Last night, when I got back to the cottage, I found that another
'travelling man' had arrived to stay for a day or two; but he was
hard of hearing and a little simple in his head, so that we had not
much talk. I went to bed soon after dark and slept till about two
o'clock in the morning, when I was awakened by fearful screams in
the kitchen. For a moment I did not know where I was; then I
remembered the old man, and I jumped up and went to the door of my
room. As I opened it I heard the door of the family room across the
kitchen opening also, and the frightened whispers of the people. In
a moment we could hear the old man, who was sleeping on the settle,
pulling himself out of a nightmare, so we went back to our beds.

In the morning the woman told me his story:

'He was living above on a little hillside,' she said, 'in a bit of a
cabin, with his sister along with him. Then, after a while, she got
ailing in her heart, and he got a bottle for her from the doctor,
and he'd rise up every morning before the dawn to give her a sup of
it. She got better then, till one night he got up and measured out
the spoonful, or whatever it was, and went to give it to her, and he
found her stretched out dead before him. Since that night he wakes
up one time and another, and begins crying out for Maurya--that was
his sister--and he half in his dreams. It was that you heard in the
night, and indeed it would frighten any person to hear him screaming
as if he was getting his death.'

When the little man came back after a while, they began asking him
questions till he told his whole story, weeping pitiably. Then they
got him to tell me about the other great event of his life also, in