MIDWINTER NIGHT’S DREAM
It was a beautiful night, lit by the rising moon and a million stars.
Mild almost as a night in summer, voiceless as the tomb, cloudless and
perfect. The great stars, winter-clear, burned right down to the roof of
the woods, and amidst the trees the moonlight made Fairyland of the
glades. Listening, one could hear occasionally the cry of an owl, and
occasionally, a great way off, from the neighbourhood of the Galtee
woods, the bark of a fox.
Mr Boxall descended the steps and glanced around; it was a few minutes
past half-past ten, but there was no trace or sign of Miss Lestrange. A
chill came to his heart: the monstrous idea, “Can I have been fooled?”
crossed his mind, and was banished. He stepped from the gravelled drive
to the grass and stood for a moment inhaling the balmy air and looking
around him.
In the middle of the lawn there was a great old sundial supported by a
group of fauns and satyrs, moss-grown and mysterious. Mr Boxall’s eye
fell on this thing, and just at that moment, over the top of the
sundial, appeared a face. It was not the face of Miss Lestrange, it was
a round and tallow-white face—the face, in fact, of Micky Mooney.
Micky beckoned, and Mr Boxall drew close till he got within touching
distance of the sundial.
“Are yiz Misther Oxhall?” asked Micky in a low and confidential voice,
plucking at the moss on the sundial as he spoke, and seeming to address
it.
“I am,” said Mr Boxall, recognising his name in the inversion. “What’s
all this—where is the lady?”
“Beyant there in the trees,” said Micky, detaching himself from the
sundial and making off in the direction of the trees, followed by the
other. “I’m to show her to yiz, if y’ll be afther follyin’ me; says he
to me, says he, ‘Wait be the sundile till the big clock lets one bang
out of it afther it’s sthruck tin, and y’ll see a gintleman wid a big
white face,’ says he, ‘and you lade him to see the lady,’ he says, ‘or
it’s a kick I’ll be givin’ you, same as Larry Lyburn, instid of a
sixpence wid a howl in it,’ he says.”
“Who says?” asked Mr Boxall, in high dudgeon. “What are you talking
about? Who told you to wait for me?”
“Sure, that would be tellin’,” said Micky, who was trotting by the
other’s side, gambolling with his shadow in the moonlight.
Mr Boxall tramped on in silence, utterly exasperated and confounded. The
gambols of the half-witted creature beside him might have given him a
hint that something was wrong in the affair. But he was determined to
see the thing through.
They crossed the parkland and entered the wood. The moonlight falling
between the leafless branches on the withered ferns made a picture
wonderfully beautiful and weird.
“Now, which way? Go on—what are you stopping for?” said Mr Boxall, as
his guide halted and held up a finger.
An owl crying in the depths of the trees had been answered by its mate.
“Listen to the cucks crowin’!” said Micky.
“Damn the cocks!” cried Mr Boxall. “Go on—where is the lady?”
“I dinno,” said Micky; “but if yiz’l listen yiz’l hear her vice, and
it’s ‘Micky, come afther me,’ she always does be cryin’. Aal dressed in
white she is, wid a crown of gowld on her head, and it’s ‘Micky, come
afther me,’ she does be cryin’. Whisht!”
“Why, dash it—it’s a lunatic!” cried Mr Boxall.
“Whisht!” said Micky, bending down, resting his hands on his knees and
presenting an ear towards the ground, “I hear her fut.”
The next moment he had vanished from the scene. It was just as if Mr
Boxall had kicked him into space.
“D—d lunatic!” said Mr Boxall, nursing his foot.
He made his way out from amidst the trees; as he left their shelter the
solemn tones of the house clock striking eleven came floating across the
park. From the woods the far-away whooping and shouting of the
visionary, still impelled and still running, came like a voice heard in
dreamland.
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