_Books by_
_HUGH WALPOLE_
* * * * *
_Novels_
THE WOODEN HORSE
MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL
THE DARK FOREST
THE SECRET CITY
THE CATHEDRAL
_The London Novels_
FORTITUDE
THE DUCHESS OF WREXE
THE GREEN MIRROR
THE CAPTIVES
THE YOUNG ENCHANTED
_Fantasies_
MARADICK AT FORTY
THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE
PORTRAIT OF MAN WITH RED HAIR (_In Preparation_)
_Books About Children_
THE GOLDEN SCARE CROW
JEREMY
JEREMY AND HAMLET
_Belles-Lettres_
JOSEPH CONRAD: A CRITICAL STUDY
Jeremy and Hamlet
A Chronicle of
Certain Incidents
In the Lives
Of a Boy,
A Dog, and a
Country Town
By
HUGH WALPOLE
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
First published 1923
_Printed in Great Britain._
To
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
FROM
THEIR DEVOTED FRIEND
THEIR SON
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sear;
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May
Although it fall and die that night——
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
—BEN JONSON.
CONTENTS
1. COME OUT OF THE KITCHEN
2. CONSCIENCE MONEY
3. THE DANCE
4. SALADIN AND THE BLACK BISHOP
5. POODLE
6. THE NIGHT RAIDERS
7. YOUNG BALTIMORE
8. THE RUFFIANS
9. THE PICTURE-BOOK
10. UNCLE PERCY
11. THE RUNAWAYS
12. A FINE DAY
Jeremy and Hamlet
CHAPTER I
COME OUT OF THE KITCHEN . . .
I
There was a certain window between the kitchen and the pantry that was
Hamlet’s favourite. Thirty years ago—these chronicles are of the year
1894—the basements of houses in provincial English towns, even of large
houses owned by rich people, were dark, chill, odourful caverns hissing
with ill-burning gas and smelling of ill-cooked cabbage. The basement of
the Coles’ house in Polchester was as bad as any other, but this little
window between the kitchen and the pantry was higher in the wall than
the other basement windows, almost on a level with the iron railings
beyond it, and offering a view down over Orange Street and, obliquely,
sharp to the right and past the Polchester High School, a glimpse of the
Cathedral Towers themselves.
Inside the window was a shelf, and on this shelf Hamlet would sit for
hours, his peaked beard interrogatively a-tilt, his leg sticking out
from his square body as though it were a joint-leg and worked like the
limb of a wooden toy, his eyes, sad and mysterious, staring into
Life. . . .
It was not, of course, of Life that he was thinking; only very high-bred
and in-bred dogs are conscious philosophers.
His ears were stretched for a sound of the movements of Mrs. Hounslow
the cook, his nostrils distended for a whiff of the food that she was
manipulating, but his eyes were fixed upon the passing show, the
pageantry, the rough-and-tumble of the world, and every once and again
the twitch of his Christmas-tree tail would show that something was
occurring in this life beyond the window that could supervene, for a
moment at any rate, over the lust of the stomach and the lure of the
clattering pan.
He was an older dog than he had been on that snowy occasion of his first
meeting with the Cole family—two years older in fact. Older and fatter.
He had now a round belly. His hair hung as wildly as ever it had done
around his eyes, but beneath the peaked and aristocratic beard there was
a sad suspicion of a double chin.
_He had sold his soul to the cook._
When we sell our souls we are ourselves, of course, in the main
responsible. But others have often had more to do with our catastrophe
than the world in general can know. Had Jeremy, his master, not gone to
school, Hamlet’s soul would yet have been his own; Jeremy gone, Hamlet’s
spiritual life was nobody’s concern. He fell down, deep down, into the
very heart of the basement, and nobody minded.
He himself did not mind; he was very glad. He loved the basement.
