The Days Before Yesterday | Page 6

sporting
accessories were changed by some mysterious and malign agency into
grizzly bears, and grizzly bears are notoriously the fiercest of their
species. It was advisable to walk very quickly, but quietly, past the lair
of the grizzlies, for they would have gobbled up a little boy in one
second. Immediately after the bears' den came the culminating terror of
all--the haunt of the wicked little hunchbacks. These malignant little
beings inhabited an arched and recessed cross- passage. It was their
horrible habit to creep noiselessly behind their victims,
tip...tip...tip-toeing silently but swiftly behind their prey, and then ...
with a sudden spring they threw themselves on to little boys' backs, and
getting their arms round their necks, they remorselessly throttled the
life out of them. In the early "sixties" there was a perfect epidemic of
so-called "garrotting" in London. Harmless citizens proceeding
peaceably homeward through unfrequented streets or down suburban
roads at night were suddenly seized from behind by nefarious hands,
and found arms pressed under their chins against their windpipe, with a
second hand drawing their heads back until they collapsed insensible,
and could be despoiled leisurely of any valuables they might happen to
have about them. Those familiar with John Leech's Punch Albums will
recollect how many of his drawings turned on this outbreak of
garrotting. The little boy had heard his elders talking about this
garrotting, and had somehow mixed it up with a story about
hunchbacks and the fascinating local tales about "the wee people," but
the terror was a very real one for all that. The hunchbacks baffled, there
only remained a dark archway to pass, but this archway led to the
"Robbers' Passage." A peculiarly bloodthirsty gang of malefactors had
their fastnesses along this passage, but the dread of being in the
immediate neighbourhood of such a band of desperadoes was
considerably modified by the increasing light, as the solitary oil-lamp
of the passage was approached. Under the comforting beams of this
lamp the little boy would pause until his heart began to thump less
wildly after his deadly perils, and he would turn the handle of the door

and walk into the great hall as demurely as though he had merely
traversed an ordinary everyday passage in broad daylight. It was very
reassuring to see the big hall blazing with light, with the logs roaring on
the open hearth, and grown-ups writing, reading, and talking
unconcernedly, as though unconscious of the awful dangers lurking
within a few yards of them. In that friendly atmosphere, what with toys
and picture-books, the fearful experiences of the "Passage of Many
Terrors" soon faded away, and the return journey upstairs would be free
from alarms, for Catherine, the nursery- maid, would come to fetch the
little boy when his bedtime arrived.
Catherine was fat, freckled, and French. She was also of a very stolid
disposition. She stumped unconcernedly along the" Passage of
Terrors," and any reference to its hidden dangers of robbers,
hunchbacks, bears, and crocodiles only provoked the remark, "Quel tas
de betises!" In order to reassure the little boy, Catherine took him to
view the stuffed crocodile reposing inertly under its marble slab. Of
course, before a grown-up the crocodile would pretend to be dead and
stuffed, but ... the little boy knew better. It occurred gleefully to him,
too, that the plump French damsel might prove more satisfactory as a
repast to a hungry saurian than a skinny little boy with thin legs. In the
cheerful nursery, with its fragrant peat fire (we called it "turf"), the
terrors of the evening were quickly forgotten, only to be renewed with
tenfold activity next evening, as the moment for making the dreaded
journey again approached.
The little boy had had the Pilgrim's Progress read to him on Sundays.
He envied "Christian," who not only usually enjoyed the benefit of
some reassuring companion, such as "Mr. Interpreter," or "Mr.
Greatheart," to help him on his road, but had also been expressly told,
"Keep in the midst of the path, and no harm shall come to thee." This
was distinctly comforting, and Christian enjoyed another conspicuous
advantage. All the lions he encountered in the course of his journey
were chained up, and could not reach him provided he adhered to the
Narrow Way. The little boy thought seriously of tying a rolled-up
tablecloth to his back to represent Christian's pack; in his white suit, he
might perhaps then pass for a pilgrim, and the strip of carpet down the

centre of the passage would make an admirable Narrow Way, but it all
depended on whether the crocodile, bears, and hunchbacks knew, and
would observe the rules of the game. It was most improbable that the
crocodile had ever had the Pilgrim's Progress read to him in his youth,
and