Vision or imagination is a representation of what actually exists,
really and unchangeably. He who does not imagine in stronger and
better lineaments, and in stronger and better light, than his
_perishing_ mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all.—W. B.
It was Smoke who first drew his attention to something near the door by
‘padding’ slowly across the carpet and staring up at the handle. Paul’s
eyes, following him, perceived next that the brass knob was silently
turning. Then the door opened quickly and on the threshold stood—Nixie.
The open door made such a draught that the twenty winds tearing about
inside the room almost lifted the mat at his feet. Behind her he saw the
shadowy outline of a second figure, which he recognised as Jonah.
‘Shut the door—quick!’ he said, but they had done so and were already
beside him almost before the words were out of his mouth. In spite of
the darkness a very faint radiance came with them so that he could
distinguish their faces plainly; and his amazement on seeing them at all
at this late hour was instantly doubled when he perceived further that
they were fully dressed for going out. At the same time, however, so
deep had he been in his reverie, and so strongly did the excitement of
it yet linger in his blood, that he hardly realised how wicked they were
to be parading the house at such a time of the night, and that his
obvious duty was to bundle them back to bed. In a strange, queer way
they almost seemed part of his dream, part of his dramatised mood, part
of the region of wonder into which his thoughts had been leading him.
Moreover, he felt in some dim fashion that they had come with a purpose
of great importance.
‘It’s awfully late, you know,’ he exclaimed under his breath, peering
into their faces through the darkness.
‘But not too late, if we start at once,’ Jonah whispered. For a moment
Paul had almost thought that they would melt away and disappear as soon
as he spoke to them, or that they would not answer at all. But now this
settled it; these were no figures in a dream. He felt their hands upon
his arms and neck; the very perfume of Nixie’s hair and breath was about
him. She was dressed, he noticed, in her red cloak with the hood over
her head, and her eyes were popping with excitement. The expression on
her face was earnest, almost grave. He saw the faint gleam of the gold
buckle where the shiny black belt enclosed her little waist.
‘If we start _at once_, I said,’ repeated Jonah in a nervous whisper,
pulling at his hand.
Paul started to his feet and began fumbling with his black tie, feeling
vaguely that either he ought to tie it properly or take it off
altogether, and that it was a sort of indecent tinsel to wear at such a
time. But he only succeeded in pricking his finger with the pin sticking
out of the collar. He felt more than a little bewildered, if the truth
were told.
‘I’ll do that for you,’ Nixie said under her breath; and in a twinkling
her deft fingers had whipped the strip of satin from his neck.
‘You don’t want a tie where we’re going,’ she laughed softly.
‘Or a hat either,’ added Jonah. ‘But I wish you’d hurry, please.’
‘I’d better put on another coat or a dressing-gown, or something,’ he
stammered.
‘Coat’s best,’ Jonah told him, and in a moment he had changed into a
tweed Norfolk jacket that lay upon the chair.
They pulled him towards the door, Nixie holding one hand, Jonah the
other, and Smoke following so closely at his heels that he almost seemed
to be prodding him gently forward with his velvet padded boots. Paul
understood that tremendous forces, elemental in character like the wind
and rain and lightning, somehow added their immense suasion to the
little hands that pulled his own. He made no resistance, but just
allowed himself to go; and he went with a wild and boyish delight
tearing through his mind.
‘Are we going out then?’ he asked, ‘out of doors?’
‘What’s the exact time, the _very_ exact time?’ Nixie asked hurriedly,
ignoring his question; and though Paul had looked a few minutes before
they came in, he had quite forgotten by now. She helped herself to his
watch, burrowing under his coat to find it, and peering closely to read
the position of the hands.
‘Five minutes to twelve!’ she exclaimed, addressing Jonah in excited
whispers. ‘Oh, I say! We must be off at once, or we shall miss the crack
altogether. Come on, Uncle, or your life won’t be safe a minute.’
‘Then what will it be a month, I should like to know?’ he laughed as he
was swept along through the darkness, not knowing what to say or think.
‘The crack! The crack! Quick, or we shall miss it!’ cried the children
in the same sentence, urging him heavily forward.
‘What crack? Where are we going to? What does it all mean?’ he asked
breathlessly, trying to avoid treading on their toes and the toes of
Smoke who flew beside them with tail held swiftly aloft as though to
guide them.
They brought him up with a sudden bump just outside the door, and Nixie
turned up a serious face to explain, while Jonah waited impatiently in
front of them.
‘Quick!’ she whispered, ‘listen and I’ll tell you. We’re going to find
the crack between Yesterday and To-morrow, and then—slip through it.’
His heart leaped with excitement as he heard.
‘Go on,’ he cried. ‘Tell me more!’
