“Dreamed?--that!” He was springing up again when he suddenly bethought himself, and lay down flat, with the same sort of smile on his face. “The pony heard it, too,” he said. “She jumped as if she had been shot. If I had not grasped at the reins--for I was frightened, father--” “No shame to you, my boy,” said I, though I scarcely knew why. “If I hadn’t held to her like a leech, she’d have pitched me over her head, and never drew breath till we were at the door. Did the pony dream it?” he said, with a soft disdain, yet indulgence for my foolishness. Then he added slowly, “It was only a cry the first time, and all the time before you went away. I wouldn’t tell you, for it was so wretched to be frightened. I thought it might be a hare or a rabbit snared, and I went in the morning and looked; but there was nothing. It was after you went I heard it really first; and this is what he says.” He raised himself on his elbow close to me, and looked me in the face: “‘Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother, let me in!’” As he said the words a mist came over his face, the mouth quivered, the soft features all melted and changed, and when he had ended these pitiful words, dissolved in a shower of heavy tears. Was it a hallucination? Was it the fever of the brain? Was it the disordered fancy caused by great bodily weakness? How could I tell? I thought it wisest to accept it as if it were all true. “This is very touching, Roland,” I said. “Oh, if you had just heard it, father! I said to myself, if father heard it he would do something; but mamma, you know, she’s given over to Simson, and that fellow’s a doctor, and never thinks of anything but clapping you into bed.” “We must not blame Simson for being a doctor, Roland.” “No, no,” said my boy, with delightful toleration and indulgence; “oh, no; that’s the good of him; that’s what he’s for; I know that. But you--you are different; you are just father; and you’ll do something--directly, papa, directly; this very night.” “Surely,” I said. “No doubt it is some little lost child.” He gave me a sudden, swift look, investigating my face as though to see whether, after all, this was everything my eminence as “father” came to,--no more than that. Then he got hold of my shoulder, clutching it with his thin hand. “Look here,” he said, with a quiver in his voice; “suppose it wasn’t--living at all!” “My dear boy, how then could you have heard it?” I said. He turned away from me with a pettish exclamation,--“As if you didn’t know better than that!” “Do you want to tell me it is a ghost?” I said. Roland withdrew his hand; his countenance assumed an aspect of great dignity and gravity; a slight quiver remained about his lips. “Whatever it was--you always said we were not to call names. It was something--in trouble. Oh, father, in terrible trouble!” “But, my boy,” I said (I was at my wits’ end), “if it was a child that was lost, or any poor human creature--but, Roland, what do you want me to do?”