It had happened that during the last holidays Jeremy had gone into the
country to stay with the parents of a school friend—Hamlet had had
therefore nearly nine months’ freedom from his master’s influence. Mr.
and Mrs. Cole did not care for him very deeply. Helen hated him. Mary
loved him but was so jealous of Jeremy’s affection for him that she was
not sorry to see him banished, and Barbara, only two and a half, had as
yet very tenuous ideas on this subject.
Mrs. Hounslow, a very fat, sentimental woman, liked to have something or
someone at her side to give her rich but transient emotions—emotions
evoked by a passing band, the reading of an accident in the newspaper,
or some account of an event in the Royal family. The kitchen-maid, a
girl of no home and very tender years, longed for affection from
somebody, but Mrs. Hounslow disliked all kitchen-maids on
principle—therefore Hamlet received what the kitchen-maid needed, and
that is the way of the world.
Did there run through Hamlet’s brain earlier stories of an emotion purer
than the lust for bones, of a devotion higher and more ardent than the
attachment to a dripping saucepan?
Did he sometimes, as he sat reflectively beside the kitchen fire, see
pictures of his master’s small nose, of woods when, at his master’s
side, he sniffed for rabbits, of days when he raced along shining sands
after a stone that he had no real intention of finding? Did he still
feel his master’s hand upon his head and that sudden twitch as that hand
caught a tuft of hair and twisted it? . . .
No one can tell of what he was thinking as he sat on the shelf staring
out of his window at old Miss Mulready, burdened with parcels, climbing
Orange Street, at the lamplighter hurrying with his flame from post to
post, of old Grinder’s war-worn cab stumbling across the cobbles past
the High School, the old horse faltering at every step, at the green
evening sky slipping into dusk, the silver-pointed stars, the crooked
roofs blackening into shadow, the lights of the town below the hill
jumping like gold jack-in-the-boxes into the shadowy air.
No one could tell of what he was thinking.
II
He was aware that in the upper regions something was preparing. He was
aware of this in general by a certain stir that there was, of agitated
voices and hurrying footsteps and urgent cries; but he was aware more
immediately because of the attentions of Mary, Jeremy’s younger sister.
He had always hated Mary. Are dogs, in their preferences and avoidances,
guided at all by physical beauty or ugliness? Was Helen of Troy adored
by the dogs of that town and did Sappho command the worship of the
hounds of Greece? We are told nothing of it and, on the other hand, we
know that Lancelot Gobbo had a devoted dog and that Charon, who cannot
have been a handsome fellow, was most faithfully dog-attended. I do not
think that Hamlet minded poor Mary’s plainness, her large spectacles,
her sallow complexion, colourless hair and bony body. His dislike arose
more probably from the certainty that she would always stroke him the
wrong way, would poke her fingers into his defenceless eyes, would try
to drag him on to her sharp, razor-edged knees and would talk to him in
that meaningless sing-song especially invented by the sentimental of
heart and slow of brain for the enchantment of babies and animals.
She was talking to him in just that fashion now. He had slipped
upstairs, attracted by a smell in the dining-room. Watching for the
moment when he would be undetected, he had crept round the dining-room
door and had stood, his nose in air, surrounded by a sea of worn green
carpet, sniffing. Suddenly he felt a hand on his collar and there
followed that voice that of all others he most detested. “Why, here’s
Hamlet! Helen, here’s Hamlet! . . . We can get him ready now, Helen;
there’s only two hours left anyway, and Jeremy will care much more about
that than anything. I’d like to leave him downstairs, but Jeremy will be
sure to ask where he is. Which colour shall I use for the ribbon, Helen?
I’ve got blue and red and orange.”
A pause. Then again:
“Which shall I use? Do say.”
Then from a great distance:
“Oh, don’t bother, Mary. Can’t you see I’m busy?”
A heavy sigh. “Oh, well, you might. Never mind. I think the blue’s
best.” All this time Hamlet was desperately wriggling, but the hand,
with knuckles that pressed into the flesh and hurt, had firm hold.
