Yes, surely I had been asleep and had woke up; but no! alas, no! I had not been asleep--at least not in the old church--if I had been asleep I had been walking in my sleep, struggling, striving, learning, and unlearning in my sleep.

Years had rolled away whilst I had been asleep--ripe fruit had fallen, green fruit had come on whilst I had been asleep--how circumstances had altered, and above all myself, whilst I had been asleep.

No, I had not been asleep in the old church! I was in a pew, it is true, but not the pew of black leather, in which I sometimes fell asleep in days of yore, but in a strange pew; and then my companions, they were no longer those of days of yore.

I was no longer with my respectable father and mother, and my dear brother, but with the gypsy cral and his wife, and the gigantic Tawno, the Antinous of the dusky people.

And what was I myself?
No longer an innocent child, but a moody man, bearing in my face, as I knew well, the marks of my strivings and strugglings, of what I had learnt and unlearnt; nevertheless, the general aspect of things brought to my mind what I had felt and seen of yore.