Each drank a comfortable dram , and left the spot with so many jests and such laughter at their unaccomplished wickedness that they might be said to have gone on their way rejoicing . In a few hours they had forgotten the whole affair , nor once imagined that the recording angel had written down the crime of murder against their souls in letters as durable as eternity . As for David Swan , he still slept quietly , neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung over him nor of the glow of renewed life when that shadow was withdrawn . He slept , but no longer so quietly as at first . An hour 's repose had snatched from his elastic frame the weariness with which many hours of toil had burdened it . Now he stirred , now moved his lips without a sound , now talked in an inward tone to the noonday spectres of his dream . But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder along the road , until it dashed through the dispersing mist of David 's slumber ; and there was the stagecoach . He started up with all his ideas about him . `` Halloo , driver ! Take a passenger ? '' shouted he . `` Room on top ! '' answered the driver . Up mounted David , and bowled away merrily toward Boston without so much as a parting glance at that fountain of dreamlike vicissitude . He knew not that a phantom of Wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters , nor that one of Love had sighed softly to their murmur , nor that one of Death had threatened to crimson them with his blood , all in the brief hour since he lay down to sleep . Sleeping or waking , we hear not the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen . Does it not argue a superintending Providence that , while viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves continually athwart our path , there should still be regularity enough in mortal life to render foresight even partially available ? SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE . So ! I have climbed high , and my reward is small .
Here I stand with wearied knees -- earth , indeed , XXXXX a dizzy depth below , but heaven far , far beyond me still .
about along at in on since that through until without