The Days Before Yesterday | Page 7

he might not understand that the carpet representing the Narrow
Way was inviolable territory. Again, the bears might make their spring
before they realised that, strictly speaking, they ought to consider
themselves chained up. The ferocious little hunchbacks were clearly
past praying for; nothing would give them a sense of the most
elementary decency. On the whole, the safest plan seemed to be, on
reaching the foot of the stairs, to keep an eye on the distant lamp and to
run to it as fast as short legs and small feet could carry one. Once safe
under its friendly beams, panting breath could be recovered, and the
necessary stolid look assumed before entering the hall.
There was another voyage, rich in its promise of ultimate rewards, but
so perilous that it would only be undertaken under escort. That was to
the housekeeper's room through a maze of basement passages. On the
road two fiercely-gleaming roaring pits of fire had to be encountered.
Grown-ups said this was the furnace that heated the house, but the little
boy had his own ideas on the subject. Every Sunday his nurse used to
read to him out of a little devotional book, much in vogue in the
"sixties," called The Peep of Day, a book with the most terrifying
pictures. One Sunday evening, so it is said, the little boy's mother came
into the nursery to find him listening in rapt attention to what his nurse
was reading him.
"Emery is reading to me out of a good book," explained the small boy
quite superfluously.
"And do you like it, dear?"
"Very much indeed."
"What is Emery reading to you about? Is it about Heaven?"
"No, it's about 'ell," gleefully responded the little boy, who had not yet
found all his "h's."

Those glowing furnace-bars; those roaring flames ... there could be no
doubt whatever about it. A hymn spoke of "Gates of Hell" ... of course
they just called it the heating furnace to avoid frightening him. The
little boy became acutely conscious of his misdeeds. He had taken ... no,
stolen an apple from the nursery pantry and had eaten it. Against all
orders he had played with the taps in the sink. The burden of his
iniquities pressed heavily on him; remembering the encouraging
warnings Mrs. Fairchild, of The Fairchild Family, gave her offspring as
to their certain ultimate destiny when they happened to break any
domestic rule, he simply dared not pass those fiery apertures alone.
With his hand in that of his friend Joseph, the footman, it was quite
another matter. Out of gratitude, he addressed Joseph as "Mr.
Greatheart," but Joseph, probably unfamiliar with the Pilgrim's
Progress, replied that his name was Smith.
The interminable labyrinth of passages threaded, the warm,
comfortable housekeeper's room, with its red curtains, oak presses and
a delicious smell of spice pervading it, was a real haven of rest. To this
very day, nearly sixty years afterwards, it still looks just the same, and
keeps its old fragrant spicy odour. Common politeness dictated a brief
period of conversation, until Mrs. Pithers, the housekeeper, should take
up her wicker key- basket and select a key (the second press on the left).
From that inexhaustible treasure-house dates and figs would appear,
also dried apricots and those little discs of crystallised apple-paste
which, impaled upon straws, and coloured green, red and yellow, were
in those days manufactured for the special delectation of greedy little
boys. What a happy woman Mrs. Pithers must have been with such a
prodigal wealth of delicious products always at her command! It was
comforting, too, to converse with Mrs. Pithers, for though this intrepid
woman was alarmed neither by bears, hunchbacks nor crocodiles, she
was terribly frightened by what she termed "cows," and regulated her
daily walks so as to avoid any portion of the park where cattle were
grazing. Here the little boy experienced a delightful sense of masculine
superiority. He was not the least afraid of cattle, or of other things in
daylight and the open air; of course at night in dark passages infested
with bears and little hunchbacks ... Well, it was obviously different.
And yet that woman who was afraid of "cows" could walk without a

tremor, or a little shiver down the spine, past the very "Gates of Hell,"
where they roared and blazed in the dark passage.
Our English home had brightly-lit passages, and was consequently
practically free from bears and robbers. Still, we all preferred the Ulster
home in spite of its obvious perils. Here were a chain of lakes, wide,
silvery expanses of gleaming water reflecting the woods and hills. Here
were great tracts of woodlands where countless little burns chattered
and tinkled in their rocky beds as they hurried down to the lakes,