第80章 HAMLET WAITS(2)

Outside Poole's bookshop there was,of course,Mr.Mockridge.Mr.Mockridge was the poorest of the Canons;so poor,that it had become a proverb in the place:"As poor as Mr.Mockridge";and also another proverb,I am afraid,from the same source:"As dirty as Mr.Mockridge."He was a very long,thin man,with a big,pointing nose,coloured red,not from indigestion,and most certainly not from drink,but simply,I think,because the wind caught it.His passion was for books,and he might be seen every afternoon,between three and four o'clock,bending over Poole's 2d.box,a dirty handkerchief flying out of the tail of his long,black coat,and a green,bulging umbrella,pointing outwards,under his arm,to the infinite danger of all the passers-by.He was so commonplace a figure to Jeremy that,on ordinary days,he was shrouded by an invisibility of tradition.But,to-day,he was fresh and strange."He'll be here to-morrow poking his nose into that box just the same,and Ishall be--"

Then,on the outskirts of the Market Place,Jeremy paused and looked about him.There was all the usual business of the place--the wooden trestles with the flowerpots,the apple-woman under her umbrella,the empty cattle-pens,where the cows and sheep stood on market days,and behind them the dark,vaulted arches of the actual market,now empty and deserted.Bathed in sunlight it lay very quiet and still;some pigeons pecking at grain,a dog or two,and children playing round the empty cattle-stalls.From the hill above the square the Cathedral boomed the hour,and all the pigeons rose in a flight,hovered,then slowly settled again.

Jeremy sighed,and,with a strange pain at his heart that he could not analyse,moved up the hill.The High Street is,of course,the West End of Polchester,and in the morning,between ten and one,every lady in the town may be seen at her shopping.It had always been the ambition of the Cole children to be taken for their walk up High Street in the morning;but it was an ambition very rarely gratified,because they stopped so often and were always in everyone's way.And here was Jeremy,at this gay hour,a trolling up the High Street all by himself he lifted his head,pushed out his chest,and looked the world in the face.He might meet the Dean's Ernest at any moment.The first people whom he saw were the Misses Cragg--always known,of course,as "The Cragg girls."They were,perhaps,Polchester's most constant and obvious feature.There were four of them,all as yet unmarried,all with brown-red faces and hard straw hats,short skirts,and tremendous voices;forerunners,in fact,of a type now almost universal.They played croquet and lawn-tennis,were prominent members of the Archery Club,and hunted when their fathers would let them.They were terrible Dianas to Jeremy.He had met one of them once at a Children's Dance,and she had whirled him around until,with a terrified scream,he broke,howling,from her arms,and hid himself in the large bosom of the Jampot.He was always ashamed of this memory,and he could never see them without blushing;but,to-day,he seemed less afraid of them,and actually,when he passed them,touched his hat and looked them in the face.They all smiled and nodded to him,and when they had gone he was so deeply astonished at this adventure that he had to stop and consider himself.If the Craggs were nothing to him,what might he not face?

"Come here,Hamlet.How dare you?"he ordered in so sharp and military a voice that Hamlet,who had merely cast a most innocent glance at a disdainful and conceited white poodle,looked up at his master with surprise.

Nevertheless,his new-found hardihood received,in the very midst of his self-congratulation,its severest test.He stumbled into the very path of the Dean's wife.

Mrs.Dean could never have seemed to anyone a large woman,but to Jeremy she had always been a terror.She was thick and hard,like a wall,and wore the kind of silken clothes,that rustled--like the whispering of a whole meeting of frightened clergymen's wives--as she moved.She had a hard,condemnatory voice,and she spoke as though she were addressing an assembly;but,worst of all,she had black,beetling eyebrows,and these frightened Jeremy into fits.He did not,of course,know that the poor lady suffered continually from nervous headaches.He suddenly heard that voice in his ear:

"Good morning,Jeremy,and where are you off to so early?"Mrs.Dean was never so awful as when she was jolly,and Jeremy,caught up by the eyebrows as though they had been hooks and hung thus in mid-air for all the street to laugh at,nearly lost his command of his natural tongue.He found his voice just in time:

"To Ponting's,"he said.

"All alone?Ah,no,I see you have your little dog.Nice little dog.

And how's your mother?"

"She's quite well,thank you."

"That's right--that's right.We haven't seen you lately.You must come up to tea with your sisters.I'm afraid you won't find Ernest,he's gone back to school--but I dare say you're not too big to play with little girls."Jeremy felt some triumph at his heart.

"I'm going to school to-morrow,"he said.But if he expected Mrs.

Dean to be pitiful at this statement he was greatly mistaken.

"Are you,indeed?Such a pity you couldn't have gone with Ernest--but he'd be senior to you,of course.Good-bye.Good-bye.Give my love to your mother,"and she pounded her way along.