Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1883-09-29 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

VISITORS DURING SLEEP.  It was very singular to think of the event which nearly took place. Such an observation, and perhaps it is scarcely an uncommon one, would not be likely to escape the moody,dreerny imagination of Nathaniel Hawthorne. And he embodies it in the story of David Sway. D.tvid Swan was on his way to Boston, and many things very nearly happened to him which might have prevented the continuance di the journey, but none of the shadows took shitpe and became concrete in fact. A pedestrain, with the bundle on his back which held his little all, travel-stained and weary, he turnel aside to rest in the meadow beneath the shy hedge. There he lay down to sleep in the bright summer day. A very old couple stepped into the field. They were childless; they were rich; they had lost a son; they fancied so-no likeness in David to their lost boy; a sort of half-expressed thought passed through their minds of taking him home. His open eouutenance charmed the old lady. Hail they waked him, a word or two of conversation would have determined them. lie would have charmed them. But with a mutual sense of shame for tho indulgence of their ridiculous idea, hurriedly they bustled out of the field. A tripping girl stepped behind the hedge, and started, curprised to find herself in a young man's bed-room. She was the daughter of one of the richest farmers in the neighbourhood, and her father was just then wanting such a character as David—a bright, trustworthy young man—to he active for him, to keep his accounts, to be gene. rally useful to them. If he would hut wake now! But the stupid fellow sleeps an. A wasp was buzzing round the sleeper's face. Gently she approached to whisk it away with her handkerchief. The old pen :le had atiel, "What an open countenance. She said, " Whitt • a handsome face he has!" Ah, if he would but wake She was an only daughter, and led her father as she pleased. David wonld have charmed the young lady not less than the old man. No, he did not wake. She stepped away with a sigh, and left him nuconseious, sleeping there still. She had not been long gone bemire an ill-looking pair stepped behind the hedge to divide some ill-gotten boot-, and they started, but it was to see a bundle boles th the sleeper's head. "You give him one smait blow with the bludgeon, and I'll grab the bundle." They did not know that murder was written down to their account, although that never happened, for just then a dog came sniffing behind the hedge. "Bahl" said one of the ruffians, 'that dog's master is not far off." And soon after the horn of the Boston coach sounded, and David spring up, and took his place on the top, and was carried away to Boston. And he did not know, and never knew, that wealth had given him a passing glance; that love had smiled upon him, and only coyly awaited for his recognition; that murder had lowered at him, and het for an accident had fulfilled its intention. And note of these things bad happened to David. So the shadows of events which might have been fall over the cements of our lives, passing like clouds over rivers, taking no shape. but suggesting a possible world. And probably we, all of us, have bad our hedge-side, end our shadow of unborn events like David Swan. So the viewless and unexpected events happen all round us, and yet we talk of a common-place world.  PAGE WOODOOCK'S WIND PILLS have tor thirty years held the first place ha the world se an effectual antidote to Indigestion, Wind on tho Stomacli., Biliousness, Had el complaints arising from a disordered state of the stomach, bowels, or liver. Tonic, invigorating .o.od purifying :they tom the best remedy extmr.--IN lia and t. 94 per boxy of N.ll chemists. or ~,- Page Woodcock, High-strew,. Lincoln, for :::,::::.p6.