The neighbours is all up and about and we needn't ask for trouble."

"You're right!" he grumbled. "It will keep till I come back."

"Where are you goin'?"

"Down to the 'Admiral Vernon'. There's a chance of a job as sparrin' partner to Long Davis. He goes into training on Monday and needs a man of my weight."

"Well, I'll expect you when I see you. I get too much of that pub of yours. I know what the 'Admiral Vernon' means."

"It means the only place in God's earth where I get any peace or rest" said Silas.

"A fat lot I get -- or ever 'ave 'ad since I married you."

"That's right. Grouse away!" he growled. "If grousin' made a man happy, you'd be the champion."

He picked up his hat and slouched off down the street, his heavy tread resounding upon the great wooden flap which covered the cellars of the brewery.

. Up in a dingy attic two little figures were seated on the side of a wretched straw-stuffed bed, their arms enlacing each other, their cheeks touching, their tears mingling. They had to cry in silence, for any sound might remind the ogre downstairs of their existence. Now and again one would break into an uncontrollable sob, and the other would whisper, "Hush! Hush! Oh hush!" Then suddenly they heard the slam of the outer door and that heavy tread booming over the wooden flap. They squeezed each other in their joy. Perhaps when he came back he might kill them, but for a few short hours at least they were safe from him. As to the woman, she was spiteful and vicious, but she did not seem so deadly as the man. In a dim way they felt that he had hunted their mother into her grave and might do as much for them.

The room was dark save for the light which came through the single dirty window. It cast a bar across the floor, but all round was black shadow. Suddenly the little boy stiffened, clasped his sister with a tighter grip, and stared rigidly into the darkness.

"She's coming!" he muttered. "She's coming!" Little Margery clung to him.

"Oh, Wiliie, is it mother?"

"It is a light -- a beautiful yellow light. Can you not see it, Margery?"

But the little girl, like all the world, was without vision. To her all was darkness.

"Tell me, Willie," she whispered, in a solemn voice. She was not really frightened, for many times before had the dead mother returned in the watches of the night to comfort her stricken children.

"Yes. Yes, she is coming now. Oh, mother! Mother!"

"What does she say, Willie?"

"Oh, she is beautiful. She is not crying. She is smiling. It is like the picture we saw of the angel. She looks so happy. Dear, dear mother! Now she is speaking. 'It is over', she says. 'It is all over'. She says it again. Now she beckons with her hand. We are to follow. She has moved to the door."

"Oh, Willie, I dare not."

"Yes, yes, she nods her head. She bids us fear nothing Now she has passed through the door. Come, Margery, come, or we shall lose her."

The two little mites crept across the room and Willie unlocked the door. The mother stood at the head of the stair beckoning them onwards. Step by step they followed her down into an empty kitchen. The woman seemed to have gone out. All was still in the house. The phantom still beckoned them on."

"We are to go out."

"Oh, Willie, we have no hats."

"We must follow, Madge. She is smiling and waving."

"Father will kill us for this."

"She shakes her head. She says we are to fear nothing. Come!"

They threw open the door and were in the street. Down the deserted court they followed the gleaming gracious presence, and through a tangle of low streets, and so out into the crowded rush of Tottenham Court Road. Once or twice amid all that blind torrent of humanity, some man or woman, blessed with the precious gift of discernment, would start and stare as if they were aware of an angel presence and of two little white-faced children who followed behind, the boy with fixed, absorbed gaze, the girl glancing ever in terror over her shoulder. Down the long street they passed, then again amid humbler dwellings, and so at last to a quiet drab line of brick houses.

The Land of Mist Page 69

Arthur Conan Doyle

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