t 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 compensate him for this act of larceny. In
a breast-pocket, however, inside his waistcoat, he found pinned to the
lining a note--a pound note--on the back of which was jotted a brief
memorandum of the day on which it was written, and the person from
whom he had received it. To this was added a second memorandum, in