Sir H. H. Bashford

“ And Marian led him to the little table. He bent his head for a moment, and there crept into his eyes the same odd look that Marian had seen in Mummy's.
Said Cuthbert's angel, "He's beginning to hear something. What do you suppose will happen when they have lit the candles?"
But Marian's angel shook his head.
"The others will hear nothing," he said. "But will they see?"
Said Doris's angel, "Can they see and live?"
"Look," said Gwendolen's angel. "They're lighting the candles." And it was just at that moment that a young man, shabbier even than Beardy Ned, turned into Peter Street. ”

“ Presently, when their eyes became used to the darkness, they could see the dim outline of the hills, and the faint ribbon of the Milky Way rising like smoke from Cæsar's Camp. At the edge of the bracken they found Tod waiting for them.
"Come along," he said, "only don't go too fast," and they began to climb through the belt of trees out on to the hillside beyond. The grass was short here and slippery with dew, with glimmers of chalk beneath it where the turf was broken; and it was so steep that half-way up Tod stopped to fight for his breath. ”

“ Neither Cuthbert nor Doris had ever been so frightened before. In the pitchy blackness they could see nothing. They could only feel themselves shooting deeper and deeper into the very heart of the frozen earth. Sometimes a bump on the floor of the tunnel would send them careering toward the roof, and then they would come down again with a thud that almost pitched them off the toboggan. Every moment they expected to be killed. ”

“ Sometimes people have been frozen close to a house, but in a little while they saw a great dark shadow; and then to their joy they found themselves in front of a door, with a gleam of light shining through the letter-box. For a long time they knocked, but nobody came; and several times they shouted through the letter-box. But still nobody came, and then from behind the house they heard the barking of a dog.
Doris gripped Cuthbert's arm.
"It's old Mother Hubbard's," she said. "That's her dog. I know it's bark." ”

“ Cuthbert told her; and then, after a long pause, the door moved a little on its hinges. An eddy of snow whirled in in front of them, and the door swung back an inch or two more.
"You'd better come inside," said Miss Hubbard, and they went into the hall, her first guests for fifty years. She stood looking at them over a flickering candle. Her eyes were frostier than the wind outside. The air of the house smelt like a tomb. They could hear the ticking of several clocks. ”

“ Auntie Kate had a face like a hen's, with a beaky nose and bobbly eyes, and she always counted people's pieces of bread and butter, and wondered what income their father and mother had. Her husband was a clergyman, so she went to church a lot, on week-days as well as on Sundays; and now she had gone to a bazaar at St Peter's Church, just when Doris had meant to go to tea with Gwendolen. ”

“ What with the wind and the sun and the snow, the cheeks of both of them were like ripe chestnuts, and Doris's eyes began to sparkle as she listened to Cuthbert's great idea. When he was at home Cuthbert didn't get many ideas, and he generally used to laugh at other people's, so he was very pleased when he got this one and Doris said that she thought it ripping.
"We won't go too fast," he said, "so that, if we see a precipice or anything, we shall be able to stop ourselves in time." ”

“ He had lived so much in the open air that his skin was as dark as a Red Indian's, and [Pg 78] when he laughed his teeth were like snow, and his eyes like the sea on a sunny day. People like clergymen and large employers often used to tell him that he ought to settle down. But why should he settle down, he asked, so long as there was only Liz, and she could sleep in his arms as snug as snug?
Liz was four years old now, and as brown as her father, and her hair was short and curly like a boy's; and Cuthbert and Marian and Doris and Gwendolen loved her almost as much as they loved Beardy Ned. ”

“ All but the blind painter looked into his eyes. Each saw the thing in them that he wanted most. Marian and Gwendolen and Cuthbert and Doris, not wanting anything in particular, only saw vaguely all that they hoped to be when they should have become grown-up men [Pg 223] and women. So did Edward and so did Pepita; but Christopher Mark saw a celestial rabbit; and Percy and Agnes, holding each other's hand, saw the darlingest of babies. What Beardy Ned saw you can guess, and what Lord Barrington saw was Truth; and the blind painter heard the angels singing the song that explains every other song. ”

“ It was a steep climb to the top of Cæsar's Camp, and the hill was guarded at the bottom by a fringe of elm trees; and in front of these elm trees there was a belt of bracken, reddening with decay, and reaching to the boys' shoulders. It had been rather fun to push their way through it, startling the rabbits, and listening to the rooks; and it was in a little quarry among the elms that Tod the Gipsy had made his fire. ”

“ Then they faded, and Tod leaned back, looking triumphantly at the two boys.
"But what were they?" said Cuthbert. [Pg 127]
"They were memories," said Tod. "They were the memories of those dead leaves."
"But do leaves remember?" asked Edward.
"Everything remembers," said Tod, "only nobody's been able to prove it. The ground we're sitting on, the fields you've come across, the hills above us, they're crammed with memories. And when they die, if they ever do die, these memories come crowding back to them, just like they do to a dying man; and it's this powder that makes them visible." ”

“ It might have been Gretchen or Olga, or it might have been Seraphine or Marie-Louise, but I rather think that it was Bella. Of course you remember what happened in the Garden of Eden, and how Adam and Eve had to leave it, not because the good Lord God wanted to turn them out, but because He knew that they could never be happy there any more. Every hour that they stayed they would have become more and more miserable; and if they had come back it would have broken their hearts, so He had to put two angels to guard the gate. ”

