 Chapter 7. Young Baltimore 1. Jeremy was miserable. He was sitting on the high ground above the cricket field. The warm summer air wrapped him, as though in a cloak. At his feet the grass was bright, shrill-green, then, as it fell away, grew darker, tumbling into purple shadow, as it curved to the flattened plateau. Behind him the wood was like a wall of painted steel. Far away the figures of the cricketers were white dolls moving against the bright red brick of the school buildings. One little white cloud shaped like an elephant, like a rent torn in the blue canvas of the sky, hung motionless above his head, and he watched this, waiting for it to lengthen, to fade into another shape, formless until, at last, shredded into scraps of paper, it vanished. He watched the cloud and thought, I'd like to roll him down the hill and never see him again. He was thinking of young Baltimore, who was sitting close to him. He was doing nothing but stare and let his mouth hang slackly open, because he did nothing so often was one of the reasons why Jeremy hated him so deeply. Baltimore was not an attractive-looking boy. He was, perhaps, ten years of age, white-faced, sandy-haired, fertilized, with two pimples on his forehead and one on his nose. He looked as though quite recently he had been rolled in the mud, and that was true. He had been. From near at hand, from the outskirts of the wood, shrill cries could be heard singing, Stokky had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Stokky went that lamb was sure to go. Jeremy, hearing these voices, made a movement as though he would rise and pursue them, then apparently realized his impotence and stayed where he was. Beasts, said Baltimore, and suddenly broke into a miserable crying, a wretched, snivelling, gasping wheeze. Jeremy looked at him with disgust. You do cry the most awful lot, he said. If you didn't cry so much, they wouldn't laugh at you. He gloomily reflected over his fate. The summer term, only a week old, that should have been the happiest of the year, was already the worst that he had known at Thompson's. On his arrival, full of health, vigor, and plans, old Thompson had taken him aside and said, Now, Cole, I have something for you to do this term. I want you to be kind to a new boy who has never been away from home before, and knows nothing about school life. I want you to be kind to him, look after him, see that no one treats him harshly, make him feel that he is still at home. You are getting one of the bigger boys here now, and you must look after the small ones. When Jeremy was not displeased when he heard this, it gave him a sense of importance that he liked. Moreover, he had, but recently read, Tom Brown, and Tom, whom he greatly admired, had been approached in just this way about Arthur, and Arthur, although he had seemed tiresome at first, had developed very well, had had a romantic illness, and become a first-class cricketer. His first vision of Baltimore had been disappointing. He had found him sitting on his play-box in the passage Snivelling in just that unpleasant way that he had afterwards made so peculiarly his own. He told Jeremy that what he wanted to do was to go home to his mother at once, that his name was Percy, and that he had been kicked on the leg twice. You mustn't tell the others that your name's Percy, said Jeremy, or you'll never hear the last of it. It appeared, however, from certain cries heard in the distance that Baltimore had already done this. Jeremy wondered then why he had been selected for this special duty. He was not by any means one of the older boys in the school, nor one of the more important. He foresaw trouble. Baltimore had been informed that Jeremy was to look after him. Mr. Thompson says you're to look after me, he said, and not let the boys kick me or take things out of my play-box, and if they do, I'm to tell Mr. Thompson. Jeremy's cheeks paled with horror as he heard this declaration. Oh, I say you must not do that, he declared. That would be sneaking. You mustn't tell Thompson things. Why mustn't I, asked Baltimore, producing a large cake of chocolate from his play-box, and proceeding to eat it. Oh, because, because, sneaking's worse than anything. My mother said I was, too, said Baltimore, and you mustn't talk about your mother either, said Jeremy, nor any of your people at home. Why mustn't I, asked Baltimore, because they'll rag you if you do. Baltimore nodded his head in a determined manner. I will if they kick me, he said. That evening was an unhappy one. Jeremy, kept by the matron over some silly business connected with his underclothes, came laid into the dormitory to discover a naked Baltimore being beaten with airbrushes. That was a difficult moment for him, but he dealt with it in the traditional manner of school heroes. He rushed into the midst of the gang, rescued Percy, and challenged the room. He was popular and known for a determined fighter, so there was some laughter and jeering, but Baltimore was allowed to creep into his bed. Next morning the school understood that young Stockie Cole had a new protege, and that it was that terrible new boy, Pimpley, Percy. Jeremy's best friend, Riley Minor, spoke to him seriously about it. I say, Stockie, it isn't true that you've taken up with that awful new kid. Thompson says I've got to look after him, Jeremy explained. But he's the worst of the lot, Riley complained disgustedly. Well, I've got to anyway, said Jeremy shortly. The sad part of it was that Baltimore was by no means grateful for Jeremy's championship. You might have come in earlier, he said. I don't call that looking after me. He now followed Jeremy like a shadow, a complaining, sniveling, whining shadow. Jeremy expostulated. Look here, he said, we needn't be together all the time. If you're in trouble or anything, you just give me a shout. I'm sure to be around somewhere. But Baltimore shook his head. That isn't what Mr. Thompson said, he remarked. He said that you'd look after me. But how can you look after me if you're not there? He didn't mean us to be together the whole time, said Jeremy. The thing was impossible. He could keep his own small fry in order, although the jeers and insults of those who had, until this term, been his admiring friends, were very hard to bear. But what was he to do, for instance, about Cracky Brown? Cracky was captain of the cricket, 13 years of age, and going to Eaton next term. He was one of three heroes allowed a study, and he was fagged for by several of the new boys, including Baltimore. He had already given young Baltimore several for breaking a cup and saucer. How could Jeremy, aged ten and a half and in the lower fourth, go up to Cracky and say, Look here, Brown, you've got to leave Baltimore alone? And yet this was exactly what Baltimore expected Jeremy to do. Baltimore was a boy with one idea. Mr. Thompson said you were to see they didn't hit me. He complained. Don't call him Mr. Thompson, urged Jeremy. Nobody does. Here on the hillside Jeremy mootily kicked the turf and watched the shredding cloud. Another week of this and he would be more laughed at than any other boy in the school. Had it been the winter term, his prowess at football might have saved the situation, but he had never been very good at cricket and never would be. He hated it and was still in third game among all the kids and wasters. It would all have been so much easier, he reflected, had he only found Baltimore possible as a companion. But he thought that he had never loathed anyone so much as this sniveling, pimply boy and something unregenerate in him rose triumphant in his breast when he saw Baltimore kicked, and this made it much more difficult for him to stop the kicking. What was he to do about it? Appeal to Thompson, of course, he could not. He had promised to do his best and to do his best he must. Then the brilliant idea occurred to him that he would write to Uncle Samuel and ask his advice. He did not like writing letters, indeed he loathed it, and his letters were blotched and illegible productions when they were finished, but at least he could make the situation clear to Uncle Samuel and Uncle Samuel always knew the right thing to do. At the thought of his uncle, a great wave of homesickness swept over him. He saw the town and the high street with all the familiar shops and the cathedral and his home with the dark hall and the hat rack and Hamlet running down the stairs, barking and merry with her spectacles and Uncle Samuel's studio. He was even for a moment sentimental over Aunt Amy. He shook himself and the vision faded. He would not be beaten by this thing. He turned to Baltimore. I'm not going to have you following me everywhere, he said. I'm only looking after you because I promised Thompson. You can have your choice. I'll leave you alone and let everyone kick you as much as they like, and then you can go and sneak to Thompson. That won't help you a bit. They'll only kick you all the more. But if you behave decently and stop crying and come to me when you want anything, I'll see that none of the smaller boys touch you. If Crackey wants to hit you, I can't help it, but he hits everybody, so there's nothing in that. Now, what is it to be? His voice was so stern that Baltimore stopped nibbling and stared at him in surprise. All right, he said. I won't follow you everywhere. Jeremy got up. You stay here till I've got to the bottom of the hill. I'll sit next to you at tea and see they don't take your grub. He nodded and started away. Baltimore sat there, staring with baleful eyes. Two. Then a strange thing occurred. Let the psychologist explain it as they may. Jeremy suddenly began to feel sorry for Baltimore. There is no doubt at all that the protective maternal sense is very strong in the male as well as the female breast. Jeremy had known it before, even with his tiresome sister Mary. Now Baltimore did what he was told and only appeared at certain intervals. Jeremy found himself then often wondering what the kid was about, whether anyone was chastising him, and if so how the kid was taking it. After the first week, Baltimore was left a great deal alone, partly because of Jeremy's championship and partly because he was himself so boring and pitiful that there was nothing to be done with him. He developed very quickly into that well-known genus of small boy who is to be seen wandering about the playground all alone, kicking small stones with his feet, slouching his cap on the back of his head, his hands deep in his trousers pocket, a look of utter despair on his young face. He was also the dirtiest boy that Thompson's had ever seen and that is saying a great deal. His fingers were dyed in ink, his boots, the laces hanging from them were caked in mud, his collar was soiled and torn, his hair matted and unbrushed. Jeremy himself, often dirty, nevertheless, with an innate sense of cleanliness, tried to clean him up, but it was hopeless. Baltimore no longer sniffled, he was now numb with misery. He stared at Jeremy as a wild animal caught by the leg in a trap might stare. Jeremy began to be very unhappy. He no longer considered what the other boys might say, neither their jeers nor their laughter. One evening, coming up to Baltimore in the playground, he caught his arm. "'You can come and do prep with me tonight if you like,' he said. Baltimore continued to kick pebbles. "'Has anyone been going for you lately?' he asked. Baltimore shook his head. "'I wish I was dead,' he replied. "'This seemed melodramatic.' "'Oh, you'll be all right soon,' said Jeremy. "'But he could get nothing out of him. Some of the boys' loneliness seemed to penetrate his own spirit. "'I say you can be as much with me as you like, you know,' he remarked awkwardly. Baltimore nodded his head and moved away. Bitterly was Jeremy to regret that word of his. It was as though Baltimore had laid a trap for him, pretending loneliness in order to secure