“You didn't mind dreams once, Johnny;—and you used to laugh at me when I'd be telling you warnings I had that way, about you.”
“I wasn't so bad then, may be, mother, as I'm now: bud you'll live long yet, and help me to pray meeself out of all of it; and I'll mind what you say, and go to work for you honestly, instead of feeding you wid what I got in sorrow and sin. If I escape this once, I'll make a vow never to sleep out of mee own little bed there again. Oh! that I never had!—bud it's too late to make that wish.”
“Don't despair, darling! for he that's above us is good: and iv you're penitent, and do as your father's son should, my dear, in spite of that other bad dream I had, the grass will grow on your grave, as it does on his.”
“Oh! mercy! and did'nt the grass grow over me, mother? And did you see mee grave in your dreams?”
“A thousand times, Johnny, since you were gone:—the little hillock itself was barren and bare, and all round it, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing bud wild turnips growing.”
“Mother! you're mad to tell me so! You couldn't have dreamed that—you couldn't have seen the prushaugh vooe—”
“I see it now, my dear boy, as I did in mee dreams, waving its yellow flowers backwards and forwards, summer and winter, as iv they were to last for ever and ever.”
“Oh! mother, mother! spake no more o'them! Iv I thought it wouldn't be the death of you, I'd aize mee mind.”
“Pray God, you've murdered nobody!”
“I have, mother!—I have!—Iv you didn't spake o' the prushaugh vooe, I wouldn't have tould you; bud there'd be no salvation for me, iv you died and did'nt forgive me for it:—for though you forgave me for every thing besides, you couldn't forgive me for what you didn't know about. I'd die iv I didn't confess to somebody;—and who's there in the wide world I could open mee soul to bud yourself, mother?”