a great silence….
Then he was wrenching at the knob of the door, throwing it open, and stumbling downstairs, in a physical nausea which made him dizzy. Dimly he could see Dr. Fell and the rector standing bareheaded in the rain, staring towards the prison, and the doctor still was carrying a chair under his arm. The doctor caught his arm.
"Wait a minute! What's the matter, boy?" he demanded. "You're as white as a ghost. What-
"We've got to get over there! The light's out! The―"
They were all panting a little, heedless of the rain splashing into their faces. It got into Rampole's eyes, and for a moment he could not see.
"I shouldn't go so fast," Saunders said. — "It's that beastly business you've been reading; don't believe in it. He may have miscalculated the time… Wait! You don't know the way!"
Rampole had torn from the doctor's grasp and was running through the soggy grass towards the meadow. They heard Rampole say, "I promised her!" — and then the rector was pounding after him. Despite his bulk, Saunders was a runner. Together they slithered down a muddy bank; Rampole felt water gushing into his tennis shoes as he bumped against a rail fence. He vaulted it, plunged down a slope and up again through the long grass of the meadow. He could see little through the blinding cataract of rain, but he realized that unconsciously he was bearing to the left, toward the Hag's Nook. That wasn't right; that wasn't the way in; but the memory of Anthony's journal burned too vividly in his brain. Saunders cried out something behind him, which was lost under the crackle and boom of thunder. In the ensuing flash of lightning he saw a gesticulating Saunders running away from him to the right, towards the gate of the prison, but he still kept on his way.