Jeremy

f it; even now when he thinks of those hours that followed Miss Maddison's party he catches his breath and glances around him to see whether everything is safe. The children, on arriving home that evening, found that their father and m

he felt too sure of her continual and abiding presence to need deliberate thought of her. But this morning he wanted to get up quickly and find her. Perh

ght that had yet the breeze of the morning ruffling it. He ran to his window and opened it. Beyond the wall that bordered their house was a little brown path, and down this path, even as he watched, a company of cows were slowly wandering along. Already they were flapping their ears lazily in anticipation of the flies, and the boy who was driving them was whistling as one only whistles on a summer morning. He could see the buttercups, too, in the nearest field; they seemed to have sprung to life in the space of a night. Someone was pulling the rope of a well somewhere and someone else

ticks and apples, and collecting shells, and fishermen's nets, and sandwiches, and saffron buns mixed with sand, and hot ginger beer, and one's ears peeling with the sun, and church on Sunday with the Rafiel sheep cropping the grass just outside the church door, and Dick Marriott, the fisherman, and slipp

his room, after scratching on the door, and made his usual morning pretence of having come for any other purpose than to see his friend and master, first looking under the bed, then going up to the window pretending to gaze out of it (which he could not do), barking, then rolling on a square of sunlit carpet, and, after that

h Times. Nor was it the breakfast, which to-day included bacon and strawberry jam. Nor, finally, was it Mary or Helen, who, pleased with the summer weather (and Mary additionally pleased w

end of breakfast t

d see Mother

ooked across at

always see her at twelve o'clock." Miss Jones pushed her

ant

you can

y n

say not-tha

t round to Miss Jones's chair, and, looking up at her o

ss Jones, I want

he had known all

our mother to-day, dear. Sh

Is she

r her journey yes

id no

a walk in the afternoon, he sprang for a moment into something of his natural vivacity. They came upon a thin, ill-shaven tramp dressed as a sailor, with a patch over one eye, producing terrible discordance from a fiddle. This individual held in one hand a black tin cup, and at his side crouched a mongrel terrier, whose beaten and dishevelled appearance created at once hopes in the breast of the flamboyant Hamlet. This couple were posted just outside Mr. Poole's second-hand bookshop, close to the "2d." box, and for a moment Jeremy was enthralled. He wanted to give the hero his week's penny, and upon finding that his week's penny was not, owing to sweet purchases on the previous day, he began el

some eye with a black patch, and he would have liked to see what Hamlet could do in the direction of eating up the scattered remnants of Mr. Poole's "2d." box; but he was dragged away by the agitated hand of Mis

nes and golden sand as under glass, and when Hamlet was compelled to run ahead and find a piece of shade and lie there stretched, panting, with his tongue out, until they came up to him-even all these signs of a true and marvellous summer did not relieve Jeremy of his burden. Something horrible was going to happen. He knew it with such certainty that he wondered how Mary and Helen could be so gaily light-hearted, and despised them for their carelessness. This was connected in some way with the hot weather; he felt as tho

felt about Johnny Bain so now he felt about life in general. Something horrible was going to happen.... Something

, preoccupied as she was with her story about

" she called

Jones. "You must

Mary. "I w

isn't at all

ownstairs, with a face very different from her usual ch

: "So soon?... A girl...." A

ore, which the children co

ed; "and you mustn't leave the schoolroom till I tell you. Your m

seemed new to them all-older, more resolut

y, dear. You must be a very go

go for jus

ertain

in the schoolroom, Miss Jones

hildren, that you've go

ter!" scre

d: "Oh, M

she come for just now

id Miss Jones. "You must all be ve

was her name? Could she walk? Where did she come from? Did Father and Mother find her in D

ving another bo

of the road. Hamlet wriggled. He always detested that he should be cuddled, and he would press first with one leg, then with another, against Jeremy's coat; then he would lie dead for a moment, suddenly springing, with his head up, in the hope that the surprise would free him; then he would turn into a snake, twisting his body

s mother was ill, and yet she had been ill before, and he had been only disturbed for a moment. After all, grown-up people always got well. There had been Aunt Amy, who had had measles, and the wife of the Dean, who had had something, and even the Bishop once... But now he was frightened. There was some perception, coming to him now for the first time in his life, that this world was not absolutely stable-that people left it, people came into it, that there was change and danger and something stronger.... Gradually this perception was approaching him as though it had been some dark figure

or and listened. It was terrible imagining the house behind the door-quite silent-so that the clocks had stopped, and no one walked upon the stairs

fter the noise wa

ned. He knew that it was of no use to be frightened, and he tried to go on with his game, putting the church with the apple trees around it and the Noah family all sleeping under the t

and stared desolately into the fireplace. The thought of his new sister came to him, but was dismissed impatiently. He did not want a new sister-Mary and Helen were tr

sy together. Mr. Cole had very little time for the individual, being engaged in saving souls in the mass, and his ch

