the dark"--at least he
went as far as he knew.

"I dream," he was wont to say in after life, "that I am listening
in the still night alone--I am always alone. I hear a sound in the
silence, of what I cannot be sure. I discover then, or seem to,
that I stand in a dark room and tremble, with great fear, of what I
do not know. I walk along softly in bare feet--I am so fearful of
making a noise. I am feeling, feeling, my hands out in the dark.
Presently they touch a wall and I follow it and then I discover
that I am going downstairs. It is a long journey. At last I am in
a room where I can see windows, and, beyond, the dim light of the
moon. Now I seem to be wrapped in fearful silence. Stealthily I
go near the door. Its upper half is glass, and beyond it I can see
the dark forms of men. One is peering through with face upon the
pane; I know the other is trying the lock, but I hear no sound. I
am in a silence like that of the grave. I try to speak. My lips
move, but, try as I may, no sound comes out of them. A sharp
terror is pricking into me, and I flinch as if it were a
knife-blade. Well, sir, that is a thing I cannot understand. You
know me--I am not a coward. If I were really in a like scene fear
would be the least of my emotions; but in the dream I tremble and
am afraid. Slowly, silently, the door opens, the men of the dark
enter, wall and windows begin to reel. I hear a quick, loud cry,
rending the silence and falling into a roar like that of flooding
waters. Then I wake, and my dream is ended--for that night."

Now men have had more thrilling and remarkable dreams, but that of
the boy Trove was as a link in a chain, lengthening with his life,
and ever binding him to some event far beyond the reach of his
memory.

V

At the Sign o' the Dial

It was Sunday and a clear, frosty morning of midwinter. Trove had
risen early and was walking out on a long pike that divided the
village of Hillsborough and cut the waste of snow, winding over
hills and dipping into valleys, from Lake Champlain to Lake
Ontario. The air was cold but full of magic sun-fire. All things
were aglow--the frosty roadway, the white fields, the hoary forest,
and the mind of the beholder. Trove halted, looking off at the far
hills. Then he heard a step behind him and, as he turned, saw a
tall man approaching at a quick pace. The latter had no overcoat.
A knit muffler covered his throat, and a satchel hung from a strap