Among these nightly rambles, there is one that will ever be, I should think, deeply impressed upon me.
Everybody in the house had been in bed for hours. As I was far too restless to doze on the occasion, I had been stationary at the open window, counting the hours as they slowly passed, and it was now getting towards two o'clock, when I was to descend the ladder, already placed and hanging from the window.
In those days I was rarely troubled by low spirits, but at the present moment, I must own, that they partook considerably of the gloominess of the hour, and the scenery around. The night was very dark, but I could just see the ghost-like masses of the gigantic elms, as they stood motionless against the gloomy sky, and could even hear the quiet rippling sound of the river as it glided along in the distance, the night was so very still. But all this now horribly contrasted with a scene I had witnessed but a few hours ago on the banks of that river now so deserted.
A school-fellow and friend had there been drowned, and I had heard his piercing shriek as he fell from his boat. His body had not yet been recovered. This morning we had been playing at fives together. How were he and I occupied now! I dared hardly think, and then I pictured to myself his listless and lifeless body rolling under the stream into some dark depth:—
"And there I sat all heavily
As I heard the night-wind sigh—
Was it the wind that through some hollow stone
Sent that soft and tender moan!"
Just then the deep tone of the Castle death-bell came swelling across the river from the other side. In an instant I knew it was the harbinger of death—of the Princess Charlotte? I was right—she was just then dead!
This now struck me as a frightful moment. It was not from the fear of death, nor, alas! from the fear of God. What could it be? I am convinced that no one has literally trembled from fear, but now my heart felt as though it shivered. I stood motionless till the last and least sound had reverberated through the now silent court, and there was nothing to be heard but the beating of my own heart. There I stood fixed like a statue, afraid to stir, even to heave my chest to sigh—this, then, was superstition.
I gradually arose from my trance to be conscious of the truth; and now even concluding it to be my duty to combat against the weakness, though in a joyless mood, I descended the ladder.
"Time and tide tarry for no man," and I think even less for me. The day had now come that I was to take leave of Keate and of Eton, and return to my father's house—and for what! I had not a suspicion, or whether I was destined for the army, church, law, or for anything else. The prospect, however, appeared cloudy and comfortless, and I was now to reside for an indefinite period at the only place, much as I did love the spot, where I ever felt myself to be in the midst of strangers. Here, apparently, I was another being than when at Eton—reserved, gloomy and distrustful—cold and unfeeling—wandering about the place like a solitaire, as I was. I had not, nor have I ever had, an acquaintance in the county—I had never been into another house. Should any friends of the family be staying with them, I would take my breakfast of bread and milk before the usual hour, in order to avoid meeting them, and then absented myself for the rest of the day, until dinner-time. This last was indeed a painful ordeal, especially should there be any ladies present.
The truth is, circumstances, and by no means my own inclinations, forced me to be mute, and that, too, at times, when I would have almost given my life to have been otherwise, and then I looked ashamed of myself, as I really was, for my apparent deficiency of good breeding.