the Chevy Chase ballad. He was--he was the winged sea-gull, with wild,
pale eyes, hiding--abject yet fierce--among the vegetable beds in the
Brockhurst kitchen-gardens, and picking up loathsome provender of
snails and slugs. Roger Ormiston, calm, able, kindly, yet just a trifle
insolent, cigar in mouth, sauntered up and looked at the bird, and it
crawled away among the cabbages ignominiously, covered with the shame
of its incompleteness and its fallen estate.

And then from out the honey-combed rocks, under the black, polished
sky, the blue tunicked Chinamen swept down on Richard again with the
maddening horror of infinite number. They crushed in upon him, nearer
and nearer, pressing him back against the wall of that evil pagoda. The
air was hot and musky with their breath and thick with the muffled roar
of their countless footsteps. And they came right in on him, trampling
him down, suffocating, choking him with the heat of them and the dead
weight.

Shouting aloud--as it seemed to him--in angry terror, the boy woke. He
sat up trembling, wet with perspiration, bewildered by the struggle and
the wild phantasmagoria of his dream. He pulled open the neck of his
nightshirt, leaned his head against the cool brass rail of the back of
the bedstead, while he listened with growing relief to the rumble of
the wind in the chimney, and the swish of the rain against the
casements, and watched the narrow line of light under the door of his
mother's room.

Yes, he was Richard Calmady, after all, here in his own sheltered
world, among those who had loved and served him all his life. Nothing
hurtful could reach him here, nothing of which he need be afraid. There
was no real meaning in that ugly dream.

And then Dickie paused a moment, still sitting up in the warm darkness,
pressing his hands down on the mattress on either side to keep himself
from slipping. For involuntarily he recalled the feeling which had
prompted his declaration that he was glad his father had never seen
him; recalled his unwillingness to walk, lest he should meet Ormiston
unexpectedly; recalled the instinct which, even during that glorious
time in the Gun-Room, had impelled him to keep the embroidered
_couvre-pieds_ carefully over his legs and feet. And, recalling these
things, poor Dickie arrived at conclusions regarding himself which he
had happily avoided arriving at before. For they were harsh
conclusions, causing him to cower down in the bed, and bury hi