Adèle Dubois | Page 6

sleep, and naw I expect he's
wide awake again, with the dreadfu' racket you were just a makin' O!
my! wadna you hae made a good nuss?"
Mr. Norton truly grieved at his inadvertency in disturbing the
household at this late hour of the night, begged pardon, and told Mrs.
McNab he would not be guilty of a like offence.
"How has the gentleman been during the evening?" he asked.
"O! he's been ravin' crazy a'maist, and obstacled everything I've done
for him. He's a very sick pusson naw. I cam' down to get a bottle of
muddeson", and Mrs. McNab went to a closet and took from it the
identical bottle of brandy from which Mrs. Dubois had poured when
preparing the stimulating dose for the invalid. Mr. Norton observed this
performance with a twinkle of the eye, but making no comment, the
worthy woman retired from the room.
That night Mr. Norton slept indifferently, being disturbed by exciting
and bewildering dreams. In his slumbers he saw an immense cathedral,
lighted only by what seemed some great conflagration without, which,
glaring in, with horrid, crimson hue upon the pictured walls, gave the
place the strange, lurid aspect of Pandemonium. The effect was
heightened by the appearance of thousands of small, grotesque beings,
all bearing more or less resemblance to the little man of the clock, who
were flying and bobbing, jerking and grinning through the air, beneath
the great vault, as if madly revelling in the scene. Yet the good man all
the while had a vague sense of some awful, impending calamity, which

increased as he wandered around in great perplexity, exploring the
countenances of the various groups scattered over the place.
Once he stumbled over a dead body and found it the corpse of the
invalid in the room above. He seemed to himself to be lifting it
carefully, when a lady, fair and stately, in rich, sweeping garments,
took the burden from his arms, and, sinking with it on the floor, kissed
it tenderly and then bent over it with a look of intense sorrow.
Farther on he saw Mr. and Mrs. Dubois, with Adèle, kneeling
imploringly, with terror-stricken faces, before a representation of the
Virgin Mary and her divine boy. Then the glare of light in the building
increased. Rushing to the entrance to look for the cause of it, he there
met Mrs. McNab coming towards him with a wild, disordered
countenance,--her white cotton headgear floating out like a banner to
the breeze,--shaking a brandy bottle in the faces of all she met. He
gained the door and found himself enwrapped in a sheet of flame.
Suddenly the whole scene passed. He woke. A glorious September sun
was irradiating the walls of his bedroom. He heard the movements of
the family below, and rose hastily.
A few moments of thought and prayer sufficed to clear his healthy
brain of the fantastic forms and scenes which had invaded it, and he
was himself again, ready and panting for service.

CHAPTER III.
MR. NORTON.
In order to bring Mr. Norton more distinctly before the reader, it is
necessary to give a few particulars of his previous life.
He was the son of a New England farmer. His father had given him a
good moral and religious training and the usual common school
education, but, being poor and having a large family to provide for, he

had turned him adrift upon the sea of life, to shape his own course and
win his own fortunes. These, in some respects, he was well calculated
to do.
He possessed a frame hardened by labor, and, to a native shrewdness
and self reliance, added traits which threw light and warmth into his
character. His sympathies were easily roused by suffering and want. He
spurned everything mean and ungenerous,--was genial in disposition,
indeed brimming with mirthfulness, and, in every situation, attracted to
himself numerous friends. He was, moreover, an excellent blacksmith.
After leaving his father's roof, for a half score of years, he was led into
scenes of temptation and danger. But, having passed through various
fortunes, the whispers of the internal monitor, and the voice of a loving
wife, drew him into better and safer paths. He betook himself
unremittingly to the duties of his occupation.
By the influence of early parental training, and the teachings of the
Heavenly Spirit, he was led into a religious life. He dedicated himself
unreservedly to Christ. This introduced him into a new sphere of effort,
one, in which his naturally expansive nature found free scope. He
became an active, devoted, joyous follower of the Great Master, and,
thenceforward, desired nothing so much as to labor in his service.
About a year after this important change, a circumstance occurred
which altered the course of his