Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he was turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child. Looking up, he saw a very little creature at a neighbouring window.
‘What is that?’ cried the child, earnestly. ‘Has my dream come true? Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.’
‘Poor boy!’ said the sexton, before Kit could answer, ‘how goes it, darling?’
'Has my dream come true?’ exclaimed the child again, in a voice so fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any listener. ‘But no, that can never be! How could it be—Oh! how could it!’
‘I guess his meaning,’ said the sexton. ‘To bed again, poor boy!’
‘Ay!’ cried the child, in a burst of despair. ‘I knew it could never be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked! But, all to-night, and last night too, it was the same. I never fall asleep, but that cruel dream comes back.’
‘Try to sleep again,’ said the old man, soothingly. ‘It will go in time.’
‘No no, I would rather that it staid—cruel as it is, I would rather that it staid,’ rejoined the child. ‘I am not afraid to have it in my sleep, but I am so sad—so very, very sad.’
The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and Kit was again alone.
He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the child’s manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was hidden from him. They took the path indicated by the sexton, and soon arrived before the parsonage wall. Turning round to look about them when they had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined buildings at a distance, one single solitary light.