 CHAPTER IV The Old Town, like human beings, had its moods of excited reminiscence. Why should it not? Now brooding, now suddenly waking into lightning flashes of dramatic history, so that every one in the place, scarcely knowing why, began to dream of the old days when armored men fought all the way down the high street and up again, and the black bishop rode on his great horse to the edge of the rock, where the cloisters now are, and saw the beggarly heretics flung over far down into the waters below, and the peasants had their fair up on the hill above the pole, and were all so bedrunken that they set the town on fire, so that three-quarters of it was burnt to the ground in 1457, as everyone knows, and the cathedral itself only saved by a miracle. And the meeting of the maidens in the marketplace, who brought a flag which they had worked to send to Monmouth and Bridgewater, and the last drowning of a witch, old mother Huckampinch, in the pole in 1723, and so farther and farther and farther, history, history, history, it lay thick as dust upon the town, and only needed a little stirring of the town's soil to send the dust up into people's eyes, making them think of times dead and gone, and ghosts closer still about them, perhaps than they had cared to think. It must have been during one of these moods of the town that Jeremy was caught. He was, as all readers of these reminiscences of his early days will have discovered, a two-sided deboy, and he had already a strange, secret interior life within his very healthy and normal exterior one. There is nothing harder, perhaps, in our own experience, than to look back and discover when it was that that secret life was, as it were, first confirmed and strengthened by something in the real world that corresponded to it. For some of us, that actual moment was so dramatic, so strangely concrete and definite, so friendly, as though it were someone suddenly appearing out of the dark, and speaking to us and showing us that we were not alone, either in experience or desire, as we had supposed, that we cannot possibly forget its precise time and color. With others, two or three occasions can claim to have worked the miracle. With others, again, that confirmation was gradual, arising out of no definite incident, but rather creeping forward like a finger of the rising sun, slowly lighting one's path and showing one where to go. With Jeremy, there had been already definite signs, his adventure years ago with the sea captain, his days on the beach at Raphael, his friendship with Uncle Samuel, but his actual realization of something strange and mysterious, ancient and yet present, friendly and yet hostile, reassuring and yet terrifying, active and yet quiescent, his recognition of that life beyond the wall dated quite definitely from his discovery of Saladin and his strange adventure in the Cathedral. As I have already said on that particular week, the last week of his Christmas holidays, the town was up to its tricks. Had it not been, Jeremy would surely never have felt the spirit of adventure so strongly, never gone into the old bookshop, never, but you will hear. He was very quiet and behaving beautifully during that last week, yes, beautifully, until the last three days, when the devil, who was always on the wait for young gentlemen when they are about to return to school, or the town, or Uncle Samuel, or something, or somebody, suddenly got hold of him and led him the strangest dance. It must have been the devil that led to the adventure of the Night Raiders, and that is quite another story. But again, it might have been the old town, nobody knows. How can anybody know thirty years after it was all over and done with? Until those last three days Jeremy behaved like an angel, that is, he listened to Aunt Amy and washed his hands when she told him to. He did not tease his little sister Barbara, no hide Helen's hair ribbons. He allowed Mary to go walking with him and gave Miss Jones a present when she returned from her holiday. He felt, perhaps, that as the holidays had begun so awfully with that terrible disaster of the Christmas presents, it was up to him to see that they ended properly. And then he was truly a good little boy, who wanted things to go well and everyone to be comfortable and happy. Only so strangely, moods would creep in, and desires and ambitions, and grown-up people would have such an amazing point of view about boys, and misunderstand their natural impulses so dreadfully. What he meant was that if he were grown up and had a boy, he wouldn't be such an ass. The trouble of these last days all began by his suddenly remembering that he had never read his holiday task. He did not remember of himself, but was reminded by Bill Bartlett, whom he met on the High Street, who said that the last two days had been miserable for him, by having to swat at his rotten holiday task and that he didn't know anything about it now. Jeremy had completely forgotten his. He hurried home and dragged forth from its deserted corner the talisman, a tale of the Crusades by Sir Walter Scott Baronet. It was a horrible looking book, with a dark green cover, no pictures and rows of notes at the end. Jeremy was not as yet a very great reader of anything, being slow and lazy about it, and very eager to skip the difficult words. His favorite two books were Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson, simply because in those books people invented things in a jolly way. And after all, any day one might be on a desert island, and it was useful to know what to do. Of Sir Walter Scott Baronet he had never in his life heard, nor did he wish to hear of him. Nevertheless, something must be done. Old Thompson took holiday tasks very seriously indeed. Jeremy's report last term had not been a very good one, and Father Xi was upon him. His first idea was that he would get Uncle Samuel to tell him the story. But when he showed his uncle the book, that gentleman waved his paintbrush in the air, and said that Walter was a fine old gentleman who died to game, but a rotten writer, and it was a shame to make kids wade through his abominable prose. There was then no hope here. Jeremy looked at the book, read half a page, and then threw it at Hamlet. But the stern truth of the matter was that in such a matter as this, and indeed in most of the concerns of his daily life, he resembled a spy working his way through the enemy's camp, surrounded on every side by foes, compelled to consider every movement doomed to death and dishonor if he were caught. It had to come to it now that there was, in practical fact, nothing that he desired to do that he was not forbidden to do, and because his school life had given him rules and standards that did not belong to his home life, he criticized at every turn. There was, for instance, this affair of walking in the town by himself. He could understand that Helen and Mary should not go by themselves, because there was apparently something mysterious and precious in girls that was destroyed where they left alone for a single moment. But a boy? A boy who had traveled by himself all those miles to a distant county? A boy, who in all probability would be the half-back for the school next term? A boy, who in another two years would be at a public school? What it came to, of course, was that he was continually giving his elders the slip, was indeed like the spy in the enemy's country, because every move had to be considered and, at the end, all the excuses ranged in a long row, and the most serviceable carefully chosen, and threadbare by now they were becoming. On this particular afternoon, the first of the last three days of the holidays, he gave Miss Jones and Helen the slip in the marketplace. This was today easy to do because it was market day. He knew that Helen was too deeply concerned with herself and her appearance to care whether he were there or no, and that Miss Jones delighted as she always was with the shops, knowing them by heart and yet never tired of them, would optimistically trust that he would very soon reappear and, at any rate, he knew his way home. He was always delighted with the market on market days. Never, although so constantly repeated, did it lose its savor for him. He adored everything, the cattle and the sheep in their pens, the farmers with their thick broad backs and thick broad sticks, talking in such solemn and serious clusters, the avenue down the middle of the marketplace where you walked past stall after stall, stalls of vegetables, stalls of meat, stalls of cups and saucers, stalls of china ornaments, stalls of pots and pans, and best, far best of all, the flower stalls with their pots of beautiful flowers, their seeds and their tiny plants growing in rows in wooden boxes. But it was not the outside market that was the most truly entrancing. On the right of the marketplace there were strange mysterious passages known to the irreverent as the catacombs, and here in a dusk that would, you would have supposed, have precluded any real buying or selling altogether, the true business of the market went on. It was here under these dark ages that in his younger days the toy shop had enchanted him, and even now, although he would own it to no one alive, the trains and the air guns seemed to him vastly alluring. There was also a football, too small for him, not at all the football that he wanted to buy, but nevertheless better than nothing at all. He looked at it, the price was eight and six pence, and he had in his pocket precisely five pence half penny. He sighed, fingered the ball that was hanging in mid-air, and it revolved round and round in the most entrancing manner. The old woman with a moustache who had, it was reputed, ever since the days of Genesis managed the toy shop, besought him in wheedling tones to purchase it. He could only sigh again, look at it lovingly, twirl it around once more, and pass on. He was in that mood when he must buy something, an entrancing, delicious and intoxicating mood, a mood that Helen and Mary were in all the time, and would continue to remain in it like the rest of their sex until the end, for them of purses, money, and all earthly hopes and ambitions. Next to the toy stall was a funny old bookstore. Always here there too he had passed this, not that it was uninteresting, because the old man who kept the place had covered prints that he stuck with pins into the wooden sides of his booth, and these prints were delightful, funny people in old costumes, coaches stuck in the snow, or a number of stout men tumbling about the floor after drinking too much. But the trouble with Mr. Samuel Porter was that he did not change his prints often enough, being as