that invitation. He was suddenly once again with Jeremy everywhere. And now he was no longer either silent or humble. Words poured from his mouth, words inevitably, unavoidably connected with himself and his doings, his fine, brave doings, how he was this at home and that at home, how his aunt had thought the one and his mother the other, how his father had given him a pony and his cousin a dog. Now round every corner his besmudged face would be appearing, his inky fingers protruding, his voice triumphantly proclaiming, "'I'm coming with you now, Cole. There's an hour before prep.' And strangely now, in spite of himself, Jeremy liked it. He was suddenly touched by young Baltimore and his dirt and his helplessness. Later years was to prove that Jeremy Cole could be always caught, held and won, by something misshapen, abused, cast out by society. So now he was caught by young Baltimore. He did his sums for him, when he could, he was no great hand at sums, protected him from Tubby Smith, the bully of the lower fourth, shepherded him in and out of meals, took him for walks on Sunday afternoons. He was losing Riley. That hurt him desperately. Nevertheless he continued in his serious, entirely unsentimental way to look after Baltimore. And was young Baltimore grateful? We shall see. Three. One day when the summer term was about a month old, a very dreary game of cricket was pursuing its slow course in third game. The infants concerned in it were sleepily watching the efforts of one after another of their number to bowl corcary minimus. Corcary was not, as cricket is considered at lords, a great cricketer, but he was a stolid, phlegmatic youth too big for the third game and too lazy to wake up and so push forward into second. He stood stolidly at his wicket, making a run or two occasionally in order to poach the bowling. Jeremy was sitting in the pavilion, his cap tilted forward over his eyes, nearly asleep, and praying that corcary might stay in all the afternoon and so save him from batting. One of the younger masters, Newsom, a youth fresh from Cambridge, was presiding over the afternoon and longing for six o'clock. Suddenly he heard a thin and weedy voice at his ear. Please sir, do you think I might bowl? I think I could get him out. Newsom pulled himself in from his dreams and gazed wearily down upon the grimy face of Baltimore. You, he exclaimed, Baltimore was not beloved by the masters. Yes sir, Baltimore said, his cold green eyes fixed earnestly upon Newsom's face. Oh, I suppose so, Newsom said wearily, anything for a change. Had anyone been watching Baltimore at that moment, they would have seen a curious thing. A new spirit inhabited the boy's body. Something seemed suddenly to stiffen him. His legs were no longer shambly, his eyes no longer dead. He was in a moment moving as though he knew his ground and as though he had first and royal right to be there. Of course no one noticed this. There was a general titter when it was seen that Baltimore had the ball in his hand. Corkery turned round and sniggered to the wicketkeeper and the wicketkeeper sniggered back. Baltimore paid no attention to anybody. He ran to the wicket and delivered an underhand lob. A second later Corkery's bales were on the ground. Again, had anyone noticed, he would have perceived that the delivery of that ball was no ordinary one, that the twist over the arm as it was delivered was definite and assured and by no means accidental. No one noticed anything except that Corkery was at length out. Although he had been batting for an hour and 10 minutes, he had made only nine runs. Baltimore's next three balls took three wickets, Jeremy's amongst them. No one was very enthusiastic about this. The balls were considered sneaks and just the kind that pimply Percy would bowl. Corkery, in fact, was extremely indignant and swore he would take it out of pimples in the dormitory that evening. Very odd was Baltimore over this. No sign of any feeling, whatever. Jeremy expected that he would be full that evening of his prowess, not a word. Jeremy himself was proud of his young friend. It was as though he had possessed an ugly and stupid puppy who, it was suddenly discovered, could balance spoons on the end of his nose. He told Riley about it. Riley was disgusted. You and your Percy, he said. You can jolly well chew, stocky, it's him or me. He's all right now. The other fellas leave him alone. Why can't you drop him? Jeremy could not explain why, but he did not want to drop him. He liked having something to look after. Next week, something more occurred. Baltimore was pushed up into second game. It was indeed very necessary that he should be. Had he stayed in third game, that galaxy of all the gricketing talents would have been entirely demoralized. No one could withstand him. Wickets fell faster than nine pins. He gained no popularity for this. He was indeed beaten in the box room with hairbrushes for bowling sneaks. He took his beating without a word. He seemed suddenly to have found his footing. He held up his head, occasionally washed his face, and stared superciliously about him. Jeremy now was far keener about young Baltimore's career than he had ever been about his own. Securing an afternoon off, he went and watched his friend's first appearance in second game. Knowing nothing about cricket, he was nevertheless clever enough to detect that there was something natural and even inevitable in Baltimore's cricket. Not only in his bowling, but also in his fielding. He recognized it perhaps because it was the same with himself in football. Awkward and ill at ease as he was on the cricket field, he moved with perfect competence in rugby, knowing at once where to go and what to do. So it was now with Baltimore. In that game, he took eight wickets for 18 runs. The school began now to talk about the new prodigy. There were, of course, two sides in the matter. Many people declaring that they were sneaky, low-down balls that anybody could bowl if they were dishonest enough to do so. Others said that there was nothing low-down about it and that young Baltimore would be in first game before he knew where he was. On his second day in second game, Baltimore took Smith Major's wicked first ball and Smith Major had batted twice for the first eleven. After this, the great cracky himself came and watched him. He said nothing, but next day Baltimore was down for first game. Jeremy now was bursting with pride. He tried to show Baltimore how immensely pleased he was. In a corner after tea, he talked to him. There's never been a new kid his first term in first game before. I don't think, said Jeremy, regardless of grammar. They'll play you for the second eleven, I suspect. Oh, there's your two, said Baltimore calmly, and then they'll play me for the first. Strange that Jeremy, who hated above all things, sighed in his fellow human beings, was not repelled by this. Here, in Baltimore, was the Fir Sacré. Jeremy recognized his presence and bowed to it. Small boys are always fond of anything of which they are proud, and so Jeremy now, in spite of the green eyes, the arrogant aloof attitude, the unpleasant personal habits, had an affection for Baltimore, the affection of the hen, whose ugly duckling turns out a swan. You don't seem very pleased about it, he said, looking at Baltimore curiously. What's there to be pleased about, said Baltimore coldly. Of course, I knew I could play cricket. No one in this rotten place can play. I can bat, too, only they always put me in last. Will you walk out to polkers after dinner tomorrow, Jeremy asked? All right, said Baltimore, indifferently. Four. In the following week, Baltimore played for the second eleven, took eight wickets for twenty runs, and himself made thirty. A fortnight later, he was down on the boards in the first eleven for the lower Templeton match. Now indeed, the whole school was talking about him, masters, and boys alike. His batting was another matter from his bowling. There was no doubt at all that he was a natural cricketer. Mr. Rochester, the game's master, said he was the most promising cricketer that he had yet seen at Thompson's, remarkable style for so young a boy, an extraordinarily fine eye. The lower Templeton match was the match of the season. Lower Templeton was a private school some ten miles away, and Thompson's strongest rivals. They had more boys than Thompson's, and two times out of three, they won the cricket match. They were entirely above themselves, and jeered at Thompson's, implying that they showed the most wonderful condescension in coming over to play at all. Consequently, they're burned in the heart of every boy in Thompson's, yes, and in the heart of every master and every servant, a longing desire that the swollen-headed idiots should be beaten. Boys are exceedingly susceptible to atmosphere, and in no time at all, the first weeks of Baltimore's stay at Thompson's were entirely forgotten. He was a new creature, a marvel, a miracle. Young Corkery was heard at tea to offer him his last sardine, although only a fortnight before he had belabored his posterior with airbrushes. Cracky Brown took in him now, a fatherly interest, and inflicted on him only the lightest fagging, and inquired anxiously many times a day about his health. Jeremy surrendered absolutely to this grammar, but it was to more than mere glamour that he was surrendering. He did not realize it, but he had never in all his life before had any friend who had been a success. His father and mother, his sister Mary, his uncle Samuel, none of these could be said to be in the eyes of the world successes, and at school it had been the same. His best friend, Riley, was quite undistinguished in every way, and the master whom he liked best, old Poggey Johnson, was more than undistinguished, he was derided. It was not that he liked vulgar applause for his friend and himself enjoyed to bathe in its binding light. It was quite simply that he loved his friend to be successful, that it was fun for him, amusing, exciting, and warmed him all over. No longer need he feel any pity for Baltimore. Baltimore was happy now, he must be. It must be confessed that Baltimore showed no special signs of being happy when the great day arrived. At breakfast he accepted quite calmly the portions of potted meat, marmalade, sardines, and pickles offered him by adoring admirers, and ate them all on the same plate quite impassively. After dinner, Jeremy and Riley took their places on the grass in front of the pavilion and waited for the game to begin. Riley was now very submissive, compelled to admit that after all Jeremy had once again showed his remarkable judgment. Who but Jeremy would have seen in Baltimore on his arrival at Thompson's The Seeds of Greatness. He was forced to confess that he himself had been blind to them. With their straw hats tilted over their eyes, lying full length on the grass, a bag of sweets between them, they were as happy as thieves. In strict truth, Jeremy's emotions were not those precisely of happiness. He was too deeply excited, too passionately anxious for Baltimore's success to be really happy. He could not hear the sweets crunching between his teeth for the beating of this art. What followed was what any reader of school stories would expect to follow. Had Baltimore been precisely the handsome blue-eyed hero of one of Dean Ferrar's epics of boyhood, he could not have behaved more appropriately. Thompson's went in first and disaster instantly assailed them. Six wickets were down for ten, owing to a diabolical fast bowler whom Lower Templeton had brought with them. Cracky Brown was the only Thompsonian who made any kind of a stand and he had no one to stay with him until Baltimore came in and Cracky, content merely to keep up his wicket, made 35. Thompson's were all out for 56. Lower Templeton then went in and because Cracky did not at once put in Baltimore to bowl, made 34 for two