'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. Which sense did it address?
No sense reported anything unusual there. He listened again, and
his sense of hearing again checked the water coming over the Weir,
with its usual sound on a cold starlight night.
Knowing very well that the mystery with which his mind was
occupied, might of itself give the place this haunted air, he
strained those hawk's eyes of his for the correction of his sight.
He got closer to the Weir, and peered at its well-known posts and
timbers.
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