Hello,
This is Stephen.
These days I like to tell my listeners that I'm a real human being.
Making these sleep stories is my art.
My work.
And one of the great joys of my life,
And every word you hear tonight was recorded by me.
Onto a microphone.
With my little dog sitting at my feet.
And with that.
Hello my friend.
Welcome to your sleep story.
My name is Stephen Doulton.
I'm an Irish Storyteller.
And it's my great privilege.
To be the voice that you listen to.
As you go to sleep.
Tonight's story is about a courage.
Called the dream.
We will visit the year 1847.
And we will find four tired people about to board the dream.
This is a simple story.
Where we will hear about their night.
Travelling through the countryside.
And maybe.
They may even have a dream or two themselves.
But first,
Let's do the relaxation session.
Which will take a few minutes before tonight's sleep story.
I'm going to count down from ten to one.
And as I do.
Allow yourself to let go.
More.
Good night.
10.
Feel the support.
Of the bed beneath you.
Or the floor.
Or whatever you lie upon tonight.
And beneath what you lie upon.
Feel a deeper support.
The support of the earth.
Our home.
Our constant support.
And as you become aware of that support See if you can.
.
.
Sink into this moment a little more now.
Just.
Let go.
A little more now.
You.
Are safe.
Allow my voice.
To be an anchor of safety tonight.
To be a friend.
To be a gentle guide.
A guide that only ever brings you.
To safe places.
To warm.
And cosy places.
To places that enable and support your sleep.
That my voice is a friend tonight.
Feel into your body now.
Notice where you might still be holding tonight.
Notice where you may have pain.
Or tingling.
Your attention.
Notice anything.
Maybe you feel something in your feet.
Or in your lower legs.
Resize.
Or your belly.
Your chest.
Shoulders.
Arms.
Ends.
Or maybe you're like me.
And you hold tension in your face Just see if you can soften a little now.
This is a time bomb.
For kindness.
To yourself.
And to your body.
Seven.
The day is.
Whatever it has been.
Has been.
Whatever will be.
Will be.
But right now.
All you have.
Is this moment.
Your thoughts can't change what has gone before.
Your thoughts can't change.
What will come tomorrow.
Your brain.
Needs rest now.
So,
As thoughts come and go now Don't fight them.
Don't chase them away.
See them for what they are.
Such.
Then just.
.
.
Watch them go.
Like leaves.
Floating away.
On a moonlit river.
Or cloud.
Passing through a starlit sky.
Six.
This is your moment.
This.
Is your time.
You have earned this moment of kindness to yourself.
You deserve.
To have peace in your life.
We all do.
So,
As you become aware of that fact,
As you come to the understanding.
That we all deserve peace.
See.
If you can settle into this moment.
A little more now.
Letting your body know.
That it's really time for rest.
Peace.
Lives within you.
It is a constant friend.
Waiting to be found.
Waiting to be felt.
Where does it live within you?
Maybe it's in your heart.
Maybe it's in your head.
It's up to you to find it.
But I promise you it's there.
Perhaps allow a little gratitude now.
Gratitude.
For the simple things.
For your body.
For the shelter you have tonight.
With the ones you love.
And who love you.
For the beauty and wonder of this world.
Of this planet.
That you can find.
When you look for it.
3.
Begin to engage with your imagination now.
Begin to see four beautiful horses.
Standing at the ready.
And a beautiful courage called the dream.
Ready to carry their four passengers.
Through the night.
On a cozy journey.
Too.
Checking in with your body one more time now.
Finding the places you are holding still.
And allowing yourself to give in.
To allow the tension to ease away.
Your body has worked hard for you today.
It's time.
To give it rest.
And one.
Completely letting go now.
As I tell you.
Tonight's sleep story.
In the year 1847.
And the last road before the hills began.
There was a coaching yard.
At a place called home.
Hollow cross.
And every evening.
At half past six.
A coach left it.
And did not stop again.
Until morning.
The coach was painted a deep green.
With red wheels.
And two brass lamps at the front.
And along its door in gold letters.
Was its name.
It was cool.
The dream.
Nobody at Hollow Cross remembered who had named it.
And nobody thought the name strange.
It was simply what the coach had always been called.
The way a river is called by its name.
And not by any other.
On this evening.
It was raining.
The rain came down over the yard.
And over the stable roofs.
And over the four horses being led out to the pool.
There was a fire in the yard office.
Where the clerk sat with his ledger and his tea.
And the light of it came out through the window.
And lay in a long yellow shape.
Across the wet cobbles.
So that the voices walked through it.
By one.
As they came.
Their names were Pilgrim,
Marigold,
Come through.
And old Tuesday.
Pilgrim and Marigold went in front being the quicker path.
And comfort and old Tuesday.