anyone could see a man of lazy and indifferent habits, and when Jeremy had seen the same prints for over a year he naturally knew them by heart. On this particular day however, old Mr. Samuel had changed his prints, and there were some splendid new ones in purples and reds and greens, representing skating on the ice, going up in a balloon, an evening in Vox Hall, and the fun of the fair. Jeremy stared at these with open mouth, especially at the fun of the fair, which was most amusing because in it a pig was running away and upsetting everybody, just as it might quite easily do here in the marketplace. He stood looking and Mr. Porter, who wore a faded green hat and large spectacles, and hated little boys because they never bought anything, but only teased him and ran away, looked at him out of the corner of his eye, and dared him to be cheeky. He had no intention whatever of being cheeky. He stared at the books, all so broken and old and melancholy, and thought what a dreary thing having to read was, and how unfortunate about his holiday task, and how silly of him to have thought of it just at that moment, and so spoiled his afternoon. He would then have passed on had it not been by the strangest coincidence that at that very instant his eye fell on a little pile of books at the front of the stall, and the book on the top of the pile had the very name of his holiday task, The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott Baranette. It was the strangest looking book, very different indeed from the book at home. He stared at it as though it was a lucky charm, how strange that it should be there, and appearing so oddly different from the book It was dressed in shabby and faded yellow covers. He picked it up. On the outside he read in large letters, Stead's Penny Classics. Penny, could it be that this book was only a penny? Why, if so, he could buy it, and four others like it. This sudden knowledge gave him a new proprietary interest in the book, as when you discover that a stranger at an hotel lives when at home in your own street. Opening the little book he saw that the print was very small, indeed, that the lines were crooked and irregular, here very black and there only dim gray. But in the very fact of this faint print there was something mysterious and appealing. No nose here, of course, and no undue emphasis on this Scott Baranette man as simply the talisman, short and sweet. Old Mr. Porter, observing the unusual sight of a small boy actually taking a book in his hands and reading it, was interested. He had seen the small boy often enough, and although he would never admit it to himself, had liked his look of sturdy independence and healthy self-assurance. He had not thought that the boy was a reader. He leaned forward. Only a penny? He wheezed. He suffered terribly from asthma, and the boys of the town used to call after him Old Barrow Organ. And just the story for a boy like you! I'll have it, said Jeremy, with sudden pride. He was of half a mind to buy some of the others. He saw that one more was by Scott Baranette. But no, he would see now this one before he ventured any further. He walked off with his prize. Two. That night he did what he had never done before. He read in bed. He was doing, as he well knew, what was absolutely forbidden, and the novelty of the event, the excitement of his disobedience, the strange wobbly light that the candle flung as it shifted when his movements were very impetuous in its insecure china saucer. The way the lines of the printed page ran tumultuously together, all these things helped his sense of the romantic. He had found every line a difficulty in the other edition. Now the sense of indulging the forbidden carried him across the first page or two, and then he was fairly inside it. The little book was very difficult to read. Not only was it wildly printed, but also the words ran in a kind of cascade down into the very binding of the book, and you had to pull the thing apart as wide as it would go, and then peer into the very depths of darkness and obscurity. Nevertheless it was his book, bought with his own money, and he read and read on and on. And in the morning he read again, and in the evening, and on the fourth day, late in the night, the candle very low in its china socket, the room lit with sudden flashes of bizarre brilliance, the book was finished. Three. He was dazzled, bewildered. He could think of nothing else at all. The very first meeting of the nights in the desert had marvelously caught his fancy. He had never imagined anything like that, so courteous, so amiable, and so fierce. Just so would he entertain the Dean's Ernest. Did he meet him in the desert, sharing his food and drink with him, complimenting him on his armor and his horse? He would be very showy, would the Dean's Ernest, and the next day sticking his spear through his vitals. Yes, that would be intensely pleasing, but the trouble would be that the Dean's Ernest would most certainly not play fair, but would seize some mean advantage, steal all Jeremy's dates when he wasn't looking, or give him one in the back. Then the visit to the Hermits Cave and the silence of the chapel, and the procession of the wonderful ladies, and the dropping of the rose at Sir Kenneth's feet. From that point forward Jeremy dwelled under enchantment. Nothing could take him from it, and he believed every word of it. Just as true to him, these men and deeds of the eastern desert as were the men and deeds of Orange Street, Ballchester, truer indeed. He never quite believed in Uncle Samuel and Aunt Amy and Barbara, but in Sir Kenneth and King Richard and Edith and Saladin, how could he not utterly believe? Saladin, his was the figure that ultimately emerged from the gilded background of the picture. Saladin, he became at once Jeremy's ideal of everything that was beautiful and like a man and brave. He haunted Jeremy's dreams. He followed him in his walks, came before him as he ate and drank. He must know more about him than Scott Baranette told you, and once again Uncle Samuel was sought. Jeremy had formed a habit now of dropping into Uncle Samuel's studio whenever it pleased him. The other children watched him with eyes of wonder and desire. Even Aunt Amy was surprised. She said a little, but sniffed a lot, and told her brother that he would regret the day. He laughed and told her that Jeremy was the only artist among the lot of them, at which Aunt Amy went to Jeremy's father and told him to be careful because her brother was filling the child's head with all sorts of notions that could do him no possible good. Jeremy behaved like a saint in his uncle's studio. He had his own corner of the shabby sofa where he would sit curled up like a dog. He chattered on and on, pouring out the whole of his mind, heart, and soul, keeping nothing back because his uncle seemed to understand everything and never made you feel a fool. He attacked him at once about Saladin and would not let him alone. In vain Uncle Samuel protested that he knew no history, and that Saladin was a colored devil as wicked as sin. And Jeremy stuck fast to his ideal, so that at length Uncle Samuel, in sure self-defense, was compelled to turn to a subject about which he did know something, namely the history of the town Paulchester in which they were living. Never to any living soul had Uncle Samuel confided that he cared in the least about the old town. In his heart nevertheless he adored it, and for years had he been studying its life and manners. To his grave his knowledge would have gone with him had not Jeremy in the secrecy of the studio lured him on. Then, as though they were dram-drinking together, did the two sit close and talk about the town, and under the boy's eyes the streets blossomed like the rose, the fountains played, the walls echoed to the cries and shouts of armored men, and the cathedral towers rose ever higher and higher, gigantic, majestic, wonderful, piercing the eternal sky. Best of all he liked to hear about the Black Bishop, that proud priest who had believed himself greater than the High God, had defeated all his enemies, lived in the castle on the hill above the town like a king, and was at last encircled by a ring of foes caught in the cathedral square and died there fighting to the end. Jeremy would never forget one afternoon when he sat on the floor, his head against the shabby sofa, and Uncle Samuel, who was doing something to his paint box, became carried away with the picture of his story. He drew for Jeremy the old town with the gabled roofs and the balconies and the cobbled roads, and the cathedral so marvelously alive above it all. As he talked, the winter sun poured into the room in a golden stream, making the white-washed walls swan-color, turning some old stuff that he had hanging over the door and near the window into wine-red shadow and purple light, and the trees beyond the high windows were stained copper against the dusky sky. Uncle Samuel's voice stopped and the room slid into gray. Jeremy stared after him and saw a saladin and the black bishop, gigantic figures hovering over the town that was small and colored, like a musical box. The cathedral was a new place to him, no longer somewhere that was tiresome and dreary on Sunday and dead all the rest of the week. He longed to go there by himself, alone, nobody to see what he would do and hear what he would say. He would go, he would go. He nodded to himself in the dark. Four. All very well, but he must be quick about it if these holidays were to see him bring it all. Only three days. Then Amy announced that she intended on this fine afternoon to pay a call on Miss Nightingale, who lived in the precincts, and to her great surprise Jeremy suggested that he should accompany her. She was rather flattered, and when it was discovered that Miss Jones and Helen were also going that way, and would pick Jeremy up and bring him home, she agreed to the plan. Jeremy and she were old, old enemies. He had insulted her again and again, played jokes upon her, had terrible storms of temper with her. But once, when a wretched little boy had laughed at her, he had fought the little boy and she had never forgotten that. As he grew older, something unregenerate in her insisted on admiring him. He was such a thorough boy, so sturdy and manly. She adored the way that his mouth went up at the corners when he laughed. She liked his voice when it was hoarse with a serious effort to persuade somebody of something. Then, although he had so often been rude to her, she could not deny that he was a thorough little gentleman in all that she meant by that term. His manners, when he liked, could be beautiful, quite as good as Helen's, and