“ After he had gone, Marian and Gwendolen sat thinking of all the good times that they had had with him, and of poor Mrs Williams, who would have to turn out of her cottage—the gay little cottage that she was so proud of. Their cheeks were quite red, and there was a hot sort of prickly feeling at the backs of their noses, and they felt as if they would like to go to the great house and shoot Lord Barrington dead.
"Dog in the manger," said Gwendolen, "that's what he is, with that great big house and no wife or children. And he's always going into his old wood himself. ”

“ Then it grew louder, until it sounded like thunder and sea-waves shattering on the beach; and then it grew softer again, like leaves rustling, and crickets chirping in the grass.
Before the stout lady had sung half the first verse, Doris could hardly stand still enough to play the flute. She could scarcely believe that it was possible for anybody in the world to feel so happy. She saw the policeman running toward them, and the postmen, and the man from the water-cart; and she saw the windows above the shops in the market-place thrown up, and people looking out. ”

“ Captain Jeremy himself, with two of his sailors, and Gwendolen, and Gwendolen's aunt all got into it; and in another five minutes they were standing on dry land again, with the happy monkey dancing beside them. Captain Jeremy and the sailors stayed by the boat, but Gwendolen and her aunt and the monkey began to explore the island. There were flowers everywhere, not planted in rows like the flowers in Bellington Square, but growing where they liked, and rejoicing in their freedom and praising God with their beautiful colours. ”

“ Doris opened her eyes.
"But are you a real saint?" she asked.
The little man flushed.
"Why, of course I am. I'm a patron saint. I'm the patron saint of staircases."
"But I didn't know," said Doris, "that staircases had patron saints."
"They don't," he said. "They have only one."
"I mean," said Doris—"it's frightfully rude, I'm afraid—but I didn't know that they had even one."
He smiled again.
"Very likely not," he said. "Lots of people don't. But they have." ”

“ It was an express train, and it didn't stop for an hour, and then Gwendolen's aunt thought that they had better get out.
"We'll hire a motor-car," she said, "and go to Lullington Bay and find my old friend Captain Jeremy. When I was young he wanted to marry me. But I was too proud and wouldn't let him."
So they got out and hired a motor-car, and drove at full speed to Lullington Bay. It was a long drive, and when they arrived at the Captain's cottage the stars were shining and the Captain was in his garden. Deep below them they could see the ocean, dark as bronze and knocking at the shore. ”

“ In the middle of this Square there was a sort of garden with tall iron railings all round it, and each of the people living in the Square had a key to open the gate of it. It was the tidiest garden in the whole world, and all the flowers in it stood in rows; and the people in the Square paid for a gardener to shave the grass every day. One of the reasons why the people in the Square were so rich was that they had so few children; and the children that they did have had to be very careful not to make foot-marks on the grass. ”

“ The worst of discovering anybody like Fat Bill at the very beginning of the summer holidays is that it makes the rest of the holidays seem a little dull; and that was just what Cuthbert and Doris felt. So they were really rather glad when the winter term at school began; and so were Gwendolen and Marian, who hadn't been to school since the spring. ”

“ The only trouble is when two children are falling at once, and then you have to decide which you'll go for. But that doesn't happen very often, considering how many children there are."
So Doris went upstairs, and he unbuttoned the hook, and when she caught hold of it she felt a strange sort of thrill. She felt like Cuthbert had felt when he went into In-between Land; and indeed that was where she really was. St Uncus had vanished, and she saw Christopher Mark like a little fat ghost, with his soul shining inside him. ”

“ It was about a week after Marian and Gwendolen had arrived home from Porto Blanco that Uncle Joe suddenly asked Cuthbert and Doris to spend a fortnight with him at Redington-on-Sea. It was not the sort of town that Uncle Joe liked, because it was full of big houses and glittering hotels; and most of the people in it wore expensive clothes, and it had a long pier, with a theatre at the end. But he always went there in the first week of August, when Mr Parker took his annual holiday, so that he could visit an old friend of his, who had lodgings on the Marine Parade. ”

“ Some people like November, because it is the quietest month of the year—as quiet as somebody tired, who has just fallen asleep—and they love to see the fields lying dark and still, and the empty branches against the sky. ”

“ As for Uncle Joe, Mummy sent him a message by a carrier who passed near his house. "And the first thing in the afternoon," she said to Marian, "you must slip across the fields to old Miss Hubbard's."
Now a little girl whose only brother has just been silly enough to get scarlet fever is one of the loneliest people in the world; and that was just how Marian felt. Even her mummy tried to keep away from her, because she was nursing Cuthbert, who was so infectious; and she had had strict orders when she arrived at Mother Hubbard's not to go inside her house. ”

“ Oh, how sorry Gwendolen was then that her tummy was so large! But she ran as fast as ever she could, and almost kept up with her aunt. The man and the woman had started to run too, shouting aloud at the tops of their voices.
"We shan't be safe," said her aunt, "till we've got to the island; because we shall really be thieves till we've taken the monkey home."
They dashed across the grass and through the gate, and, just as they were running up their own front steps, they saw the man and the woman coming into sight round the corner of the railings. ”

“ Brighter than eyes at a Christmas party, the stars in their thousands shone in the sky. Cuthbert and Doris said that they must be going; and old Miss Hubbard took them to the front door.
"You must come and see me again," she said. "Come as often as you like; and perhaps next time you'll bring some of your friends."
"But she never told us," said Cuthbert, "who the girl was."
"Why, you silly," said Doris, "it was Miss Hubbard herself." [Pg 163]
Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard
To fetch her poor dog a bone,
But this Mother Hubbard in her heart's cupboard
Lives in the dark alone. ”