Went behind them at the pool.
Being this dead here.
Old Tuesday was a grey mare of nineteen years.
Who had been born on a Tuesday.
And had never hurried in her life.
And she was the reason the coach never had to stop.
Whatever pace she set.
The other is kept.
And her pace was the pace of a long night.
With all of it ahead.
The coachman was a man named Barnaby Fell.
He was bored.
Quiet.
With a many-caped coat that came down nearly to his boots.
And a hut with the brim turned low against the rain.
He had driven the dream for twenty-two years.
He climbed up onto the pox And took the reins into his gloved hands.
And set there.
Looking out along the road.
Were below him.
The passengers came across the yard.
There were four of them.
The first.
Was Miss Ada Pennywhistler.
I was 74.
And was going over the hills.
To stay with her sister for the winter.
She carried a small carpet bag and a much larger umbrella.
And she had a hot brick wrapped in flannel.
That the clerk had given her from the office fire.
The second was a schoolmaster.
Named Elias Combe who was going to take up a post in a village he had never seen.
He had a trunk on the roof.
And a book in his pocket.
And he looked like a man who had been reading the same page for some time.
The third was a sailor.
Called Tom Lark.
20 years old.
Three years at sea.
And now,
Three hours from home.
If the road was kind.
He had to converse back over one shoulder.
And he did not seem to mind the rain at all.
And the fourth was a girl of eleven called Nell Harrow.
Who was travelling alone to her grandmother's house at Wending.
On the far side of the hills.
With a label on her coat.
And a paper of sandwiches in her pocket.
And her eyes Very why?
The guard.
Whose name was Josiah Peel.
So are the men.
He was a small neat man in a red coat.
And he had the horn and the lamps and the timepiece and yet a way of settling people.
That was almost like tucking them in.
He put Miss Pennywhistle's brick at her feet.
He put Nell by the window that would face the hills.
He set a charcoal foot-warmer on the floor between the seats.
Ironbox.
With a lid full of little holes.
And the glow came up through the holes.
And lay on the ceiling of the cup.
In a pattern of small.
Warm coins.
Then he shut the door.
And climbed up to his seat at the back.
And the dream went out of the yard of hollow cross.
Into the rain.
The road went out between hedges at first.
And then between fields And the light of the yard fell away behind Until it was one window.
And they're no window at all.
The two coach lamps threw their light forward onto the road.
It was not a great deal of light.
Net reach.
Perhaps as far as the leading horse's ears.
And then the rain took it.
But it was enough.
And Barnaby fell did not need to see the road.
The road was in his hands in the small movements of the reins.
And it was in old Tuesday.
Who had walked this way more than four thousand times.
And would have worked it with her eyes closed.
Inside.
The four passengers settled into the way of the coach.
It rucked a little.
This way.
Into that.
A zip code.
Rocks on a slow river.
The foot warmer glow.
The windows ran with rain.
And beyond them.
The dark went by.
And now and then a lit window in a farmhouse.
Went by too.
Far off across the field.
Small.
And steady.
Like a call that someone had set down in the night.
Forgotten.
Miss Pennywhistle.
Folded her hands upon her carpet bag.
I have made this journey eleven times.
She said.
To nobody in particular.
And I have never once seen the road.
I am asleep.
Before the Toll House.
And awake at my sister's gate.
My sister thinks I am very hardy.
I have never told her.
Now looked at her.
What do you dream?
Now set.
Miss Pennywhistle considered this.
I believe I do.
She said.
I believe I dream of where I am going.
It is a strange thing.
By the time I arrive.
I feel I have already been there a night.
And the house is glad of me.
And she leaned her head back.
Against the padded corner of the coat.
And the hot brick warmed her feet.
And the rain ran on the glass.
Before the road had gone another mile.
Miss Ada Pennywhistle.
Versus sleep.
The Toll House stood at the place where the fields ended and the hills began.
It was a small round house.
With a small round window.
And in the window there was a lamp.
And behind the lamp.
There was a fire.
And in the light of both of them.
Sat Mrs Quill.
Who kept the gate.
Mrs Quirrell did not come out.
She never came out for the dream.
22 years ago.
She had come out once in the rain.
With your lantern.
To take the toll and lift the bar.
Barnaby fell,
And leaned down from the box and said,
Leave it up for me,
Mrs Quill.
I'll not be stopping.
And she had looked at him.
And at the four horses steaming.
And at the green coat.
With the gold word on its door.
And she had lifted up.
It had been up ever since The toll was paid at hollow cross.
In the yard office.
Once a year.
In a lump.
And Mrs.
Quill kept her fire and her lunch.
And watched the coach go by.
If you watched it now.
She saw the two lumps come up the road out of the rain.
And the shape of the horses.
