I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard--turned its angle:
there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two
stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I
could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I
advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any
bedroom window-blinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows, long
front--all from this sheltered station were at my command.
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this
survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I
was very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very
bold and reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then a
departure from my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a
sudden stop full in front of the great mansion, and a protracted,
hardy gaze towards it. "What affectation of diffidence was this at
first?" they might have demanded; "what stupid regardlessness now?"
Hear an illustration, reader.
A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to
catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals
softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses--fancying
she has stirred: he withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen.
All is still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil
rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes
anticipate the vision of beauty--warm, and blooming, and lovely, in
rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how they fix! How
he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the
form he dared not, a moment since, touch with his finger! How he
calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly!
He thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to
waken by any sound he can utter--by any movement he can make. He
thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone dead.
I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a
blackened ruin.
No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed!--to peep up at chamber
lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! No need to listen for
doors opening--to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-walk!
The lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned
void. The front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a well-
like wall, very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with
paneless windows: no roof, no battlements, no chimneys--all had
crashed in.