The Professor and the Madman

Please identify the accused.

Dr. William Chester Minor...

Captain Surgeon in the US Army, retired.

Dr. Minor has come to our shores seeking sanctuary.

In his home country of the United States, he was pursued...

relentlessly by a man pledged to torture and kill him.

On that fateful night...

of the 17th of February, the defendant woke with a start...

he knew right away that he had been hunted down and found...

that his pursuer, one Declan Reilly was indeed, in his rooms.

Dr. Minor reached for his service revolver and gave chase.

Fenian!

In the streets, he found a man running.

Help! Help!

Help!

Eliza, open the door! Eliza!

Eliza!

In the confusion of night...

he failed to discern the difference...

between his assailant and the innocent George Merrett.

Eliza.

Stop there!

This is not the Fenian!

No!

This is not the Fenian?

No!

I'm sorry! Sorry!

No!

My Lord, Dr. Minor shot the wrong man.

So... he didn't mean it.

My Lord, perhaps the court should simply release...

the good doctor with an apology...

for the misunderstanding that has occurred.

Your Honor!?

Declan... Declan Reilly is his name!

He has a brand on the left side of his face, he comes at night!

He comes with others, they haunt me, they come into my rooms!

I do not believe you, sir. This court does not believe you.

Quiet, please! Quiet in court!

Quiet, please! Quiet!

Quiet, quiet!

We, the members of her Majesty's jury...

find Dr. William Chester Minor not guilty...

of the willful murder of George Merrett...

Quiet! Quiet!

...on the grounds of insanity.

I am not insane, sir.

Quiet, please!

William Chester Minor, it is hereby this court's ruling...

that you shall be detained in safe custody...

at Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane...

until Her Majesty's pleasure be known.

Quiet, please!

Move, move!

Bloody bollocks hell!

Hey! Any more of that and you're off!

Harold!

I must get back in, father.

In a tick, boy. Take a few breaths.

Mind the long run down the flank.

If you see the brute coming, stay downpitch...

and don't let him pull you in, all right?

And try for the clean catch.

Yes, sir. The game, sir.

Harold, about your use of words...

Yes, sir.

Good. In you go, boy, go on. Yes, sir!

I had a word with him.

Yes, I saw.

In the paper, a dreadful story, a shooting in Lambeth...

by an American, an army officer...

and that poor woman left behind with six children.

That I saw.

I don't know what I would do, James...

if you were taken like that.

Yes! That's it, that's it!

Yes! Yes!

Yes, yes! How's that, you ensanguined mule?

That's it, you're off! What's wrong with ensanguined?

Get off! Harold! Harold!

I wish to state that I possess a general lexical...

and structural knowledge of the languages...

and literature of the Aryan and Syro-Arabic classes.

I have recently submitted my paper on the declension...

of German verbs to the Philological Society.

Mr. Murray, I understand that...

you do not possess a university degree.

No, sir, no degree.

I am an autodidact, self-taught.

I am aware of the word. Schooling?

Left at 14 to earn a living.

Honestly, Freddie, it's a bit much.

A bit much, yes.

Of course, we, the august delegates...

of the Oxford University Press...

have been attempting to make this dictionary...

for the last 20 years.

And despite the greatest efforts of a whole army of academics...

myself included, we are precisely nowhere.

Forgive me that is incorrect.

We are, in fact, going backwards.

The language is developing faster than our progress.

This great tongue of ours, which reaches out across the world...

has drawn its guns, sharpened its bayonets...

and declared that it will not be tamed.

And we, with our debates ad nauseam about the scope...

the mode, the purpose of these words have all...

but thrown ourselves down in supplication before it...

bathed in abject defeat.

At this moment, the endeavor is dead.

Is that too much, Max?

Gentlemen, I'm afraid nothing...

short of a panacea is called for.

I submit that the extraordinary, the unconventional...

Mr. Murray is the solution and our salvation.

Your account, though a bit dramatic, is true, Freddie.

But we need something more than impassioned advocacy.

Qualifications come to mind. Perhaps a Bachelor's Degree.

Qualifications, yes.

Well, I am fluent in Latin and Greek, of course.

Beyond those, I have an intimate knowledge...

of the Romance tongues, Italian, French, Spanish...

Catalan and to a lesser degree Portuguese, Vaudois...

Provencal and other dialects.

In the Teutonic branch, I am familiar with German, Dutch...

Danish and Flemish.

I have specialized in Anglo-Saxon and Moeso-Gothic...

and have prepared works for publication...

in both of these languages.

I also have a useful knowledge of Russian.

I have sufficient knowledge of Hebrew and Syriac to read...

at sight the Old Testament and the Peshito...

to a lesser degree, Aramaic, Arabic, Coptic...

and Phoenician to the point where it was left by Genesius.

Forgive me rattling on.

I'm sure you have questions.

Mr. Murray, a word comes to mind... clever.

Can you define it and tell us its history?

I'll make a fist of it, on the hoof, as it were.

Clever: adjective. Meaning - adroit, nimble, dextrous.

Probably from the Low German, Klover.

Or perhaps the Middle Dutch, Klever...

with a "k", meaning sprightly or smart.

Mr. Murray is also a master of the Scottish clog dance.

Forgive me for keeping it from you...

I scarcely believed in the chance myself.

It's all mine, Ada, the entire language.

I've never known how to resist it, your exuberance...

but it's so sudden.

And to abandon all this, the school, the constancy.

Is it truly what you wish for all of us?

Ada, I'm an untutored linen draper's boy from Teviotdale...

now, suddenly, with a real crack at it.

My entire life has been in preparation for this.

The call has finally come.

Whatever I've done, I've done with you.

I've never been able to without you.

Once again, lend yourself to me?

If I am to fashion a book, I'll need a spine.

Father!

Elsie, children.

Are we going somewhere?

To Oxford, your father is the editor...

of the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.

What is that?

It's a very big book with a lot of words in it.

All the words of the English language.

Like Doctor Johnson's Dictionary?

Yes, but his book comprised of only a mere handful of words.

I am charged with identifying and defining every last word!

Will "happy" be in there, Father?

Aye, "happy" will be there, Elsie.

My dictionary will need as many volumes as these...

to house the entire language.

Will "sad"?

"Sad" will be there, yes, aye.

What about "big", will "big" be in there?

Yeah, aye, and "small" too.

There isn't a word you can think of that...

will not be in this very big book.

Father? Yes, Oswyn.

Will "Oswyn" be in there?

Uh... probably...

Never play with books, all right? That's wrong.

Wednesday, April 17, 1872. Inmate number 742.

742, admittance.

Minor, William Chester...

American, 48 years old...

surgeon, a captain in the United States Army.

No known religion, classified a danger to others.

Assigned to Block Two.

The prisoner is in a rage, spitting dozens of times...

by his own account trying not to swallow poison-coated...

cold, iron bars that have been pressed against his teeth.

In you go.

March 17th...

three days now the prisoner has gone without sleep.

Constantly leaping from his bed to search...

underneath it in sheer terror.

Repeatedly claiming to look for those coming for him at night.