Page:The Lady's Book Vol. V.pdf/95

 THE DARK DAY. 91

connected with events of happy issue, that we experience delight in renewing our acquaintance with inanimate nature. “I assured him that whatever pleasure I might receive from the rich prospect which lay before me, any sensations at the sight I perceived arose from a recollection of my childish adventures upon these shores.“You are then a native of Kingston, “said he: I pointed to the house at our left, which contained the last of those in that place to whom I could claim consanguinity.

“You will probably recollect me, “said the stranger. I replied in the negative. “My name, “said he, “is -. ““I remember several, “said I, “of that name, but only one which could be of your age; and he, if I recollect aright, was too deeply afflicted to be allowed the privilege which we enjoy climbing at pleasure the accumulation of rocks which surround us, or wandering along this shore, possessing freedom of body and mind. "

The slight hectic flush which passed over the ashy visage of the stranger, convinced me that I had awakened unpleasant sensations.

I gazed with some attention upon his face, and recognized the features of a man whom, in my boyish days, I had seen confined in a small cell, where his ravings were familiar to every person within a mile of his wretched abode; in a moment the threats of revenge and dreadful imprecations that I had heard him vent from the single opening of his wretched den, came fresh upon my mind, and that too, with a fear lest he should visit upon me, the injuries which he thought he had received at the hands of others, and to which I had apparently awakened his recollection. I therefore turned to leave him, but as I caught his eye, I found it bent rather in sorrow than anger, upon the shore of the distant beach that skirts the outer edge of the bay; some painful recollections were pressing upon his mind, and he appeared absorbed in thoughts that sprung from the events of other years.

My attempt to turn away recalled his attention.

“I was looking, “said he, “upon yonder beach -once a year I visit it in solitude; ' tis strange how its features have changed. As I sit upon this rock and gaze at its distant cliffs, I seem to see all the points and deep indentations that marked it forty years ago. I can at such moments -I did even now, clearly discover the projecting point that met the force of the whole channel's current, and from which I dragged

“"

The man started as he approached a subject which evidently excited in him a most painful recollection. He passed his hand repeatedly over his forehead, and walked with a hurried and uneven step several paces backward and forward. I recollected at the moment, that there had been some story current among the children, relative to the cause of his lunacy; and it appeared as if something of disappointment in affection had been assigned as the cause. While framing in my mind some question that might lead him to a more distinct reference to the melancholy

subject, without myself incurring the charge of indelicacy, he seated himself upon a large stone near me, and applying some of the wet rockweed to his forehead, he remained for a moment silent.

At length, throwing from him the moist weed, he muttered to himself, “It is of no avail; nothing -nothing will cool the burning fever in my head, which this prospect excites; and yet, whatever be my determination, to this point do all my movements tend. "

Whatever were the man's feelings, there was no parade of grief; he was, I venture to say, perfectly unconscious of my presence; his eye had been upon the distant beach, and if thought ever sits in the eye, there was a multitude in his. I approached him, and recalled his attention; I endeavoured to weaken the impressions which present objects were making upon him, by leading him gradually to subjects unconnected with them; at the same time evincing my sympathy with that portion of his grief which I could understand; we parted after a short conversation, and I did not learn until some days after, that my attention to his sufferings had created in him a desire to renew our acquaintance.

Our next meeting convinced me of what I had been taught when in my childhood, that his mind was stored with some of the best of European literature; he appeared familiar with books, which even now are scarcely to be found in our most literary circles; and he frequently illustrated his remarks by referring to authors that I had never heard mentioned in that portion of the country; and he, it was certain, had never been thirty miles from the place we then occupied.

To express my astonishment at his knowledge, would have been a breach of decorum, and yet to suffer such a discovery to pass without astonishment, would be impossible. To hear him quote Virgil or Homer in their native language, would not have been surprising, because Virgil and Homer were among the common school books of the place; but the language of Dante, Ariosto, and Tasso, were as familiar to him, as the language of his bible. His reference to authors did not appear to be any exercise of vanity on his part; and if it was made for any other purpose than to illustrate an idea, or enrich a phrase, it must have been to check a reprehensible vanity evident on my part, to make my own acquaintance with modern classics appear superior to his.

Tasso, he had not seen for many years, yet hø quoted his expressions with ease. It was not the language of Hoole, indeed, but it had more the spirit of the original. I ventured to enquire of him how he had obtained a knowledge of authors which I had never heard named in the circle in which he had always lived; he appeared at first unwilling to answer. At length, as if having conquered his objections, he replied: -

“I have for years brooded in silence over my miseries, and that very silence may have added to them. The question which you ask may