Without inquiring further into this latter part of the subject--a very curious and interesting part of it--let us take the theory, roughly and generally, as I have just stated it, and apply it at once to the dream now under consideration." He took up the written paper from the table, and dropped the formal tone (as of a lecturer addressing an audience) into which he had insensibly fallen. "I see one event already in this dream," he resumed, "which I know to be the reproduction of a waking impression produced on Mr. Armadale in my own presence. If he will only help me by exerting his memory, I don't despair of tracing back the whole succession of events set down here to something that he has said or thought, or seen or done, in the four-and-twenty hours, or less, which preceded his falling asleep on the deck of the timber-ship.""I'll exert my memory with the greatest pleasure," said Allan.
"Where shall we start from?"
"Start by telling me what you did yesterday, before I met you and your friend on the road to this place," replied Mr. Hawbury. "We will say, you got up and had your breakfast. What next?""We took a carriage next," said Allan, "and drove from Castletown to Douglas to see my old friend, Mr. Brock, off by the steamer to Liverpool. We came back to Castletown. and separated at the hotel door.
Midwinter went into the house, and I went on to my yacht in the harbor.--By-the-bye, doctor; remember you have promised to go cruising with us before we leave the Isle of Man.""Many thanks; but suppose we keep to the matter in hand. What next?"Allan hesitated. In both senses of the word his mind was at sea already.
"What did you do on board the yacht?"
"Oh, I know! I put the cabin to rights--thoroughly to rights. Igive you my word of honor, I turned every blessed thing topsy-turvy. And my friend there came off in a shore-boat and helped me.--Talking of boats, I have never asked you yet whether your boat came to any harm last night. If there's any damage done, I insist on being allowed to repair it."The doctor abandoned all further attempts at the cultivation of Allan's memory in despair.
"I doubt if we shall be able to reach our object conveniently in this way," he said. "It will be better to take the events of the dream in their regular order, and to ask the questions that naturally suggest themselves as we go on. Here are the first two events to begin with. You dream that your father appears to you--that you and he find yourselves in the cabin of a ship--that the water rises over you, and that you sink in it together. Were you down in the cabin of the wreck, may I ask?""I couldn't be down there," replied Allan, "as the cabin was full of water. I looked in and saw it, and shut the door again.""Very good," said Mr. Hawbury. "Here are the waking impressions clear enough, so far. You have had the cabin in your mind; and you have had the water in your mind; and the sound of the channel current (as I well know without asking) was the last sound in your ears when you went to sleep. The idea of drowning comes too naturally out of such impressions as these to need dwelling on.
Is there anything else before we go on? Yes; there is one more circumstance left to account for.""The most important circumstance of all," remarked Midwinter, joining in the conversation, without stirring from his place at the window.
"You mean the appearance of Mr. Armadale's father? I was just coming to that," answered Mr. Hawbury. "Is your father alive?" he added, addressing himself to Allan once more.
"My father died before I was born."
The doctor started. "This complicates it a little," he said. "How did you know that the figure appearing to you in the dream was the figure of your father?"Allan hesitated again. Midwinter drew his chair a little away from the window, and looked at the doctor attentively for the first time.
"Was your father in your thoughts before you went to sleep?"pursued Mr. Hawbury. "Was there any description of him--any portrait of him at home--in your mind?""Of course there was!" cried Allan, suddenly seizing the lost recollection. "Midwinter! you remember the miniature you found on the floor of the cabin when we were putting the yacht to rights?
You said I didn't seem to value it; and I told you I did, because it was a portrait of my father--""And was the face in the dream like the face in the miniature?"asked Mr. Hawbury.
"Exactly like! I say, doctor, this is beginning to get interesting!""What do you say now?" asked Mr. Hawbury, turning toward the window again.