He walked to Cloisterham Weir.
He often did so, and consequently there was nothing remarkable in
his footsteps tending that way. But the preoccupation of his mind
so hindered him from planning any walk, or taking heed of the
objects he passed, that his first consciousness of being near the
Weir, was derived from the sound of the falling water close at
hand.
'How did I come here!' was his first thought, as he stopped.
'Why did I come here!' was his second.
Then, he stood intently listening to the water. A familiar passage
in his reading, about airy tongues that syllable men's names, rose
so unbidden to his ear, that he put it from him with his hand, as
if it were tangible.
It was starlight. The Weir was full two miles above the spot to
which the young men had repaired to watch the storm. No search had
been made up here, for the tide had been running strongly down, at
that time of the night of Christmas Eve, and the likeliest places
for the discovery of a body, if a fatal accident had happened under
such circumstances, all lay--both when the tide ebbed, and when it
flowed again--between that spot and the sea. The water came over
the Weir, with its usual sound on a cold starlight night, and
little could be seen of it; yet Mr. Crisparkle had a strange idea
that something unusual hung about the place.
He reasoned with himself: What was it? Where was it? Put it to
the proof.
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