THE BARKING DOG. 75 



till the daylight came creeping in at the windows, filling 

 with sepulchral greyness the room. The barking ceased, 

 and I slept only to dream of snarling curs and ' dirty dogs ' 

 for an hour. 



" Through all Tuesday I lay tossing with pain. Fever 

 was in every pulse ; my brain was seething, burning lava. 

 I thought and dreamed of nothing but mangy curs and 

 ' dirty dogs.' The night gathered again, and the rumbling 

 of the carriages and the thousand voices that break the 

 stillness of a thronged city, died away into silence. The 

 lights were extinguished, but again that horrible bark ! 

 bark ! broke the hush of midnight, and worse than all, the 

 quickened senses of fever heard it answered from away over 

 on Arbor Hill ; and again away up in State street ; and 

 yet again over in Lydius, and still again away down by the 

 river. The East, the North, the West and the South had 

 a voice, and it was all concentrated in a ceaseless, senseless, 

 idiotic bark. I counted again the tickings of the clock, and 

 each swing of the pendulum ended in a bark ! As I lay 

 there in the silence and desolation, the restless, tossing 

 anguish of fever, those dogs gathered together in State at 

 the crossing of Eagle, just above my boarding-house, and 

 barked ! They came under my windows, and barked ! 

 They looked in between the curtains, and barked ! They 

 came into my room, and there on the sofa, on the rocking- 

 chair, on the table, on the mantelpiece, on the ottoman, on 

 the stove, and on the top of the old clock, was a dog ; and 

 each barked ! and barked 1 I saw them all through the dark- 



