Merry Go Round Read Online Free PDF Page A

step and smiling eyes walked forwards.
    At first he was a little shy, but presently the spirit of the place, with its dark chapels and stone knights recumbent, the tracery of its jewelled windows, loosened his tongue, and he poured forth his boyish enthusiasm with a passion that astonished Bella. His delight communicated itself to her so that
she found a new enchantment in the things she knew so well; his glowing poetic fervour seemed to gild the old walls with magic sunshine; and, as if those prisoned stones were strangely thrown open to heaven, they gained something of the outer freshness of green lawns and flowers and leafy trees: the warm breath of the west wind stole among the Gothic columns, lending a new splendour to the ancient glass, and to the groinery a more living charm. The boy's cheeks were flushed with excitement, and Bella's heart beat as she listened, enchanted with his pleasure; he gesticulated a good deal, and under the movements of his long exquisite hands (her own, for all her well-bred ancestry, were short, thick-set and ungraceful) the past of the mighty church rose before her, so that she heard the clank of steel when knights in armour marched over the still flags, and saw with vivid eyes that historic scene when the gentlemen of Kent in gaily hose and doublet, the ladies with ruff and farthingale, assembled to praise the God of storm and battle because Howard of Effingham had scattered the armada of King Philip.
    'Now let's go into the cloister,' he said eagerly.
    They sat on a stone parapet looking out on the cool green sward where in time past Augustine monks had wandered meditative; there was a dainty gracefulness about the arcade, with the slender columns, their capitals delicately carved, recalling somewhat the cloisters of Italy, which, notwithstanding their cypress-trees and their crumbling decay, suggest a peaceful happiness rather than the Northern sense of stricken sin. The boy, though he knew the magic of the South only from books and pictures, was quick to catch the impression, and his face expressed a rather pitiful longing. When Bella told him she had travelled in Italy, he questioned her eagerly, and his young enthusiasm gave a warmth to her answers which with any other, fearing to be ridiculous, she would carefully have suppressed. But the scene before them was very lovely; in massive splendour the tall central tower looked down upon them, and its stately beauty entered their souls, so that the youth, though he had never seen the monasteries of Tuscany, was comforted. They sat for a while in silence.
    'You must be a very important person,' he said at last, turning to her, 'or we should never be allowed to remain here so long.'
    'I dare say to a verger I am,' she answered, smiling. 'It must be late.'
    'Won't you come and have tea with me?' he asked. 'I have rooms just opposite the cathedral gate.' Then, catching Bella's look, he added with a smile: 'My name is Herbert Field, and I'm eminently respectable.'
    She hesitated, for it seemed odd to drink tea with a youth whom she had never seen before, but she was mortally afraid of seeming prudish; and a visit to his rooms, whereby she might learn more about him, would add a finish to the adventure. Finally her sense decided her that living life, not mere existence, for once lay under her hand.
    'Do come,' he said; 'I want to show you my books.'
    And with a little persuasive motion he touched her hand.
    'I should like it very much.'
    He took her to a tiny room over a chemist's shop, simply furnished as a study, with a low ceiling and panelled walls: these were decorated with a few photographs of pictures by Pietro Perugino, and there were a good many books.
    'It's rather poky, I'm afraid, but I live here, so that I can always see the gateway. I think it's one of the finest things in Tercanbury.'
    He made her sit down while he boiled water and cut bread-and-butter. Bella, at first somewhat intimidated by the novelty of the affair, was a little