“Oh, do keep still, Hamlet. Can’t you see that your master’s coming home
and you’ve got to be made nice? Oh, bother! I’ve gone and cut the piece
too short. . . . Helen, have you got another piece of blue?”
A pause. Then again: “Oh, Helen, you might say. I’ve cut the piece too
short. Haven’t you got another bit of blue?”
Then again from a long distance:
“Don’t _bother_, Mary. Can’t you _see_ that I’m so busy?”
“Oh, very well, then.” A terribly deep sigh that made Hamlet shiver with
discomfort. “Come here, Hamlet. On to my lap, where I can tie it better.
There, that’s right. Oh, _do_ keep your head still—and how fat you are
now!”
Insult upon insult heaped. He raised his eyes to heaven, partly in
indignation, partly because the entrancing smell could be caught more
securely now from the elevation of Mary’s lap! But the discomfort of
that lap, the hard boniness, the sudden precipitate valley, the
shortness of its surface so that one was for ever slipping two legs
over, the moist warmth of the surrounding hand, the iron hardness of the
fingers at the neck! He played his best game of wriggle, slipping,
sliding, lying suddenly inert, jerking first with his paws, then with
his hind legs, digging his head beneath his captor’s arm as the flamingo
did in “Alice.”
Mary, as so often occurred, lost her patience. “Oh, do keep still,
Hamlet! How tiresome you are, when I’ve got such a little time too!
Don’t you like to have a ribbon? And you’ll have to be brushed too.
Helen, where’s the brush that we used to have for Hamlet?”
No answer.
“Oh, do keep still, you naughty dog!” She dug her knuckles into his
eyes. “Oh, Helen, do say! Don’t you know where it is?”
Then from a great distance: “Oh, don’t bother, Mary. No, I don’t know
where it is. How stupid you are! Can’t you see I’m busy?”
He wriggled, Mary slapped him. He turned and bit her. She dropped him.
“Oh, Helen, he’s bit me!”
“It’s bitten, not bit.
“No, it isn’t; it’s bit. . . . Perhaps he’s mad or something, and I’ll
suddenly bark like a dog. I know they do. I read about it in ‘Hopes and
Fears.’ You’re a horrid dog and I don’t care whether Jeremy sees you or
not. Oh, Helen, you might help. It’s four o’clock and Jeremy will be
nearly here.”
Hamlet was free, free of Mary, but not of the room. The door behind him
was closed. He sat there thinking, the piece of blue ribbon hanging
loosely round his neck. Something was stirring within him—something
that was not an appetite nor a desire nor a rebellion. A memory. He
shook his head to escape from his ribbon. The memory came closer. From
that too he would like to escape. He gazed at the door. Had he never
smelt that alluring smell? . . .
He slipped beneath the dining-room table, and, lying flat, resting his
head on his paws, stared resentfully in front of him. The memory came
closer.
III
Two hours later he was sitting in a ridiculous position two steps from
the bottom of the hall stairs—ridiculous because the stair was not
broad enough for his figure, because the blue ribbon was now firmly tied
and ended in a large blue bow, because Mary’s hand was upon him,
restraining him from his quite natural intention of disappearing.
They were grouped about the stair, Helen and Mary, Barbara and the
nurse, Mr. and Mrs. Cole and Aunt Amy in the hall below. Helen, Mary and
Barbara were wearing cocked hats made of coloured paper and carried
silver tissue wands in their hands. Barbara was eating her tissue paper
with great eagerness and a vivid, absorbed attention. Helen looked
pretty and bored; Mary was in a state of the utmost nervousness,
clutching Hamlet with one hand while in the other she held a toy trumpet
and a crumpled piece of paper.
Everyone waited, staring at the door. Mr. Cole said:
“Five minutes late. I must go back to my sermon in a moment.”
Aunt Amy said: “I hope nothing can have happened.”
Mrs. Cole said tranquilly: “We should have heard if it had.”
