moke that we were all as it were
enveloped in mist. On such evenings mother was very sad; and directly
it struck nine she said, "Come, children! off to bed! Come! The
'Sand-man' is come I see." And I always did seem to hear something
trampling upstairs with slow heavy steps; that must be the Sand-man.
Once in particular I was very much frightened at this dull trampling
and knocking; as mother was leading us out of the room I asked her, "O
mamma! but who is this nasty Sand-man who always sends us away from
papa? What does he look like?" "There is no Sand-man, my dear child,"
mother answered; "when I say the Sand-man is come, I only mean that you
are sleepy and can't keep your eyes open, as if somebody had put sand
in them." This answer of mother's did not satisfy me; nay, in my
childish mind the thought clearly unfolded itself that mother denied
there was a Sand-man only to prevent us being afraid,--why, I always
heard him come upstairs. Full of curiosity to learn something more
about this Sand-man and what he had to do with us children, I at length
asked the old woman who acted as my youngest sister's attendant, what
sort of a man he was--the Sand-man? "Why, 'thanael, darling, don't you
know?" she replied. "Oh! he's a wicked man, who comes to little
children when they won't go to bed and throws handfuls of sand in their
eyes, so that they jump out of their heads all bloody; and he puts them
into a bag and takes them to the half-moon as food for his little ones;
and they sit there in the nest and have hooked beaks like owls, and
they pick naughty little boys' and girls' eyes out with them." After
this I formed in my own mind a horrible picture of the cruel Sand-man.
When anything came blundering upstairs at night I trembled with fear
and dismay; and all that my mother could get out of me were the
stammered words "The Sandman! the Sand-man!" whilst the tears coursed
down my cheeks. Then I ran into my bedroom, and the whole night through
tormented myself with the terrible apparition of the Sand-man. I
was quite old enough to perceive that the old woman's tale about the
Sand-man and his little ones' nest in the half-moon couldn't be
altogether true; nevertheless the Sand-man continued to be for me a
fearful incubus, and I was always seized with terror--my blood always
ran cold, not only when I heard anybody come up the stairs, but when I
heard anybody noisily open my father's room door and go in. Often he
stayed away for a l