wickets. Baltimore then took the remaining eight wickets for 17. Lower Templeton were all out for 51. The excitement during the second innings had to be seen to be believed. Even old Thompson, who was known for his imperturbable temper, was seen to wipe his brow continually with a yellow handkerchief. Thompson's went in and four wickets fell for 11. Baltimore went in at fifth wicket and made 39. Thompson's were all out for 61 and were 66 ahead of Lower Templeton. This was a good lead and the hearts of Thompson's beat high. Baltimore started well and took six of the Lower Templeton wickets for 20. Then he obviously tired. Cracky took him off and Lower Templeton had three quarters of an hour's pure joy. As the school clock struck half past six, Lower Templeton had made 60 runs for eight wickets. Cracky then put Baltimore on again and he took the remaining wickets for no runs. Thompson's were victorious by six runs and Baltimore was carried shoulder high amongst the plaudits of the surrounding multitudes up to the school buildings. Five, impossible to give any adequate idea of Jeremy's pride and pleasure over this event. He did not share in the procession up to the school but waited his time. Then just before chapel crossing the playground in the purple dust, he passed Baltimore and another boy. Hello, I say, he stopped. Baltimore looked back over his shoulder. Jeremy could not precisely see the expression but fancied it contemptuous. Most curiously then for the rest of the evening he was worried and unhappy. Why should he worry? Baltimore was his friend. Must be after all that Jeremy had done for him. Jeremy was too young and too unanalytical to know what it was that he wanted but in reality he longed now for that protective sense to continue. He must still have something to look after. There were lots of things he could do for Baltimore. Next morning after breakfast he caught him alone 10 minutes before chapel. He was embarrassed and shy but he plunged in. I say it was ripping yesterday, weren't you glad? Baltimore looking at Jeremy curiously shrugged his shoulders. You're coming out next Sunday, aren't you? He went on. Baltimore smiled, I'm not going to have you following me everywhere. He said in a rather feeble imitation of Jeremy's voice. If you behave all right and don't cry and tell me when anyone kicks you I'll let you speak to me sometimes, otherwise you keep off. He put his tongue out at Jeremy and swaggered off. Jeremy stood there. He was hurt as he had never been before in his young life. He had indeed never known this kind of hurt. Someone came in. Hello, stocky, coming up to chapel? All right, he answered moving to get his boats out of his locker but he'd lost something, something awfully jolly. He fumbled in his locker for it. He wanted to cry like any kid. He was crying but he wasn't going to let stocky see it. He found an old fragment of liquorice stick. It mingles in his mouth with the salt taste of tears. So dragging his head from his locker he kicked stocky in amicable friendship and they departed chapel words, tumbling over one another puppy-wise as they went. But no more miserable boys sat in chapel that morning. Six. Two days later, turning the corner of the playground, he heard Shrill crying. Looking farther, he perceived Baltimore twisting the arms of a miniature boy, the smallest boy in the school, Brown Minimus. He was also kicking him in tender places. Now will you give it me? He was saying. A second later, Baltimore was in his turn having his arm twisted and his posterior kicked. As Jeremy kicked and twisted, he felt a strange, a mysterious pleasure. Baltimore tried to bite and then he said, I'll tell Thompson. I don't care if you do, said Jeremy. Yes, he felt a strange, wild pleasure. But when that afternoon, old Thompson genially said, well, Cole, I think Baltimore's found his feet now. All right, hasn't he? Jeremy said, yes, sir, he has. He felt miserable. He sat down and kicked the turf furiously with his toes. He had lost something, he knew not what. Something very precious. Someone called him and he went off to join in a rag. Anyway, Tom Brown was a rotten book. End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8. The Ruffians 1. Jeremy sat on a high cliff overlooking the sea. He had never, since he was a tiny baby, had any fear of heights, and now his short, thick legs dangled over a fearful abyss in a way that would have caused his mother's heart to go faint with terror, had she seen it. The sight before him was superb, not to be exceeded, perhaps, in the whole world, for strength and even ferocity of outline combined with luxuriance and southern softness of color. Here the two worlds met, the worlds of the north and the south. Even in the early morning breeze there seemed to mingle the harsh irony of the high, gleebher uplands and the gentle caressing warmth of the sheltered coves and shell-scattered shores. The sea was a vast curtain of silk, pale blue beyond the cove, a deep and shining green in the depths immediately below Jeremy's feet. That pale curtain was woven both of sea and sky and seemed to quiver under the fingers of the morning breeze. It was suspended between two walls of sharp black rock, jagged, ferocious, ruthless. Corp, to Jeremy's right, inside the black curve of stone, was a little beach of the palest yellow and nestling onto it, standing almost within it, was a little old church with a crooked grey tower and a wandering graveyard. Behind the church stretched a lovely champagne of the gentlest most English countryside. Hills green as brightly colored glass rising smoothly into the blue, ballys thickly patched with trees, cottages from whose stumpy chimneys smoke was already rising, cows and sheep, and in the distance the joyful barking of a dog, the only sound in all that early scene saved the curling whisper of the tide. Jeremy had arrived with his family at Carlyone Rectory the night before in a state of rebellious discontent. He had been disgusted when he heard that this summer they were to break the habit of years and to abandon his beloved cow farm in favor of a new camping-ground, and a rectory too, when they always lived so close to churches and had so eternally to do with them. No farm any more. No Mrs. Monk, Mr. Monk, and the little monks, no animals, no cows and pigs, no sheep and no horses, above all, no Tim. With the red face and the strong legs, Tim, perhaps the best friend he had in the world after, of course, Rivia and Hamlet, he had felt it bitterly, and during that journey from potaster to the sea, always hitherto so wonderful a journey, he had sulked and sulked, refusing to notice any of the new scenery, the novel excitements and fresh incidents like the driving all the way, for instance, from St. Mary Moore in a big wagonette with farmers and their wives, lest he should be betrayed into any sort of disloyalty to his old friends. The arrival at the rectory with its old walled garden, flowers all glimmering in the dusk, the vast oak in the middle of the lawn, was, in spite of himself, an interesting experience, but he allowed no expression of amusement to escape from him and went to bed the moment after supper. He awoke, of course, at a desperately early hour and was compelled then to jump out of bed and look out of the window. He discovered to his excited amazement that the sea was right under his nose. This was marvelous to him. At cow farm you could watch only a little cup of it between a dip in the trees and that miles away. Here the garden seemed actually to border it, and you could watch it stretch with the black cliffs to the left of it, miles, miles, miles into the sky. The world was lovely at that hour. Blackbirds and thrushes were on the due drenched lawn. Somewhere in the house a cuckoo clock announced that it was just six o'clock. Before he knew what he was about, he had slipped on his clothes, was down the dark stairs and out into the garden. As he sat dangling his feet above space and looked out to see, he argued with himself about cow farm. Of course, cow farm would always be first, but that did not mean that other places could not be nice as well. He would never find anyone at Carlyon as delightful as Tim, and if only Tim were here, everything would be perfect. But Tim could not, of course, be in two places at once, and he had to do his duty by the monks. As he sat there, swinging his legs and looking down into that perfect green water, so clear that you could see gold and purple lights shifting beneath it and black lines of rock-like licorice sticks twisting as the shadows moved, he was forced to admit to himself that he was terribly happy. He had never lived close, cheek by chow, with the sea, as he was doing now. The thought of five whole weeks spent thus on the very edge of the water made him wriggle his legs so that there was a very real danger of his falling over. The juxtaposition of Hamlet, who had, of course, followed him, saved him from further danger. He knew that he himself was safe and would never fall, but Hamlet was another matter and must be protected. The dog was perilously near the edge, balancing on his four feet and sniffing down, so the boy got up and dragged the dog back and then lay down among the sea-pinks and the heather and looked up into the cloudless sky. Hamlet rested his head on the fatty part of his master's thigh and breathed deep content. He had come into some place where there wandered a new company of smells, appetizing, tempting. Soon he would investigate them, for the present it was enough to lie warm with his master and dream. Suddenly he was conscious of something. He raised his head and Jeremy, feeling his withdrawal, half sat up and looked about him. Facing them both were a group of giant boulders scattered there in the heather and looking like some druid circle of ancient stones. Hamlet was now on all fours, his tail up, his hair bristling. It's all right, said Jeremy lazily, there's nobody there. But even as he looked an extraordinary phenomenon occurred. There rose from behind the boulder a tangled head of hair and beneath the hair a round hostile face and two fierce interrogative eyes. Then, as though this were not enough, there arose in line with the first head, a second and with the second a third and then with the third a fourth. Four round bullet heads, four fierce hostile pairs of eyes, staring at Hamlet and Jeremy. Jeremy stared back, feeling that here was some trick played upon him, as when the conjurer at Thompson's had produced a pigeon out of a handkerchief. The tricky fact was heightened by the fact that the four heads and the sturdy bodies connected with them were graduated in height to a nicety, as you might see four clowns at a circus, as were the four bears, a symmetry almost divine and quite unnatural. The eldest, the fiercest and most hostile, had a face and shoulders that might belong to a boy of sixteen. The youngest and smallest might have been Jeremy's age. Jeremy did not notice any of this, very plain to him, the fact that the four faces, to whomsoever they might belong, did not care either for him or his dog. One to four. He was in a situation of some danger. He was suddenly aware that he had never seen boys quite so ferocious in appearance. The street boys of Paul Jester were milk and water to them. Hamlet also felt this. He was sitting up, his head raised, his body stiff, intent, and you could feel within him the bark strangled by the melodrama of the situation. Jeremy said rather feebly, uh, hello. The reply was a terrific, ear-shattering bellow from four lusty throats. Then, more distinctly, got out of this. Fear was in his heart. He was compelled afterwards to admit it. He could only reply very feebly, why? The eldest of the party, glaring, replied, If you don't, we'll make you. Then, this is ours here. Hamlet was now quivering all over, and Jeremy was afraid lest he should make a dash for the