But his struggles were in vain; sooner or later the night-hag would
have him by the throat, and pluck him strangling and screaming,
from his sleep. His dreams were at times commonplace enough, at
times very strange, at times they were almost formless: he would
be haunted, for instance, by nothing more definite than a certain
hue of brown, which he did not mind in the least while he was
awake, but feared and loathed while he was dreaming; at times,
again, they took on every detail of circumstance, as when once he
supposed he must swallow the populous world, and awoke screaming
with the horror of the thought. The two chief troubles of his very
narrow existence - the practical and everyday trouble of school
tasks and the ultimate and airy one of hell and judgment - were
often confounded together into one appalling nightmare. He seemed
to himself to stand before the Great White Throne; he was called
on, poor little devil, to recite some form of words, on which his
destiny depended; his tongue stuck, his memory was blank, hell
gaped for him; and he would awake, clinging to the curtain-rod with
his knees to his chin.
These were extremely poor experiences, on the whole; and at that
time of life my dreamer would have very willingly parted with his
power of dreams. But presently, in the course of his growth, the
cries and physical contortions passed away, seemingly for ever; his
visions were still for the most part miserable, but they were more
constantly supported; and he would awake with no more extreme
symptom than a flying heart, a freezing scalp, cold sweats, and the
speechless midnight fear.
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