It was a warm and very still night, without a moon,
but with enough of fading light to show the outlines of the garden
front. This long low line of buildings built in Charles I's reign looked
so exquisitely beautiful that I shall never forget it, though I have not
since seen its oriel windows and creeper-covered walls. There was a very
heavy dew on the broad lawn, and we walked at first only on the paths. No one spoke, for we were oppressed by the very beauty of the scene, and
by the sadness which an imminent parting from friends and from so sweet
a place combined to cause. John had been silent and depressed the whole
day, nor did Mr. Gaskell himself seem inclined to conversation. Constance and my brother fell a little way behind, and Mr. Gaskell asked
me to cross the lawn if I was not afraid of the dew, that I might see
the garden front to better advantage from the corner. Mrs. Temple waited
for us on the path, not wishing to wet her feet. Mr. Gaskell pointed out
the beauties of the perspective as seen from his vantage-point, and we
were fortunate in hearing the sweet descant of nightingales for which
this garden has ever been famous. As we stood silent and listening, a
candle was lit in a small oriel at the end, and the light showing the
tracery of the window added to the picturesqueness of the scene. Within an hour we were in a landau driving through the still warm lanes
to Didcot. I had seen that Constance's parting with my brother had been
tender, and I am not sure that she was not in tears during some part at
least of our drive; but I did not observe her closely, having my
thoughts elsewhere. Though we were thus being carried every moment further from the sleeping
city, where I believe that both our hearts were busy, I feel as if I had
been a personal witness of the incidents I am about to narrate, so often
have I heard them from my brother's lips. The two young men, after
parting with us in the High Street, returned to their respective
colleges. John reached his rooms shortly before eleven o'clock. He was
at once sad and happy--sad at our departure, but happy in a new-found
world of delight which his admiration for Constance Temple opened to
him. He was, in fact, deeply in love with her, and the full flood of a
hitherto unknown passion filled him with an emotion so overwhelming that
his ordinary life seemed transfigured. He moved, as it were, in an ether
superior to our mortal atmosphere, and a new region of high resolves and
noble possibilities spread itself before his eyes. He slammed his heavy
outside door (called an "oak") to prevent anyone entering and flung
himself into the window-seat. Here he sat for a long time, the sash
thrown up and his head outside, for he was excited and feverish. His
mental exaltation was so great and his thoughts of so absorbing an
interest that he took no notice of time, and only remembered afterwards
that the scent of a syringa-bush was borne up to him from a little
garden-patch opposite, and that a bat had circled slowly up and down the
lane, until he heard the clocks striking three. At the same time the
faint light of dawn made itself felt almost imperceptibly; the classic
statues on the roof of the schools began to stand out against the white
sky, and a faint glimmer to penetrate the darkened room. It glistened on
the varnished top of his violin-case lying on the table, and on a jug of
toast-and-water placed there by his college servant or scout every night
before he left. He drank a glass of this mixture, and was moving towards
his bedroom door when a sudden thought struck him. He turned back, took
the violin from its case, tuned it, and began to play the "Areopagita"
suite. He was conscious of that mental clearness and vigour which not
unfrequently comes with the dawn to those who have sat watching or
reading through the night: and his thoughts were exalted by the effect
which the first consciousness of a deep passion causes in imaginative
minds. He had never played the suite with more power; and the airs,
even without the piano part, seemed fraught with a meaning hitherto
unrealised. As he began the _Gagliarda_ he heard the wicker chair creak;
but he had his back towards it, and the sound was now too familiar to
him to cause him even to look round. It was not till he was playing
the repeat that he became aware of a new and overpowering sensation. At first it was a vague feeling, so often experienced by us all, of
not being alone. He did not stop playing, and in a few seconds the
impression of a presence in the room other than his own became so strong
that he was actually afraid to look round. But in another moment he felt
that at all hazards he must see what or who this presence was. Without
stopping he partly turned and partly looked over his shoulder. The
silver light of early morning was filling the room, making the various
objects appear of less bright colour than usual, and giving to
everything a pearl-grey neutral tint. In this cold but clear light he
saw seated in the wicker chair the figure of a man. In the first violent shock of so terrifying a discovery, he could not
appreciate such details as those of features, dress, or appearance. He
was merely conscious that with him, in a locked room of which he knew
himself to be the only human inmate, there sat something which bore a
human form. He looked at it for a moment with a hope, which he felt
to be vain, that it might vanish and prove a phantom of his excited
imagination, but still it sat there. Then my brother put down his
violin, and he used to assure me that a horror overwhelmed him of an
intensity which he had previously believed impossible. Whether the image
which he saw was subjective or objective, I cannot pretend to say: you
will be in a position to judge for yourself when you have finished this
narrative. Our limited experience would lead us to believe that it was a
phantom conjured up by some unusual condition of his own brain; but we
are fain to confess that there certainly do exist in nature phenomena
such as baffle human reason; and it is possible that, for some hidden
purposes of Providence, permission may occasionally be granted to those
who have passed from this life to assume again for a time the form of
their earthly tabernacle. We must, I say, be content to suspend our
judgment on such matters; but in this instance the subsequent course of
events is very difficult to explain, except on the supposition that
there was then presented to my brother's view the actual bodily form of
one long deceased. The dread which took possession of him was due, he
has more than once told me when analysing his feelings long afterwards,
to two predominant causes. Firstly, he felt that mental dislocation
which accompanies the sudden subversion of preconceived theories,
the sudden alteration of long habit, or even the occurrence of any
circumstance beyond the walk of our daily experience.