boulders. He therefore climbed onto his feet, holding Hamlet's collar with his hand, and, smiling, answered, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I've only just come. Well, get out, Ben, was the only reply. What fascinated him like a dream was the way that the faces did not move, nor more body reveal itself. Painted against the blue sky, they might have been, ferocious stairs, and all. There was nothing more to be done. He beat an inglorious retreat, not indeed running, but walking with what dignity he could summon. Hamlet, at his side, uttering noises like a kettle on the boil. Two. He had not to wait long for some explanation of the vision. At breakfast, and it was a wonderful breakfast with more eggs and bacon, green, and strawberry jam than he had ever known. His father said, Now, children, there's only one thing here that you must remember. Jeremy, are you listening? Yes, father. Don't speak with your mouth full. There's a farm near the church on the sand. You can't mistake it. Is the farm on the sand, father? Ask Mary, her eyes wide open. Now, of course not. How could a farm be on the sand? The farmhouse stands back at the end of the path that runs by the church. It's a gray farm with a high stone wall. You cannot mistake it. Well, none of you children are to go near that farm, on no account whatever, on no account whatever, to go near it. Why not, father? Ask Jeremy. Is there scarlet fever there? Because I say so is quite enough, said Mr. Cole. There's a family staying there. You must have nothing at all to do with. Perhaps you will see them in the distance. You must avoid them and never speak to them. Are they very wicked? asked Mary, her voice vibrating low with the drama of the situation. Never mind what they are. They are not fit companions for you children. It is most unfortunate that they are here so close to us. Had I known it, I would not, I think, have come here. Jeremy said nothing. These were, of course, his friends of the morning. He could see, now, straight across the breakfast table, those eight burning, staring eyes. Later, from the slope of the green hill above the rectory, he looked across the gleaming beach at the church, the road, and then in the distance the forbidden farm. Strange how the forbidding of anything made one from the very bottom of one's soul long for it. Yesterday, staring across the green slopes and hollows, the farm would have been but a gray patch sewn into the purple hill that hung behind it. Now it was mysterious, crammed with hidden life of its own, the most dramatic point in the whole landscape. What had they done, that family, that was so terrible? What was there about those four boys that he had never seen in any boys before? He longed to know them with a burning desperate longing. Nevertheless, a whole week passed without any contact. Once Jeremy saw, against the skyline on the hill behind the church, a trail of four, single-file, silhouetted black. They passed steadily, secretly, bent on their own mysterious purposes. The sky, when their figures had left it, was painted with drama. Once Mary reported that wandering along the beach a wild figure almost naked had started from behind a rock and shouted at her. She ran, of course, and behind her there echoed a dreadful laugh. But the best story of all was from Helen, who, passing the graveyard, had seen go down the road a most beautiful lady, most beautifully dressed. According to Helen, she was the most lovely lady ever seen, with jewels hanging from her ears, pearls round her neck, and her clothes a bright orange. She had walked up the road and gone through the gate into the farm. The mystery would have excited them all even more than, in fact, it did, had Carlyon itself been less entrancing. But what Carlyon turned out to be, no words can describe. Those were the days, of course, before golf links in Gleebshire, and although no one who has ever played on the Carlyon links will ever wish them away, they are the handsomest, kindest, most fantastic sea links in all of England. Yet I will not pretend that those same green slopes, sliding so softly down to the seashore, bending back so gently to the wild mysteries of the Punderry Moor, had not then a virgin charm that now they have lost. Who can decide? But for children, thirty years ago, what a kingdom! Glittering with color, they had the softness of a loving mother, the sudden tumbled romance of an adventurous elder brother. They caught all the colors of the floating sky in their laps, and the shadows flew like birds from shoulder to shoulder, and then suddenly the hills would shake their sides, and all those shadows would slide down to the yellow beach and lie there like purple carpets. You could race and race and never grow tired, lie on your back and stare into the fathomless sky, roll over forever and come to no harm, wander, and never be lost. The first gate of the kingdom, and the last, the little golden square underneath the tower, where the green witch has her stall of treasures that she never sells. Three. Then the great adventure occurred. One afternoon the sun shone so gloriously that Jeremy was blinded by it, blinded and dreamsmitten so that he sat, perched on the garden wall of the rectory, staring before him at the glitter and the sparkle, seeing nothing but perhaps a little boat of dark wood with a ruby sail floating out to the horizon, having on its boards sacks of gold and pearls and diamonds, gold in fat slabs, pearls and white shaking eaves, diamonds that put out the eyes so bright they were, going, going wither. He does not know, but shades his eyes against the sun and the boat has gone, and there is nothing there but an unbroken blue of sea with the black rocks fringing it. Mary called up to him from the garden and suggested that they should go out and pick flowers, and still in a dream he climbed down from the wall and stood there nodding his head like a mandarin. He suffered himself to be led by Mary into the high road, only stopping for a moment to whistle for Hamlet, who came running across the lawn as though he had just been shot out of a cannon. It can have been only because he was sunk so deep in his dream that he wandered without knowing it down over the beach, jumping the hill stream that intersected it, up the sand, past the church, out along the road that led straight to the forbidden farm. Nor was Mary thinking of their direction. She was having one of her happy days, her straw hat on the back of her head, her glasses full of sunlight, her stockings wrinkled about her legs, walking, her head in the air, singing one of her strange, tuneless chants that came to her when she was happy. There was a field on their right and a break in the hedge. Through the break she saw buttercups, thousands of them, and loose strife and snapdragon. She climbed the gate and vanished into the field. Jeremy walked on, scarcely realizing her absence. Suddenly he heard a scream. He stopped, and Hamlet stopped, pricking up his ears. Another scream, then a succession, piercing and terrible. Then over the field gate Mary appeared, tumbling over, regardless of all audiences and proprieties. Then running, crying, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy! Buttercups scattering from her hands as she ran. Her face was one question mark of terror. Her hat was gone, her hair ribbon dangling, her stockings about her ankles. All she could do was to cling to Jeremy, crying, Oh, oh, oh, oh! What is it, he asked roughly, his fear for her making him impatient. Was it a bull? No, no, no, oh, Jeremy, oh, dear, oh, dear, the boys, they hit me, pulled my hair. What boys? But already he knew. Recovering a little, she told him. She had not been in the field a moment, and was bending down, picking her first buttercups, when she felt herself violently seized from behind her arms held. And looking up, there were three boys standing there all around her. Terrible, fierce boys looking ever so wicked. They tore her hat off her head, pulled her hair, and told her to leave the field at once, never to come into it again, that it was their field, and she'd better not forget it, and to tell all her beastly family that they'd better not forget it either, and that they'd be shot if they came in there. Then they took me to the gate and pushed me over. They were very rough. I've got bruises. She began to cry as the full horror of the event broke upon her. Jeremy's anger was terrible to witness. He took her by the arm. Come with me, he said. He led her to the end of the road beyond the church. Now you go home, he said. Don't breathe a word to anyone till I get back. Very well, she sobbed about, lost my hat. I'll get your hat, he answered, and take Hamlet with you. He watched her set off. No harm could come to her there in the open. She had only to cross the beach and climb the hill. He watched her until she had to jump the stream, Hamlet running in front of her. Then he turned back. He climbed the gate into the field. There was no one, only the Golden Sea of Buttercups, and near the gate a straw hat. He picked it up, and back in the road again, stood hesitating. There was only one thing he could do, and he knew it. But he hesitated. He had been forbidden to enter the place, and besides, there were four of them, and such a four. Then he shrugged his shoulders, a very characteristic action of his, and marched ahead. The gate of the farm swung easily open, and then at once he was upon them, all four of them sitting in a row upon a stone wall at the far corner of the yard and staring at him. It was a dirty, messy place, and a fitting background for that company. The farm itself looked fierce with its blind gray wall and its sullen windows, and the yard was in fearful confusion, oozing between the stones with shiny yellow streams, and dank coagulating pools, piled high with heaps of stinking manure, pigs wandering in the middle distance, hens and chickens, and a ruffian dog chained to his kennel. The four looked at Jeremy without moving. Jeremy came close to them and said, You're a lot of dirty cats. They made neither answer nor movement. Dirty cats to touch my sister, a girl who couldn't touch you. Still, no answer. Only one, the smallest, jumped off the wall and ran to the gate behind Jeremy. I'm not afraid of you, said Jeremy. He was terribly afraid. I wouldn't be afraid of a lot of dirty sneaks like you are to hit a girl. Still, no answer. So he ended, and we'll go wherever we like. It isn't your field, and we've got as much right to it as you have. He turned to go and faced the boy at the gate. The other three had now climbed off the wall and he was surrounded. He had never, since the night with the sea captain, been in so perilous a situation. He thought that they would murder him and then hide his body under the manure. They looked quite capable of it. And in some strange way, this farm was so completely shut off from the outside world, the house watched so silently, the wall was so high. And he was very small indeed, compared with the biggest of the four. No, he did not feel very happy. Nothing could be more terrifying than their silence. But if they were silent, he could be silent too. So he just stood there and said nothing. What are you going to do about it? Suddenly asked the biggest of the four? Do about what? He replied, his voice trembling in spite of himself. Simply as it seemed to him from the noisy beating of his heart. Our cheeking your sister. I can't do much, Jeremy said, when there are four of you, but I'll fight the one my own size. That hero grinning moved forward to Jeremy, but the one who had already spoken broke out. Let him out. We don't want him. And don't you come back again? He suddenly shouted. I will. Jeremy shouted in return if I want to. And then I regret to say, took to his heels and ran a pelt mail down the road. Four. Now, this was an open declaration of war and not likely to be