much less artificial. If you cared for boys at all, which Amy must confess that she did not, then Jeremy was the sort of boy to care for. She had in fact both a family and an individual pride in him. He was very funny today, walking up the high street, she could not understand him at all. Would you jump, Aunt Amy, if you suddenly saw the black bishop on his co-black horse with his helmet and suit of mail, riding along down the high street? The black bishop? What black bishop? Was the boy being impertinent to dear Bishop Gruzier, whose hair was in any case white, who had certainly never ridden a co-black horse? Jeremy carefully explained. Oh, the one in the cathedral! Oh, but he was dead and buried long ago. Yes, but if he should come to life, he was strong enough for anything. What an idea! She couldn't think where the boy got those strange, irreligious ideas from. From her brother Samuel, she supposed. The dead don't come back like that, Jeremy dear, she explained gently. How do you do, Miss McKenzie? Oh, much better, thank you. It was only a little foolish toothache. It isn't right of us to suppose they do. God doesn't mean us to. I don't believe God could stop the black bishop coming back if he wanted to, said Jeremy. Aunt Amy would have been terribly shocked had she not seen a most remarkable hat in Forrest's window that was only thirteen and eleven. What did you say, dear? With a little bit of blue at the side? Oh, but you mustn't say that, dear. That's very wicked. God can do everything. Saladin didn't believe in God, said Jeremy, winking at Tommy Winchester, who was in charge of his mother on the other side of the street. At least not in your God or father's. His God? Oh, there's Mrs. Winchester. Take off your hat, Jeremy. I'm sure it's going to snow before I get back. Perhaps Miss Nightingale will be out, and I'm sure I shan't be sorry. You mustn't say that, Jeremy. There's only one God. But if there's only one God, he began, then broke off at the side of a dog, strangely, like Hamlet. Not so nice, though. Not nearly so nice. He was returning to his consideration of the deity, the black bishop and Saladin, when, behold, they were already in the precincts. Now, you'll be all right, Jeremy, dear, won't you? Adjust for a minute or two? Miss Jones can't belong. All right. Of course he would be all right. If you like to wait here and just see, perhaps Miss Nightingale won't be in, and then we could go back together. No, he thought he wouldn't wait, because he had promised Miss Jones, who would be on the other side of the cathedral. Very well, then. He watched his aunt ring Miss Nightingale's very neat little doorbell, and saw her then admitted into Miss Nightingale's very neat little house. At that moment the cathedral chimes struck a quarter past four. He stepped across the path, pushed up the heavy leather flap of the great door, and entered. Afternoon service, which began at half-past three, was just ending. Some special saint's day, far, far away in the distance, the cannon's voice, abutifully echoed. The choir responded, The peace of God that passes all understanding, Passeth all understanding, Passeth all understanding, Repeated the thick pillars, and the high arched roof, dove-colored now in the dust, And the deep, black-stained seats. Passeth all understanding, all understanding. The flagstones echoed deep, deep into the ground. The organ rolled into a voluntary, white-flex of color, splashed for a moment against the screen, and were gone. Two or three people, tourists probably, came slowly down the nave, paused for a moment to look at the garrison window with the Christ and the little children, and went out through the west end door. The organ rolled on, the only sound, now in the building. Jeremy was suddenly frightened. Strange that a place which had always seemed to him the last word in common place should now terrify him. It was different, alive, moving in the heart of its shadows, whispering. He walked down the side aisle, looking at every tablet, every monument, every window, with a new interest. The aliveness of the church walked with him. It was as though, as he passed them, they gathered themselves and followed in a long gray, silent procession after him. He reached the side chapel, where was the tomb of the Black Bishop. There he lay, safely enclosed behind the golden grill, his gauntleted hands folded on his chest, his spurs on his heels, angels supporting his head, and grim defiance in his face. Jeremy stared and stared and stared again. About him and around him and above him the cathedral seemed to grow vaster and vaster. Clouds of dusk filled it. The color from the windows and the tombs, and the great gold trumpeting angel stained the shadows with patches of light. Jeremy was cold and shivered. He looked up and there opposite him, standing on the raised steps leading to the choir, was the Black Bishop. He was there, just as Jeremy had fancied him, standing, his legs a little apart, one mailed fist resting on his sword, his thick black beard sweeping his breastplate. He was staring at Jeremy and seemed to be challenging him to move. The boy could only stare back. Some spirit in him seemed to bid him, remember that this was true whatever soon might disprove it, that the past was the present and the present the past, that nothing ever died, that nothing must frighten him because it survived, and that he must take his share in his inheritance. All that he really thought was, I wonder if he'll come nearer. But he did not. Jeremy himself moved and suddenly the whole cathedral stirred, the mist breaking, steps sounding on the flags, voices echoing. No figure was there, only shadow, but here was that horrid fat man, the pressenter, who sometimes came to their house to tea. Why, my boy, what are you doing here? he asked in his big superior voice. I came in, said Jeremy, still staring at the steps of the choir, just for a moment. The pressenter put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder. That's right, my lad, he said. Study our great church and all its history. You cannot begin too young. Father well and mother well? Yes, said Jeremy, looking back behind him as he turned away. Oh, but his face had been fine, so strong, like a rock his sword had shown, and his gauntlets, how tall he had been, and how mighty his chest. That's right, that's right, remember me to them, when you get home, you must come up and play with my little girls one of these afternoons. I'm going back to school, Jeremy said, day after tomorrow. Well, well, that's a pity, that's a pity, another day, perhaps. Good day to you, good day. Chanting, he went along, and Jeremy stood outside the cathedral, staring about him. Lights were blowing in the wind, the dusk was blue and gray, the air was thick with armored men, marching in a vast procession across the sky. The wind blew, they flashed downwards in a cloud, wheeling up into the sky again, as though under command. The air cleared, the huge front of the cathedral was behind him, and before him, under the precinct's lamp, was Miss Jones and Ellen. Why, Jeremy, where have you been? We've been looking for you everywhere, we're just going home. Come on, Jeremy Groud, it's late. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Jeremy and Hamlet by Hugh Walpole This, the box recording, is in the public domain. Chapter 5 Poodle 1. I hate to confess it, but truth forces me. Hamlet was a snob. With other dogs, not with humans. With humans you never could tell. He would cling to the one and cleave from the other without any apparent just reason. He loved the lamp-lighter of Orange Street, although he was a dirty, disheveled rabbit of a man. He hated Aimee, who was as decent and cleanly as Spenster, as England could provide. But with dogs, he was a terrible snob. This, of course, he had no possible right to be, himself, an absolute mongrel with at least five different breeds, peeping now here, now there, out of his peculiar body. Nevertheless, he did like a dog to be a gentleman, and openly said so. It may have been that there was in it more of the snobbery of the artist than of the social striver. What he wanted was to spend his time with dogs of intelligence, dogs with savoir-faire, dogs of enterprise and ambition. What he could not abide was your mealy-mouth, licks-spittle, creeping and crawling kind of a dog, and he made his opinion very clear indeed. Since his master's return for the holidays and his own subsequent restoration to the upper part of the house, I am sorry to say that his conceit, already sufficiently large, was considerably swollen. His master was the most magnificent, stupendous, successful, all-knowing human to be found anywhere, and he was the favorite, best-loved, most warmly cherished object of that master's affections. It followed then that he was a dog beyond all other dogs. When he had been a kitchen dog he had affected a superiority that the other kitchen dogs of the neighborhood had found quite intolerable. He would talk to none of them, but would strut up and down, inside the garden railings, looking with his melancholy contemptuous eyes at those who invited him without suffering himself to be lured neither by lust of food nor invitation to battle, nor tender suggestions of love. When he became an upstairs dog again the other upstairs dogs did not, of course, allow him to forget his recent status. But Hamlet was not like other dogs. He had a humor and sarcasm, a gift of phrase, an enchanting cynicism which very few dogs were able to resist. He was out of doors now so frequently with Jeremy that he met dogs from quite distant parts of the town, and a little while before Christmas made friends with a fine aristocratic fox terrier who lived in one of the villas beyond the high school. This fox terrier found Hamlet exactly the companion he desired, having himself a very pretty wit, but being lazy with all, and liking others to make his jokes for him. His name was Pompey, which, as he confided to Hamlet, was a silly name, but then his mistress was a silly woman, her only merit being that she adored him to madness. He had as fine a contempt for most of the other dogs of the world as Hamlet himself. It passed his comprehension that humans should wish to feed and pet such animals as he found on every side of him. He saw, of course, at once that Hamlet was a mongrel, but he had, I fancy, an idea that he should place Sancho Pansa to his own guillote. He often told himself that it was absurdly beneath his dignity to go about with such a fellow, but for a pretty play of wit, agility and snatching another dog's bone, and remaining dignified, as he did so, for a handsome melancholy and gentle