The front door bell rang; a maid appeared from nowhere and opened the
door. From the dusk there emerged a small, heavily coated figure. Mr.
and Mrs. Cole moved forward. There were embraces. Mr. Cole said: “Well,
my boy.” A husky voice was heard: “Oh, I say, mother, that old squeak of
a cabman——”
The short, thick-set figure turned towards the staircase.
Instantly Mary blew on her trumpet. Barbara, suddenly disliking the
tissue paper, began to cry. Hamlet barked.
Through the din the quavering voice of Mary could be heard reading the
poem of welcome:
“Thee, returning to your home,
Back from school and football too,
Coming to us all alone,
Mary, Helen and Barbara welcome you.
Hail to thee, then, Jeremy dear,
Over you we shed a tear
Just because you are so dear.
Welcome to your home.”
There should then have followed a blast on the trumpet and three rousing
cheers. Alas! the welcome was a complete and devastating failure.
Jeremy could be heard to say:
“Thanks awfully.... By Jove, I _am_ hungry. How soon’s tea, mother?”
Barbara’s howls were now so terrible as to demand immediate attention
from everyone. Hamlet had slipped from control and was barking at Aunt
Amy, whom he delighted to annoy. Mrs. Cole said: “Now that’s enough,
children dear. I’m sure Jeremy’s tired now.” No one had heard Mary’s
verses; no one noticed the cocked hats; no one applauded the silver
wands. The work of weeks was disregarded. No one thought of Mary at all.
She crept away to her room at the top of the house, flung herself upon
her bed and howled, biting the counterpane between her teeth.
But are not these home-comings always most disappointing affairs? For
weeks Jeremy had been looking to this moment. On the frayed wallpaper
just above his bed in the school dormitory he had made thick black marks
with a pencil, every mark standing for a day. Hard and cynical during
his school-day, a barbarian at war with barbarians, at nights, when the
lights were out, when the dormitory story-teller’s (unhappy Phipps
minor) voice had died off into slumber, in those last few minutes before
he too slept, he was sentimental, full of home-sick longings, painting
to himself that very springing from the cab, his mother’s kiss, Hamlet’s
bark, yes, and even the embraces of his sisters. On the morning of
departure, after the excitement of farewells, the strange, almost
romantic thrill of the empty schoolrooms, the race in the wagonette
(_his_ wagonette against the one with Cox major and Bates and Simpson)
to the station, the cheeking of the station-master, the crowding into
the railway carriage and leaning (five on top of you) out of the
carriage window, the screams of “Bags I the corner,” the ensuing fights
with Cox major, after all this gradual approach to known country, the
gathering-in as though with an eager hand of remembered places and
stations and roads, the half-hour stop at Drymouth (leaving now almost
all your companions behind you—only young Marlowe and Sniffs major
remaining), the crossing over into Glebeshire, then the beat of the
heart, the tightening of the throat, as Polchester gradually
approached—all this, yes and more, much more, than this, to end in that
disappointment! Everyone looking the same as before, the hall the same,
the pictures the same, father and mother and Aunt Amy the same, Mary and
Helen the same only stupider! What did they dress up and make fools of
themselves like that for? Mary always did the wrong thing, and now most
certainly she would be crying in her bedroom because he had not said
enough to her. . . .
In one way there had been too much of a reception, in another not
enough. It was silly of them to make that noise, but on the other hand
there should have been more questions. How had he done in football? He
had played half-back twice for the school. He had told them that in
three different letters, and yet they had asked no questions. And there
was Bates who had stolen jam out of a fellow’s tuck box. One of his
letters had been full of that exciting incident, and yet they had asked
no questions. It was true that they had had but little time for
questions, nevertheless his father, at once after kissing him, had
murmured something about his sermon—as though an old sermon mattered!