disregarded. Jeremy said not a word of it to anyone, not even to the wide-eyed Mary, who had been waiting in a panic of terror under the oak tree, like the lady at Carpaccio's picture of St. George and the dragon, longing for her true night to return, all bloody and tumbled, to quote Miss Jane Porter Stadious. He was not bloody, nor was he tumbled, but he was serious-minded and preoccupied. This was all very nice, but it was pretty well going to spoil the holidays. These fellas hanging round and turning up just whenever they pleased, frightening everybody, and perhaps, this sudden thought made for a moment, his heart stands still, doing something really horrible to Hamlet. He felt as though he had the whole burden of it on his shoulders, as though he were on guard for all the family. There was no one to whom he could speak, no one at all. For several days he moved about as though in enemy country, looking closely at hedges, scanning hill horizons, keeping Hamlet as close to his side as possible. No sign of the Ruffians, no word of them at home. They had faded into smoke and gone down with the wind. Suddenly, one morning, when he was in a hollow of the downs, throwing pebbles at a tree, he heard a voice, hands up, or I'd fire. He turned round and saw the eldest of the quartet, quite close to him. Although he had spoken so fiercely, he was not looking fierce, but rather was smiling in a curious, crooked kind of way. Jeremy could see him more clearly than before, and a strange enough object he was. He was wearing a dirty old pair of flannel, cricketing trousers, and a grubby shirt open at the neck. One of his eyes was bruised, and he had a cut across his nose, but the thing in the mane that struck Jeremy now was his appearance of immense physical strength. His muscles seemed simply to bulge under his shirt. He had the neck of a prize fighter. He was a great deal older than Jeremy, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years of age. His eyes, which were gray and clear, were his best feature, but he was no beauty, and in his dirty clothes and with his bruises he looked a most dangerous character. Jeremy called Hamlet to him and held him by the collar. All right, the Ruffian said, I'm not going to touch your dog. I didn't think you were, said Jeremy, lying. Oh yes, you did. I suppose you think we eat dog flesh and murder babies. Lots of people do. The sudden sense that other folk in the world also thought the quartet outlaws was new to Jeremy. He had envisaged the affair as a struggle in which the Cole family only were engaged. Eat babies, Jeremy cried. No, do you? Of course not, said the boy. That's the sort of damned rot people talk. They think we do anything. He suddenly sat down on the turf, and Jeremy sat down too, dramatically picturing to himself the kind of things that would happen did his father turn the corner, and find him there amicably in league with his enemy. There followed a queer in and out little conversation bewildering in some strange way, so that they seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the thick velvet pile of the green downs lost to all the world that was humming like a top beyond the barrier. I liked your coming into the yard about your sister. That was damned plucky of you. For some reason, hidden deep in the green down, Jeremy had never before known praise that pleased him so deeply. He flushed, kicking the turf with the heels of his boots. You were cats to hit my sister, he said. He let Hamlet's collar go, and the dog went over, and smelt the dirty trousers and sniffed at the rough, reddened hand. How old are you? Ten and a half? I know. You're called Cole. You're the son of the person at the rectory. Jeremy nodded his head. The boy was now sprawling his leg, his head resting on his arms, his thick legs stretched out. You're awfully strong, Jeremy suddenly said. The boy nodded his head. I am that. I can throw a cricket ball from here to the church. I can wrestle anyone. Box, too. He didn't say this boastfully, but quite calmly, stating well-known facts. Jeremy opened his eyes wide. What are you called, he asked. Humphrey Charles Rootben. Where do you go to school? I don't go. I was kicked out of Harrow, but it didn't matter anyway because my governor couldn't pay the school bills. Expelled. This was exciting indeed. Jeremy inquired, but his friend would give no reasons, only looked at him curiously and smiled. Then he suddenly went on in another tone. You know, everyone hates us, don't you? Yes, I know that, said Jeremy. Why is it? Because we're bad, Humphrey said solemnly. Our hand is against everyone, and everyone's hand is against us. But why? asked Jeremy again. Well, for one thing, they don't like father. He's got, if you were speaking very politely, what you'd call a damned bad temper. By Jove, you should see him lose it. He's broken three chairs in the farm already. I don't suppose we shall be here very long. We're always moving about. Then another reason is that we never have any money. Father makes a bit racing sometimes, and then we're flush for a week or two, but it never lasts long. Why, he went on drawing himself up with an air of pride, we owe money all over the country. That's why we came down to this rotten dull hole, because we hadn't been down here before. And another reason they don't like us is because that woman who lives with us isn't father's wife, and she isn't our mother either. I should rather think not. She's a beast. I hate her, he added reflectively. There was a great deal of all this that Jeremy did not understand, but he got from it an immense impression of romance and adventure. And then, as he looked across at the boy opposite to him, a new feeling came to him, a feeling that he'd never known before. It was an exciting, strange emotion, something that was suddenly almost adoration. He was aware, all in a second, that he would do anything in the world for this strange boy. He would like to be ordered by him to run down the shoulder of the down, and race across the sands, and plunge into the sea, and he would do it. Or to be commanded by him all the way to St. Mary's, ever so many miles to fetch something for him. It was so new an experience that he felt exceedingly shy about it, and could only sit there kicking at the turf, and saying nothing. Humphrey's brow was suddenly as black as thunder. He got up. I see what it is, he said. You're like the rest. Now I've told you what we are. You don't want to have anything more to do with us. Well, you needn't. Nobody asked you. You can just go back to your old person and say to him, Oh, Father, I met such a wicked boy today. He was naughty, and I'm never going to talk to him again. All right, then, go along. The attack was so sudden that Jeremy was taken entirely by surprise. He had been completely absorbed by this new feeling. He had not known that he had been silent. Oh, no, I don't care what you are or your father, or whether you haven't any money. I've got some money. I'll give it to you if you like. And you shall have three pence more on Saturday. Four pence, if I know my collect. I say, he stammered over this request. I wish you to throw a stone from here and see how far you can. Humphrey was immensely gratified. He bent down and picked up a pebble. Then, straining backwards ever so slightly, slung it. It vanished into the blue sea. Jeremy sighed with admiration. You can throw, he said. Would you mind if I felt a muscle on your arm? He felt it. He had never imagined such a muscle. Do you think I could have more if I worked at it, he asked, stretching out his own arm? Humphrey graciously felt it. That's not bad for a kid of your size, he said. You ought to lift weights in the morning. That's the way to bring it up. Then he added, You're a sporting kid. I like you. I'll be here again, same time tomorrow. And without another word was running off, with a strange jumping motion across the down. Jeremy went home and could think of nothing at all but his adventure. How sad it was that always without his in the least desiring it, he was running up against authority. He had been forbidden to go near the farm or to have anything to do with the wild outlawed tenants of it, and now here he was making close friends with one of the worst of them. He could not help it. He did not want to help it. When he looked round the family supper table, how weak, colorless, and uninteresting they all seemed. No muscles, no outlawry, no running from place to place to escape the police. He saw Humphrey standing against the sky and slinging that stone. He could throw. There was no doubt of it. He could throw perhaps better than anyone else in the world. They met then, every day, and for a glorious, wonderful week nobody knew. I am sorry to say that Jeremy was involved at once in a perfect mist of lies and false excuses. What a business it was being always with the family. He had felt it now for a long time, the apparent impossibility of going anywhere or doing anything without everybody all around you asking multitudes of questions. Where are you going to, Jeremy? Where have you been? What have you been doing? I haven't seen you for the last two hours, Jeremy. Mother's been looking for you everywhere. So he lied and lied and lied. Otherwise, he got no harm from this wonderful week. One must do Humphrey that justice that he completely respected Jeremy's innocence. He even, for perhaps the first time in his young life, tried to restrain his swearing. They found the wild moor at the back of the downs a splendid hunting ground. Here, in the miles of gorse and shrub and pond and heather, they were safe from the world, their companions, birds and rabbits. Humphrey knew more about animals than anyone in England. He said so himself, so it must be true. The weather was glorious, hot, and gorse scented. They bathed in the pools and ran about naked. Humphrey, doing exercises, standing on his head, turning some results, lifting Jeremy with his hands as though he weighed nothing at all. Humphrey's body was brown all over like an animal's. Humphrey talked and Jeremy listened. He told Jeremy the most marvelous stories and Jeremy believed every word of them. They sat on a little hummock with a dark wood behind them and watched the moon rise. You're a decent kid, said Humphrey. I like you better than my brothers. I suppose you'll forget me as soon as I'm gone. I'll never forget you, said Jeremy. Can't you leave your family and be somebody else? Then you can come and stay with us. Stay with a person? Not much. You'll see me again one day. I'll send you a line from time to time. I'll let you know where I am. Finally they swore friendship. They exchanged gifts. Humphrey gave Jeremy a broken pocket knife, and Jeremy gave Humphrey his silver watch chain. They shook hands and swore to be friends forever. And then the final and terrible tragedy occurred. It came just as suddenly as for a romantic climax it should have come. On the afternoon that followed the friendship swearing, Humphrey did not appear at the accustomed place. Jeremy waited for several hours and then went melancholy home. At breakfast next morning there were those grown-up mysterious allusions that mean that some catastrophe, too terrible for tender ears, is occurring. I never heard anything so awful, said Aunt Amy. It's so sad to me, said Jeremy's mother, sighing, that people should want to do these things. It's abominable, said Mr. Cole, that they were ever allowed to come here at all. We should have been told before we came. But do you really think, said Aunt Amy? I know, because Mrs. But just fancy if it's quite possible, especially when what a dreadful thing that Jeremy sat there feeling as though everyone were looking at him. What had happened to Humphrey? He must go at once and find out. He slipped off after breakfast, and before he reached the bottom of the downs, heard shouts and cries. He ran across the beach and was