lying speechless with terror, the moment she left the room at night I began
to roar and scream till I brought my mother and half the house up to my
bedside. "What could be the matter with the child?" Faithful to my promise,
I never betrayed the secrets of my prison-house. Nothing could he learned
from me but that "I was frightened," that "I could not go to sleep;" and
this, indeed, my trembling condition, and convulsed countenance,
sufficiently proved. My mother, who was passionately fond of me, became
alarmed for my health, and ordered that Fowler should stay in the room with
me every night till I should be quite fast asleep.

So Fowler sat beside my bed every night, singing, caressing, cajoling,
hushing, conjuring me to sleep: and when in about an hour's time, she
flattered herself that her conjurations had succeeded; when my relaxing
muscles gave her hope that she might withdraw her arm unperceived; and when
slowly and dexterously she had accomplished this, and, watching my
eyelashes, and cautiously shading the candle with her hand, she had happily
gained the door; some slipping of the lock, some creaking of the hinge,
some parting sound startled me, and bounce I was upright in my bed, my eyes
wide open, and my voice ready for a roar: so she was compelled instantly to
return, to replace the candle full in my view, to sit down close beside the
bed, and, with her arm once more thrown over me, she was forced again to
repeat that the Jew's bag could not come there, and, cursing me in her
heart, she recommenced her deceitful songs. She was seldom released in less
than two hours. In vain she now tried by day to chase away the terrors of
the night: to undo her own work was beyond her power. In vain she confessed
that her threats were only to frighten me into being a good boy. In vain
she told me that I was too old now to believe such nonsense. In vain she
told me that Simon was only an old-clothes-man, that his cry was only "Old
clothes! Old clothes!" which she mimicked to take off its terror; its
terror was in that power of association which was beyond her skill to