‘You see, Yesterday really begins just after Midnight when To-day ends’;
she said, ‘and To-morrow begins there too.’
‘Of course.’
‘After Midnight, To-morrow jumps away again a whole day, and is as far
off as ever. That’s the nearest you can get to To-morrow.’
‘I see.’
‘And Yesterday, which has been a whole day away, suddenly jumps up close
behind again. So that Yesterday and To-morrow,’ she went on, eager with
excitement, ‘meet at Midnight for a single second before flying off to
their new places. Daddy told us that long ago.’
‘Exactly. They must.’
‘But now the world is old and worn. There’s a tiny little crack between
Yesterday and To-morrow. They don’t join as they once did, and, if we’re
_very_ quick, we can find the crack and slip through——’
‘Bless my Timber Limits!’ he exclaimed; ‘what a glorious notion!’
‘And, once inside there, there’s no time, of course,’ she went on, more
and more hurriedly. ‘_Anything_ may happen, and _everything_ come true.’
‘The very region I was thinking about just now!’ thought Paul. ‘The very
place! I’ve found it!’
‘_Do_ hurry up, oh _do_!’ put in Jonah with a loud whisper that echoed
down the corridor, for his patience was at length exhausted by all this
explanation. ‘You _are_ so slow getting started.’
‘Ready!’ cried Paul and Nixie in the same breath.
They were off! Down the dark and silent stairs on tiptoe, through the
empty halls, past the hat-racks and the stuffed deer heads that grinned
down upon them from the walls, along the stone passage to the kitchen
region, where the row of red fire-buckets gleamed upon the shelves, and
so, past the ghostly pantry, to the back door. This they found open, for
Jonah had already run ahead and unlocked it. Another minute and they had
crossed the yard by the stables, where the pump stood watching them like
a figure with an outstretched arm, and soon were well out on to the lawn
at the back of the house. The rain had ceased, but the wind caught them
here with such tremendous blows and shouting that they could hardly hear
themselves speak, and had to keep closely together in a bunch to make
their way at all. It was pitch dark and the stars were hidden. Paul
stumbled and floundered, treading incessantly on the toes of the more
nimble children. Smoke ran like a black shadow, now in front, now
behind.
‘We’re nearly there,’ Nixie cried encouragingly, as he made a false step
and landed with a crash in the middle of some low laurel bushes. ‘But
_do_ be more careful, Uncle, please,’ she added, helping him out again.
‘There’s the clock striking!’ Jonah called, a little in front of them.
‘We’re only just in time!’
Paul recovered himself and pulled up beside them under the shadows of
the big twin cedars that stood like immense sentries at the end of the
lawn. He came rolling in, swaying like a ship in a heavy sea. And, as he
did so, the sound of a church bell striking the hour came to their ears
through the terrific uproar of the elements, blown this way and that by
the wind.
It was midnight striking.
At the same instant he heard a peculiar sharp sound like whistling—the
noise wind makes tearing through a narrow opening.
‘The crack, the crack!’ cried his guides together. ‘That’s the air
rushing. It’s coming. Look out!’ They seized him by the hands.
‘But I shall never get through,’ shouted Paul, thinking of his size for
the first time.
‘Yes you will,’ Nixie screamed back at him above the roar. ‘Between the
sixth and seventh strokes, remember.’
The fifth stroke had already sounded. The wind caught it and went
shrieking into the sky.
Six! boomed the distant bell through the night. They held his hands in a
vice.
There was a sound like an express train tearing through the air. A quick
flash of brilliance followed, and a long slit seemed to open suddenly in
the sky before them, and then flash past like lightning. Nixie tugged at
one hand, and Jonah tugged at the other. Smoke scampered madly past his
feet.
A wild rush of wind swept him along, whistling in his ears; there was a
breathless and giddy sensation of dropping through empty space that
seemed as though it could never end—and then Paul suddenly found himself
sitting on a grassy bank beside a river, Nixie and Jonah on either side
of him, and Smoke washing his face in front of them as though nothing in
the whole world had ever happened to disturb his equanimity. And a
bright, soft light, like the light of the sun, shone warmly over
everything.
‘Only just managed it,’ Nixie observed to Jonah. ‘He _is_ rather wide,
isn’t he?’
‘Everybody’s thin somewhere,’ was the reply.
‘And the crack is very stretchy’—she added,—‘luckily.’
Paul drew a long breath and stretched himself.
‘Well,’ he said, still a little breathless and dizzy, ‘such things were
never done in my day.’
‘But this isn’t your day any more,’ explained Nixie, her blue eyes
popping with laughter and mischief, ‘it’s your night. And, anyhow, as I
told you, there’s no time here at all. There’s no hurry now.’