The Watcher | Page 6

skill pronounces him actually dead--may he, after all, recover?"
Doctor Richards smiled, and shook his head.
"But--but a blunder may be made," resumed Barton. "Suppose an ignorant pretender to medical skill; may 'he' be so deceived by any stage of complaint, as to mistake what is only a part of the progress of the disease, for death itself?"
"No one who had ever seen death," answered he, "could mistake it in the case of lock-jaw."
Barton mused for a few minutes. "I am going to ask you a question, perhaps still more childish; but first tell me, are not the regulations of foreign hospitals, such as those of, let us say, Lisbon, very lax and bungling? May not all kinds of blunders and slips occur in their entries of names, and soforth?"
Doctor Richards professed his inability to answer that query.
"Well, then, doctor, here is the last of my questions. You will, probably, laugh at it; but it must out, nevertheless. Is there any disease, in all the range of human maladies, which would have the effect of perceptibly contracting the stature, and the whole frame--causing the man to shrink in all his proportions, and yet to preserve his exact resemblance to himself in every particular--with the one exception, his height and bulk; 'any' disease, mark, no matter how rare, how little believed in, generally, which could possibly result in producing such an effect?"
The physician replied with a smile, and a very decided negative.
"Tell me, then," said Barton, abruptly, "if a man be in reasonable fear of assault from a lunatic who is at large, can he not procure a warrant for his arrest and detention?"
"Really, that is more a lawyer's questions than one in my way," replied Doctor Richards; "but I believe, on applying to a magistrate, such a course would be directed."
The physician then took his leave; but, just as he reached the hall-door, remembered that he had left his cane up stairs, and returned. His reappearance was awkward, for a piece of paper, which he recognized as his own prescription, was slowly burning upon the fire, and Barton sitting close by with an expression of settled gloom and dismay. Doctor Richards had too much tact to appear to observe what presented itself; but he had seen quite enough to assure him that the mind, and not the body, of Captain Barton was in reality the seat of his sufferings.
A few days afterwards, the following advertisement appeared in the Dublin newspapers:
"If Sylvester Yelland, formerly a foremast man on board his Majesty's frigate Dolphin, or his nearest of kin, will apply to Mr. Robert Smith, solicitor, at his office, Dame-street, he or they may hear of something greatly to his or their advantage. Admission may be had at any hour up to twelve o'clock at night, for the next fortnight, should parties desire to avoid observation; and the strictest secrecy, as to all communications intended to be confidential, shall be honourably observed."
The Dolphin, as we have mentioned, was the vessel which Captain Barton had commanded; and this circumstance, connected with the extraordinary exertions made by the circulation of hand-bills, &c., as well as by repeated advertisements, to secure for this strange notice the utmost possible publicity, suggested to Doctor Richards the idea that Captain Barton's extreme uneasiness was somehow connected with the individual to whom the advertisement was addressed, and he himself the author of it. This, however, it is needless to add, was no more than a conjecture. No information whatsoever, as to the real purpose of the advertisement itself, was divulged by the agent, nor yet any hint as to who his employer might be.
Mr. Barton, although he had latterly begun to earn for himself the character of a hypochondriac, was yet very far from deserving it. Though by no means lively, he had yet, naturally, what are termed "even spirits," and was not subject to undue depressions. He soon, therefore, began to return to his former habits; and one of the earliest symptoms of this healthier tone of spirits was, his appearing at a grand dinner of the Freemasons, of which worthy fraternity he was himself a brother. Barton, who had been at first gloomy and abstracted, drank much more freely than was his wont--possibly with the purpose of dispelling his own secret anxieties--and under the influence of good wine, and pleasant company, became gradually (unlike his usual "self") talkative, and even noisy. It was under this unwonted excitement that he left his company at about half-past ten o'clock; and as conviviality is a strong incentive to gallantry, it occurred to him to proceed forthwith to Lady Rochdale's, and pass the remainder of the evening with her and his destined bride.
Accordingly, he was soon at ---- street, and chatting gaily with the ladies. It is not to be supposed that Captain