What curious "asides" and soliloquies of the soul are dreams! Perhaps if
we cared to study them more conscientiously they would reveal us to
ourselves in many startling ways. The deep, real feelings which we will
not recognize while awake, take possession of us when we sleep; and the
cup-bearer who was slain for dreaming that he poisoned the king was, very
likely, righteously slain. The dream had but revealed the secret thought
of his soul. "We sleep, but our heart waketh," and though "Calm and still may be the sleeping face
In the moonlight pale,
The heart waketh in her secret place
Within the veil.
And agonies are suffered in the night;
Or joys embraced too keen for waking sight."
One morning, just at the gray dawn, Allan had a dream of this kind. He saw
Maggie on the sea alone, and he was sailing away from her. She stood
upright in a little open boat, which the waves tossed to and fro:--a
speechless, woe-stricken woman, who watched him with sorrow-haunted eyes,
but neither by word, look, nor movement called him to her.
He awoke, and could sleep no more. The dream had revealed him to himself.
Who was there in all the world as dear to him as Maggie was? He felt that
she was wretched, and he hated himself for having made her so. That very
hour he wrote to David, and said all that he might say, to give her hope
and comfort, and over and over he declared his purpose of being in
Pittenloch, before David left it for Glasgow. How soon David might get the
letter was a very uncertain thing, but still he could not rest until he
had written it.
He was dull and silent at breakfast, and hid himself and his moody temper
behind his favorite newspaper. Mary had often noticed that men like to be
quiet in the early morning; she gave them naturally all the benefit they
claim from the pressure of unread mails and doubtful affairs. If her
cousin was quiet and sombre, he might have half-a-dozen innocent reasons
for the humor; when he felt more social, he would be sure to seek her. And
when she saw him sauntering toward her favorite retreat she was nothing
astonished. It was the fulfillment of as natural an expectation as that
the clock should strike at the full hour.
"I am glad to see you, Allan," she said, with a charming serenity of
manner. "We shall not now have many days as fair as this one is." She wore
a gown of pale blue lawn, and had a great cluster of scarlet fuchsias in
her hand. Behind the garden bench on which she sat, there was a hedge of
fuchsias seven feet high and very thick. Her small dark head rested
against its green and scarlet masses. The little bay tinkled and murmured
among the pebbles at her feet. She had a book, but she was not reading.
She had some crochet, but she was not working. Allan thought he had never
seen her look so piquant and interesting: but she had no power to move
him. The lonely, splendid beauty of the woman he had seen in his morning
vision filled his heart. He sought Mary that hour only for Maggie's sake.