Day and Night Stories

across the ceiling like a train. There came a whispered colloquy in the corridor outside, about himself, of course, and-he was alone. He heard her steps going deeper and deeper into the bosom of the old country house; they were audible for a moment on the stone flooring of the hall; and sometimes the dull thump of the baize door into the servants' quarters just reached him, too-then silence. But it was o

make them agree. There was a plan somewhere in that pattern; if only he could discover it, the dogs and birds and trees would "come out right." Hundreds and hundreds of times he had played this game, for the plan in the pattern made it possible to take sides, and the bird and dog were against him. They always won, however; Tim usually fell asleep just when the advantage was on his own side. The curtains hung steadily enough most of the time, but it seemed to him once or twice that they stirred-hiding a dog or bird on purp

over exactly which bits had fallen. So long as the glow was there the sound seemed pleasant enough, but sometimes he awoke later in the night, the room huge with darkness, the fire almost out-and the sound was not so pleasant then. It startled him. The coals did not fall of t

place. He would be staring drowsily at the dying fire, perhaps counting the stockings and flannel garments that hung along the high fender-rail when, suddenly, a person looked in with

. He heard no sound. It went. But-it had seen him, looked him all over, examined him, noted what he was doing with that lightning glance. It wanted to know if he were awake still, or asleep. And though it went off, it still watched him from a distance; it waited somewhere; it knew all about him. Where it waited no one c

ssage," he decided; "but it's n

erhaps it poked the coals; it knew, at any rate, where the eleventh dog had lain concealed. It certainly came in and out; certainly, too, it did not wish to be seen. For, more than once, on waking suddenly in the midnight blackness, Tim knew it was standing close beside his bed and bending over him. He felt, rather than heard, its presence. It glided quietly away. It moved with marv

ts little ones." He also made up his mind that all were friendly, comforting, protective, and that while positively not a Nightmare, it yet came somehow along the Nightmare Pas

et to sleep the better,

I wonder where they come from!" He spok

ade the statement kindly but somewhat briskly, for he was worried just then about the extra taxes on his land, and the effort to fix his mind on Tim's fanciful world was beyond him at the moment. He lifted the boy on to his knee, kis

ame time-a wonderful thing the boy could never understand. She raised her head as he came in, pushed her gl

ompson, or any one like that," he

ne who comes to take care of you and

I know t

"It's Sleep, I'm sure, who pops in round the door

le ones?" he asked. "Are they

closed it slowly, put it on the table beside her. More slowly still she pu

closer to her and looking into his

a foot or so and clapped his hands softly. "Dreams!" he whispere

ere, she elaborated and explained. As Tim expressed it she "went on about it." Therefore he did not listen. He f

awe. "Where She lives, I mean." And without waiting to be

y surprise. "How clever of you

rs untrodden, its windows shuttered and its rooms all closed. At various places green baize doors led into it, but no one ever opened them. For many years this part had been shut up; and for the children, properly speaking, it w

eries of empty rooms, who trod the spacious corridors, who passed to and fro behind the shuttered windows, he had not known exactly. He had called these occupa

to reach them he must invariably pass through the chambers of the Other Wing. Those corridors and halls, the Nightmare Passage among them, lay along the route; they were the first stage of the journey. Once the green baize doors swung to behind him and the long dim passage stretche

e darkened corridors, along a passage, sometimes dangerous, or at least of questionable repute, he must pass to find all adventures that were real. The light-when he pierced far enough to take the shutters down-was discov

ured in; he made a guess, and Mother had confirmed it. Sleep and her Little Ones, the host of dreams, were the daylight occupants. They

Other Wing he had not seen. His mind knew it, he had a clear mental picture of rooms and halls and passages, but his feet had never trod the silent floors where dust and sha

iness would frighten him. Therefore he must make a daylight visit; and it was a daylight visit he decided on. He deliberated more. There were rules and risks involved: it meant going out of bounds, the danger of being seen, the certainty of being questioned by some idle and inquisitive grown-up: "

, also, entrance was impracticable; even on tiptoe he could barely reach the broad window-sills of stone. When playing alone, or walking with

Ones were busily preparing for their journeys after dark; they hid, but they did not sleep; in this unused Wing, vaster alone than any other country house he had ever seen, Sleep taught and trained her flock of feathered Dreams. It was very wonderful. They probably supplied the entire county. But more wonder

ize doors, of course! By a process of elimination he arrived at a conclu

had been thus ever since his talk with Mother and Father. And so he came to make a second discovery: His parents did not really believe in his Figure. She kept away on that account. They doubted her; she hid. Here was still another incentive to go and find her out. He ached for her, she was so kind, she gave herself so much trouble-just for his little self in the big and lonely bedroom. Yet his parents spoke of h

r Easter, though Tim was not aware of it at the time, he was to say good-bye finally to governesses and become a day-boarder at a preparatory school for Wellington. The opportunity offered itself so naturally, moreover, that Tim took it without hesitatio

nd bed-time he made good use of it. Fully able to defy such second-rate obstacles as nurses and butlers, he explored all manner of forbidden places with ardent thoroughness, arriving finally in the sacred precincts of his father's study. This wonderful room was the very heart and centre of the whole big house; he had been birched he

s in it, staring at the strange things on the great desk before him, as if fascinated. Next he turned away and saw the stick-rack in the corner-this, he knew, he was allowed to touch. He had played with these sticks before. There were twenty, perhaps, all told, with curious carved handles, brought from every corner of the world; many of them cut by his father's own hand in queer and distant places. And, among them, Tim fixed his eye upon a cane with an ivory handle, a slender, polished cane that he had always coveted tremendously. It was

