I was but a boy when these events took place. All the village
remember the story, and tell of Rosamund Gray, and old blind
Margaret.
I parted from Allan Clare on that disastrous night, and set out for
Edinburgh the next morning, before the facts were commonly known--I
heard not of them--and it was four months before I received a letter
from Allan.
"His heart," he told me, "was gone from him--for his sister had died
of a frenzy fever!"--not a word of Rosamund in the letter--I was left
to collect her story from sources which may one day be explained.
I soon after quitted Scotland, on the death of my father, and
returned to my native village. Allan had left the place, and I could
gain no information, whether he were dead or living.
I passed the _cottage_. I did not dare to look that way, or to
inquire _who_ lived there. A little dog, that had been Rosamund's,
was yelping in my path. I laughed aloud like one mad, whose mind had
suddenly gone from him--I stared vacantly around me, like one
alienated from common perceptions.
But I was young at that time, and the impression became gradually
weakened as I mingled in the business of life. It is now _ten years_
since these events took place, and I sometimes think of them as
unreal. Allan Clare was a dear friend to me--but there are times when
Allan and his sister, Margaret and her grand-daughter, appear like
personages of a dream--an idle dream.
* * * * *