him. His own children, having been named, on their arrival, "Gifts from God,"

en all was right with the world. He had given thanks every evening for the blessings that he had received and every morning for the blessings that he was going to receive, and he had had no reason to complain. He had the wife, the ch

elpless. He had turned from one side to another, simply demanding an assurance from someone or something that she could not be taken from him. No one could giv

ren, nor Miss Jones, but he must be moving, must be doing something that would break in upon

aw Jeremy

re's Mis

oom," said Jeremy, l

down the schoolroom. Jeremy le

r better,

ed at the boy as though he were

is-No, my boy,

er-like the Dean's wif

oom, then turned suddenly as though he had seen somethi

ned, that something horrible was in the house. He stood up, staring at the closed door, his face white, hi

htened! Bark or something

I

Mr. Cole took his morning service at his church as usual. He had been up all night; he looked haggard and pale, still wearing that expression as of a man lost

w through the aisles. The relentless blazing blue of the sky penetrated into the cool shadows of the church, and it was as though the congregation sat there under

er and thinking about their mother. Mary and Helen were frightened; the house was so strange, every

rst time of the existence of a world whose adjacence to the real world was, in after days, to trouble him so often and to complicate life for him so grievously. The terror that had come down upon him when his father had left him seemed to-day utterly to soak through into the very heart of him. His mother was going to die unless something or somebody saved her. What was dying? Going away, he

and gave out the text of his sermon. To-day he would talk about the sa

background. But now he definitely and actively figured to himself this God, this God Who was taking his mother away and was intending apparently to put her into some dark place where she would know nobody. It must be some horrible place, because his father looked so frighte

ause the love of God must be greater than anything that holds us here on earth." But Jeremy did not listen to these remarks; his mind was filled with this picture of a vast shadowy figure, seated in the sky, his white beard flowing beneath eyes that frowned from dark rocky eyebrows out upon people like Jeremy who, although doing their best, w

od is just and merciful, but that He demands our obedience. We must

trooped out into t

suddenly burst into tears, choked over a glass of water, and was led from the room. Jeremy ate his beef and rice pudding in silence, except that once or twice in a low, hoarse voice whispered:

forlorn. It had been inherited with the house many years ago, and, at first, the Coles had had the ambition to make it blaze with colour, to grow there the most marvellous grapes, the richest tomatoes, and even-although it was a little out of place in the hous

ventionally enough, from the drawing-room; but the heavy door with thick windows of red glass shut it off from the whole world. Its rather dirty and obscure windows looked over the same country that Jeremy's bedroom window commanded. It also caught all the sun, so that in the summer it was terribly hot. But Jeremy loved the heat. He was discovered once by the scandalised Jampot quite naked dancing on the wooden boards, his face and hands black with grime. No one could ever understand "what he saw in the dirty place," and at one time he had been forbidden to go there. Then he had cried and stamped and shouted, so that he had been allow

eyes one could easily fancy that one was swinging out-swinging-swinging, and that, suddenly perhaps, the cage would be

misery, weariness, fright, and anger. There was already in him a strain of impatience, so that he could not bear simply to sit down and bewail something as, for instance, both his sisters were doing at this moment. He must act. They could not bo happy without their mother;

ing, the sweat beginning to pour down his nose, and yet his body shivering with terror. But he had strung himself up to meet Him. Somehow he was going to save his mother and hinder her departure. At an instant, inside him, he was crying: "I want my mother! I want my mother!" like a little boy who had been

the Coles just as once He had teased Abraham. Perhaps He wished to see whether they were truly obedient as the Jampot had sometimes wished in the old days.

is Toy-Village, or Mary or Helen, or his soldiers, or his paint-box, or his gold fish that he had in a

led up and up, each one darker than the last. The light vanished; the conservatory was filled with a thick, murky glow, and far across the fields, from the heart of the black wood, came the low rumble of thunder. But Jeremy did not hear that; he was busy with his thoughts. He stared at the dog, who was lying stretched out on the dirty floor, his nose between his toes. It cannot trut

was not moved by sentiment. Grimly, his legs apart, his eyes shut

.. . Only you must take him now-I couldn't do it to-morrow." His voice began to tremble. He was frightened. He could feel behind hi

take Hamlet. He's my bes

x, a peal of thunder that seemed to strike the house with the iron hand of a giant. Tw

s, turned as though to run, and then saw, with a freezing

was no

received a conviction of God that no rationali

s. Jeremy turned, crying "Mother! Mother! I want Mother!" and flung himself at the red glass doors; fumbling in his terror for the handle, he felt as though the end of the world

for the door; he b

other! Moth

, through the rain. Looking back he saw, from behind a rampart of dusty flower-pots, first a head, t

every possible violence save only thunder) crept ashamed, dirty and smiling

d out upon the black country, at last seized Hamlet and dragging him out by his hind-legs, knelt there

hed up into the grey. A cool

emained. In that moment he had met God face t

vidence can be shown to prove that it was on the evening of