soon involved in a crowd of farmers, women, boys, and animals, all shouting, crying out, and barking together. Being small, he was able to worry his way through without any attention being paid to him. Indeed, everyone was too deeply excited by what was happening in the yard of the farm to notice small boys. When, at last, he got to the gate and looked through, he beheld an extraordinary scene. Among the cobbles and the manure heaps and the filth, many things were scattered. Articles of clothing, some chairs and a table, some pictures, many torn papers. The yard was almost filled with men and women, all of them apparently shouting and screaming together. A big, red-faced man next to Jeremy was crying over and over again, that'll teach him to meddle with our women, that'll teach him to meddle with our women. On the steps of the farmhouse, an extraordinary woman was standing quite alone, no one near to her, standing there, contempt in her eyes, and a curious smile, almost of pleasure, on her lips. Even to Jeremy's young innocence she was over-colored. Her face was crimson, she wore a large hat of bright green, and a bright green dress with a flowing drain. She did not move, she might have been painted into the stone. But Jeremy's gaze, seen dimly and as it were upwards through a pair of high, widely extended farmer's legs, was soon withdrawn from this highly-colored lady to the central figure of the scene. This was a man who seemed to Jeremy the biggest and blackest human he had ever seen. He had jet-black hair, a black beard, and struggling now in the middle of the yard between three rough-looking countrymen, his clothes were almost torn from the upper part of his body. His face was bleeding, and even as Jeremy caught sight of him, he snatched one arm free and caught one of his captors a blow that sent him reeling. For one instant he seemed to rise above the crowd, gathering himself together for a mighty effort. He seemed, in that second, to look towards Jeremy, his eyes staring out of his head, his great chest heaving, his legs straining. But at once four men were upon him, and began to drive him towards the gate, the crowd bending back and driving Jeremy into a confusion of thighs and legs, behind which he could see nothing. Then suddenly once more the scene cleared, and the boy saw a figure run from the house, crying something, his hand raised. Someone caught the figure and stayed it. For a second of time Jeremy saw Humphrey's face flaming with anger. Then the crowd closed round. At the same instant the black man seemed to be whirled towards them. There was a crushing, a screaming, a boot seemed to rise from the ground of its own volition, and kick him violently in the face, and he fell down, down, down into a bottomless sea of black pitch. Six. For three days he was in bed, his head aching, one cheek swollen to twice its natural size, one eye closed. To his amazement no one scolded him. No one asked him how he had been caught in that crowd. Everyone was very kind to him. Once he asked his mother what had happened. She told him that they were very wicked people and had gone away. When he was up and about again he went to the farm and looked through the gate. Within there was absolute stillness. A pig was snuffling amongst the manure. He went out to the moor. It was a perfect afternoon, only a little breeze blowing. The pools, slightly ruffled, were like blue lace. A rabbit, sitting in front of his hole, did not move. He threw himself face downwards on the ground, burying his nose in it, feeling in some strange way that Humphrey was there. Chapter 9 The Picture Book One. September one was Mary's birthday, and it had always something of a melancholy air about it, because it meant that the holidays were drawing to a close. Soon there would be the last bath, the last picnic, the last plunge across the moor, the last waking to the sharp poignant cry of the flying, swerving gulls. Then, in strange, sudden fashion, like the unclicking of a door that opens into another room, the summer had suddenly slipped aside, giving place to autumn. Not full autumn yet, only a few leaves turning, a few fires burning in the fields, the sea only a little colder in color, the sky at evening a chillier green. But the change was there, and with it, Paul Chester, and close behind Paul Chester, old Thompson, stepped towards them. Yes, Mary's birthday marked the beginning of the end, and in addition to that, there was the desperate urgent question of present giving. Mary took her present giving, or rather, present getting, with the utmost seriousness. No one in the whole world minded quite so desperately as she what she got, who gave it her and how it was given. Not that she was greedy, indeed, no. She was not like Helen, who guessed the price of everything that she received, and had what Uncle Samuel called a regular shop mind. It was all sentiment with Mary, what she wanted was that someone, anyone, should love her, and therefore give her something. She knew that Uncle Samuel did not love her, and she suffered not, therefore, the slightest unhappiness did he forget her natal day. But she would have cried for a week had Jeremy forgotten it. She did not mind did Jeremy only spend six pence on his gift, but he was a generous boy, and always spent everything that at the moment he had, so that she might be sure that he had taken a little trouble in the buying of it. Jeremy knew all this well enough, and in earlier years the question of buying had been simple, because cow farm was miles from anywhere, the nearest village being the fishing cove of Raphael, and Raphael had only one shop general, and the things in this shop general were all visible in the window from year's end to year's end. Mary, therefore, received on her birthday something with which, by sight at least, she was thoroughly familiar. Now, this year there were new conditions. The nearest village with shops was St. Mary's Moor, some six miles away. It was there that the purchase must be made, and in any case it would be on this occasion a real novelty. A Jeremy tried to discover by those circumlocutory but self-revealing methods peculiar to intending present givers what Mary would like. Supposing, just supposing, that someone one day were to die and most unexpectedly leave a lot of money to Mary, what would she buy? This was the kind of game that Mary adored, and she entered into it thoroughly. She would buy an enormous library, thousands and thousands of books. She would buy a town and fill it with sweet shops, and then put hundreds of poor children into it to eat as much as they liked. She would buy pollchester cathedral and make father bishop. This was flying rather too high, and so Jeremy, somewhat precipitantly, asked her what she would do were she given fifteen shillings and six pence. She considered, and being that morning in a very Christian frame of mind, decided that she would give it to Miss Jones to buy a new hat with. Mentally cursing girls in their tiresome ways, Jeremy, outwardly polite, altered his demands to, no, but suppose you were given five shillings and three pence half-penny, the exact sum saved at that moment by him, and had to spend it for yourself, Mary, what would you get with it? She would get a book. Yes, but what book? She clasped her hands and looked to heaven. Oh, there were so many that she wanted. She wanted the young stepmother and a dynabarist heiress, the Scottish chiefs, and Quichi, and Sylvie and Bruno, and Queen's Marie, and hundreds and hundreds. Well, she couldn't buy hundreds with five and three pence half-penny, that was certain, and if she thought that he was going to, she was very much mistaken, but at least he had got his answer. It was a book that she wanted. The next thing was to go to St. Mary's Moor. He found the opportunity ready to his hand, because Miss Jones had to go to buy some things that were needed for the family the very next afternoon. He would go with her. Mary thought that she would go too, and when Jeremy told her, with an air of great mystery, that that was impossible, she looked so self-conscious that he could have smacked her. The journey in the old ramshackle omnibus was a delightful adventure. It happened on this particular afternoon that all the carlion farmers and their wives were going to, and there was a fine old crush. Hamlet, fixed tightly on his lead, sat between his master's legs, his tongue out, his hair on end, and his bright eyes wicked, darting from place to place. He saw so many things that he would like to do, parcels that he would like to worry, legs that he would like to smell, laps that he would like to investigate. He gave sudden jerks at the lead, suited himself to the rolling and jolting of the bus, so that he should be flung as near as possible to the leg, parcel, or lap that he most wished to investigate. Jeremy then was very busy. Miss Jones, who was a good woman, and by now thoroughly appreciated by all the members of the Cole family, including Jeremy himself, who always took her under his special protection, when they went out anywhere, had in all her years never learnt that first of all social laws, never tried to talk in a noisy vehicle, and had a long story about one Edmund Spencer from whose mother she had that morning received a letter. She treated Jeremy as a friend and contemporary, one of the reasons for his liking of her, and he was always deeply interested in her histories. But today, owing to the terrific rumblings, rattlings, and screaming of the bus, and to the shrieking and shouting of the farmers and their ladies, he could only catch occasional words, and was not sure at the end of it all whether Edmund Spencer were animal, vegetable, or mineral. His confusion was complete when, just as they were rattling into St. Mary's one and only street, Miss Jones screamed into his ear, and so they had to give her boiled milk four times a day, and nothing else except an occasional potato. The omnibus drew up in front of the dog and rabbit, and everyone departed on their various affairs. St. Mary's was like a little wayside station on the edge of a vast, brindled, crinkled moorland, brown and gray and green, rucking away to the smooth pale eggshell blue of the afternoon sky. The sea wind came, ruffling up to them where they stood. What storms of wind and rain there must be in the winter. All the houses of the long straggling street seemed to be blown a bit askew. Jeremy and Miss Jones looked around them, and at once the inevitable general sprang to view. Miss Jones had to go into the hotel about some business for the rectory, and telling Jeremy to stay just where he was, and that she wouldn't be more than just five minutes, vanished. Having been told to stay where he was, it was natural of him to wander down the street, inspect a greasy pond with some ducks, three children playing marbles, and two mongrel dogs, and then flatten his nose against the window of the general. Inspection proved very disappointing. There seemed to be nothing here that he could possibly offer to Mary. Bootlaces, cards of buttons, mysterious articles of underwear, foggy bottles containing bull's eyes, sticks of licorice, cakes of soap, copies of home chat, and the woman's journal, some pairs of very dilapidated-looking slippers, some walking sticks, portraits of Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, highly colored. None of these, unless possibly the royal family. But no, even to Jeremy's untrained eye the color was a little bright, and old Victoria. No, Mary wanted a book. He stared up and down the street in great aditation. He must buy something before Miss Jones came out of the inn. He did not want her to see what it was that he bought. The moments were slipping by. There was nothing here. The two half-crowns and the three-penny-piece and as tightly clenched palm were hot and sticky. He looked again. There really was nothing. Then, staring