wide awake again, with the dreadfu' racket you were just a makin' O!
my! wadna you hae made a good nuss?"

Mr. Norton truly grieved at his inadvertency in disturbing the
household at this late hour of the night, begged pardon, and told Mrs.
McNab he would not be guilty of a like offence.

"How has the gentleman been during the evening?" he asked.

"O! he's been ravin' crazy a'maist, and obstacled everything I've done
for him. He's a very sick pusson naw. I cam' down to get a bottle of
muddeson", and Mrs. McNab went to a closet and took from it the
identical bottle of brandy from which Mrs. Dubois had poured when
preparing the stimulating dose for the invalid. Mr. Norton observed
this performance with a twinkle of the eye, but making no comment, the
worthy woman retired from the room.

That night Mr. Norton slept indifferently, being disturbed by exciting
and bewildering dreams. In his slumbers he saw an immense cathedral,
lighted only by what seemed some great conflagration without, which,
glaring in, with horrid, crimson hue upon the pictured walls, gave the
place the strange, lurid aspect of Pandemonium. The effect was
heightened by the appearance of thousands of small, grotesque beings,
all bearing more or less resemblance to the little man of the clock,
who were flying and bobbing, jerking and grinning through the air,
beneath the great vault, as if madly revelling in the scene. Yet the
good man all the while had a vague sense of some awful, impending
calamity, which increased as he wandered around in great perplexity,
exploring the countenances of the various groups scattered over the
place.