so exalted.  I only want my green fields, my dark mountains, my early rivers, with liberty to tread them for a brief space.  There lies over them in my imagination—­there does, my worthy and most taciturn friend, upon my soul there does—­a golden light so clear, so pure, so full of happiness, that I question whether that of heaven itself will surpass it in radiance.  But now I am caged once more, and will never see anything even like them again.”

The poor young man then wept for a couple of minutes, after which he added, “Yes, sir, this is at once my malady and my hope.  You see, then, I am not worth a plot, nor would it be a high-minded or honorable act for any gentleman to conspire against one who is nobody’s enemy, but appears to have all the world against him.  Yes, and they thought when I used to get into my silent moods that I was mad.  No, but I was in heaven, enjoying, as I said, my mountains, my rivers, and my green fields.  I was in heaven, I say, and walked in the light of heaven, for I was a little boy once more, and saw its radiance upon them, as I used to do long ago.  But do you know what occurs to me this moment, most taciturn?” He added, after a short pause, being moved, probably, by one of those quick and capricious changes to which both the intoxicated and insane are proverbially liable:  “It strikes me, that you probably are descended from the man in the iron mask—­ha—­ha—­ha!  Or stay, was there ever such a thing in this benevolent and humane world of ours as a man with an iron heart?  If so, who knows, then, but you may date your ancestry from him?  Ay, right enough; we are in a coach, I think, and going—­going—­going to—­to—­to—­ah, where to?  I know—­oh, my God—­we are going to—­to—­to——­” and here poor Fenton once more fell asleep, as was evident by his deep but oppressive breathing.

Now the baronet, although he maintained a strict silence during their journey, a silence which it was not his intention to break, made up for this cautious taciturnity by thought and those reflections which originated from his designs upon Fenton.  He felt astonished, in the first place, at the measures, whatever they might have been, by which the other must have obtained means of escaping from the asylum to which he had been committed with such strict injunctions as to his secure custody.  It occurred to him, therefore, that by an examination of his pockets he might possibly ascertain some clew to this circumstance, and as the man was not overburdened with much conscience or delicacy, he came to the determination, as Fenton was once more dead asleep, to search for and examine whatever papers he should find about him, if any.  For this purpose he ignited a match—­such as they had in those days—­and with this match lit up a small dark lantern, the same to which we have already alluded.  Aided by its light, he examined the sleeping young man’s pockets, in which he felt very little, in the shape of either money or papers, that could