Of course he did not think all this out. He only sat on his bed kicking
his legs, looking at the well-remembered furniture of his room, vaguely
discontented and unhappy. What fun it had been that morning, ragging
Miss Taylor, laughing at the guard of the train, saying good-bye to old
Mumpsey Thompson who recently spoke to him as though he were a man,
asking him whether his parents had decided upon the public school to
which, in two years’ time, he would be going—Eton, Harrow, Winchester,
Craxton, Rugby, Crale and so on. Time to decide, time to decide!
One’s public! The world widening and widening, growing ever more
terribly exciting—and here Mary, sobbing in her room, and father with
his sermons and the long evenings. At least no work—only a silly
holiday task, a book called “The Talisman,” or some rot. No work. His
spirits revived a little. No work and lots of food, and Hamlet. . . .
Hamlet! He jumped off his bed. Why, he had never noticed the dog! He had
forgotten. He rushed from the room.
When he was half-way down the stairs he caught the echo of a voice:
“Tea, Jeremy. All ready in the schoolroom.” But he did not pause. In the
hall he saw the housemaid. “I say, where’s Hamlet?” he cried.
“In the kitchen, I expect, Master Jeremy,” she answered.
In the kitchen, she expected! Why should she expect it? Hamlet never
used to be in the kitchen. His heart began to beat angrily. The kitchen?
That was not the place for a dog like Hamlet. He stumbled down the dark
stairs into the basement. Mrs. Hounslow was standing beside the kitchen
table, her sleeves rolled up above her elbows; she was pounding and
pounding. Jeremy cried, at once challenging:
“I say, where’s my dog?”
_His_ dog? Mrs. Hounslow, already too scarlet for further colour,
nevertheless crimsoned internally. His dog! She hated little boys. Her
sister, the one that married the postman, had had one. Two indeed. She
loved Hamlet, who had become now, by the rights both of psychology and
environment, hers.
“’E’s lying there right in front of the fire, Master Jeremy—the poor
little worm,” she added.
“The poor little worm” was indeed stretched out gnawing at a bone.
“He oughtn’t to be in front of the fire,” said Jeremy. “It’s bad for
dogs. It gives them rheumatism.”
She stopped her pounding. They had not met before, but it was one of
those old hostilities born in the air, fostered by the crystal moon,
roughened by the golden sun.
Jeremy stood, his legs apart, looking down upon his dog. He saw how fat
he was, how deeply engrossed in his bone, how dribbling at the jaws.
“Hamlet!” he said. He repeated the name three times. At the third call
the dog looked up, then went back to his bone. Mrs. Hounslow sniffed.
Meanwhile in Hamlet’s soul something was stirring—memories, affections,
sentiments. . . . He licked the bone again. It no longer tasted so sweet
as before. He looked up at Mrs. Hounslow imploringly.
She declared herself. “He do love the kitchen. If there’s one place
where he loves to be, it’s the kitchen. Only last night I was saying to
my sister, ‘Anne,’ I said, ‘it’s a most curious thing how that dog do
love the kitchen.’ A little kindness goes a long way with animals, poor
things. As I said to my sister——”
“But he oughtn’t to love the kitchen!” Jeremy burst out indignantly. “He
isn’t a kitchen dog!”
Mrs. Hounslow had received the Last Insult. Her face darkened _sub
rosa_. She to be reproached, she who had been the only one to show
affection to the poor deserted lamb, she who had protected him and fed
him and given him warm places in which to sleep. A kitchen dog! And her
kitchen the cleanest, shiniest, most bescoured kitchen in Polchester!
She had, however, her dignity.
“That’s as may be, Master Jeremy,” she said. “But it’s natural, both in
dogs and humans, that they should go to them as cares for them best and
takes trouble over them.”
She went on with her pounding, breathing deeply.
Jeremy looked at her. He had hurt her feelings. He was sorry for that.
After all, she had been kind to the dog—in her own way. She naturally
could not understand the point of view that he must take.
“Thank you very much,” he said huskily, “for having been so kind to
Hamlet all this time. . . . He’s going to live upstairs now—but it was
very good of you to take so much trouble.”
