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There is a certain picture very popular just now. You may see it, Cinderella, in many of the shop-windows of the town. It is called "The Dream of Love," and it represents a beautiful young girl, sleeping in a very beautiful but somewhat disarranged bed. Indeed, one hopes, for the sleeper's sake, that the night is warm, and that the room is fairly free from draughts.
As he looked, he drew from its sheath in his girdle his well-worn, but still bright and keen knife, which he poised in one hand, while feeling, with what seemed extraordinary fearlessness or confidence of his prey, with the other along the sleeper's naked breast, as if regardless how soon he might wake.
As I was looking a dark shadow fell across the sleeper's face, and on glancing up I perceived, to my horror, a black something crawling on the floor. Nearer and nearer it came, until it reached the side of the bed, when I immediately recognized the evil, smirking face of my hostess. In one hand she held a lamp and in the other a horn-handled knife.
Noll looked upon the little sleeper's face, and then at the wretched surroundings, and was glad for the child's sake that sleep and peace had come at last. Yet his heart was heavy as he looked upon his basket and its now useless contents, and he thought, "Oh, if I had only been more careful last night! perhaps perhaps Hagar's medicines could have helped it." He turned to Dirk, saying, quietly,
"Don't wave it about my head," cried Ezra. "As you stand in the firelight brandishing that stick in your long arms you are less attractive than usual." John Girdlestone smiled and replaced the cudgel in the sleeper's pocket. "Wake up, Burt," he cried, shaking him by the arm. "It's half-past eight."
The stranger began to yawn, but he kept on guessing. Then his head nodded. By the time he had found out that it was slippery elm he was sound asleep. "This fellow deserves punishment," remarked the Mischief Maker. "He is an enemy to mankind." Here he adroitly put some sticky clay on the sleeper's eyes, and departed.
With their painted faces, smeared and striped with every vivid colour, their streaming scalp-locks, their waving arms, their open mouths, and their writhings and contortions, no more fiendish crew ever burst into a sleeper's nightmare.
"And back he went to his glimmering tent; And down in his cloak he lay; And sound he slept; and a pale-faced man Watched by his bed till day. "And if ever he turned or moaned in his sleep, Or his brow began to lower, Oh! gentle and clear, in the sleeper's ear, He would whisper words of power;
Bending lower, his eyes rested upon the object which had so startled him. 'Twas a silver crucifix which had fallen from the sleeper's fingers, and lay upon her breast. At the sight great emotion and agitation swept through his heart, rough soldier though he was; for the moment he was well nigh overpowered.
"There's the squirt, Wal." The squirt was there; so was the jug of water, and a moment sufficed to charge the weapon. The nozzle was gently inserted into the sleeper's pyjama collar, and in a moment the drenched and wrathful hero arose majestically from his watery pillow and, seizing his tormentors, banged their heads together with great effort.
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