Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/121

 hard looks were my lot; or I found myself climbing the hill, but never able to reach the top—or on reaching it finding it empty. Then I would find myself hurrying through all sorts of difficult places—high, bleak mountains, and lonely wind-swept strands—dark paths through gloomy forests, and over sun-smitten plains, looking for her whom I had lost, and in vain trying to call her—for I could not remember her name. This last nightmare was quite a possibility, for I had never heard it.

I awoke many times from such dreams in an agony of fear; but after a time both pleasure and pain seemed to have had their share of my sleep, and I slept the dreamless sleep that Plato eulogizes in the "Apologia Socratis."

I was awakened to a sense that my hour of rising had not yet come by a knocking at my door. I opened it, and on the landing without saw Andy standing, cap in hand.

"Hullo, Andy!" I said. "What on earth do you want?"

"Yer 'an'r 'll parden me, but I'm jist off wid Misther Sutherland; an' as I undherstand ye was goin' for a walk, I made bould t' ask yer 'an'r if ye'll give a missage to me father?"

"Certainly, Andy! With pleasure."

"Maybe ye'd tell him that I'd like the white mare tuk off the grash an' gave some hard 'atin' for a few days, as I'll want her brung into Wistport before long."

"All right, Andy! Is that all?"