Читать книгу Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself - Robert Montgomery Bird - Страница 25
ОглавлениеSHEPPARD LEE IS VISITED BY NEW FRIENDS, RELEASED FROM PRISON, AND CARRIED TO HIS NEW PLACE OF ABODE.
Another service that the attorney did me, according to the jailer, through whom I discovered all these things, was to despatch a messenger to my friends in Philadelphia, with the news of my insanity and imprisonment, and a request that they should send proper persons to take charge of me after being liberated: and I was roused the following morning by the appearance of some half a dozen kinsmen who had come to the village for that purpose, fully persuaded that they should find me a raging lunatic.
But the jailer's information had set me to reflecting upon my difficulties, all of which, as I clearly perceived, were owing to my indiscretion in attempting to keep up the character of Sheppard Lee while in another man's body. I saw the necessity I was now placed under to be Mr. John H. Higginson, and nobody else, for the future; and so I resolved to be—for I did not like the idea of being clapped into a mad-house by my new friends.
Yet they took me so much by surprise that I was guilty of some few inconsistencies; for it was not immediately that I felt myself at case in my new character.
The truth is, my situation was peculiar and embarrassing. With the body of Mr. Higginson, I had acquired all his distinctive peculiarities, as I mentioned before. But many of these were in a manner stupified within me, and required to be renewed, or resuscitated, by processes of association. I was like a man who has been roused from a lethargy, which had destroyed or obscured his memory, though not his instincts; and who betrays complete ignorance of past events, and forgetfulness of old friends, until some accidental circumstance—a casual reference to some past event, the tone of a voice, or other such cause—recalls him, it may be, to sudden and complete, though usually imperfect, consciousness.
Thus, when I was roused up in the morning, and beheld a good-looking personage of about my own years shaking me by the shoulder, I regarded him only as some impertinent stranger intruding upon my privacy, saluted him with divers epithets expressive of rage and indignation, and concluded by asking him "who the devil he was?"
"What! I?" said he, with the most doleful visage in the world; "why, Timothy—that is, Tim Doolittle, your brother-in-law—Don't you know me?"
And "Don't you know me? and me? and me? your cousin, Tom This, and your old friend, Dick That?" cried they all, with horrible long faces; the oddity of which after a while set me a laughing, especially when I came to recollect them all, as I did by-and-by when they had pronounced their names; for at each name it seemed to me as if a film fell from my eyes, and some spirit within awakened me to a vague recollection of the person to whom it belonged. In a word, I became aware that I was surrounded by a knot of my oldest and best friends, all of them excellent jolly dogs and good fellows, who were come to escort me home, and assured me that I was no longer a prisoner.
I shook them all by the hand, and contrasting for a moment in my mind the melancholy condition in which I had lived as Sheppard Lee, with my present glorious state, surrounded by friends, and conscious of possessing lands, houses, stocks, Schuylkill coal-mines, and the Lord knows what other goods beside, I fell into a rapture, danced about my cell, and hugged every person present, as well as the jailer, and my old friend Darling, the attorney, who happened at that moment to enter.
"Bravo!" said Tim Doolittle; "now you're the true Jack Higginson again; and I don't believe you are mad a bit."
"Mad!" said I, thinking it needful to explain away that imputation, "No, and I never was. I tumbled over an old rotten fence, and hurt my head, which was, in consequence, in a whiz all day yesterday; but now it is clear enough. I think I said some silly things about one thing and another; but that's neither here nor there."
"Ah!" said Tim Doolittle, touching his forehead and looking as grave as a bullfrog, "it's well it's no worse; for I always thought you had a turn for apoplexy. But I'm glad you are so well; it will be good news for poor Margaret."
"Margaret! who the deuse is she?" said I, feeling quite strange at the name.
"Why, my poor sister, your wife, to be sure," said he.
My wife!!! I recollected that I had a wife; but the recollection made me feel, I knew not exactly why, as if I had been suddenly soused into cold water. It was a highly uncomfortable idea, and accordingly I hastened to get rid of it.
"Let us leave this confounded place," I said; and we left the prison.
The prospect of a fine sunshiny day infused animation into my mind, which was vastly increased when I stepped into a splendid new barouche, with a pair of bay horses worth a thousand dollars—for so much Tim gave me to understand I—that is to say, my prototype—had given for them scarce a month before—the whole establishment being therefore my own! "What a happy man am I! Ah! poor miserable Sheppard Lee! Farewell now to poverty! farewell to discontent!"
Such were my secret ejaculations as we set out in my splendid barouche, followed by a train of gigs and carriages that contained my friends. I esteemed myself the happiest man in the world; and I gave my last sigh to the memory of Sheppard Lee.
What a glorious time we had of it on our way to Philadelphia! I found myself the richest man in the company—my pocketbook was full of bank-notes—and I resolved to give my friends a blow-out. We stopped at a certain village, and at a certain hotel therein, the master of which prepares the best dinners, and has the best butt of genuine Madeira, in all New-Jersey. "Let us rest and rejoice," I said, "and we will drive into town after nightfall."
My friends agreed; we ate, drank, and were merry; and it was not until after sunrise the next morning that we found ourselves in Philadelphia, and in my—yes, excellent reader—in my house in Chestnut-street, south side, two doors from the corner of—But it is needless to be particular. The house is yet standing, in a highly aristocratic neighbourhood, and is not yet converted into a dry-goods shop.
I reached my house: I—But before I relate what befell me in that splendid pile of red bricks, which, like its neighbours, seems to be blushing all the year round at its naked simplicity, I must say a few words more of Sheppard Lee.
