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A WAKING.
I suppose I awoke tossing in my misery, for my hand fell upon something
cold. I started up and tried to see. The light of a clear morning of
late Autumn had stolen into the room while I slept, and glimmered on
something that lay upon the bed. It was some time before I could
believe that my troubled eyes were not the sport of one of those odd
illusions that come of mingled sleep and waking. But by the golden hilt
and rusted blade I was at length convinced, although the scabbard was
gone, that I saw my own sword. It lay by my left side, with the hilt
towards my hand. But the moment I turned a little to take it in my
right hand, I forgot all about it in a far more bewildering discovery,
which fixed me staring half in terror, half in amazement, so that again
for a moment I disbelieved in my waking condition. On the other pillow
lay the face of a lovely girl. I felt as if I had seen it
before--whether only in the just vanished dream, I could not tell. But
the maiden of my dream never comes back to me with any other features
or with any other expression than those which I now beheld. There was
an ineffable mingling of love and sorrow on the sweet countenance. The
girl was dead asleep, but evidently dreaming, for tears were flowing
from under her closed lids. For a time I was unable even to think;
when thought returned, I was afraid to move. All at once the face of
Mary Osborne dawned out of the vision before me--how different,
how glorified from its waking condition! It was perfectly
lovely--transfigured by the unchecked outflow of feeling. The
recognition brought me to my senses at once. I did not waste a single
thought in speculating how the mistake had occurred, for there was not
a moment to be lost. I must be wise to shield her, and chiefly, as much
as might be, from the miserable confusion which her own discovery of
the untoward fact would occasion her. At first I thought it would be
best to lie perfectly still, in order that she, at length awaking and
discovering where she was, but finding me fast asleep, might escape
with the conviction that the whole occurrence remained her own secret.
I made the attempt, but I need hardly say that never before or since
have I found myself in a situation half so perplexing; and in a few
moments I was seized with such a trembling that I was compelled to turn
my thoughts to the only other possible plan. As I reflected, the
absolute necessity of attempting it became more and more apparent. In
the first place, when she woke and saw me, she might scream and be
heard; in the next, she might be seen as she left the room, or, unable
to find her way, might be involved in great consequent embarrassment.
But, if I could gather all my belongings, and, without awaking her,
escape by the stair to the roof, she would be left to suppose that she
had but mistaken her chamber, and would, I hoped, remain in ignorance
that she had not passed the night in it alone. I dared one more peep
into her face. The light and the loveliness of her dream had passed; I
should not now have had to look twice to know that it was Mary Osborne;
but never more could I see in hers a common face. She was still fast
asleep, and, stealthy as a beast of prey, I began to make my escape. At
the first movement, however, my perplexity was redoubled, for again my
hand fell on the sword which I had forgotten, and question after
question as to how they were together, and together there, darted
through my bewildered brain. Could a third person have come and laid
the sword between us? I had no time, however, to answer one of my own
questions. Hardly knowing which was better, or if there was a better,
I concluded to take the weapon with me, moved in part by the fact that
I had found it where I had lost it, but influenced far more by its
association with this night of marvel.
Having gathered my garments together, and twice glanced around me--once
to see that I left nothing behind, and once to take farewell of the
peaceful face, which had never moved, I opened the little door in the
wall, and made my strange retreat up the stair. My heart was beating so
violently from the fear of her waking, that, when the door was drawn to
behind me, I had to stand for what seemed minutes before I was able to
ascend the steep stair, and step from its darkness into the clear
frosty shine of the Autumn sun, brilliant upon the leads wet with the
torrents of the preceding night.
I found a sheltered spot by the chimney-stack, where no one could see
me from below, and proceeded to dress myself--assisted in my very
imperfect toilet by the welcome discovery of a pool of rain in a
depression of the lead-covered roof. But alas, before I had finished, I
found that I had brought only one of my shoes away with me! This
settled the question I was at the moment debating--whether, namely, it
would be better to go home, or to find some way of reaching the
library. I put my remaining shoe in my pocket, and set out to discover
a descent. It would have been easy to get down into the little gallery,
but it communicated on both sides immediately with bed-rooms, which for
anything I knew might be occupied; and besides I was unwilling to enter
the house for fear of encountering some of the domestics. But I knew
more of the place now, and had often speculated concerning the odd
position and construction of an outside stair in the first court, close
to the chapel, with its landing at the door of a room en suite with
those of Sir Giles and Lady Brotherton. It was for a man an easy drop
to this landing. Quiet as a cat, I crept over the roof, let myself
down, crossed the court swiftly, drew back the bolt which alone secured
the wicket, and, with no greater mishap than the unavoidable wetting of
shoeless feet, was soon safe in my own room, exchanging my evening for
a morning dress. When I looked at my watch, I found it nearly seven
o'clock.
I was so excited and bewildered by the adventures I had gone through,
that, from very commonness, all the things about me looked alien and
strange. I had no feeling of relation to the world of ordinary life.
The first thing I did was to hang my sword in its own old place, and
the next to take down the bit of tapestry from the opposite wall, which
I proceeded to examine in the light of my recollection of that round
the denuded door. Room was left for not even a single doubt as to the
relation between this and that: they had been wrought in one and the
same piece by fair fingers of some long vanished time.
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