And the shape of the man on the box And she raised her cup to him.
And he touched his hat to her.
And the dream went through the open gate.
Began to climb.
Inside.
Miss Pennywhistle was dreaming.
She was dreaming of her sister's house.
Which was called Large Cottage.
And which stood at the far end of wending.
Where the lane gave up.
And became a footpath.
In the dream.
It was still raining.
But she was inside And there was a fire in the small front parlor and her sister Kit was sitting on one side of it.
And she was sitting on the other.
And neither of them was saying anything.
Because after 70 years.
.
.
There is not a great deal that needs to be said.
The clock went by.
The fire is settled.
On the sill there was a row of geraniums that Kit had brought in for the winter.
And their leaves made small shadows on the wall.
It was the best sort of dream.
The zoet where nothing happens.
And it went on for a long time.
The road.
The hedges gave way to stone walls.
And the stone walls gave way to open hill.
And the rain came across the open field profound as it could.
And went on past it.
Into the dark.
There was a valley.
On the far side of the first two.
And in the bottom of the valley.
There was a river.
And beside the river.
There was a mill.
The mill did not work at night.
But the Miller lived in it.
And the miller's kitchen was on the ground floor at the river end.
And its window was always lit.
The dream came down into the valley.
With the lamps swinging and turn light.
Who had been watching the dark.
Saw the window come into view below and a little ahead and he watched it grow.
And he watched it pass.
And inside.
For one moment.
He saw a man in shirt sleeves.
Sitting by a range.
With a cat on his knee.
Tom Lark had seen a great many things in three years.
He had seen whales.
It seemed the sun come up over a sea As flat and pale as milk.
He had seen a knight in the southern ocean.
With more stars than there was sky for But he had not seen a man.
Sitting by a rain.
With a cut on his knee.
Not once in three years.
And it did something to him that the whales had not.
He put his head back against the corner of the coat.
The foot-warmer glowed between his boots.
The road went the far side of the valley.
Steady.
Old Tuesday's face.
And the sailor's eyes closed He dreamed of his mother's kitchen.
It was a small kitchen.
In a small house in Wending.
The door that stuck in wet weather.
And in the dream the doors stop.
And he had to put his shoulder to it.
And it gave.
And there was the fire and the kettle and the hob.
And the smell of bread.
That had been baked that morning.
And his mother turning from the table with flour on her hands.
That was all.
That was the whole dream.
He stood in the doorway and she turned around And the rain came in behind him.
And the fire was lit.
And the couch carried him on.
Above the valley.
There was a long ridge.
And the road went along the top of it for three miles with nothing on either side.
But the dark.
And the rain.
And.
.
.
Or down in the dark.
Here and there.
The light of a farm.
But there was one light that was not far down It was close.
Just above the road.
On the shoulder of the hill.
And it was a fire.
It was the fire of a shepherd.
Aim us so on.
You had a hut up there.
And a hundred and forty years.
And who sat out with them on wet nights.
Because he liked to.
And because his dog liked tears.
And because the hut had a stove in it.
And he could see the whole rich road from the door.
Me so as it dreams.
You always did.
He had a pot on the stove and a pipe in his mouth.
And the dog against his leg.
And he watched the two lamps come along the top of the world.
And he counted the coach past.
The way he counted his sheep.
And it was gone.
Inside.
Elias Combe had given up his book.
He had been trying to read about the place he was going to.
It was a book of the county was a page after each village.
And the page about his village.
Said that it had a church,
A green church.
A school of 31 pupils.
And a fine old elm He had read the page a great many times.
It had not helped.
A page cannot tell you whether the children will like you.
Or whether the schoolhouse is warm or whether there is anyone to talk to in the evenings.
He looked out of the window at the shepherd's fire going by.
Small and red on the hill.
And he thought that the shepherd Whoever he was.
It made a place for himself up here in the wet dark.
With a stove.
And the dark.
And a hundred sheep.
And if that could be done.
Then a schoolhouse could be done too.
The foot or my clothes.
The coach ruts.
Elias Combe took off his spectacles.
And folded them in his pocket with the book and closed his eyes.
He dreamed of the schoolhouse.
It was small and it was warm and there was a stove in the corner with a fire guard round it and thirty-one children at their sleep.
And one of them.
The boy with red hair.
Put up his hand.
And ask the question.
That Elias Comb had never been asked before.
A really good question.
And he found that he knew the answer.
And that he was glad to give it.
Outside the window of the dream.
Was the fine old elm tree.
And it was raining on the Elves.
And the rain made the stove seem warmer.
And the dream went on.
The coach came down off the ridge.
And now it was the middle of the night.
This was the part of the journey that nobody ever saw.
Every night.
For 22 years.
