It cannot, indeed, be said that Holden never had dreams. The excitable temperament of the man would forbid the supposition, but, even with him, they were uncommon. He turned the one he had just had over and over again, in his mind; but, reflect upon it as he pleased, he could make nothing out of it, and, at last, with a sense of dissatisfaction and endeavoring to divert his mind from thoughts that banished sleep, he forgot himself again.
His slumbers were broken and harassed throughout the night, with horrid dreams and vague anticipations of further evil. At one time he was at his cabin, and his son lay bleeding in his arms, pierced by the bullet of Ohquamehud. At another, Faith was drowning, and stretching out her hands to him for succor, and as he attempted to hasten to her assistance, her father interfered and held him violently back. And at another, he was falling from an immeasurable height, with the grip of the Indian at his throat. Down—down he fell, countless miles, through a roaring chaos, trying to save himself from strangulation, until, just as he was about to be dashed to pieces against a rock, he awoke sore and feverish.
The sun was already some distance above the horizon as Holden rose from his troubled slumbers. The cool air of morning flowed with a refreshing sweetness through the open window, and the birds were singing in the branches of the large elm. With a feeling of welcome he beheld the grateful light. He endeavored to recall and reduce to some coherency the wild images of his dreams, but all was confusion, which became the more bewildering, the longer he dwelt upon them, and the more he strove to untangle the twisted skein. All that he could now distinctly remember, were the place whither he had been led, and the word spoken by the portrait.
When he descended to breakfast, both Mr. Armstrong and his daughter remarked his disordered appearance, and anxiously inquired, how he had passed the night. To these inquiries, he frankly admitted, that he had been disturbed by unpleasant dreams.
"You look," said Mr. Armstrong, "like the portrait which hangs in the chamber where you slept. It is," he continued, unheeding the warning looks of Faith, "the portrait of my father, and was taken a short time before he was seized with what was called a fit of insanity, and which was said to have hastened his death.
"How is it possible, dear father, you can say so?" said Faith, anxious to prevent an impression she was afraid might be made on Holden's mind.
"I do not mean," continued Armstrong, with a singular persistency, "that Mr. Holden's features resemble the portrait very much; but there is something which belongs to the two in common. Strange that I never thought of it before!"
Holden during the conversation had sat with drooping lids, and a sad and grieved expression, and now, as he raised his eyes, he said, mournfully—
"Thou meanest, James, that I, too, am insane. May Heaven grant that neither thou nor thine may experience the sorrow of so great a calamity."
Faith was inexpressibly shocked. Had any one else spoken thus, with a knowledge of Holden's character, she would have considered him unfeeling to the last degree, but she knew her father's considerateness and delicacy too well to ascribe it to any other cause than to a wandering of thought, which had of late rapidly increased, and excited in her mind an alarm which she trembled to give shape to. Before she could interpose, Armstrong again spoke—