Just as he thought he could stand it no longer, a frightful hobgoblin with black wings and piercing eyes came hovering over him, and cried in a voice of thunder:
“You’re thirsty, are you?”
“‘Thirsty,’” sighed the gardener, “I’m dying of thirst!”
“Go first and water the flowers; then you may drink,” said the goblin, as he flew up in the air uttering a horrid shriek.
But the gardener dreamed again: this time he was starving; and there was not a scrap of food in sight, not even a grain of corn to satisfy his gnawing hunger.
And when he thought he could stand it no longer, the same frightful hobgoblin came flying toward him, and flapped its great wings and cried:
“You’re hungry, are you?”
“So hungry that I’m fainting,” whispered the gardener.
“Go first and feed your plants, and then you may eat,” said the goblin. Then away he flew and left him alone as before.
But the gardener dreamed still again, and this time he thought he was in his own cottage. The walls of the cottage began to shrink; and the tables and chairs and everything else in the room began to move toward him. The windows shut of themselves; the shades rolled down; the air grew close and stifling.