Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

FLIGHT. 173
and-twenty years, knowing I should never see it again. But it
was to see that I had left nothing behind me. The coach was at
the door, and they were calling for me. Now I could draw you
a correct map of all the blotches' and cracks in the ceiling, as I
used to see them when I lay in bed of a morning; but then I
only shut the door, and ran down the passage, without even saying, " Good by, old bedroom." Charles Ravenshoe looked round
the room thoughtlessly, and then blew out the candle, went out,
and shut the door.
The dog whined and scratched to come after him; so he went
back again; the old room, bathed in a flood of moonlight, and,
seen through the open window, the busy, chafing sea, calling to
him to hasten.
He took a glove from the table, and, laying it on the hearthrug, told the dog to mind it. The dog looked wistfully at him,
and lay down. The next moment he was outside the door again.
Through long moonlit corridors, down the moonlit hall, through
dark passages, which led among the sleeping household, to the
door in the priest's tower. The household slept, old men and
young men, maids and matrons, quietly, and dreamt of this and
of that. And he, who was yesterday nigh master of all, passed
out from among them, and stood alone in the world, outside the
dark old house which he had called his home.
Then he felt the deed was done. Was it only the night-wind
from the north that laid such a chill hand on his heart? Busy
waves upon the shore talking eternally, — "We have come in
from the Atlantic, bearing messages; we have come over foundered ships and the bones of drowned sailors, and we tell our messages and die upon the shore."
Shadows that came sweeping from the sea, over lawn and
flower-bed, and wrapped the'old mansion like a pall for one moment, and then left it shining again in the moonlight, clear, pitiless. Within, warm rooms, warm beds, and the bated breath of
sleepers, lying secure in the lap of wealth and order. Without,
hard, cold stone. The great world around awaiting to devour
one more atom. The bright unsympathizing stars, and the sea,
babbling of the men it had rolled over, whose names should never
be known.
Now the park, with herds of ghostly startled deer, and the
sweet scent of growing fern; then the rush of the brook, the
bridge, and the vista of woodland above; and then the sleeping
village.