th his eyes fixed and staring on nothing, and
uttering ejaculations for mercy for all his sins.

What these sins were he never confessed--nor, as far as man may judge of
man, had he ever committed any act that needed to lie heavy on his
conscience. But his whole being, he said, was one black sin--and a
spirit had been sent to tell him, that his doom was to be with the
wicked through all the ages of eternity. That spirit, without form or
shadow--only a voice--seldom left his side day or night, go where he
would; but its most dreadful haunt was under a steep rock called
Blakerigg-scaur; and thither, in whatever direction he turned his face
on leaving his own door, he was led by an irresistible impulse, even as
a child is led by the hand. Tenderly and truly had he once loved his
wife and daughter, nor less because that love had been of few words, and
with a shade of sorrow. But now he looked on them almost as if they had
been strangers--except at times, when he started up, kissed them, and
wept. His whole soul was possessed by horrid fantasies, of which it was
itself object and victim; and it is probable that had he seen them both
lying dead, he would have left their corpses in the house, and taken his
way to the mountains. At last one night passed away and he came not. His
wife and daughter, who had not gone to bed, went to the nearest house
and told their tale. In an hour a hundred feet were traversing all the
loneliest places--till a hat was seen floating on Loughrigg-tarn, and
then all knew that the search was near an end. Drags were soon got from
the fishermen on Windermere, and a boat crossed and recrossed the tarn
on its miserable quest, till in an hour, during which wife and daughter
sat without speaking on a stone by the water-edge, the body came
floating to the surface, with its long silver hair. One single shriek
only, it is said, was heard, and from that shriek till three years
afterwards, his widow knew not that her husband was with the dead. On
the brink of that small sandy bay the body was laid down and cleansed of
the muddy weeds--his daughter's own hands assisting in the rueful
work--and she walked among the mourners, the day before the Sabbath,
when the funeral entered the little burial-ground of Langdale chapel,
and the congregation sung a Christian psalm over the grave of the
forgiven suicide.

We cannot patronise the practice of walking in large parties of ten or a
score, ram-stam and helter-skelter,