The dream had crossed this stretch of the hills,
Between one o'clock and three.
And every night.
For 22 years.
Its passengers.
At the end.
Asleep.
Barnaby fell at seeing it.
Josiah Peele had seen it The horses knew it in their feet.
But it was a road that belonged to the coach alone.
And it went on through the dark.
Like a secret that had never been told.
And did not need to be.
The rain kept on falling.
And the lamps kept on burning.
Old Tuesday kept her pace.
There were things to see.
If anyone had been awake to see them.
There was a place where the road ran beside a wood and among the trees.
A charcoal burner at his clamp glowing under its turf.
A low red dome in the rain.
With the burner's hut beside it.
And a lantern in thought.
There was a place where the road crossed a stream.
By an old stone bridge.
And the water below the bridge.
Was full of the light of the lamps for one moment.
And then was dark again.
There was a place where a lime kiln stood above the road.
Its mouth full of slow fire.
And the heat of it came across the road.
So that the horses turned their ears to it as they passed.
And in the coat.
The four passengers slept.
And the rain.
Ran on the windows.
And the little coins of life.
From the foot warmer.
Trampled on the ceiling.
And did not go out.
Josiah Peel at the back.
Took the timepiece from his pocket.
And looked at it by the light of his lamp.
It was twenty minutes past two.
The dream was where it should be.
You put the timepiece away He looked at the road going by beneath the wheels.
Into the rain.
And at the broad back of Barnaby fell up on the box.
And taste sooth.
As he thought every night at about this time.
That there was no better place in the world to be.
Than here.
Moving.
In the dark.
With everyone asleep.
And everything in hand Now Haru woke.
She did not know who I said to work in her.
Nothing hurts.
She had simply slept enough.
For a while.
And now she was awake.
And the coach was moving and the three grown-ups were asleep around it.
And the rain was on the glass an inch from her face.
She did not feel afraid She had thought she might.
Setting out.
Girl alone on a night coach.
With a label on her coat.
That there was the foot warmer glowing.
There was the schoolmaster with his hands folded and the sailor.
With his mouth a little open.
And the old lady.
With her chin on her collar.
Oh.
Breathing.
Slow.
And there was the scent which she could not have explained.
That the coach knew where it was going.
And did not need her to worry about it.
She looked at.
The hills were falling away now The road was coming down and far ahead.
At the bottom of the dark.
There were lights.
A few at first.
Than more.
A village.
Wending.
Her grandmother's village.
Which she had never seen.
With her grandmother in it.
Whom she had never met.
In a house that her mother had told her,
At a blue door.
And arose over the port.
And a fire that was never let go out.
She looked through the blue door.
If you could not see it.
It was too far.
And it was too dark.
And the rain was in the way.
But somewhere in that scatter of small lights It was there.
And a fire was lit behind it.
And someone was sitting up.
Now put her cheek against the cold glass.
And watched the lights.
And felt the coach carry her down towards them.
At old Tuesday's pace.
Which was the pace of a long night.
With nearly all of it behind.
She thought about the blue door.
She thought about the rows over the port.
Which would be bare now.
In the rain.
November.
But which would be there.
She thought about her grandmother.
And found that she could not picture her face.
And found that it did not matter.
Because she would see it soon.
And it would be the face of someone who had sat up.
The lights came closer.
The road came down.
The rain came on.
There was one more hill before wending.
Loved one.
The last.
Fold of the land before the village.
And the dream went a bit slow.
And over it.
And to the lights of wending lay below.
She had not meant to sleep.
She had meant to watch the whole way down.
And see the first house and the first lamp.
And the blue door.
And be ready.
But the coach had run.
And to the foot warmer it glows.
And the rain had run on the glass and her eyes had closed on their own.
And she was dreaming of the blue door In the dream it was open.
And the rose was over it And the rose was in flower though it was November.
And inside there was a fire And beside the fire there was a chair And in the chair there was a small woman with white hair.
And Nell's own eyes.
You had been sitting up.
And to look.
And smile.
The dream came down the last hill into the rain.
Barnaby fell sat on the box with the reins in his hands Josiah Peel sat at the back with the lamp.
Pilgrim and marigold and comfort and old Tuesday went on.
Full dark.
Shapes.
With the rain on their backs.
Steady.
And the two brass lumps went ahead of them.
Unto the road.
And the road went on.
Inside.
Poor people slept.
An old woman dreaming of geraniums.
A sailor dreaming of bread.
A schoolmaster dreaming of a good question.
Girl.
With her cheek against the window.
Dreaming of a door that was open.
And the green coach with the gold word on its door.
Went on down through the rain towards the lights of wending.
Not there yet.
Not hurry.
With all its dreamers in it.
And deny.
Still around it.
And the road.
Still.