contempt, he had never known Hamlet's equal. Hamlet counted it as one of his most successful days when he brought Pompey into the Orange Street circle. There was not a dog there but recognized that Pompey was a cut above them all, a dog who had won prizes and might win prizes yet again. Although, between you and me, a self-indulgence was already thickening him, all the sycophants in Orange Street, and there, as elsewhere, there were plenty of these creatures, made up at once to Pompey and approached Hamlet with disgusting flatteries. A pug, known as Flossy, slobbered at Hamlet's feet, telling him that she had long been intending to call on him, but that her mistress was so exacting that it was very difficult to find time for all what social duties. Hamlet regarded the revolting object, glistening with grease and fat, with high contempt, his beard assuming its most ironical point. I had a very nice bone waiting for you in the kitchen, he said. Flossy shivered, I'm not old with you any more would be a delight! She wheezed. Hamlet was, of course, in no way deceived by these flatteries. He knew his world, he watched even his friend Pompey with a good deal of irony. He would have supposed that his friend was too well bred to care what these poor creatures should say to him. Nevertheless, Pompey was more pleased than he should have been. He sat there, round the corner, just by the monument, and received the homage with a pleasure that was most certainly not forced. He was himself a little conscious of this. Awful bore, he explained afterwards to Hamlet, having to listen to all the head to say, but what's one to do? One can't be rude, you know. One doesn't want to be impolite. And I must say they were very kind. Hamlet was now restored into the best Orange Street Society. All received him back, all with one very important exception. This was a white poodle, the pride and joy of a retired military colonel who lived at 41 Orange Street, and his name was Mephistopheles, Mephisto for short. Ever since Hamlet's first introduction to the Cole family, he and this dog had been at war. Mephisto was not a dog of the very highest breed, but his family was quite good enough. And then, being French, he could say a good deal about his origins, and nobody could contradict him. He did not, as a fact, say very much. He was too haughty to be talkative, too superior to be familiar. He had no friends. There was a miserable dox, Fritz by name, who claimed to be a friend, but everyone knew how Mephisto laughed at Fritz when he was not there, calling him appropriate names, and commenting on his German love of food. From the very first Mephisto had seemed to Hamlet an indecent dog. The way that he was here naked and there over hairy had nothing to be said for it. His naked part was quite pink. Then Mephisto had the French weakness of parsimony. Never was there a meaner dog. He stored bones as no dog had a right to do, and had never been known to give anything to anybody. Then he had the other French weakness of an incapacity for friendship. The domestic life might perhaps appeal to him strongly. No one knew whether he were married or not, but friendship meant nothing to him. He was, as are all the French, practical, unsentimental, seeing life as it really is, and allowing no nonsense. If he had those French defects, he had also the great French virtue of courage. He was afraid of nothing and of no one. No dog was too big for him, and he once had a fight with a Saint Bernard who happened to stroll down his way that was historic. He was no coward, as Hamlet very well knew, but how Hamlet hated him. All his fur bristled if Mephisto was within half a mile. Mephisto's superior smile is contempt at the rather sentimental enthousiasms to which Hamlet occasionally gave vent, that went as they often do with his cynicism. These made a conflict inevitable. Two. The actual cause of the conflict was Pompey. We all know how very trying it is to make a fine friend, to introduce him into our own circle, and then to discover him when he is nicely settled, making more of others than of ourselves. Neglecting us, in fact, this was exactly what Pompey did. He grew a little weary of Hamlet's humor, he became very quickly tired of experiences, and he was not at all sure that Hamlet was not laughing at himself. He was flattered by Mephisto's attitude that at last he had found a dog in the town worthy to be his companion. He did not care very much for Mephisto. He found his French conceit very trying, but it was true that Hamlet was a mongrel of the mongrels, and that it was absurd that he, a dog who had taken prizes, should be with him so continually in public. Obviously, it was impossible that he should be friends both with Mephisto and Hamlet, so quite simply he chose Mephisto. Hamlet was most deeply hurt. He was hurt not only for himself, he had a sensitive and affectionate nature, but also that so well-bred a dog as Pompey should take up with a French animal who had all the faults of his race and very little of its intelligence. He had one short, sharp altercation with Pompey, told him one or two home truths, and left him. For a week or two he avoided the company of his kind and devoted himself to his master. All this occurred at Christmas time, when Jeremy was in disgrace for the buying of Christmas presents with money not really his own. Jeremy thought, of course, that Hamlet had noticed his misfortunes and was trying in his own way to express his sympathy for them. Master and dog were very close together during those weeks. When Hamlet sat at his master's feet, pressing his thick body close up against his master's leg, staring in front of him, half asleep, half awake, seeing bones and cats and rabbits and, near these, Mephisto with his naked patches and the treacherous Pompey, Jeremy thought that he was considering only his master's unhappiness. He was thinking little of that, but for the most part he was meditating revenge. He must fight Mephisto. For a long time now it had been coming to that. He was compelled to confess that at the first positive thought of the definite fact, he shiftered with apprehension. After all, no one is truly brave who has not known fear and Hamlet, sitting, staring into the school room fire, knew fear in no half measure. Then the thoughts of the insults he had received stirred him, let him only be angry enough and he would forget his fear, and the very thought of Mephisto made him angry. He had one staunch, unfaltering little friend among the dogs of the neighborhood. This was an unimportant, nondescript little fox terrier, the property of the hairdresser at the bottom of Orange Street. His name was Bobby. There was nothing at all to distinguish Bobby from all the dogs in the world. He was one of those ill-bred, colorless fox terriers who were known to their masters, only by sterling character. He had suffered every sort of indignity in his time. Stones had been thrown at him. Kettles had been tied to his tail. Cats had scratched his eyes. His master, who often drank too much, kicked and abused him. But he had an indomitable spirit, an essential gaiety of heart that no troubles could quench. He was not admitted into the hierarchy of Orange Street dogs. Even Flossy did not permit herself to be aware of his existence. But he hung about, always in a good humor, always ready to do any one a good turn, and often just rolling over and over in the road at the sheer joy of life. At the first glimpse of Hamlet he had lost his heart to him. Hamlet had not been so kind to him as he should have been, but he had not rebuffed him as the other dogs had done, and had gone with him once all the way down to the hairdressers to see the hairdresser's baby of whose strength and appearance Bobby was inordinately proud. Now in these days of Hamlet's trouble Bobby showed the true metal of his pasture. He longed that Pompey might speak to him so that he might show him what he thought of him. You mustn't let this worry you too much, he said to Hamlet. I've been through far worse things than this. It simply shows that Pompey, in spite of his high breeding, is worth nothing at all. I'm going to fight Mathisto, said Hamlet. Bobby's eyes opened wide at that, and he looked up from the old and very dirty bone that he was investigating. Fight Mathisto, he repeated. That's a tall order. Never mind, said Hamlet firmly. It's got to be done, and you've got to help me. Three. When fate intends something to occur, she very quickly provides the opportunity. The opportunity, in this instance, was Bobby. His was a most sociable soul. We all know dogs whose whole interest in life is social. They are not, as a rule, very popular with their masters, it being said of them that they care for one as much as another, and will leap with friendly gestures upon the hostile burglar as eagerly as they will upon the most important person in the household. Bobby was not that kind of dog. He really did care for his hairdresser and his hairdresser's wife and baby, and for Hamlet more than any other humans or any other dog in the world. But he was miserable when he was alone. He must have company. His only family was a very busy and preoccupied one, and he did not wish to bore Hamlet with too much of his own society. The Orange Street dogs had their most accustomed meeting place at a piece of deserted garden, just behind the monument at the top of the hill. Here it was shady and hot weather, and comfortable and cozy and chill. They were secure from rude boys and tiresome officials, and there was no large house near enough to them for servants to come out and chase them away. It was, it was true, on the whole, the second-class dogs who gathered there, Mephisto but seldom put in an appearance, and therefore those sycophants, Flossy and Fritz, hinted that it was a commonplace crowd and beneath them. Moreover, it was never very easy for Mephisto to escape far from his own home, as his master, the Colonel, was so proud of him and so nervous of losing him that he could not bear to let him out of his sight. It happened, however, one fine morning, a few days after Christmas, that the Colonel was in bed with a Qatar, he was a very hypochondriacal gentleman, and Mephisto, meeting Pompey in the street, they wandered amicably together in the direction of the monument. Mephisto was very ready to show himself in public, having been to the barbers only the day before. He was inordinately proud of the second tuft at the end of the stale, at the gleaming white circle of hair around his neck, and the more the pink skin showed through in his naked parts, the happier he was. He really thought there was not such another dog in the world as himself, this fine