window at which I write. But
fair scene, green woods, bright terraces gleaming in sunshine, and
purple clouds swollen with summer rain--nay, the very pages over which
my head bends--disappear from before my eyes. They are looking
backwards, back into forty years off, into a dark room, into a little
house hard by on the Common here, in the Bartlemytide holidays. The
parents have gone to town for two days: the house is all his own, his
own and a grim old maid-servant's, and a little boy is seated at night
in the lonely drawing-room, poring over "Manfroni, or the One-handed
Monk," so frightened that he scarcely dares to turn round.

_Thackeray._

NIGHT WALKS

Some years ago, a temporary inability to sleep, referable to a
distressing impression, caused me to walk about the streets all night,
for a series of several nights. The disorder might have taken a long
time to conquer, if it had been faintly experimented on in bed; but,
it was soon defeated by the brisk treatment of getting up directly
after lying down, and going out, and coming home tired at sunrise.

In the course of those nights, I finished my education in a fair
amateur experience of houselessness. My principal object being to get
through the night, the pursuit of it brought me into sympathetic
relations with people who have no other object every night in the
year.

The month was March, and the weather damp, cloudy, and cold. The sun
not rising before half-past five, the night perspective looked
sufficiently long at half-past twelve: which was about my time for
confronting it.

The restlessness of a great city, and the way in which it tumbles and
tosses before it can get to sleep, formed one of the first
entertainments offered to the contemplation of us houseless people. It
lasted about two hours. We lost a great deal of companionship when the
late public-houses turned their lamps out, and when the potmen thrust
the last brawling drunkards into the street; but stray vehicles and
stray people were left us, after that. If we were very lucky, a
policeman's rattle sprang and a fray turned up; but, in general,
surprisingly little of this diversion was provided. Except in the
Haymarket, which is the worst kept part of London, and about
Kent-street in the Borough, and along a portion of the line of the Old
Kent-road, the peace was seldom violently broken. But, it was always
the case that London, as if in imitation of individual citizens
belonging to