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I cannot say the night was a happy one. There were moments when I seemed to lose myself and my own anxieties in thoughts of Norah and the future, and such moments were sweet to look back on—then as they are now; but I slept only fitfully and dreamt frightfully.
It was natural enough that my dreams should centre around Knockcalltecrore; but there was no good reason why they should all be miserable or terrible. The Hill seemed to be ever under some uncomfortable or unnatural condition. When my dreams began, it was bathed in a flood of yellow moonlight, and at its summit was the giant Snake, the jewel of whose crown threw out an unholy glare of yellow light, and whose face and form kept perpetually changing to those of Murtagh Murdock.
I can now, with comparatively an easy effort, look back on it all, and disentangle or give a reason for all the phases of my thought. The snake "wid side whiskers" was distinctly suggested the first night I heard the legend at Mrs. Kelligan's; the light from the jewel was a part
