“Zounds,” said I, “if you cover your story with so many excrescences, I shall never be able to remember one half of it.”
My companion smiled benevolently, as he replied, I perceive you lack the organ of _individuality_; and then resumed the thread of his discourse. After remaining with them nearly three months, during which I may give myself credit for having made good use of my time in improving the manners and intellect of my docile pupil, I took leave of the fisherman and his daughter, promising to pay them a visit in the course of a month, before I returned to merry England. Tears stood in the eyes of poor Jane as I turned to quit the cottage, and the old father squeezed my hand with a cordiality that effectually stopped the circulation of my blood in that extremity. Mark, her lover, seemed neither sorry nor pleased, but leaning his broad back against the white-washed wall of the cottage, whistled with the greatest composure, “The jovial fellow’s farewell.”
After a month’s ramble, I returned to this spot on a dark, stormy day in October;—it was indeed a dreary evening. The rain fell in torrents, and the hoarse sound of the surge came heavily upon my ear as I approached the cottage of my late worthy host; when suddenly, as I lifted my eyes from the ground, I perceived a number of persons walking in slow procession, as from a funeral, and a cold shudder came over me as I recognised the father of Jane; his white locks exposed to the beating rain, his head bent to the ground, and his hands clasped upon his breast, in the action of mental agony.
Thinking my visit would prove ill-timed, I proceeded to a small public-house, and, while my garments were drying at the fire, I managed to extract from the landlord, that the funeral of Jane Morgan had just taken place. Astonishment and sorrow chained my tongue for some time; I shall never forget the sensations I experienced at this mournful relation. I sat motionless in my chair, without uttering a syllable for a full hour, or noticing anything that transpired around me during that time. I could think of nothing but Jane Morgan; I could see nothing but her young blooming face and yellow locks, which used to glitter like threads of gold in the sunbeams, as the fresh sea breeze blew them into a thousand fantastic waves; her airy form, as it flew along the sand on which her light foot scarcely left a print; her simple dress; all this I brought to my “mind’s eye,” and afterwards the church-yard where she was laid a corpse—I burst into tears.