of the human form, the children had given the name of Falstaff;—­all these objects were as well known to me as the cold hearth of my deserted home, and every moss-grown wall and plot of orchard ground, alike as twin lambs are to each other in a stranger’s eye, yet to my accustomed gaze bore differences, distinction, and a name.  England remained, though England was dead—­it was the ghost of merry England that I beheld, under those greenwood shade passing generations had sported in security and ease.  To this painful recognition of familiar places, was added a feeling experienced by all, understood by none—­a feeling as if in some state, less visionary than a dream, in some past real existence, I had seen all I saw, with precisely the same feelings as I now beheld them—­as if all my sensations were a duplex mirror of a former revelation.  To get rid of this oppressive sense I strove to imagine change in this tranquil spot—­this augmented my mood, by causing me to bestow more attention on the objects which occasioned me pain.

I reached Datchet and Lucy’s humble abode—­once noisy with Saturday night revellers, or trim and neat on Sunday morning it had borne testimony to the labours and orderly habits of the housewife.  The snow lay high about the door, as if it had remained unclosed for many days.

“What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?” I muttered to myself as I looked at the dark casements.  At first I thought I saw a light in one of them, but it proved to be merely the refraction of the moon-beams, while the only sound was the crackling branches as the breeze whirred the snow flakes from them—­the moon sailed high and unclouded in the interminable ether, while the shadow of the cottage lay black on the garden behind.  I entered this by the open wicket, and anxiously examined each window.  At length I detected a ray of light struggling through a closed shutter in one of the upper rooms—­it was a novel feeling, alas! to look at any house and say there dwells its usual inmate—­the door of the house was merely on the latch:  so I entered and ascended the moon-lit staircase.  The door of the inhabited room was ajar:  looking in, I saw Lucy sitting as at work at the table on which the light stood; the implements of needlework were about her, but her hand had fallen on her lap, and her eyes, fixed on the ground, shewed by their vacancy that her thoughts wandered.  Traces of care and watching had diminished her former attractions—­but her simple dress and cap, her desponding attitude, and the single candle that cast its light upon her, gave for a moment a picturesque grouping to the whole.  A fearful reality recalled me from the thought—­a figure lay stretched on the bed covered by a sheet—­her mother was dead, and Lucy, apart from all the world, deserted and alone, watched beside the corpse during the weary night.  I entered the room, and my unexpected appearance at first drew a scream from the lone survivor of a dead nation; but she recognised me, and recovered herself, with the quick exercise of self-control habitual to her.  “Did you not expect me?” I asked, in that low voice which the presence of the dead makes us as it were instinctively assume.