While waiting anxiously for the answer, it cost
him all his philosophy to keep his heart from
eating itself. But he fought the good fight of
Reason: he invited the confidences of the quieter
mad people, and established a little court, and
heard their grievances, and by impartial decisions
and good humour won the regard of the moderate
patients, and of the attendants, all but three;
Rooke, the head keeper, a morose burly ruffian;
Hayes, a bilious subordinate, Rooke's shadow;
and Vulcan, a huge mastiff that would let nobody
but Rooke touch him; he was big as a large
calf, and formidable as a small lion, though nearly
toothless with age. He was let loose in the
yard at night, and was an element in the
Restraint System; many a patient would have
tried to escape but for Vulcan. He was also an
invaluable howler at night, and so co-operated
with Dr. Wolf's bugs and fleas to avert sleep,
that vile foe to insanity and all our diseases,
private asylums included.

Alfred treated Mrs. Archbold with a distant
respect that tried her hard. But that able woman
wore sweetness and unobtrusive kindness, and
bided her time. At last he gave her an
opportunity, and it will be seen whether she took it.

In Drayton House the keeperesses eclipsed
the keepers in cruelty to the poorer patients.
No men except Dr. Wolf and his assistant had
a pass-key into their department, so there was
nobody they could deceive, nobody they held
worth the trouble. In the absence of male
critics they showed their real selves, and how
wise it is to trust that gentle sex in the dark with
irresponsible power over females. With unflagging
patience they applied the hourly torture of
petty insolence, needless humiliation, unreasonable
refusals, to the poor madwomen; bored
them with the poisoned gimlet, and made their
hearts bleeding pincushions. But minute cruelty
and wild caprice were not enough for them,
though these never tired nor rested; they
must vilify them too with degrading and savage
names. Billingsgate might have gone to school to
Drayton House. Inter alia they seemed in love
with a term that Othello hit upon; only they
used it not once, but fifty times a day, and struck
decent women with it on the face, like a scorpion
whip; and then the scalding tears were sure to
run in torrents adown their silly, honest, burning
cheeks. But this was not all; they had got a
large tank in a flagged room, nominally for
cleanliness and cure, but really for bane and torture.
For the least offence, or out of mere wantonness,
they would drag a patient stark naked across the
yard, and thrust her bodily under water again
and again, keeping her down till almost gone
with suffocation, and dismissing her more dead
than alive with obscene and insulting comments
ringing in her ears, to get warm again in the cold.
This my ladies called "tanking."

In the ordinary morning ablutions they tanked
without suffocating. But the immersion of the
whole body in cold water was of itself a severe
trial to those numerous patients in whom the
circulation was weak; and, as medical treatment,
hurtful and even dangerous. Finally these
keeperesses, with diabolical insolence and cruelty,
would bathe twenty patients in this tank, and
then make them drink that foul water for their
meals.

"The dark places of the land are full of horrible cruelty."

One day they tanked so savagely that Nurse
Eliza, after months of sickly disapproval, came
to the new redresser of grievances, and told.

What was he to do? He seized the only
chance of redress; he ran panting with indignation
to Mrs. Archbold, and blushing high, said
imploringly, "Oh, Mrs. Archbold, you used to
be kind hearted—— "and could say no more
for something rising in his throat.

Mrs. Archbold smiled encouragingly on him,
and said softly, "I am the same I always was—
to you , Alfred."

"Oh, thank you; then pray send for Nurse
Eliza, and hear the cruelties that are being done
to the patients within a yard of us."

"You had better tell me yourself, if you want
me to pay any attention."

"I can't. I don't know how to speak to a lady
of such things as are done here. The brutes! the
cowardly she-devils! Oh, how I should like to
kill them."

Mrs. Archbold laughed a little at his
enthusiasm (fancy caring so what was done to a
pack of women), and sent for Nurse Eliza. She
came, and being questioned told Mrs. Archbold
more than she had Alfred. "And, ma'am," said
she, whimpering, "they have just been tanking
one they had no business to touch; it is Mrs. Dale,
her that is so close on her confinement. They
tanked her cruel they did, and kept her under
water till she was nigh gone. I came away; I
couldn't stand it."

Alfred was walking about in a fury, and Nurse
Eliza, in making this last revolting communication,
lowered her voice for him not to hear; but
his senses were quick. I think he heard, for he
turned and came quickly to them.

"Mrs. Archbold, you are strong and brave—
for a woman; oh, do go in to them and take
them by the throat and shake the life out of
them, the merciless, cowardly beasts! Oh that
I could be a woman for an hour, or they could
be men, I'd soon have my foot on some of the
wretches."

Mrs. Archbold acted. Ignition. "Come with
me both of you," she said, and they were soon
in the female department. Up came keeperesses
directly, smirking and curtseying to her, and
pretending not to look at Adonis. "Which of
you nurses tanked Mrs. Dale?" said she, sternly.

"Twasn't I, ma'am, 'twasn't I."

"Oh fie!" said Eliza to one, "you know you
were at the head of it."

She pointed out two as the leaders. The
Archbold instantly had them seized by the others
—who, with treachery equal to their cowardice,
turned eagerly against their fellow-culprits, to