Chapter VIII: Our Hero visits the Daughter of Robin Ap Rees in her Distress

As our hero was following Ap Rees to the street door of Mrs. Jennings’s house, Amelia met him in the passage. I am going with this young man, he said, upon a matter of business, that may keep me some time--but why are you alarmed, Amelia? there is no cause for it, I assure you: I only go to serve a friend--I am satisfied, she replied, I ask no questions; farewell!

In a poor little tenement, the habitation of a widow-woman, in the outskirts of the town, young Robin Ap Rees had a lodging room, and in that room there was a bed, wherein our benevolent young hero horror-struck beheld an emaciated delirious creature, bound down with straps; the ruin of a beauteous form; the wreck, which villainy had made of reason; a modest unsoiled maiden once, whose purity nothing but poisonous drugs could overthrow; a spectacle to rend the heart of man, and make an angel weep.

I cannot stand it, John exclaimed. Open the window: give me air, or I shall sink outright.

A voice was heard, that in a feeble but shrill tone murmured out--I know you--John had turned away from what he could not bear to look upon; he now again directed his eyes towards the object, that addressed him, and burst into an agony of tears.

Can man do this and live, he cried; can Heaven see this, and spare him?

I wish they would not tie me down, the poor creature said. I will be very quiet, whilst you are with me.

Release her, he exclaimed: she has not strength to hurt herself--They obeyed him instantly; the brother and the poor woman of the house set her free: she smiled upon them, and bowed her head in acknowledgment for the favour. There, there, said John, you see the terror of her looks subsides: I now discern an emanation of her former self. Nancy, my girl, compose yourself; be comforted! you say you know me: I am John De Lancaster, and come to comfort you, to clear your character, to restore you (with God’s leave) to health and happiness, and to sooth the sorrows of your father, whom you shall shortly see: again I say, compose yourself. I am your friend, and will not desert you, nor suffer you to be ill treated any longer.

God will reward you, she said: God knows my injuries; your generous nature would be shocked to hear them. If I may see my father and receive his blessing, I will die content.

You shall see your father: I will send for him directly.

Thank you! ’tis kind in you. I saw you ride by on your horse: I called after you, but you did not hear me. I am sure they did something to disorder my brain; it is not possible I could have devised such sinfulness else; no, no, it is not possible.

Doctor Roberts, (locally so intitled) now entered the chamber; he came opportunely, for the unhealed gashes on poor Nancy’s arms were bleeding afresh, and required the skill of a surgeon to stop them. The county of Denbigh, not then extremely fertile in men of medical celebrity, decidedly conferred the palm of pre-eminence on Doctor Roberts, and, in addition to the character of ability in his profession, he had, and merited to have, universal credit for benevolence and humanity: not to the diseased alone, but also to the distressed, his help was ready, and his hand was open.

He had attended on this piteous object at the suit of her unhappy brother; he had staunched the bleeding of her self-inflicted wounds, and had found it necessary to prescribe coercion, and to tie down her hands. An idea that her blood was poisoned had impressed her with the persuasion that to let it out was an act of duty, and the instant that she found her hands at liberty, she employed them in that office. The Doctor now stopped the bleeding, and provided against a repetition of it. When this was done, he attended to the anxious enquiries of John De Lancaster, with whose character and connections he was perfectly well acquainted. It was his opinion that the patient could not survive above two days: her pulse indicated approaching dissolution; nature was exhausted; the whole mass of her blood was broken; in fact it was absolutely poisoned by the inordinate infusion of pernicious stimulants, which had been insidiously administered in her diet and her drink for the most abominable purposes: of this he was convinced not only by her own evidence, but by symptomatic proofs, in which he could not be mistaken; in short he was certain, that when her death took place a jury of surgeons upon opening the body would confirm the fact, and this of course he recommended as a measure due to justice.

With the same view he advised that her deposition should be taken without loss of time in a legal manner, which he believed her competent to give, especially now that the loss of blood had cleared her intellect, though at the same time it might conspire to hasten her dissolution.

In conformity to this advice measures were immediately taken, and David Williams was dispatched to Kray Castle with the following letter from John to his grand-father.

“Most dear and honoured sir,

“I have been present at a scene of the most afflicting nature:
Nancy Ap Rees, the daughter of blind Robin, is dying in consequence
of practices too horrible to be described, that have been employed
against her for purposes the most diabolical. When you call to mind
the wretch, who has lately disappeared, it will spare me the pain
of committing his detestable name to the same paper, that is graced
with your’s, and signed with mine.

