"It's nothing, dear. Only you were in one of your bad dreams, and I simply couldn't let you go on being tormented." "That's right," he used to mutter sleepily. "I don't want to dream. I've enough that's real." "Don't you worry, dear old boy. You're going to pull through grand--in the end. I _know you are_. Besides, if not--then we'll try something else." She always murmured such consolatory phrases until he fell asleep once more. The fact was that Bates had been respected by the well-to-do and loved by the humble; and Dale, out here, remained an unknown quantity. Anything of his fame as postmaster that had traveled along these two miles from Rodchurch did not help him. He was not liked. He felt it in the air, a dull inactive hostility, when talking to gentlefolks' coachmen or giving orders to his own servants. The coachmen could take no pleasure in patronizing him, nor the men in working for him. Mr. Bates advised him once or twice to cultivate a gentler and more ingratiating method of dealing with the people in his employ. "Perhaps, William, I'm to blame for having spoilt 'em a bit;--but it'd be good policy for you to take them as you find them, and get them bound to you before you begin drilling 'em. A soft word now and then, William--you don't know how far it goes sometimes." "What I complain of is this," said Dale; "they don't show any spirit. Every stroke o' bad luck I've had--every chance where they might step in with common sense, or extra care, or a spark of invention to save a situation for me--it's just as if they were a row o' turnips." And the strokes of bad luck were so many and so heavy. The elements seemed to be making war against him--such wet days as made it impossible to deliver hay without damage to it, and an accusation from somebody's stables that the last lot was poisoned; then frost, and two horses seriously injured on the ice-clothed roads; then February gales, wrecking the barn roofs, entailing costly repairs; then floods; and last of all _rats_. The unusual amount of land water had driven them to new haunts, and Dale's granaries were suddenly invaded. "Oh, William," said Mr. Bates, horror-stricken, "beware of rats. They are the worst foe. _One_ rat will mess up a mountain of grain." About the time of the vernal equinox there came a tempest in comparison with which all previous wind and rain were but a whispering and a sprinkling. Every door was being rattled as if by giant hands, the glass sang in the latticed windows, and the whole house seemed swaying, when Mary told her mistress that something had gone wrong with the big straw stack and that the master was attempting to climb to the top of it on the long ladder. Mavis instantly pulled up her skirt in true country fashion to make a cloak, and told Mary to help her open the kitchen door. "You bide where you be, Mrs. Dale," said the old charwoman. "You ben't goin' to be no use of any kind out there, and you may bring yourself to a misfortune."