Hamlet was deep in his bone once more. When Jeremy put his hand on his
collar he growled. That roused Jeremy’s temper. He dragged the dog
across the floor; Hamlet pushed out his legs, and behind his hair his
eyes glared. The door closed on them both.
IV
Upstairs in his own room he squatted on the floor and drew Hamlet in
between his legs. Hamlet would not look at his master. He sulked as only
dogs and beautiful women can.
“Hamlet, you _must_ remember. You can’t have forgotten _everything_ so
quickly. You _can’t_ have forgotten the fun we had last year, out at the
farm, and when I rescued you after Mary shut you up, and biting Aunt Amy
and everything.
“I know I’ve been away, and you must have thought I was never coming
back, but I couldn’t help that. I had to go to school, and I couldn’t
take you with me. And now I’m going to be home for weeks and weeks, and
it will be awfully slow if you aren’t with me. Nobody seems really
excited about my coming back, and Uncle Samuel’s away, and everything’s
rotten—so you must stay with me and go out with me for walks and
everything.”
Hamlet was staring down at the floor through his hair. His master was
scratching his head in exactly the way that he used to do, in the way
that no one else had ever done. Three, four, five scratches in the
middle, then slowly towards the right ear, then slowly towards the left,
then both ears pulled close together, then a piece of hair twisted into
a peak, then all smoothed down again and softly stroked into
tranquillity. Delicious! His soul quivered with sensuous ecstasy. Then
his master’s hands smelt as they had always done, hard and rough, with
the skin suddenly soft between the fingers. Very good to lick! His
tongue was half out. In another moment he would have rolled over on to
his back, his legs stuck stiffly out, his eyes closed, waiting for his
belly to be tickled. In another moment! But there was a knock on the
door, and Mary appeared.
Mary’s eyes were red behind her spectacles. She had the sad, resigned
indignation of a Cassandra misunderstood.
“Jeremy, aren’t you coming down to tea? We’re half finished.”
He rose to his feet. He knew that he must say something.
“I say, Mary,” he stammered, “it was most awfully decent of you to make
that poetry up. I did like it.”
“Did you really?” she asked, gulping.
“Yes, I did.”
“Would you like a copy of it?”
“Most awfully.”
“I did make a copy of it. But I thought nobody cared—or wanted to
hear. . . .” Fearful lest she should begin to cry again, he said
hurriedly:
“Here’s Hamlet. He’s always been in the kitchen. He’s not going to be
any longer.”
Hamlet followed him downstairs, but still with reluctant dignity. The
moment of his surrender had been covered, and he did not know that he
would now surrender after all. He would see. Meanwhile he smelt food,
and where food was he must be.
Tea was in the schoolroom. Miss Jones, the governess, was away on her
holiday, and Jeremy saw at once that the worst thing possible had
occurred: his Aunt Amy, whom he did not love, was in charge of the
tea-table. He had fantastic thoughts when he saw his aunt, thinking of
her never as a human being, but as an animal, a bird, perhaps. A crow. A
vulture. Something hooked and clawed. But to-day she was determined that
she would be friendly.
“Sit down, Jeremy dear. You’re very late, but on the first day we’ll say
nothing about it.”
His mother should have been here. Where was his mother?
“Have you washed your hands? Mother has callers. . . . There is
blackberry jam and also strawberry. Your welcome home, Jeremy.”
He would have neither. He loved blackberry. Still more he loved
strawberry. But he would have neither. Because Aunt Amy had asked him.
His eye was on Hamlet, who was sulking by the door.
“I do hope, dear, that you’re not going to have that dog with you
everywhere again. All the time you were away he was in the kitchen. Very
happy there, I believe.”
Jeremy said nothing.
Aunt Amy, who was, I think, to be applauded for her efforts with a sulky
boy, bravely persevered.
“Do tell us, dear, about this last time at school. We are all so eager
to know. Was it cricket or football, dear, and how did your work go?”
He mumbled something, blushing to the eyes as he caught his sister
Helen’s ironical supercilious glance.
