Alice Wilde: The Raftsman's Daughter — page 57: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE NIGHTMARE. BS though not from the guilt of the intent. He had thought him- self, for half a day, to be a murderer,—and during those hours the rash boy had changed into the desperate man. Whether he had suffered so awfully in conscience that he was glad to hear of the escape of his intended victim, or whether he swore still to consummate his wish, his own soul only knew. Everybody at Wilde’s mill had remarked the change in him, from a gay youth full of jests and nonsense to a quiet, morose man, working more diligently than ever, but sullenly rejecting all advances of sport or confidence. If he was secretly struggling for the mastery over evil, it was a curious fatality which threw him again upon a tempta- tion so overwhelming in its ease and security of accomplish- ment. Ah, well did the unhappy Alice realize how easily now he could follow his intent—how fully in his power was that un- suspicious man who had already suffered so much from his hands. Appetite and sleep forsook her; if she slept it was but to dream of a boat gliding down a river, of a strong man raising a weak one in his grasp and hurling him, wounded and helpless, into the waters, where he would eit: sink, till the waves bubbled ovér his floating hair, and all was gone. Many a night she started from her sleep with terrified shrieks, which alarmed her father. “*Tain’t right for a young girl to be having the nightmare so, Pallas. Suthin’ or another is wrong about her—hain’t no nerves lately. I do hope she ain’t goin’ to be one of the screechin’, faintin’ kind of women folks. I detest sech. Her health can’t be good. Do try and find out what’s the matter with her; shell tell you quicker ’an she will me. Fix her up some kind of tea.” | “De chile ain’t well, masser; dat’s berry plain. She’s getting thin every day, and she don’t eat ’nuff to keep a bird alive. But it’s her mind, masser—’pend on it, it’s her mind. ‘Dese young gentleum make mischief. Wish I had masser Moore under my thumb—I’d give him a scoldin’ would las’ him all his life.” f : “Cuss Philip Moore, and all others of his class,” muttered the raftsman, moodily. Both Mr. Wilde and Pallas began to lose their high opinion CoOMmicbooks.€©