morning, being a provincial and narrow-minded dog, in spite of his French origin. Mephisto and Pompey trotted up Orange Street together, and Flossy, who was always on the lookout from behind her garden railing for the passing of Mephisto, was graciously allowed to join them. She wheezed along with them, puffing herself up and swelling with self-importance. The conversation chanced to turn upon Hamlet. Mephisto said that now that he and Pompey were friends, he would really like to ask him a question that had been often in his mind, and that was how it came about that Pompey could ever have allowed himself such a common vulgar friend as Hamlet. Pompey replied that he felt that that was a just and fair question for his friend to ask him, and he would only reply that the fellow had seemed at first to have a coarse sort of humor that was diverting for the moment. One tired naturally of the thing very quickly, and the trouble was that these coarse-grained creatures, that when you tired of them, having given them a little encouragement at first out of sheer kindness, it was exceedingly difficult to shake them off again. The fellow had seemed lonely, and Pompey had taken pity upon him. He would see to it that it should be a long time before he did such a thing again. Mephisto said that he was glad to hear this. For himself he had never been able to abide the creature, and he could only trust that he would soon be ridden over by a cart, or poisoned by a burglar, or thrown into the river by a couple of boys. When they arrived at the monument, they found several dogs among the trees, flattering and amusing an elegant creature called Trixie, who was young and handsome and liked flirtations. Bobby also was there, rolling about on the grass, performing some of his simple tricks, like snapping at three imaginary flies at once, tossing into the air a phantom bone, and lying stiff on his back with his four legs stiffly in the air. He had been happy until the two aristocrats arrived. Now he knew that his good time was over. He should have gone away, but something kept him. He did so hate to be alone, and so he sat on a silly grin on his rather foolish face, listening to the conversation. While several of the dogs continued to wander about after the idiotic Trixie, who was as arch and self-conscious as a dog could very well be, the conversation of the rest belabored poor Hamlet. It is well for us that we do not hear the criticism that goes on behind our backs. One and all of us, we are in the same box. Did we hear we should watch the gradual creation of so strange and unruly figure that we should rub our eyes in amazement, crying, Surely, surely, this cannot be us! Not the tiniest shred of character was soon left to Hamlet. He was a thief, a drunkard, a wanton, an upstart, a coward, and a mongrel. Bobby listened to all this, growing with every word of it more uncomfortable. He hated them all, but it would need immense pluck to speak up for his friend, and he did not know whether by so venturing he might not effect more harm than good. The sight, however, of Mephisto's contemptuous, supercilious face, his tufted tail, his shining patches, drove him on. He burst out, barking that Hamlet was the bravest, the finest of all the dogs in the town, that he was honorable to a fault, loyal and true, that he was worth all the dogs there together. When he had finished, there was an explosion of derisive barks. As he heard them, internally he trembled. For a large fortune of bones he would have wished to sink his pride and run. He stood his ground, however, with one directing bark from Mephisto they set upon him. They rolled him over, their teeth were in his ears, his eyes, his belly. He gave himself up for lost. At that very instant, Hamlet appeared upon the scene. Four. He had not intended to go that way, but finding that his master was occupied with those two supremely unattractive and uninteresting humans, his sisters, he thought that he would pursue an interesting smell that he had noticed in the direction of the high school during the last two days. Far behind him were his childish times when he had supposed that rabbit lurked around every corner, and he had succeeded now in analyzing almost every smell in his consciousness. As we are raised to the heights of our poor imagination by great poetry, great music, and great pictures, so is the dog aroused to his divine ecstasy by smell. With him a dead mouse behind a wane skirt may take the place that Shelley Skylar assumes with us, and Bach's views are to us what grilled haddock was to Hamlet. Tot. Omenes. Tot. He had not, however, gone far towards the high school when he recognized Bobby's bark, and Bobby's bark appealing for help. When he turned the corner he saw that his fate was upon him. Mephisto was a little apart, watching the barking and struggling heap of dogs, himself uttering no sound, but every once and again pretending to search for a fly in the tuft of his tail that he might show to all the world that he was above and beyond vulgar street rouse. And at sight of him Hamlet knew that what he had hoped would be was. The sight of Mephisto's contempt, combined with the urgency of poor Bobby's appeals, roused all the latent devil in him. Twitching his beard, feeling no fear, showing nothing but a hatred and loathing for his enemy, he walked across the grass and approached Mephisto. The poodle paused for a moment from his search for the fly, looked around, saw whom it was, he had of course known from the first, and resumed his search. Hamlet went up to him, sniffed him deliberately, and with scorn, then bit his tail in its tenderest and most naked part. The other dogs, even in the most dramatic moment of their own scuffle, were at once aware that something terrible had occurred. They allowed Bobby to rise and turned towards the new scene. Mephisto was indeed a fearful sight. Every hair on his head seemed to be erect, the naked patches burned with a curious light, his legs were stiff as though made of iron, and from his throat proceeded the strangest, most threatening growl ever uttered by dog. And now, Hamlet, pray to the gods of your forefathers, if indeed you know who any of them were. Gather to your aid every principle of courage and fortitude you have ever collected, and better than they, summon to yourself all the tricks and delicacies of warfare that during your short life you have gained by your experience. For indeed today you will need them all. Think not of the meal that only an hour ago you have in the event most unwisely eaten. Pray that your enemy also may have been consuming food. Remember that you are fighting for the weak and the under-trodden, for the defenseless and humble hearted, and better still than that you are fighting for yourself, because you have been insulted and the honor of your very nondescript family called in question. The other dogs recognized at once that this was no ordinary contest, and it was difficult for them to control their excitement. This they showed with little snappy barks and quiverings of the body, but they realized that too much noise would summon humans onto the scene and stop the fight. Of them all, Bobby was the most deeply concerned. Bleeding, though he was in one ear, he jumped from foot to foot, sniveling with terror and desire, yapping hysterically to encourage his friend and hero, watching every movement with an interest so active that he almost died of unnatural repression. To hamlet, after the first moment of contact, impressions were confused. It was, unfortunately, the most important fight of his life, and he had not alas very much experience to guide him. But somewhere in his mixed and misty past, there had been a bulldog ancestor, and his main feeling from the beginning to the end was that he must catch on with his teeth somewhere, and then hold and never let go again. This principle at first he found difficult to follow. Tufts of white hair disgustingly choked him, his teeth slipped on the bare places, and it seemed strangely difficult to stand on his own feet. The poodle pursued a policy of snap, retreat, and come again. He was always on the stirrer, catching Hamlet's ear, wrenching it, then slipping away, and suddenly seizing a hind leg. He was a master of this art, and it seemed to him that his victory was going to be very easy. First he had one of his enemy's ears, then the other, now a foot, now the hair of his head, now one of his eyes. His danger was, as he knew, that he was not in good condition, being overfed by his master, the Colonel, and loving a soft and lazy life. He recognized that he had been in a far better state two years before when he had fought the Saint Bernard. But poor Hamlet's case was soon very bad indeed. He was out of breath and panting, the world was swinging around him, the grass seemed to meet the sky, and the audience of dogs to float in mid-air. All his attacks missed, he could no longer see, blood was flowing from one eye and one ear. He suddenly realized that the poodle meant to kill, and it did not seem at all impossible, but that he should achieve that. The love of life was strong upon him. Behind his fighting there was his dear master and his love for him, the world with his hunts and smells and soft sombers and delicious food, the place where he slept, the rooms of the house where he lived, the lights and the darks, the mists and the flashing stars. All these things ranged through his subconscious mind, only consciously forming behind his determination not to die, and in any case to hold on to the last, if only, yes, if only you could find something on which he might hold. The poodle's teeth were terribly sharp and Hamlet seemed to be bitten in a thousand places. Worst of all, something had happened to one of his hind legs, so that it trembled under him, and he was afraid lest soon he should not be able to stand. Once down he knew that it would be all over with him. His throat was dry, his head a burning fire, his heart a recording hammer, and the world was now in the very truth reeling round and round like a flying star. He knew that Mephisto was now certain of victory. He could feel the hot breath of that hated triumph upon his face. Worst of all, there was creeping upon him a terrible lassitude, so that he felt as though nothing mattered, if only he might lay him down and sleep. Sleep. Sleep. His teeth snapped feebly, his body was one vast pain. Now he was falling, his legs were trembling, he was done, finished, beaten. At that last moment he heard, as though from an infinite distance, Bobbie's encouraging bark, go on, go on, the bark cried, you're not finished yet, he's done too. One more effort and you'll bring it off. He made one more effort, something colossal, worthy of all the heroes bracing the whole of his body together, beating down his weakness, urging all the flame and fire of his spirit. He launched out with his body, snapped with his teeth, and at last, at last they fastened upon something, upon something wiry and skinny, but also soft and yielding. If this time his teeth had slipped, it would indeed have been the end, but they held. They held, they held, they held, and it was the poodle's tail that they were holding. He felt Mephisto's body swing around, so weak was he that he swung around with it. His teeth clenched, clenched, and clenched. Mephisto screamed, a curious, undog-like, almost human scream. Hamless teeth clenched, and clenched, and clenched, tighter and tighter they held. They met. Something was bitten through. Mephisto's whole body seemed to collapse. His fund of resistance was gone. Something white was on the ground. The end of the tail, with its famous, magnificent, glorious, superb, white tuft, was no longer attached to Mephisto's body. The poodle gave one cry, a dreadful, unearthly, ghostly cry of terror, shame, and abandonment, then his tail between his legs ran for his very life. Five. Tim and his later Jeremy, looking out of the schoolroom window, beheld, tottering up the garden, a battered, disheveled dog. A little trail of blood followed his wavering course. Hamlet looked up at the window, saw his master, feebly wagged his tail, and collapsed. But as he collapsed, he grinned. