Jim had had an uneasy night, with imperfect sleep and preposterous dreams.

He had been pursuing game.
Sometimes it was a bear that attracted his chase, sometimes it was a deer, sometimes it was a moose, but all the time it was Miss Butterworth, flying and looking back, with robes and ribbons vanishing among the distant trees, until he shot and killed her, and then he woke in a great convulsion of despair, to hear the singing of the early birds, and to the realization of the fact that his days of bachelor life were counted.
Mr.Benedict, with his restored boy in his arms, occupied the room next to his, a door opening between them.

Both were awake, and were busy with their whispered confidences, when they became aware that Jim was roused and on his feet.

In a huge bundle on the table lay Jim's wedding garments, which he eyed from time to time as he busied himself at his bath.
"Won't ye be a purty bird with them feathers on! This makin' crows into bobolinks'll do for oncet, but, my! won't them things spin when I git into the woods agin ?" Benedict and Harry knew Jim's habit, and the measure of excitement that was upon him, and lay still, expecting to be amused by his soliloquies.
Soon they heard him say: "Oh, lay down, lay down, lay _down_, ye misable old mop!" It was an expression of impatience and disgust.
"What's the matter, Jim ?" Mr.Benedict called.
"Here's my har," responded Jim, "actin' as if it was a piece o' woods or a hay-lot, an' there ain't no lodgin' it with nothin' short of a harricane.

I've a good mind to git it shingled and san'-papered." Then, shifting his address to the object of his care and anxiety, he went on: "Oh, stick up, stick up, if you want to! Don't lay down on my 'count.
P'rhaps ye want to see what's goin' on.