At this point it was all that he could do to keep back the tears. His teeth were chattering, he had a crick in his back, he was very cold, the heel of one shoe rubbed his foot. And he was frightened! Bet your life but he was frightened! He hadn’t known that it would be like this, so silent and yet so full of sound, so dark and yet so light and alive with strange quivering lights, so cold and yet so warm with an odd, pressing heat! There were no lamps lit in the town below him (all lights out at ten o’clock in the Polchester of thirty years ago), and the cathedral loomed up before him a heavy black mass, threatening to fall upon him like the mountain in the Bible. Now the trees were coming to an end—here was a house and there another. A light in one window, but, for the rest, the houses quite dead like coffins. He came into Bodger Street, past the funny old-fashioned turnstile that led into Canon’s Yard over the cobble-stones of that ancient square, through the turnstile at the other end and into the Precincts. He was there! Shivering and frightened, but there! He had kept his word. As he crossed the grass a figure moved forward from the shadow of the cathedral and came to meet him. It was Tommy Winchester. It immensely cheered Jeremy to see him; it also cheered him to see that if he was frightened Tommy was a great deal more so. Tommy’s teeth were chattering so that he could scarcely speak, but he managed to say that it was beastly cold, and that he had upset a jug of water getting out of his bedroom, and that a dog had barked at him all the way along the Precincts, and that he was sure his father would beat him. They were joined a moment later by another shivering mortal, Bartlett. A more unhappy trio never met together in the world’s history. They were too miserable for conversation, but simply stood huddled together under the great buttress by the west door and waited for the clock to strike. The only thing that Bartlett said was: “I bet Sampson doesn’t come!” At that Jeremy’s heart gave a triumphant leap. How splendid it would be if the Dean’s Ernest funked it! Of course he _would_ funk it, and would have some long story about his door being closed or having a headache, some lie or other! Nevertheless, they strained their eyes across the dark wavering lake of the Precincts watching for him. “I’m so cold,” Tommy said through his chattering teeth. Then suddenly, as though struck by a gun: “I’m going to sneeze!” And he did sneeze, an awful shattering, devastating sound with which the cathedral, and indeed the whole town, seemed to shake. That was an awful moment. The boys stood, holding their breath, waiting for all the black houses to open their doors and all the townsmen to turn out in their nightshirts with lanterns (just as they do in the _Meistersinger_, although that, of course, the boys did not know) crying: “Who’s that who sneezed? Where did the sneeze come from? What was that sneeze?”