"Yes, I 've heerd tell on 'em," says John.
And the wretched woman went on: "It was one of them nasty lucifers, and it choked me so I could not find the candle; and though I could just see a ghostly object at the door, I could not tell at all whether it was Dan'l or not, for he never looked like himself when he walked into his sleep; and the match--they are nothing but splinters, you know--was burning closer and closer to my fingers, and I just dabs it wiolently into the washbowl, and puts it out. And then says I, 'Dan'l! Dan'l!' again; and this time he answers, and says he, 'You wixen,' says he, 'shut up your mouth!'
"There was no mistaking that, and all in the dark I wentered after him, and grabbed and ketched him by the end of his neck-tie, and hild with all my might; and at that he began to wociferate at the top of his woice, and, thinks says I, better than rouse all the neighbors and have them broke o' their rest, I 'll just let him go and walk into his sleep till he 's satisfied. I took the key out of the door, and then I tried to find my way back, for, thinks says I, I 'll retire and take my rest anyhow, and, if you believe it, I was so turned round I could n't find the piller! So I went feeling here and there, and every minute I come back to him, and every time I touched him he wociferated at the top of his woice; and then I 'd say, 'Dan'l, it was n't woluntary!' and then I 'd feel and feel by the chairs and the wall, and by one thing and another, as a body will when they can't see, and the first thing I 'd know I 'd be right back to him agin. My blistered arm, meantime, was a-burning like fire, but, thinks says I, it 's no use, I can 't find the water-pitcher, I 'm so turned round; and I just sot down where I was, and there I sot till daylight, blowing all my breath away onto my arm, and the minute I could see I made for the pitcher; but, happening to take it by the snout instead of the handle, away it went, and spilt all the water, and broke the pitcher past all mending,--and a fine pitcher, too!--one that my own father give me in cholera times, when his business was at the best."
"I declare," says John Chidlaw, "it 's enough to make a body's blood run cold!" And then he says he does n't wonder she 's agin matrimony!