Whether, in general, it is a good thing to keep in motion after a fright—that I do not know. Walter, on the contrary, always felt the need of sleep under such circumstances; and this remedy, with which nature provided him, usually restored his mental equilibrium. Perhaps, after all, it wasn’t real sleep: he merely dreamed.
Again he was lifted up, higher and higher, borne by strong hands. A man bit him in the hand. The fact was he had scratched his hand on a refractory horsehair, which had become tired of acting as stuffing for a sofa-pillow.
An angry woman assailed him with abuse. Stupid? Not stupid? We, the masses? She let him fall. But he fell in Sietske’s lap; and there wasn’t a single sliver of glassware.
He was happy—but the horsehair scratched him again. Then he heard a voice. Was he still dreaming? Yes, dreaming again of soaring and falling. There was Femke.
Of course there had to be something about her in his dream, and about bleaching the clothes. Father Jansen was there, too, exhibiting to the stars the particular garment that Femke had patched. Orion and the Great Bear admired this specimen of her handiwork. Walter did not.
“Did you do it yourself?” he heard Sietske asking in the next room. “Or couldn’t you get through the crowd?”
“No, it was impossible to get through such a mob. I turned it over to the man with the peddler’s wagon.”
What was that? Walter sat up. Father Jansen was gone; Orion, too; and the clouds, and the “masses”; but—that voice!
He heard it again.
“I know him very well—oh, so well! He’s a good boy.” This he heard Femke say!