“I hope your master was pleased with you, dear.”
He burst out: “I was whacked twice.”
Aunt Amy sighed. “The less about that, dear, the better. We want to know
what you did well!”
How strange that in the train he had eagerly desired this moment—and
now he had nothing to say.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “There was a chap called Bates got bunked
for stealing.”
Aunt Amy sighed again. “Yes, Helen dear, you can go if you’ve really
finished. Wipe your mouth, Mary.”
Hamlet was watching his master. More than ever now were recollections
stealing upon him. His master was unhappy, just as he used to be
unhappy. He was hating that dark, strange-smelling animal (smelling of
soap, the smell that Hamlet most avoided) whom Hamlet also hated.
Yes, everything was returning. . . .
V
Later on they were down in the drawing-room. Mrs. Cole was reading “The
Dove in the Eagle’s Nest,” the children grouped about her feet. Jeremy,
his rough bullet head against his mother’s dress, was almost asleep. He
had had a long, exhausting day; he was happy at last, seeing the colours
fold and unfold before his eyes. That other world that was sometimes so
strangely close to him mingled with the world of facts—now he was
racing in the wagonette, leaning over and shouting triumphantly against
those left behind; now the path changed to a pool of gold, and out of it
a bronze tower rose solemn to heaven, straight and tall against the blue
sky, and the windows of the tower opened and music sounded, and his
mother’s voice came back to him like the sudden rushing of the train,
and he saw Mary’s spectacles and the flickering fire and Helen’s
gleaming shoes.
For the moment he had forgotten Hamlet. The dog lay near the door. It
opened, and Aunt Amy came in.
At once the dog was through the door, down the stairs, and into the
kitchen. This was habit. Something had acted in him before he could stop
to think. It was natural for him to be in the kitchen at this hour, when
it was brilliantly lit, and the cook and the housemaid and the
kitchenmaid were having their last drop of tea. . . . Always things for
him at this moment, sweet things, fat things, meaty things. He sat
there, and they dropped bits into his mouth, murmuring “Poor worm,”
“Little lamb,” “Sweet pet.”
Mrs. Hounslow was to-night quite especially affectionate, delighted with
his return to her. She patted him, pulled him into her ample lap, folded
his head against her yet ampler bosom, confided to the maids what that
limb of a boy had dared to say to her—“kitchen dog!” indeed. As though
it weren’t the finest kitchen in Glebeshire, and who’d looked after the
poor animal if she hadn’t—and then—and why—but of course.
The maids agreed, sipping the tea from their saucers.
But Hamlet was not happy. He did not care to-night for Mrs. Hounslow’s
embraces. He was not happy. He struggled from her lap on to the floor,
and sat there scratching himself.
When ten struck he was taken to his warm corner near the oven. She
curled him up, she bent down and kissed him. The lights were turned out,
and he was alone. He could not sleep. The loud ticking of the kitchen
clock, for so many months a pleasant sleepy sound, to-night disturbed
him.
He was not happy. He got up and wandered about the kitchen, sniffing. He
went to the door. It was ajar. He pushed it with his nose. Something was
leading him. He remembered now—how well he remembered! Up these dark
stairs, under that hissing clock, up these stairs again, along that
passage, the moon grinning at him through the window (but, of course, he
did not know that it was the moon). Up more stairs, along this wall,
then this door! He pushed with his nose; it moved; he squeezed himself
through.
He hesitated, sniffing. Then—how familiar this was—a spring, and he
was on the bed; a step or two, and he was licking his master’s cheek.
A cry: “Hamlet! Oh, Hamlet!” He snuggled under his master’s arm, licking
the cheek furiously, planting his paw, but with the nails carefully
drawn in, on his master’s neck. Once more that hand was about his head,
the scratch first to the left, then to the right, then the pulling of
the ears. . . .
With a sigh of satisfaction he sank into the hollow of his master’s
body, and in another second was asleep.