down the street towards the open moor and the eventual sea, he saw a little bulging a bottle-glass window that seemed to have colored things in it. He turned and almost ran. It was the last shop in the street and a funny, dumpty, white-washed cottage with a pretty garden on its farther seaward side. The bottle-glass window protected the strangest things. In another place and at another time it might not be uninteresting to tell the story of Mr. Redpath of how he opened a curiosity shop in St. Mary's of all places and of the adventures, happy and otherwise, that he encountered there. In the shop window there were glasses of blue with tapering stems and squat old men smoking pipes painted in the gayest colors and pottery jugs to drink out of, and there were old chains of beaten and figured silver and golden boxes and the model of a ship with full sails and a gorgeous figurehead of red and gold and there were old pictures and dim frames and a piece of a colored rug and lots and lots of other things as well. Jeremy pushed the door back, heard a little bell tingle above his head, and at once was in a shop so crowded that it was impossible to see Tother from which. A young man with a pale face and caroty hair was behind the very eye counter so high that Jeremy's nose just dipped the level of it. Have you got such a thing as a book? he asked very politely. The young man smiled. What sort of a book? Well, she said she wanted Kitchy or Sylvie and Bruno or, well, I've forgotten the names of the others. You haven't got those two, I suppose? No, I haven't, said the young man, quite grave now. Have you got any books, said Jeremy breathlessly, because time was slipping by and he had to stand on his toes? Well, I've got this old Bible, said the young man, producing a thick, heavy volume with brass clasps. You see, it's got rather fine pictures. I think you'd better sit on this, he added, producing a high stool. You'll be able to see better. Oh, that's very nice, said Jeremy, fascinated by Moses twisting a serpent around his very muscular arm as though it were a piece of string. How much is this? Eight pounds and ten, said the young man, as though he'd said a half penny. I think I'd better tell you at once, said Jeremy, leaning his elbows confidentially on the counter, that I've only got five shillings and three pence half-penny. The young man scratched his head. I doubt if we've got any book, he began. Then suddenly, perhaps this will be the very thing, if you like pictures. He burrowed deep down in the back somewhere and then produced two or three long, flat-looking books, dusty, and a faded yellow. He wiped them with a cloth and presented them to Jeremy. At the first sight of them he knew that they were what he wanted. He read the titles, one was Robinson Crusoe, another, this was Family Robinson, the third, Masterman Ready. He looked at Crusoe and gave a delighted squeal of ecstasy as he turned over the pages. The print was funny and blacker than he had ever seen print before. The pictures were colored and richly colored. The reds and greens and purples sinking deep into the page. Oh, it was a lovely book, a perfect book, the very, very thing for Mary. How much is it? he asked, trembling before the answer. Exactly five shillings and three pence half-penny, said the young man gravely. That is strange, said Jeremy, almost crowing with delight and keeping his hand on the book, unless it should suddenly melt away. That's just what I've got, isn't that lucky? Very fortunate indeed, said the young man. Shall I wrap it up for you? Oh yes, please do, and very carefully, please, so nobody can guess what it is. The young man was very clever about this, and when he emerged from the back of the shop, he had with him a parcel that might easily have been a ship or a railway train. Jeremy paid his money, climbed down from his stool, then held out his hand. Goodbye, he said, and thank you, I'll come again one day and look at the other things in your shop. Please do, said the young man bowing. He went out, the little bell tinkling gaily behind him, and there, coming at that very moment out of the hotel, was Miss Jones. 2. We all know the truth of the familiar proverb that distance lends enchantment to the view, and it was never more true of anything in the world than of parcels. All the way back in the bus, the book grew and grew in magnificence simply because Jeremy could not see it. He clutched the parcel tightly on his knees, and resisted all Miss Jones' attempts to discover its contents. Back in the rectory, he rushed up to his bedroom, locked the door, and then with trembling fingers undid the paper. The first glimpse of Robinson Crusoe and the footmark on the sand thrilled him so that the whitewashed walls of his room faded away, and the thin pale evening glow passed into a sky of burning blue, and a scarlet cockatoo flew screaming above his head, and the sand lay hot and sugar-brown at his feet. Mystery was there, the footprints in the sand, and Crusoe with his shaggy beard and peaked hat staring. Feverishly his fingers turned the pages, and picture after picture opened for his delight. He had never before seen a book with so many pictures, pictures so bright and yet so true, pictures so real that you could almost touch the trees and the figures and Crusoe's hatchet. He knelt then on the floor, the book spread out upon the bed, so deeply absorbed that it was with a terrific jolt that he heard the banging on the door and Mary's voice. Aren't you coming, Jeremy? We're halfway through supper. The bell went hours ago. Mary! He had forgotten all about her. Of course, this book was for her. Just the book for her. She would love the pictures. He had forgotten all about. He went down to supper and was bewildered and absent-minded throughout the meal. That night his dreams were all of Crusoe, of burning sands and flaming skies, of the crimson cockatoo and man-friedy. When he woke, he jumped at once out of bed and ran on naked feet to the book. As a rule, the next morning is the testing time, and too often we find that the treasure that we bought the day before has already lost some of its glitter and shine. Now it was not so. The pictures had grown better and better, richer and ever more rich the loveliest pictures. Just the book for Mary. It was then standing half-stripped before his basin, pausing as he always did ere he made the icy attack with the sponge that he realized his temptation. He did not want to give the book to Mary. He wanted to keep it for himself. While he dressed, the temptation did not approach him very closely. It was so horrible a temptation that he did not look it in the eye. He was a generous little boy, had never done a mean thing in all his life. He was always eager to give anything away, although he had a strong and persistent sense of possessions, so that he loved to have his things near him, and they seemed to him, his books and his toys and his football, as alive as the people around him. He had never felt anything so alive as this book was. When he came down to breakfast, he was surprised to find that the sight of Mary made him feel rather cross. She always had, in excess of others, the capacity for irritating him, as she herself well knew. This morning she irritated him very much. Her birthday would be four days from now. He would be glad when it arrived. He could give her the book, and the temptation would be over. Indeed, he would like to give her the book now and have done with it. By the middle of the day he was considering whether he could not give her something else just as good, and keep the book for himself. He wrapped the book in all its paper, but ran up continually to look at it. She would like something else just as much, she would like something else more. After all, Robinson Crusoe was a book for boys. But the trouble was that he had now no money. He would receive thruppants on Saturday, the last Saturday before Mary's birthday, but what could you get with thruppants? Five shillings of the sum with which he had bought Mary's present had been given him by Uncle Samuel, and Uncle Samuel's next present would be the tip before he went to school. That afternoon he quarreled with Mary, for no reason at all. He was sitting under the oak tree on the lawn, reading Red Gauntlet. Mary came and asked him whether she could take Hamlet for a run. Hamlet, as though he were a toy dog made of springs, was leaping up and down. He did not like Mary, but he adored a run. No, you can't, said Jeremy. Oh, Jeremy, why can't I? I'll take the greatest care of him, and those horrid little boys are gone away now, and you can't because I say you can't. Oh, Jeremy, do that! He started up from his chair, all rage and indignation. Look here, Mary, if you go on talking. She walked away down the garden, her head hanging in that tiresome way it had when she was unhappy. Hamlet tried to follow her, so he called him back. He came, but was quite definitely in the sulks, sitting, it said, raged, very proud, wrath in his eyes, snapping angrily at an occasional fly. Red Gauntlet was spoiled for Jeremy. He put the book down and tried to placate Hamlet, who knew his power, and refused to be placated. Why didn't he let Mary take Hamlet? What a pig he was. He would be nice to Mary when she came back. But when she did return, that face of hers, with its beseeching look, irritated him so deeply that he snapped at her more than before. After all, Robinson Crusoe was a book for boys. Two days later he had decided, quite definitely, that he could not part with it. He must find something else for her, something very fine indeed, the best thing that he had. He thought of every possible way of making money, but time was so short, and ways of making money quickly were so few. He thought of asking his father for the pocket money of many weeks in advance, but it would have to be so very many weeks in advance to be worth anything at all, and his father would want to know what he needed the money for. And after the episode of Last Christmas, he did not wish to say anything about presents. He thought of selling something, but there was no place to sell things in, and he had not anything that anyone else wanted. He thought of asking his mother, but she would send him to his father, who always managed the family finances. He went over all his private possessions. The trouble with them was that Mary knew them all so well. Impossible to pretend that there was anything there that she would want. He collected the most hopeful of them and laid them out on the bed. A pocket knife, three books, a photograph frame, rubbed at the edges, a watch chain that had seemed at first to be silver, but now most certainly was not. A leather pocket book, a red blotting pad, not a very brilliant collection. He did not now dare to look at the book at all. He put it away in the bottom of the chest of drawers. He thought that perhaps if he did not see it, nor take it out of its brown paper until the actual day, that it would be easier to give. But he had imagination as in the later years he was to find to his cost, and the book grew and grew in his mind, the pictures flaming like suns, the spirit of the book smiling at him, saying to him, with confidential friendship, we belong to one another, you and I, no one that shall part us. Then Helen said to him, what are you going to give Mary on her birthday? Why, he asked suspiciously. I only wanted to know. I've got mine. Everyone knows you went into St. Mary's and bought something. Mary herself knows. That was the worst of being part of a family. Everyone knew everything. Perhaps it wasn't for Mary, he said. Helen sniffed. Of course, if you don't want to tell me, she said, I don't care to know. Then he discovered a little glass bottle with the silver stopper. It had been given him two years ago on his birthday by a distant cousin who happened to be staying with him at the time. What