go, proud as a courtier, flourishing the stick like an Eighteenth Century dandy in the Mall. That the cane reached to his shoulder made no difference; he held it accordingly, swaggering on his way. He

orridors of stone beyond the Picture Gallery; narrow, wainscoted connecting-channels with four steps down and a little later two steps up; deserted chambers with arches guarding them-all hung with the soft March twilight and all bewilderingly unrecognised. With a sense of adventure born of naughtiness he went carelessly alon

fore. He thought he knew every door by heart; but this one was new. He stood motionless for several minutes, watching it; the door had two halves, but one half only was swinging, each swing shorter than th

just dropped into him. "It's Grandfather; he knows I've got his stick. He wants it!" On the heels of this flash

self-to finish his adventure. And it was this, naturally enough, that gained the day. He could tell his father later. His fir

when the occasion called for such behaviour, but such occasions were due to temper roused by a thwarted will, and the histrionics were half "pretended" to produce a calculated effect. There was no o

g imaginative, he lived the worst a dozen times before it happened, yet in the final crash he stood up like a man. He had that highest pluck-the courage of a sensitive temperament. And at this

lose it with a steady hand, because he did not care to hear the series of muffled thuds its lessen

nstead of darkness, or the twilight he expected, a diffused and gentle light that seemed like the silver on the lawn when a half-moon sails a cloudless sky, lay everywhere. He knew his way, moreover, knew exactly where he was and whither he was going. The corridor

nd as he advanced, the light closed softly up behind him, obliterating the way by which he had come. But this he did not know, because he did not look behind him. He only looked in front, where the corridor stretched its silvery length towards the great chamber where he knew the cane must be surrendered. The person who had preceded

hispered to himself, "but I know the Ruler-it doesn't matter. None of them can get out or do anything." He heard them, none the less, inside, as he passed by; he heard them scratching to get out. The feeling of security made him reckless;

unable to loosen his hold of the handle; his fingers had become a part of it. An appalling weakness turned him helpless. He was dragged inch by inch towards the fearful door. The end of the stick was already through the narrow, crack. He could not see the hand that pulled, but he knew it was terrific. He understood now why the world was strange, why horses galloped furiously, and why trains whistled as they raced thr

t it. It wa

pected a polished cane-this hideous and appalling detail held the nameless horror of the nightmare. It betrayed

dreadfully, familiarly, at him through the narrow crack-just time to realise that this was another Nightmare acting in atrocious concert with the first, when he saw closely beside him, towering to the ceiling, the protective, kindly

to melt into the sky beyond the roof. He discerned that she was larger than the Night, only far, far softer, with wings that folded above him more tenderly even than his mother's arms; that there were points of light like stars among the feat

oms, he was bound to tempt them out. They drew, enticed, attracted him; this was their power. It was their special strength that they could suck him helplessly towards them, and that he was obliged to go. He understood exact

the solid things about him, nothing that could hurt or bruise. Holding the cane f

e Crystal Palace, Euston Station, or St. Paul's. High, narrow windows, cut deeply into the wall, stood in a row upon the other side; an enormous open fireplace of burning logs was on his right; thick tapestries hung from the ceiling to the floor of stone; an

ite well the figure would be there, known also it would look like this exactly. He stepped forward on to the floor of stone without a trace of fear or tr

the knee-breeches of shining satin, the gleaming buckles on the shoes, the neat dark stockings, the lace and ruffles about neck and wrists, the coloured waistcoat opening so widely-all the detail

ncing figure and held out both his hand

" he said, in a faint but clea

ndle. He made a courtly bow to Tim. He smiled, but though there was pleasure, it was a grave, sad smile. He spoke

iven to me by my grandfather. I forgot it w

" sai

the old gentl

how beautiful and kind

ng the polished surface with satisfaction. He lingered specially ov

nt on gently; "my memory failed me somewhat." He

loved his grandfather. He hoped-for a moment-he would be lifted up and kiss

upon him; the smile on his face was

re, but the Nightmare Passage-er--" He broke off. He tapped the stick firmly on the stone flooring, as though to

indistinct; Tim did

for the first time that a t

th each word the old lips uttered, "I could not ... possibly ... allow myself ... to be seen. It wa

he iron ferrule of his cane on the stones in a series of loud knocks. Tim felt a

le. A sudden earnestness had replaced the courtly, leisurely manner. The next words seemed t

pt change that startled him. Grandfather, after all, was but a man! The distant so

ss and your courage. It is a debt I can, fortunately, one day repay.?... But now you had best return and with dispatch. For your head and arm lie heavily on the table, the document

out him. A vast, shadowy Figure bore him through it as with mighty wings. He flew, he rushed, h

you doing in my study? An

t a word. He felt dazed. The next minute h

d kissed his tumbling hair. "And you've been asleep, too, into the bargain. Well-how'

died; Jack followed them within a little space; Tim inherited, married, settled down into his great possessions-and opened up the Other Wing. The dreams of imaginative boyhood all had faded; perhaps he had merely put them away, or perhaps he had forgotten them. At any rate, he never

land-taxes force us to sell some day, a resp

ttle wider, that is, for it already stood ajar-and there upon the threshold stood a figure that it seemed he knew. He saw the face as with all the vivid sharpness of reality. There was a smile upon it, but a smile of warning and alarm. The arm was raised. Tim saw the slender hand, lace falling

he saw, was shut as usual. He had, of course, been dreaming. But he noticed a curious odou

he awoke just

ginative boyhood with it. She asked to see the old family cane. And it was this request of hers that brought back to memory a detail Tim had entirely forgotten all these years. He remembered it suddenly again-the loss of the cane, the hubbub his fat