Page:How I Acted for an Invalid Doctor.pdf/5

Rh still thinking of it when ten o’clock struck, and I came in and went to bed.

As a rule, I sleep soundly and dream seldom. But I suppose I was worried by the disagreeable events of the evening, for I continued to have queer dreams: as that Ringmer was seizing me in his muscular arms; now I thought he was throttling me, another time that he was boring into me with one of those strange tools of his, and again that I was bound to his lathe and was being whirled round and round upon it. At last I began to dream that Ringmer was creeping in at the window with a tool in his hand to brain me as I slept, and that time I woke. As I sat up with the idea vividly in my recollection I distinctly heard the creeper rustling, as if someone were climbing up it, and I sprang out of bed and peered over the sill, for I had followed Ringmer's example, and had opened both windows as wide as they would go. There was a faint light in the east, and I was able to see things fairly. Not a sound could I hear, but I was positive that the lower branches of the creeper were quivering, and a trailer or two on Ringmer's level were swinging, although there was not the ghost of a wind. Cats, I told myself; their flirtations had been going on all around me the whole time I sat in the garden.

I was roused again by a steam-saw getting to work in a timber yard. It was a glorious morning, and the sun was pouring into the room, so I got up and dressed and went down through the still sleeping house into the garden. At a nearer view it was not quite so attractive. The grass was long and in seed; the paths, too, sadly required weeding, and a number of sturdy wild flowers had sown themselves and were spreading in all directions; all the same, it was a very fine garden, and I calculated there must have been the best part of an acre within the walls. At the far end I discovered a door. The wood was very rotten and shaky, and at first I hesitated to draw the bolt, so rusty and stiff did it look; but it shot back easily, and I found myself standing in a narrow way which curved round to join the high road lower down. As I closed the door again I noticed the tracks of a cycle leading into the garden. They were quite fresh on the damp ground, and I recognised the pattern of Ringmer's tyres. Strolling back, I looked in at the outhouse; there were the two cycles just as I had left them last evening; but on glancing at Ringmer's