Algernon Blackwood Read Online Free PDF Page B

pigeons wheeled and fluttered about the
grey square tower. The wind, the tower, the weather-stained old porch
—these had not changed. This sunshine and this turquoise sky were
still the same.
    The village stopped at the churchyard—significant boundary. No single
building ventured farther; the houses ran the other way instead,
pouring down the steep hill in a cataract of bricks and roofs towards
the station. The hill, once topped, and the churchyard left behind, he
entered the world of fields and little copses. It was just like going
through a gateway. It was a Gateway. The road sloped gently down for
half-a-mile towards the pair of big iron gates that barred the drive
up to the square grey house upon whose lawns he once had chased
butterflies, but from whose upper windows he once had netted—stars.
    The spell came over him very strongly then as he went slowly down that
road. The altered scale of distance confused him; the road had
telescoped absurdly; the hayfields were so small. At the turn lay the
pond with yellow duckweed and a bent iron railing that divided it to
keep the cows from crossing. Formerly, of course, that railing had
been put to prevent children drowning in its bottomless depths; all
ponds had been bottomless then, and the weeds had spread to entice the
children to a watery death. But now he could have jumped across it,
weed and railing too, without a run, and he looked in vain for the
shores that once had been so seductively far away. They were mere
dirty, muddy edges.
    This general shrinkage in space was very curious. But a similar
contraction, he realised, had taken place in time as well, for,
looking back upon his forty years, they seemed such a little thing
compared to the enormous stretch they offered when he had stood beside
this very pond and looked ahead. He wondered vaguely which was the
reality and which the dream. But his effort was not particularly
successful, and he came to no conclusion. Those years of strenuous
business life were like a few weeks, yet their golden results were in
his pockets. Those years of childhood had condensed into a jumble of
sunny hours, yet their golden harvest was equally in his heart. Time
and space were mere bits of elastic that could stretch or shrink as
thought directed, feeling chose. And now both thought and feeling
chose emphatically. He stepped back swiftly. His mind seemed filled
with stars and butterflies and childhood's figures of wonder.
Childhood took him prisoner.
    It was curious at first, though, how the acquired nature made a
struggle to assert itself, and the practical side of him, developed in
the busy markets of the world, protested. It was automatic rather, and
at best not very persistent; it soon died away. But, seeing the gravel
everywhere, he wondered if there might not be valuable clay about,
what labour cost, and what the nearest stations were for haulage; and,
seeing the hop-poles, he caught himself speculating what wood they
were made of, and what varnish would best prevent their buried points
from going rotten in this particular soil. There was a surge of
practical considerations, but quickly fading. The last one was stirred
by the dust of a leisurely butcher's cart. He had visions of a paste
for motor-roads, or something to lay dust ... but, before the dust had
settled again through the sunshine about his feet, or the rumble of
the cart died away into distance, the thought vanished like a
nightmare in the dawn. It ran away over the switchback of the years,
uphill to Midsummer, downhill to Christmas, jumping a ditch at Easter,
and a hedge at that terrible thing known as "Clipse of the Moon.' The
leaves of the elm trees whispered overhead. He was moving through an
avenue that led towards big iron gates beside a little porter's lodge.
He saw the hollies, and smelt the laurustinus. There lay the triangle
of uncut grass at the cross-roads, the long, grey, wooden palings
built upon moss-grown bricks; and against the sky he just caught