anybody wanted to give a boy a glass bottle with a stopper for, Jeremy could not conceive. Mary had always liked it, had picked it up and looked at it with longing. Of course, she knew that it had been his for two years. He looked at it, and even as Adam years ago with the apple, he fell. Three. Mary's birthday came and with it a day of burning, glowing color. The first early autumn mists were hanging like veils of thinly sheeted bronze before the grass wet with heavy dew. The sky of azure, the sea crystal pale. In the mist the rectory was a giant box of pearl. The air smelt of distant fires. On such a day who would not be happy? And Mary was perhaps the happiest little girl in the kingdom. Happy as she was, she lost much of her plainness, her eyes sparkling behind her glasses, her mouth smiling. Something tender and poignant in her, some distant prophecy of her maturity, one day beautifully to be fulfilled, coming forth in her because she felt that she was beloved, even though it was only for an hour. She was lucky in her presence. Her mother gave her a silver watch, a little darling, quite small, with the hours marked in blue on the face, and her father gave her a silver watch chain, so thin that you thought it would break if you looked at it, and in reality so strong that not the strongest man in the world could break it. Aunt Amy gave her a moth, soft and furry, and Helen gave her a red leather blotter, and Uncle Samuel sent her a book, the very Denovan Terrace that she wanted. How did he know? And Miss Jones gave her a work basket with the prettiest silk lining inside you ever saw, and a pair of gloves from Barbara, and a glass bottle with silver stopper from Jeremy. It seemed that she liked this last present best of all. She rushed up to Jeremy and kissed him in the wettest possible way. Oh, Jeremy, I am so glad that's just what I wanted. I've never seen such a darling. I've never had any silver things to stand on my table, and glad that Samson has such a lot, and this is prettier than any that Gladys has. Oh, Mother, do look! See what Jeremy's given me! Father, see what Jeremy's given me! Isn't it pretty, Miss Jones? You are a dear Jeremy, and I'll have it all my life. Jeremy stood there, his heart like lead. It may be said with truth of him that never in his whole existence had he felt such shame as he did now. Mean, mean, mean! Suddenly, now that it was too late, he hated that book upstairs, lying safely in his bottom drawer. He didn't want ever to look at it again. And Mary, she must know that this was his old glass bottle that he had had so long. She had seen it a hundred times. It is true that he had rubbed it up and got the woman in the kitchen to polish the silver, but still she must know. He looked at her with new interest. Was it all acting this enthusiasm? No, it was not. She was genuinely moved and delighted. Was she pretending to herself that she had never seen it before, forcing herself to believe that it was new? He would keep the book and give it to her at Christmas, but that would not be the same thing. The deed was done now, the shabby, miserable deed. He did everything that he could to make her birthday a happy one. He was with her all the day. He allowed her to read to him a long piece of the story that she was then writing, a very tiresome business because she could not read her own script, and because there were so many characters that he could never keep track of any of them. He went black-burying with her in the afternoon and gave her all the best blackberries, but nothing could raise his spirits. The beautiful days said nothing to him. He felt sick in the evening from eating too many blackberries and went to bed directly after supper. 4. The days that followed could hardly help but be jolly because the weather was so lovely. Still, breathless days when the world seemed to be painted in purple and blue on a wall of ivory when the sea came over the sand with a ripple of utter content, when the moon appeared early in the evening, a silver bow, and mounted gently into a sky thick with stars, when every sound, the rattle of carts, the barks of dogs, the cries of men, struck the air sharply like blows upon iron. Yet, though the world was so lovely and everyone, even Aunt Amy, was in the best and most contented tempers, something hung over him like a black, heavy cloth. His pride in himself was gone. He had done something shabbier than even the deans earnest would do. He continued to see Mary with new eyes. She was a decent kid. He looked back over the past months and saw how much more decent she had been to him than he had been to her. She had been irritating, of course, but then that was because she was a girl. All girls were irritating. Just look at Helen, for instance. Meanwhile, he never glanced at the book again. It lay there neglected in its paper. One day Mary received in a letter a postal order for ten chillings. This was a present from a distant aunt in America who had suddenly remembered Mary's birthday. Filled with glee and self-importance, she went in to St. Mary's with Miss Jones to spend it. That evening, when Jeremy was washing his hands, there was a knock on his door and Mary's voice. May I come in? Yes, he said. She came in, her face colored with mysterious purpose. In her hands she held a paper parcel. Oh, are you washing her hands, Jeremy? She said, her favorite opening and conversation being always a question of the obvious. The red evening sunlight flooded the room. What is it? Jeremy asked her, rather crossly. She looked at him pleadingly, as though begging him to save her from the difficulties of emotion and explanation that crowded in upon her. Oh, Jeremy! St. Mary's was lovely, and there was a man with an organ and a monkey, and I gave the monkey a penny and it took it in its hand and took off its cap. Miss Jones has got a cold, she added, and sneezed all the way home. She always has a cold, he said, or something, and it goes straight to her face when she has a cold and makes all her teeth ache. Not only one of them, but all. She isn't coming down to dinner. She's gone to bed. Still he waited, striving for politeness. I've got something for you! Mary suddenly said, dropping her voice in the sentimental manner that he hated. Then, as though she were ashamed of what she had done, she took the parcel to the bed and undid the paper with clumsy fingers. There, she said, I got it for you because I thought you'd like it. He looked at it. It was a book. It was Swiss Family Robinson. It was a companion to his Robinson Crusoe. He stared at it. He could say nothing. You do like it, don't you? She asked, gazing at him anxiously. It's got lots and lots of pictures. There was a funny shop at the end of the street and I went in with Miss Jones and the man was very nice and I thought it was just what you'd like. You do like it, don't you? She asked again. But he could only stare at it, not coming forward to touch it. He was buried deep, deep in shame. There came a rattle then on the door and Helen's voice, Mary, if you're in there with Jeremy, mother says you're to come at once and have your hair brush because it's five minutes to supper. Oh, dear, I'd forgotten. And with one last glance of anxiety towards Jeremy, she went. Still he did not move. Could anything possibly have happened to prove to him what a pig he was, what a skunk and a cur. Mary had bought it with her own money, five anthropins, half penny, out of tin jillings. He did not touch the book, but with chin set and eyes resolved he went down to supper. When the meal was finished he said to Mary, come upstairs a minute, I want to speak to you. She followed him tremulously. He seemed to be clothed in his domineering manner. How often, especially of late, she had determined that she would not be afraid of him, but would dig up from within her the common sense, the easy companionship, the laughter that were all there for him, she knew. Could she only be at her ease? She even sympathized with him and thinking her so often a fool. She was a fool when she was with him simply because she cared for him so much and thought him so wonderful and so clever. He didn't like the book. He was going to thank her for it in the way that he had when he was trying to be polite and didn't find it easy. She followed him into the bedroom. He carefully closed the door. She saw it once that the book lay exactly where she had placed it on the bed, that he had not even opened it. He regarded her sternly. Sit down in that chair, he said. She sat down. Look here, you oughtn't to have given me that book. You know that Aunt Lucy sent that money for you to spend on yourself. I thought you'd like it, she said, pushing at her spectacles as she always did when she was distressed. I do like it, he said. It's splendid, but I've done something awful, and I've got to tell you, now you've given me that. Oh, Jeremy, something awful? What is it? He said his jaw, and without looking at her, made his confession. That day I went in with Miss Jones to St. Mary's. I was going to buy you a present, and I did buy you one. I went into that same shop you went to, and I bought Robinson Crusoe, just like the one you bought me. When I bought it, I meant it for you, of course, but when I got home, I liked it so much, I kept it for myself, and I gave you that old bottle instead, and then I didn't like the rotten book after all, and I've never looked at it since your birthday. Mary's pleasure at being made his confidant in this way was much greater than her horror at his crime. Her bosom heaved with gratified importance. I've done things like that, Jeremy, she said. I got six handkerchiefs from Miss Jones one Christmas, and I kept three of them, because I got a terrible bad cold, just at the time. That's not so bad, he said, shaking his head, because I gave you an old thing that I've had for years. No, she interrupted. I've wanted that bottle ever so long. I used to go up to your room and look at it sometimes when you were at school. He went to the drawer and produced Robinson Crusoe and gave it to her. She accepted it gratefully, but said, and now I shall have to give you back the bottle. Oh, no you won't. But I can't have two presents. Yes, you can. I don't want the old bottle anyway. I never use it for anything, and now we'll each have a book so it won't be like a present exactly. She smiled with pleasure. Oh, I'm so glad you're not angry. Angry, he repeated after her. Yes, she said, getting up from the bed where she had been sitting. I thought you were when you asked me to come up here. He looked at her puzzled. She seemed to him a new Mary whom he had never seen before. Am I often angry? Yes. Not angry exactly, but I get frightened that you're going to be cross, and then I say the silliest things, not because I want to, but because I want to be clever, and then of course I never am. He stood staring at her. Am I as beastly as that? He asked. Oh, you're not beastly, she reassured him. Never. You're not forgetting her grammar and her eagerness, but I'm afraid of you, and I'm fonder of you than anybody lots fonder, and I always say to myself, now I'm not going to be silly this time, and then I am. I don't know why, she sighed, but I'm not nearly as silly as I seem, she ended. No, she wasn't. He suddenly saw that, and he also suddenly saw that he had all this time been making a great mistake. Here was a possible companion, not only possible, but living, breathing, existing. She was on her own tonight, neither fearful nor silly, meeting him on his own level, superior to him perhaps, knowing more than he did about many things, understanding his feelings. I say, Mary, we'll do things together. I'm awfully lonely sometimes. I want someone to tell things too, often. We'll have a great time next holidays. It was the happiest moment of Mary's life. Too much for her altogether. She just nodded and clutching Robinson Crusoe to her ran.