station beside my unequalled friend; to share his labours, and save him, if
so it must be, at the expence of my life. Yet I dreaded to witness the
anguish which my resolve might excite in Idris. I had vowed to my own heart
never to shadow her countenance even with transient grief, and should I
prove recreant at the hour of greatest need? I had begun my journey with
anxious haste; now I desired to draw it out through the course of days and
months. I longed to avoid the necessity of action; I strove to escape from
thought--vainly--futurity, like a dark image in a phantasmagoria, came
nearer and more near, till it clasped the whole earth in its shadow.

A slight circumstance induced me to alter my usual route, and to return
home by Egham and Bishopgate. I alighted at Perdita's ancient abode, her
cottage; and, sending forward the carriage, determined to walk across the
park to the castle. This spot, dedicated to sweetest recollections, the
deserted house and neglected garden were well adapted to nurse my
melancholy. In our happiest days, Perdita had adorned her cottage with
every aid art might bring, to that which nature had selected to favour. In
the same spirit of exaggeration she had, on the event of her separation
from Raymond, caused it to be entirely neglected. It was now in ruin: the
deer had climbed the broken palings, and reposed among the flowers; grass
grew on the threshold, and the swinging lattice creaking to the wind, gave
signal of utter desertion. The sky was blue above, and the air impregnated
with fragrance by the rare flowers that grew among the weeds. The trees
moved overhead, awakening nature's favourite melody--but the melancholy
appearance of the choaked paths, and weed-grown flower-beds, dimmed even
this gay summer scene. The time when in proud and happy security we
assembled at this cottage, was gone--soon the present hours would join
those past, and shadows of future ones rose dark and menacing from the womb
of time, their cradle and their bier. For the first time in my life I
envied the sleep of the dead, and thought with pleasure of one's bed under
the sod, where grief and fear have no power. I passed through the gap of
the broken paling--I felt, while I disdained, the choaking tears--I
rushed into the depths of the forest. O death and change, rulers of our
life, where are ye, that I may grapple with you! What was there in our
tranquillity, that excited your envy--in our happiness, that ye should
d