race of strangers? Why is it,' he thought, continuing to follow
out the succession of ideas which the scene prompted--'why is it
that some scenes awaken thoughts which belong as it were to dreams
of early and shadowy recollection, such as my old Brahmin moonshie
would have ascribed to a state of previous existence? Is it the
visions of our sleep that float confusedly in our memory, and are
recalled by the appearance of such real objects as in any respect
correspond to the phantoms they presented to our imagination? How
often do we find ourselves in society which we have never before
met, and yet feel impressed with a mysterious and ill-defined
consciousness that neither the scene, the speakers, nor the
subject are entirely new; nay, feel as if we could anticipate that
part of the conversation which has not yet taken place! It is even
so with me while I gaze upon that ruin; nor can I divest myself of
the idea that these massive towers and that dark gateway, retiring
through its deep-vaulted and ribbed arches, and dimly lighted by
the courtyard beyond, are not entirely strange to me. Can it be
that they have been familiar to me in infancy, and that I am to
seek in their vicinity those friends of whom my childhood has
still a tender though faint remembrance, and whom I early
exchanged for such severe task-masters? Yet Brown, who, I think,
would not have deceived me, always told me I was brought off from
the eastern coast, after a skirmish in which my father was killed;
and I do remember enough of a horrid scene of violence to
strengthen his account.'

It happened that the spot upon which young Bertram chanced to
station himself for the better viewing the castle was nearly the
same on which his father had died. It was marked by a large old
oak-tree, the only one on the esplanade, and which, having been