“Alas, my beloved grand-father, how deeply do I regret that it
should have been my lot so early in life, and for so long a portion
of it, to have been in any degree implicated with a miscreant, who,
after being convicted of the most disgraceful and unmanly conduct
in various instances, has by gradations in cruelty proceeded to the
extreme of all atrocity, and effected the violation of an innocent
and virtuous girl by means, that amount, as I conceive, to actual
murder.

“As the brother of this unhappy victim now on her death-bed, and by
intervals only possessed of her reason, has resorted to me in his
distress, how could I, a descendant of the De Lancasters and
grandson of the best and most benevolent of mankind, have been
worthy of my name, had I shrunk from the duties of humanity,
however irksome it may be to me, that any part of the trouble,
which ought to be all my own, should devolve upon you, without whom
I am nothing.

“The first thing I require of you is to send me over money, fully
sufficient to satisfy in a liberal manner all incidental expences
attending the care of this poor creature, whilst she has life; to
provide for the interment of her remains after death, and the
effectual prosecution of the wretch, and his accomplice or
accomplices, who to the crime of violation have added that of
poisoning her pure blood with drugs of the most inflammatory and
deadly nature.

“By my servant David Williams, who is the bearer of this, you will
immediately send me over one hundred pounds, and as the presence of
old Robin Ap Rees is earnestly expected by his dying child, you
will be pleased to give order for his safe and speedy conveyance
under care of some one of your household, who will prudently
prepare him for the meeting, happy in this one instance, that his
sight at least cannot be shocked by the sad and piteous spectacle,
that would else have awaited him.

“With these requisitions convinced that your benignant candour will
comply, I remain with all true devotion, &c. &c.

“JOHN DE LANCASTER.”

Whilst John withdrew to write this letter Doctor Roberts had been wholly occupied in his endeavours to keep life in his patient, who by successive faintings now sunk so fast, that De Lancaster only came back in time to see her eyes close for ever.

It was now so evident that the deceased had by her own act brought on immediate dissolution, that it became a doubt with Doctor Roberts, whether any satisfactory proofs could be adduced of her having died precisely by poisonous drugs, inasmuch as it was not possible for him to depose upon oath, though in opinion he was persuaded, that it was not in the power of medicine to have saved her, had she abstained from all self-violence.

Of the particular means used for the imposing those pernicious drugs upon her there was no such specification, as could be producible evidence in a court of justice; for no words had been taken down from the mouth of the deceased, and the fact of her insanity being incontrovertible, very little credit would be legally attached to the wanderings of a suicide, known to have been deprived of her reason: it was therefore judged advisable to waive the process, that had been in meditation, and not expose her miserable remains to an operation, which even John revolted from, whilst her brother in the most earnest manner besought them to dispense with it.

In these resolutions and opinions the debating parties were the more confirmed by the following letter, which young Williams brought with him on his return from Kray Castle--

“Your conduct, my beloved grandson, has my unqualified approbation, and your commands are punctually fulfilled. David Williams brings the sum you call for, and Ben my groom, a discreet and steady man, has instructions for the safe conveyance of Robin Ap Rees from Penruth Abbey to you at Denbigh.

“I am no lawyer, but it is clear to me, that if the drugs, which have been given with evil intent, can be proved to have been the actual, sole and immediate cause of death, it is a positive murder: if on the contrary it be true, as stated by your messenger, that the poor distracted creature was driven by desperation to the fatal act of opening her own veins, the case becomes more than doubtful, provided it shall turn out upon evidence, that her death has been accelerated thereby; for who is to say that life is not to be saved, though a physician may despair of it? Neither is it to be supposed, that the mild spirit of our laws will be so interpreted by judge and jury upon a trial for life, that out of two possible constructions that in preference shall be proceeded upon, which bears hardest against the prisoner at the bar.

“I would have you therefore be extremely guarded in your investigation of this intricate and complicated case, and take especial care to give no handle to a censorious world to insinuate that you are actuated by a prejudiced and hostile mind in consequence of what has passed between you and the person, upon whom the charge will bear, if it is seriously brought forward: recollect withal that the _good Samaritan_ contented himself with relieving the man, who had fallen amongst thieves, but did not busy himself either in the pursuit, or use means for the detection of them.

“I am entirely with you in your just abhorrence of those direful practices, that have effected the ruin, and probably the death, of the much-injured object, in whose cause you honourably stand forth; but temper your benevolence with caution, and remember that on your life depends all that is valuable in this world to

CENTER “Your affectionate “ROBERT DE LANCASTER.”