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of Jeremy and Hamlet by Hugh Walpole Chapter 6 The Night Raiders 1. It will be always difficult to understand what drove Jeremy into this adventure, that on the very last night but one of his Christmas holidays, when he had every good reason for placating the powers, and when he did, of his own nature, desire that he should leave everything behind him in the odor of sanctity, that at such a time he should take so wild and unnecessary a risk will always and forever be a deep mystery. The end of these holidays he especially desired to clothe in tranquility because of the painful manner in which they had begun. He really did wish to live at peace with his fellow men, and especially with his mother and father. His mother was easy, but his father. How would they ever to see the same way about anything? And yet he detected in himself a strange pathetic desire to be liked by his father and himself to like in return. Had he only known it, his father felt precisely the same towards himself, but the gulf of two generations was between them. Indeed, on that very morning Mr. Cole had had a conversation with his brother-in-law Samuel about his son Jeremy. Mr. Cole was never at ease with his brother-in-law. He distrusted artists in general. His idea was that they were wasting the time that God had given them, and he distrusted his brother-in-law in particular because he thought that he often laughed at him, which indeed he often did. I'm unhappy about Jeremy, he said, looking at Samuel's blue smock with dissatisfaction. He did wish that Samuel wouldn't wear his painting clothes at breakfast time. Why? asked Samuel. I don't think the boy's improving. School seems to be doing him no good. Take him away then, said Samuel. Really? said Mr. Cole. I wish you wouldn't joke about these things. He must go to school. Send him to another school if this one isn't satisfactory. No, Thompson's is a good school. I'm afraid it's in the boy, not the school, that the fault lies. Samuel Trafusus said nothing. Well, don't you see what I mean about the boy? Mr. Cole asked irritably. No, I don't. I think the boy perfectly delightful. I don't as a rule like boys. In fact, I detest them. I've come slowly to Jeremy, but now I'm quite conquered by him. He's a baby in many ways still, of course, but he has extraordinary perceptions, is brave, honest, amusing, and delightful to look at. Honest, said Mr. Cole gloomily. That's just what I'm not sure about. That affair of the money at the beginning of the holidays. Really, Herbert? Samuel broke in indignantly. If you'll allow me to say so, and even if you won't, you were wrong in that affair from first to last. You never gave the boy a chance. You concluded he was guilty from the first moment. The boy thought he had a right to the money. You bullied and scolded him until he was terrified, and then wanted him to apologize. Twenty years from now, parents will have learned something about their children. The children are going to teach them. Your one idea of bringing up Jeremy is to forbid him to do everything that his natural instincts urge him to do. He is a perfectly healthy affectionate, decent boy. He'll do you credit, but it won't be your merit if he does. It will be in spite of what you've done, not because of it. Mr. Cole was deeply shocked. Really, Samuel, this is going too far. As you've challenged me, I may say that I've noticed, and Amy also has noticed, that you're doing the boy no good by petting him as you are. It's largely because you are always inviting the boy into that studio of yours, and encouraging him in the strangest ideas that he has grown as independent as he has. I don't think you're a wholesome influence for the boy. I don't indeed. Samuel's face closed like a box. He was very angry. He would have liked, as he would have liked on many other occasions, to say, very well then I leave your house in the next five minutes. But he was lazy, had very little money, and adored the town, so he simply shrugged his shoulders. You can't forbid him to speak to me if you like, he said. Mr. Cole was afraid of his brother-in-law, so all he said was, I shall write to Thompson about him. 2. Meanwhile, this awful adventure has suddenly leaped up in front of Jeremy, like a jack-in-the-box. Like many of the most daring adventures, its origin was simple. Four days earlier there had been a children's afternoon party at the Dean's. The Dean's children's parties were always dreary affairs because of Mrs. Dean's neuralgia, and because the Dean thought that his share of the affair was over when he had poked his head into the room where they were having tea, patted one or two innocents on the head, they became instantly white with self-consciousness, and then said in a loud, generous voice, Well, my friends, enjoying yourselves? That's right. After which he returned to his study. The result of this was that his guests were as sheep without a shepherd. The Dean's children were too young to do much, and the girl's governess too deeply agitated by her fancy that children's parents were saring at her arrogantly to pull herself together and be amiable. It was during one of those catch-us-catch-can intervals when children were desultorially wandering, boys sticking pins into stout feminine calves, girls sniggering and secret conclave together, infants howling to be taken home, that Jeremy overheard Bill Bartlett say to the Dean's earnest, I dare you. Jeremy pricked up his ears at once. Anything in which the Dean's earnest, his foe of foes, was concerned, incited him to rivalry. He was terribly bored by the party, not only was it a bad dull party, but ever since his first real evening ball, children's afternoon parties had seemed to him stupid and without reason. I don't care, said the Dean's earnest. I dare you, repeated to Bill Bartlett. I'm not frightened, said earnest, then do it, said Bill. You've got to come too. Oh, said Bill, that's nothing, I've done lots more than that. Ernest quite plainly disliked the prospect of his daring, and catching sight of Jeremy, he shifted his ground. Young Cole wouldn't dare, he said. Yes, he would, said Bartlett, he dares more than you dare. No, he doesn't, said the Dean's earnest indignantly. Yes, he does. You dare more than Samson dares, don't you Cole, said Bill. Of course I do, said Jeremy, without a moment's hesitation. Well, do it then, said the Dean's earnest swiftly. It appeared on further examination that Bartlett had dared young Samson to walk round the cathedral twice just as the clocks were striking midnight. It was obvious at once that this involved quite terrifying dangers. Apart altogether from the ghostly prospect of walking round the cathedral at midnight, there was the escape from the house, the danger of the police, and the return to the house. Jeremy saw at once all that was involved, but because the Dean's earnest was there and staring at him from under his pale eyebrows, with arrogant contempt, he said at once, I dare. Tommy Winchester, who was complaining bitterly about the food provided, was soon drawn into the challenge, and although his stout cheeks quivered at the prospect, Major Winchester, his father, was the sternest of disciplinarians, he had to say, I dare. Details were then settled. It was to be three nights from that day. They were to meet just outside the west door as the clocks struck twelve, to walk or run twice around the cathedral and then find their way home again. I bet young Cole doesn't come, Jeremy heard Ernest say loudly to Bill as they parted. Of course, after that he would go, but when he reached home and considered it, he was miserable. To end the holidays was such a risk, truly appalled him. From every point of view it was madness. Even though he escaped through the pantry window, he knew that he could push up the catch and then drop into the garden without difficulty, there was all the danger of his absence being discovered while he was away. Then there was the peril of a policeman finding them and reporting them. Then there was the return, with the climb back into the pantry, and the noisy crawl you never knew when a board was going to Greek back into his room again. He had no illusion at all as to what would happen if his father caught him, that would simply sign and seal his disgrace once and forever. But worse, far worse to him, was what Uncle Samuel would feel. Uncle Samuel had simply been wonderful to him during these holidays. He adored Uncle Samuel. Uncle Samuel had, as it were, banked on his honor and integrity when all the rest of the world doubted it. Uncle Samuel loved him and believed in him. He had a momentary, passionate impulse to go to Uncle Samuel and tell him everything. But he knew what the consequence of that must be. Uncle Samuel would persuade him not to go, would indeed make him give his word that he would not go. Then forever would he be disgraced in the eyes of Bill Bartlett, Tommy Winchester, and the others, and the Dean's earnest would certainly never allow him to hear the last of it. It was possible that the others would fail at the final moment and would not be there. But he must be there. Yes, he must. He