"I'll tell you a dream I had last night," continued the unfortunate being. "I was at Tyburn. There was a gallows erected, and a great mob round it—thousands of people, and all with white faces like corpses. In the midst of them there was a cart with a man in it—and that man was Jack—my son Jack—they were going to hang him. And opposite to him, with a book in his hand,—but it couldn't be a prayer-book,—sat Jonathan Wild, in a parson's cassock and band. I knew him in spite of his dress. And when they came to the gallows, Jack leaped out of the cart, and the hangman tied up Jonathan instead—ha! ha! How the mob shouted and huzzaed—and I shouted too—ha! ha! ha!"
"Mother!" cried Jack, unable to endure this agonizing scene longer. "Don't you know me, mother?"
"Ah!" shrieked Mrs. Sheppard. "What's that?—Jack's voice!"
"It is," replied her son.
"The ceiling is breaking! the floor is opening! he is coming to me!" cried the unhappy woman.
"He stands before you," rejoined her son.
"Where?" she cried. "I can't see him. Where is he?"
"Here," answered Jack.
"Are you his ghost, then?"
"No—no," answered Jack. "I am your most unhappy son."