Between the sheets he recovered contentment. He gurgled exultantly at this last and only satisfying exploit of the day. He dreamed lazily of the blind rage of the Peels.... It must have been half-past ten when his wife came up to bring him some hot gruel. He had been asleep. She put the cup by the bedside and rearranged his pillow. “Feeling better?” she asked. “Yes. I’m right,” he murmured. She sat on a chair by the side of the bed and after a few minutes remarked: “You’ve missed an excitement while you’ve been asleep.” “Oh?” “Yes. A fire!” “A fire?” “The Peels came home about an hour and a half ago and found the place on fire at the back.” “Oh?” “Their cook Lizzie has been over. She said some straw near the wash-house must have started it. It’s burnt out the wash-house and both the fowl-houses. She says Mr. Peel says he don’t care very much because he was heavily insured for the lot. But the funny thing is, the fowls wasn’t insured and they’ve found the whole lot down the field on the rabbit-hutches. Somebody must have got in and let the whole lot out. It was a fine thing to do, or else the poor things would have been burnt up. What’s the matter, Ned? Is the gruel too hot?” THEM OTHERS THEM OTHERS I It is always disturbing to me when things fall into pattern form, when in fact incidents of real life dovetail with each other in such a manner as to suggest the shape of a story. A story is a nice neat little thing with what is called a “working-up” and a climax, and life is a clumsy, ungraspable thing, very incomplete in its periods, and with a poor sense of climax. In fact, death—which is a very uncertain quantity—is the only definite note it strikes, and even death has an uncomfortable way of setting other things in motion. If, therefore, in telling you about my friend Mrs. Ward, I am driven to the usual shifts of the story-teller, you must believe me that it is because this narrative concerns visions: Mrs. Ward’s visions, my visions, and your visions. Consequently I am dependent upon my own poor powers of transcription to mold these visions into some sort of shape, and am driven into the position of a story-teller against my will. The first vision, then, concerns the back view of the Sheldrake Road, which, as you know, butts on to the railway embankment near Dalston Junction station. If you are of an adventurous turn of mind you shall accompany me, and we will creep up to the embankment together and look down into these back yards. (We shall be liable to a fine of 40/-, according to a bye-law of the Railway Company, for doing so, but the experience will justify us.)