I will not say but sometimes I did look carefully to see
if I could find the traces of a man's foot; but I never
saw another.

Unless we went out somewhere during the evening, we
went to bed early. We rose early as well, for I never
lost the habits of my apprenticeship. And so we were
both sound asleep in bed one night when a strange thing
happened, and a sudden fright came to us, of which I must
tell quite at length, for it made, indeed, a very sudden
change in the current of our lives.

I was sound asleep, as I said, and so, I found, was
my mother also. But I must have been partly waked by
some sudden noise in the street, for I knew I was sitting
up in my bed in the darkness when I heard a woman
scream,--a terrible cry,--and while I was yet startled,
I heard her scream again, as if she were in deadly fear.
My window was shaded by a heavy green curtain, but in an
instant I had pulled it up, and by the light of the moon
I seized my trousers and put them on.

I was well awake by this time, and when I flung open
the door of my house, so as to run into my garden, I
could hear many wild voices, some in English, some in
German, some in Irish, and some with terrible cries,
which I will not pretend I could understand.

There was no cry of a woman now, but only the howling
of angry or drunken men, when they are in a rage with