Darrel of the Blessed Isles | Page 7

wonder what
they mean."
Now an odd thing had developed in the mystery of the boy. Even
before he could distinguish between reality and its shadow that we see
in dreams, he used often to start up with a loud cry of fear in the night.
When a small boy he used to explain it briefly by saying, "the men in
the dark." Later he used to say, "the men outdoors in the dark." At ten
years of age he went off on a three days' journey with the Allens. They
put up in a tavern that had many rooms and stairways and large
windows. It was a while after his return of an evening, before
candle-light, when a gray curtain of dusk had dimmed the windows,

that he first told the story, soon oft repeated and familiar, of "the men in
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 on his shoulder.
"What ho, boy!" said he, shivering. "'I'll follow thee a month, devise
with thee where thou shalt rest, that thou may'st hear of us, an' we o'
thee.' What o' thy people an' the filly?"
"All well," said Trove, who was delighted to see the clock tinker, of
whom he had thought often. "And what of you?"
"Like an old clock, sor--a weak spring an' a bit slow. But, praise God!
I've yet a merry gong in me. An' what think you, sor, I've travelled sixty
miles an' tinkered forty clocks in the week gone."
"I think you yourself will need tinkering."
"Ah, but I thank the good God, here is me home," the old man
remarked wearily.
"I'm going to school here," said Trove, "and hope I may see you often."
"Indeed, boy, we'll have many a blessed hour," said the tinker. "Come
to me shop; we'll talk, meditate, explore, an' I'll see what o'clock it is in
thy country."
They were now in the village, and, halfway