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BROTHER MORGAN'S STORY
of
THE DREAM-WOMAN.
CHAPTER I.
I HAD not been settled much more than six weeks in my country
practice when I was sent for to a neighboring town, to consult
with the resident medical man there on a case of very dangerous
illness.
My horse had come down with me at the end of a long ride the
night before, and had hurt himself, luckily, much more than he
had hurt his master. Being deprived of the animal's services, I
started for my destination by the coach (there were no railways
at that time), and I hoped to get back again, toward the
afternoon, in the same way.
After the consultation was over, I went to the principal inn of
the town to wait for the coach. When it came up it was full
inside and out. There was no resource left me but to get home as
cheaply as I could by hiring a gig. The price asked for this
accommodation struck me as being so extortionate, that I
determined to look out for an inn of inferior pretensions, and to
try if I could not make a better bargain with a less prosperous
establishment.
I soon found a likely-looking house, dingy and quiet, with an
old-fashioned sign, that had evidently not been repainted for
many years past. The landlord, in this case, was not above making
a small profit, and as soon as we came to terms he rang the
yard-bell to order the gig.
"Has Robert not come back from that errand?" asked the landlord,
appealing to the waiter who answered the bell.
"No, sir, he hasn't."
"Well, then, you must wake up Isaac."
"Wake up Isaac!" I repeated; "that sounds rather odd. Do your
hostlers go to bed in the daytime?"
"This one does," said the landlord, smiling to himself in rather
a strange way.
"And dreams too," added the waiter; "I shan't forget the turn it
gave me the first time I heard him."
"Never you mind about that," retorted the proprietor; "you go and
rouse Isaac up. The gentleman's waiting for his gig."
The landlord's manner and the waiter's manner expressed a great
deal more than they either of them said. I began to suspect that
I might be on the trace of something professionally interesting
to me as a medical man, and I thought I should like to look at
the hostler before the waiter awakened him.
"Stop a minute," I interposed; "I have rather a fancy for seeing
this man before you wake him up. I'm a doctor; and if this queer
sleeping and dreaming of his comes from anything wrong in his
brain, I may be able to tell you what to do with him."
"I rather think you will find his complaint past all doctoring,
sir," said the landlord; "but, if you would like to see him,
you're welcome, I'm sure."
He led the way across a yard and down a passage to the stables,
opened one of the doors, and, waiting outside himself, told me to
look in.
I found myself in a two-stall stable. In one of the stalls a
horse was munching his corn; in the other an old man was lying
asleep on the litter.
I stooped and looked at him attentively. It was a withered,
woe-begone face. The eyebrows were painfully contracted; the
mouth was fast set, and drawn down at the corners.
The hollow wrinkled cheeks, and the scanty grizzled hair, told
their own tale of some past sorrow or suffering. He was drawing
his breath convulsively when I first looked at him, and in a
moment more he began to talk in his sleep.
"Wake up!" I heard him say, in a quick whisper, through his
clinched teeth. "Wake up there! Murder!"
He moved one lean arm slowly till it rested over his throat,
shuddered a little, and turned on his straw. Then the arm left
his throat, the hand stretched itself out, and clutched at the
side toward which he had turned, as if he fancied himself to be
grasping at the edge of something. I saw his lips move, and bent
lower over him. He was still talking in his sleep.
"Light gray eyes," he murmured, "and a droop in the left eyelid;
flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it--all right,
mother--fair white arms, with a down on them--little lady's hand,
with a reddish look under the finger nails. The knife--always the
cursed knife--first on one side, then on the other. Aha! you
she-devil, where's the knife?"
At the last word his voice rose, and he grew restless on a
sudden. I saw him shudder on the straw; his withered face became
distorted, and he threw up both his hands with a quick hysterical
gasp. They struck against the bottom of the manger under which he
lay, and the blow awakened him. I had just time to slip through
the door and close it before his eyes were fairly open, and his
senses his own again.
"Do you know anything about that man's past life?" I said to the
landlord.
"Yes, sir, I know pretty well all about it," was the answer, "and
an uncommon queer story it is. Most people don't believe it. It's
true, though, for all that. Why, just look at him," continued the
landlord, opening the stable door again. "Poor devil! he's so
worn out with his restless nights that he's dropped back into his
sleep already."
"Don't wake him," I said; "I'm in no hurry for the gig. Wait till
the other man comes back from his errand; and, in the meantime,
suppose I have some lunch and a bottle of sherry, and suppose you
come and help me to get through it?"
The heart of mine host, as I had anticipated, warmed to me over
his own wine. He soon became communicative on the subject of the
man asleep in the stable, and by little and little I drew the
whole story out of him. Extravagant and incredible as the events
must appear to everybody, they are related here just as I heard
them and just as they happened.
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