My School-Days | Page 7

the
dews of agony and terror.
My nurse--ah, how good she was to me--never went downstairs to
supper after she found out my terrors which she very quickly did. She
used to sit in the day nursery with the door open "a tiny crack," and that
light was company, because I knew I had only to call out, and someone

who loved me would come and banish fear. But a light without human
companionship was worse than darkness, especially a little light.
Night-lights, deepening the shadows with their horrid possibilities are a
mere refinement of cruelty, and some friends who thought to do me a
kindness by leaving the gas burning low gave me one of the most awful
nights I ever had.
It was a strange house in Sutherland Gardens--a house with large rooms
and heavy hangings--with massive wardrobes and deep ottoman boxes.
The immense four-post beds stood out about a yard from the wall, for
some "convenience of sweeping" reason, I believe. Consider the horror
of having behind you, as you lay trembling in the chill linen of a
strange bed, a dark space, no comforting solid wall that you could put
your hand up to and touch, but a dark space, from which, even now, in
the black silence something might be stealthily creeping--something
which would presently lean over you, in the dark-whose touch you
would feel, not knowing whether it were the old woman in the mask or
some new terror.
That was the torture of the first night. The next I begged that the gas
might be left "full on." It was, and I fell asleep in comparative security.
But while I slept, came some thrifty soul, and finding the gas "burning
to waste" turned it down. Not out--down.
I awoke in a faint light, and presently sat up in bed to see where it came
from, and this is what I saw. A corpse laid out under white draperies,
and at its foot a skeleton with luminous skull and outstretched bony
arm.
I knew, somewhere far away and deep down, my reason knew that the
dead body was a white dress laid on a long ottoman, that the skull was
the opal globe of the gas and the arm the pipe of the gas-bracket, but
that was not reason's hour. Imagination held sway, and her poor little
victim, who was ten years old then, and ought to have renown better,
sat up in bed, hour after hour, with the shadowy void behind lien The
dark curtains on each side, and in front that horror.
Next day I went home, which was perhaps a good thing for my brain.

When my father was alive we lived in a big house in Kennington Lane,
where he taught young men agriculture and chemistry. My father had a
big meadow and garden, and had a sort of small farm there. Fancy a
farm in Kennington!
Among the increase that blessed his shed was a two-headed calf. The
head and shoulders of this were stuffed, and inspired me with a terror
which my brothers increased by pursuing me with the terrible object.
But one of my father's pupils to whom I owe that and many other
kindnesses, one day seized me under one arm and the two-headed
horror under the other, and thus equipped we pursued my brothers.
They fled shrieking, and I never feared it again.
In a dank stone-flagged room where the boots were blacked, and the
more unwieldy chemicals housed, there was nailed on the wall the
black skin of an emu. That skin, with its wiry black feathers that
fluttered dismally in the draught, was no mere bird's skin to me. It
hated me, it wished me ill. It was always lurking for me in the dark,
ready to rush out at me. It was waiting for me at the top of the flight,
while the old woman with the mask stretched skinny hands out to grasp
my little legs as I went up the nursery stairs. I never passed the skin
without covering my eyes with my hands. From this terror that walked
by night I was delivered by Mr. Kearns, now public analyst for
Sheffield. He took me on his shoulder, where I felt quite safe, reluctant
but not resisting, to within a couple of yards of the emu.
"Now," he said, "will you do what I tell you?"
"Not any nearer," I said evasively.
"Now you know I won't let it hurt you."
"Yes."
"Then will you stroke it, if I do first?"
I didn't want to.

"To please me."
That argument was conclusive, for I loved him.
Then we approached the black feathers, I clinging desperately to his
neck, and sobbing convulsively.
"No-no-no-not any nearer!"
But he was kind and wise, and insisted. His