must. Even though death and torture awaited him as the consequence of his going. Had he not trusted Bartlett, he might have thought the whole thing a plot on the part of the Dean's earnest to put him into a dangerous position. But Bartlett was a friend of his, and the challenge was genuine. As the dreadful hour approached, he became more and more miserable. Everyone noticed his depression and thought it was because he was going back to school. Aunt Amy was quite touched. Never mind, Jeremy, dear. She said it will soon be over. The weeks will pass and then you will be home with us again. It won't seem so bad when you're there. He said, no, Aunt Amy, quite mildly. One of the worst things was deceiving his mother. She had not played so great a part in his life since his going to school. But she was always there, quiet and sensible and kind, helping him about his clothes, soothing him when he was angry, understanding him when he was sad, laughing with him when he was happy, comfortable and consoling always. Like Uncle Samuel, believing in him. He remembered, still with the utmost vividness, the terror that he had been in two years ago when she had nearly died just after Barbara's arrival. Because she was so safely there, he did not think much about her. But when a crisis came, when things were difficult at school, she was always the first person who came to his mind. The evening arrived and, as he went up to bed, his teeth positively chattered. It seemed a fine night, but very dark he thought, as he looked out through the landing window. Hamlet gaily followed him upstairs. He was only now recovering from the terrific fight that he had had a week or so ago with the poodle, and one of his ears was still badly torn, and he limped a little on one foot. Nevertheless, he was in high spirits, and gambled all the way up the stairs, suddenly stopping to bark under the landing window, as he always did when he was in high spirits, chasing an imaginary piece of paper all the way up the last flight of stairs, and pausing outside Jeremy's bedroom door, panting and heaving, his tongue hanging out, and a wicked look of pleasure in his sparkling eyes. Here indeed was a new problem. Hamlet, what would happen if he suddenly awoke, discovered his master's absence, and began to bark? Or suppose that he awoke when Jeremy was leaving his room and determined to follow him? Jeremy, at these thoughts, felt his spirits sink even lower than they had been before. How could he, in this thing, escape disaster? He was like a man doomed. He hated the dean's earnest at that moment, with a passion that had very little of the child in it. He took off his coat and trousers and climbed into bed. Hamlet jumped up, moved round and round for some moments, scratching and sniffing, as he always did, until he found a place to his mind. Then, with a little contented sigh, curled up and went to sleep. Jeremy lay there with a beating heart. He heard half past nine strike from St. John's, then ten, then half past. For a little while he slept, then awoke with a start to hear it strike eleven. No sound in the house saved Hamlet's regular snores. A new figure leapt in front of him, the policeman, a terrible giant of a man with a great stick and a huge lantern. What are you doing here, little boy? He cried to come with me to the police station. Jeremy shivered beneath the bedclothes. Perspiration beaded his forehead, and his legs gave curious little dirks from the knees downwards, as though they had a life of their own with which he had nothing to do. Half past eleven struck. Very carefully he got out of bed, watching Hamlet out of the corner of his eye, put on his coat, his trousers and his boots, stole to the door and paused. Hamlet was still snoring peacefully. He crept out, then remembered that to do this properly one must take off one's boots and carry them in one's hand. Too late now for that, downstairs he went. At every creak he paused. The house was like a closed box around him. From some room far away came loud impatient snores. Once he stumbled and nearly fell. He stayed there, his hands on the banisters, a dead man, say for the beating of his heart. His hand was on the pantry window. He had pushed back the cat, climbed through, and in another moment was in the garden. Three. It was a very dark night. The garden gate creaked behind him as though accusing him of his wicked act. The darkness was so thick that you had to push against it as though it were a wall. At first he ran. Then the whole world seemed to run after him, trees, houses and all, so he stopped and walked slowly. The world seemed gigantic. He was not as yet conscious of fear, but only suspicious of the presence of that gigantic policeman taking step with him, inch by inch, flicking his dark lantern, now here, now there, rising like a jack-in-the-box, suddenly above the trees and appearing down upon him. Then, when for the moment he left the houses behind him and began to walk up Green Lane towards the cathedral, his heart failed him. How horrible the trees were! All shapes and sizes, towers of castles, masts of ships, animals, pigs and hens and lions, blowing a little in the night breezes, becking and bowing above him, holding out horrible long skinny fingers towards him, sometimes closing in upon him, then moving fan-wise out again. In fact, he was now completely miserable. With the dreadful finality of childhood, he saw himself as condemned for life. By this time Hamlet, having discovered his absence, had barked the house awake. Already, perhaps, with lanterns they had started to search for him. The awful moment of discovery would come. Even Uncle Samuel would abandon him. Nobody would ever be kind to him again. At this point it was all he could do to keep back the tears. His teeth were chattering, he had a crick in his back, he was very cold, the heel of one shoe rubbed his foot. And he was frightened. Bet your life, but he was frightened. He hadn't known that it would be like this, so silent and yet so full of sound, so dark and yet so light and alive with strange quivering lights, so cold and yet so warm with an odd pressing heat. There were no lamps lit in the town below him, all lights out at ten o'clock in the pollchester of thirty years ago, and the cathedral loomed out before him a heavy black mass threatening to fall upon him like the mountain in the Bible. Now the trees were coming to an end. Here was a house and there another, a light in one window, but for the rest the houses quite dead like coffins. He came into Badger Street, past the funny old-fashioned turnstile that led into Cannon's yard, over the cobblestones of that ancient square, through the turnstile at the other end, and into the precincts. He was there, shivering and frightened, but there. He had kept his word. As he crossed the grass a figure moved forward from the shadow of the cathedral and came to meet him. It was Tommy Winchester. It immensely cheered Jeremy to see him. It also cheered him to see that if he was frightened Tommy was a great deal more so. Tommy's teeth were chattering so that he could scarcely speak, but he managed to say that it was beastly cold, and that he had upset a jug of water getting out of his bedroom, and that a dog had barked at him all the way along the precincts, and that he was sure his father would beat him. They were joined a moment later by another shivering mortal, Bartlett. A more unhappy trio never met together in the world's history. They were too miserable for conversation, but simply stood huddled together under the great buttress by the west door and waited for the clock to strike. The only thing that Bartlett said was, I bet Samson doesn't come. At that Jeremy's heart gave a triumphant leap. How splendid it would be if the Dean's earnest funked it. Of course he would funk it and would have some long story about his door being closed or having a headache, some lie or other. Nevertheless, they strained their eyes across the dark, wavering lake of the precincts watching for him. I'm so cold, Tommy said, through his chattering teeth, then suddenly, as though struck by a gun, going to sneeze. And he did sneeze, an awful shattering, devastating sound, with which the cathedral and indeed the whole town seemed to shake. That was an awful moment. The boys stood, holding their breath, waiting for all the black houses to open their doors, and all the townsmen to turn out in their night-shirts with lanterns, just as they do in the Meistersinger, although that, of course, the boys did not know, crying, Who's that who sneezed? Where did the sneeze come from? What was that sneeze? Nothing happened to save that the silence was more awful than before. Then there was a kind of whirring noise above their heads, a moment's pause, and the great cathedral clock began to strike midnight. Now, said Bartlett, we've got to walk or one around the cathedral twice. He was off, and Tommy and Jeremy after him. Jeremy was a good runner, but this was like no race that he had ever engaged in before. As he ran, the notes boomed out above his head, and the high shadow of the great building seemed to catch his feet and hold him. He could not see, and, as before, when he ran, the rest of the world seemed to run with him, so that he was always pausing to hear whether anyone were moving with him or no. Then quite suddenly he was alone, and frightened as he had never in his life been before. No, not when the horrible sea-captain had woken him in the middle of the night, not when he thought that God had killed Hamlet, not when he had first been tossed in a blanket at Thompson's, not when he had first played second half in a real game, and had to lie down and let ten boys kick the ball from under him. His body was turned to water. He could not move. The shadows were so vast around him, the ground wavered beneath his feet, the trees on the slopes below the cathedral all nodded as though they knew that terrible things would soon happen to him, and there was no sound anywhere. What he wanted was to creep close to the cathedral, clutch the stone walls, and stay there. That was what he nearly did, and if he had done it, he would have been there, I believe, until this very day. Then he remembered the dean's earnest who had been too frightened to come. He remembered that he had been dared to run around the cathedral twice, and that he had only, as yet, run half-round at once. His stockings were down over his ankles, both his boots now hurt him, he had lost his cap. He summoned all the pluck that there was in his soul and body, combined, and ran on. When he had finished his first round and was back by the west door again, there was no sign of the other two boys. He