“The birds! the birds! Oh yes, oh yes, the birds, the birds, I see them again,” cried Norman, with his eyes wide open, staring into the air.
In vain Mrs Vallery tried to soothe him. He still cried out, “Take the birds away!” He did not even know her.
“Naughty woman, do as I tell you! Don’t let the birds come and tease me,” he cried out.
Strange as it may seem, he did not once speak of his fall from the rock into the water, or of the danger he had run on that occasion.
Thus the night passed on.
As soon as it was morning, Fanny hurried to her little brother’s room. Her grief and pain were very great when she heard him crying out, “Take the birds away, oh, don’t let them tease me!”
She sat down on a stool by his bedside.
Her papa soon came, and he and her mamma hung over Norman, anxiously watching him, but though he opened his eyes wide, he did not recognise them.
“Go away, go away, I do not want you,” he murmured.
Even when his mamma took his hand and affectionately bent down over him, he gazed at her as if she was a stranger.