The Extra Day | Page 9

been nearly drowned together, and--they all
skipped up to the top of the high chalk cliffs as dry as a bone and as
happy as--"
He broke off in the middle of the enormous sentence to say a most
ridiculous and unnecessary thing. "Come in," he said, just as though
there was some one knocking at the door. But no single head was
turned. If there was an entry it was utterly ignored.
"Happy as what?"

"As you," the figure went on faster than ever. "And that's why England
to-day is an island of quite a respectable size, and why everybody
pretends it's dry and comfortable and cosy, and why people never leave
it except to go away for holidays that cannot possibly be avoided."
"I beg your pardon, sir," began an awful voice behind the chair.
"And why to this day," he continued as though he had not heard, "a
squirrel always curls its tail above its back, why a rabbit wears a stump
like a pen wiper, and why a mouse lives sometimes in a house and
sometimes in a field, and--"
_"I beg your pardon, sir,"_ clanged the slow, awful voice in a tone that
was meant to be heard distinctly, "but it's long gone 'arf-past six, and--"
"Time for bed," added the figure with a sound that was like the falling
of an executioner's axe. And, as if to emphasise the arrival of the
remorseless moment, the clock just then struck loudly on the
mantelpiece--seven times.
But for several minutes no one stirred. Hope, even at such moments,
was stronger than machinery of clocks and nurses. There was a general
belief that somehow or other the moment that they dreaded, the
moment that was always coming to block their happiness, could be
evaded and shoved aside. Nothing mechanical like that was wholly true.
Daddy had often used queer phrases that hinted at it: "Some day--A day
is coming--A day will come"; and so forth. Their belief in a special Day
when no one would say "Time" haunted them already. Yet, evidently
this evening was not the momentous occasion; for when Tim
mentioned that the clock was fast, the figure behind the chair replied
that she was half an hour overdue already, and her tone was like
Thompson's when he said, "Dinner's served." There was no escape this
time.
Accordingly the children slowly disentangled themselves; they rose and
stretched like animals; though all still ignored the figure behind the
chair. A ball of stuff unrolled and became Maria. "Thank you, Daddy,"
she said. "It was just lovely," said Judy. "But it's only the beginning,

isn't it?" Tim asked. "It'll go on to-morrow night?" And the figure,
having escaped failure by the skin of its teeth, kissed each in turn and
said, "Another time--yes, I'll go on with it." Whereupon the children
deigned to notice the person behind the chair. "We're coming up to bed
now, Jackman," they mentioned casually, and disappeared slowly from
the room in a disappointed body, robbed, unsatisfied, but very sleepy.
The clock had cheated them of something that properly was endless.
Maria alone made no remark, for she was already asleep in Jackman's
comfortable arms. Maria was always carried.
"Time's up," Tim reflected when he lay in bed; "time's always up. I do
wish we could stop it somehow," and fell asleep somewhat gratified
because he had deliberately not wound up his alarum-clock. He had the
delicious feeling--a touch of spite in it--that this would bother Time and
muddle it.
Yet Time, as a monster, chased him through a hundred dreams and thus
revenged itself. It pursued him to the very edge of the daylight, then
mocked him with a cold bath, lessons, and a windy sleet against the
windows. It was "time to get up" again.
Yet, meanwhile, Time helped and pleased the children by showing
them its pleasanter side as well. It pushed them, gently but swiftly, up
the long hill of months and landed them with growing excitement into
the open country of another year. Since the rabbit, mouse, and squirrel
first woke in their hearts the wonder of common things, they had all
grown slightly bigger. Time tucked away another twelve months
behind their backs: each of them was a year older; and that in itself was
full of a curious and growing wonder.
For the birth of wonder is a marvellous, sweet thing, but the recognition
of it is sweeter and more marvellous still. Its growth, perhaps, shall
measure the growth and increase of the soul to whom it is as eyes and
hands and feet, searching the world for signs of hiding Reality. But its
persistence--through the heavier years that would obliterate it--this
persistence shall offer hints of something coming that is more than
marvellous. The beginning of wisdom