Jeremy and Hamlet: A Chronicle of Certain Incidents in the Lives of a Boy, a Dog, and a Country TownWalpole, Hugh
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Jeremy and Hamlet: A Chronicle of Certain Incidents in the Lives of a Boy, a Dog, and a Country Town
Walpole, Hugh
Boys -- Fiction; Dogs -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
He walked down the side aisle looking at every tablet, every monument,
every window, with a new interest. The aliveness of the church walked
with him; it was as though, as he passed them, they gathered themselves
and followed in a long, grey, silent procession after him. He reached
the side chapel where was the tomb of the Black Bishop. There he lay,
safely enclosed behind the golden grill, his gauntleted hands folded on
his chest, his spurs on his heels, angels supporting his head, and grim
defiance in his face.
Jeremy stared and stared and stared again. About him and around him and
above him the cathedral seemed to grow vaster and vaster. Clouds of dusk
filled it; the colour from the windows and the tombs and the great gold
trumpeting angels stained the shadows with patches of light.
Jeremy was cold and shivered; he looked up, and there, opposite him,
standing on the raised steps leading to the choir, was the Black Bishop.
He was there just as Jeremy had fancied him, standing, his legs a little
apart, one mailed fist resting on his sword, his thick black beard
sweeping his breast-plate. He was staring at Jeremy and seemed to be
challenging him to move.
The boy could only stare back. Some spirit in him seemed to bid him
remember that this was true, whatever soon might disprove it, that the
past was the present and the present the past, that nothing ever died,
that nothing must frighten him because it survived, and that he must
take his share in his inheritance.
All that he really thought was: “I wonder if he’ll come nearer.” But he
did not. Jeremy himself moved and suddenly the whole cathedral stirred,
the mist breaking, steps sounding on the flags, voices echoing. No
figure was there—only shadow. But here was that horrid fat man, the
precentor, who sometimes came to their house to tea.
“Why, my boy, what are you doing here?” he asked in his big superior
voice.
“I came in,” said Jeremy, still staring at the steps of the choir, “just
for a moment.”
The precentor put his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “That’s right, my lad,”
he said. “Study our great church and all its history. You cannot begin
too young. Father well, and mother well?”
“Yes,” said Jeremy, looking back behind him as he turned away. Oh! but
his face had been fine! So strong, like a rock, his sword had shone and
his gauntlets! How tall he had been, and how mighty his chest.
“That’s right! That’s right. Remember me to them when you get home. You
must come up and play with my little girls one of these afternoons.”
“I’m going back to school,” Jeremy said, “day after to-morrow.”
“Well, well. That’s a pity, that’s a pity. Another day, perhaps. Good
day to you. Good day.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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