paused desperately for breath. Then, as though pursued by all the evil spirits of the night, started again. This time it did not seem so long. He shut his ears to all possible sound, refused to think, and the physical pain of the stitch in his side and his due rubbed heels kept him from grosser fear. Then, just as he completed the second round, the most awful thing happened. A figure, an enormous figure, it seemed to poor Jeremy, rose out of the ground. A figure with flapping wings, a great light was flashed in the air. A strange high voice screamed aloud. The figure moved towards him. That was enough for his courage, as though death itself were behind him, he took to his heels, tore across the grass, plunged through the style into Parsons' yard. The little shadow had been like a curve of wind on the grass. High in the air rose the cry, a windy night and all clear, a windy night and all clear, and the night watchman, his thoughts upon the toasted cheese that would in another half-hour be his reward, pressed round the corner of the cathedral. Four. And to Jeremy ran on. How he ran. He stumbled, nearly fell, recovered himself, felt no pain in his legs or side, only fear, fear, fear. As he ran he was saying, I must get back, oh I must get back, I must be home, I must get back, and did not know that he was saying anything at all. Then suddenly in the middle of grass lane he recovered himself and stood. How still and quiet everything was. A few stars were breaking through the clouds. The rustling of the trees now was friendly and reassuring, and there was a soft undertone in the air as though a thousand streams were running beneath his feet. He stood panting, loving to feel the stroke of the little wind against his hot cheek. What was that that had frightened him? Whom could it have been? But gradually the center of interest was shifting. The past was the past. He had done what he had said he would do. Now for the future. He shivered as it came to him in its full force, then squared his shoulders and marched on. He would meet whatever it might be, and anyway he was going to school the day after tomorrow. Time moved quickly then. He was soon passing the high school, the world completely dead now, on every side of him. Then there was his old friend, the monument, then the row of houses in which his own home stood. He closed the garden gate very carefully behind him, sold up the path, found the ledge stone below the pantry window, then felt for the ledge. His heart ceased to beat. The catch was fastened. Someone then had discovered his absence. The house seemed to be dark and silent enough, but they were lying in wait for him inside. Well, he was going on with it now. All that he wanted was the quiet and comfort of his room and to be warm and cozy again in bed. He was suddenly quite horribly tired. He poised with his fingers between the ledges and found then that the catch was not securely fastened after all. The upper part of the window suddenly jerked upwards, moving awkwardly, and with a creaking noise that he had not known before. He pulled himself on to the window ledge, then very carefully let himself down on the other side. The first thing that he knew was that his feet touched a chair and there had been no chair there before, then that his fingers were rubbing against the corner of a table. He was not in their own pantry. He was not in their own house. He had climbed in through the wrong window, and even as he realized this and moved in an agony of alarm back to climb out of the window again, his arm brushed the table again. He pushed something, and with the noise of the Niagara Falls a thousand times emphasized, echoing in his ears, the china of all the pantries of heaven fell quattering to the ground. Five. After that things happened quickly. A light instantly cleaved the darkness, and he saw an open door. A candle held a loft and the strangest figure holding it. At the same time a deep voice said, Sanjoth, where you are? Move another step, and I'm fire. Don't fire, please, said Jeremy. It's only me. The figure confronting him was a woman's. It was, in fact, quite easily to be recognized as that of Miss Lizbeth Mackenzie, who had lived next door to the coals for years and years and years, ever since in fact Jeremy could remember, and waged, like Betsy Trotwood, incessant warfare on boys, butchers, and others who walked across her lawn, whose only merit had been that she hated on Amy and told her so. She was an eccentric old woman, eccentric in manners, in habits, and appearance, but surely never in her life had she looked so eccentric as she did now. With her white hair piled untidily on her head, her old face of a crow pallid behind her hooked and piercing nose. Over her nightdress she had hurriedly gathered her bed quilt, a coat like Joseph's of many and varied colors, and on her feet were white woolen stockings. In the hand that did not hold the candle she flourished a pistol that even to Jeremy's unaccustomed and childish eyes was undoubtedly a very old and dusty one. There must have been a queer couple to behold had there been any third person there to behold them. The small boy, disheveled, hatless, his collar burst, his stockings down over his ankles, and the old woman in her patch were quilt. Miss Mackenzie, having expected to behold a hearsuit and a ferocious burglar, was considerably surprised. She held the candle closer and then exclaimed, Why, you're a little cold from next door. Yes, said Jeremy. I thought this was our pantry and it was yours. Wait a minute. I'm going to sneeze. Yes, he did. And then, hurried on breathlessly, Please let me go now and I'll come in tomorrow and explain everything and pay for the cups and saucers, but I don't want them to know that I've been out. Here, pick the bits up at once, she said, or somebody will be cutting themselves. It's just like that made, having it out on the table. That settles that she shall leave tomorrow. She put down the candle and pistol on the table and then watched him while he picked up the pieces. They were not very many. And now, please, may I go, said Jeremy again. I didn't mean to come into your house. I didn't really. I'll explain everything tomorrow. No, you won't, said to Miss Mackenzie Grimley. You'll explain here and now. That's a pretty thing to come breaking into somebody's house after midnight. And then thinking you can go out just as easily as you came in. You can sit down, she said, as a kind of afterthought pointing to a chair. It isn't anything really, said Jeremy very quickly. I mean that it isn't anything you need to mind. They dared me to run around the cathedral twice when the clock struck 12, and I did it and ran home and climbed into your house by mistake. Who's they? asked Miss Mackenzie, gathering her quilt more closely about her. Bill Bartlett and Ernest Sampson, he said, as though that must tell her everything. The dean, son, you know, and I don't like him. So when he dares me to anything, I must do it, you see. I don't see it all, said Miss Mackenzie. It was a very wicked and silly thing to do. There are plenty of people I don't like, but I don't run around the cathedral just to please them. Oh, I didn't run around just to please him, Jeremy said indignantly. I don't want to please him, of course. But he said that I wouldn't do it, and he would. Whereas, as a matter of fact, I did, and he didn't. As a matter of fact, picked up from the drawing room was just then a very favorite phrase of his. Well, you'll get it hot from your father, said Miss Mackenzie, when he knows about it. Oh, but perhaps he won't know, said Jeremy eagerly. The house looks all dark, and perhaps Hamlet didn't wake up. Hamlet? Repeated Miss Mackenzie? Yes, that's my dog. Oh, that hateful dog that sometimes looks through the railings into my garden, as though he would like to come in and tear up all my flowers. He'd better try, that's all. He isn't hateful, said Jeremy. He's a splendid dog. He had a fight a little while ago and was nearly killed. But he didn't care. He just grinned. He won't grin if I get a hold of him, said to Miss Mackenzie. Now, what are you going to do about it when your father knows you've been out like this? Oh, he mustn't know, said Jeremy. You're not going to tell him, are you? Of course I am, said Miss Mackenzie. I can't have little boys climbing into my house after midnight, and then do nothing about it. Oh, please, please, said Jeremy. Don't do anything this time. I promise never to do it again. It would be dreadful if father knew it's so important that the holiday should end well. They began so badly. You won't tell him, will you? Of course I will, said Miss Mackenzie. First thing in the morning. I shall ask him to whip you and allow me to be present during the ceremony. There's nothing that I love like seeing little boys whipped, especially naughty little boys. For a moment Jeremy thought that she meant it. Then he caught sight of her twinkling eye. No, you won't, he said confidently. You're just trying to frighten me. But I'm not frightened. I go back to school day after tomorrow, so they can't do much anyway. If I let you off, she said, you've got to promise me something. You've got to promise me that you'll come and read to me twice every day during next holidays. Oh, Lord! Jeremy couldn't be quite sure whether she meant it or not. How awful if she did mean it. Still, a bargain was a bargain. He looked at her carefully. She seemed very old. She might die before next holidays. All right, he said. I promise. I don't read very well, you know. All the better practice for you, she answered. Her eye mysteriously twinkled above the bed quilt. She let him go then, even assisting him from behind out of the pantry window. He had a look and a smile at her before he dropped on the other side. She looked so queer with her crabbed face and untidy air under the jumping candle. She nodded to him grimly. Soon he was at his own window and threw it, not a sound in the house. He crept up the stairs. The same wild snore met him, rumbling like the sleeping soul of the house. Everything the same. To him all those terrors and alarms, and they had slept as though it had been one moment of time. He opened his own door. Hamlets, even whining breath, met him. Not much of a watchdog. Never mind how tired he was. How tired. He flung off his clothes, stood for a moment to feel the cold air on his naked body. Then his night shirt was over his head. The bed was lovely, lovely, lovely. Only as he sank down a silver slope into a sea of red and purple leaves, a thought went sliding with him. The Dean's earnest had funked it. The Dean's earnest had funked it. Let us never forget. Let us plunk.