The Box of Delights Read Online Free

What do you mean by pistols? What sort of pistols?’
    ‘Oh, the usual sort of pistols: revolvers: she got a lot of them from some robbers once. She’s sure to have some still. She says she couldn’t live without pistols now. She
shoots old electric light bulbs dangling from a clothes-line.’
    ‘She shall shoot none at Seekings, I trust.’
    They sped on towards Seekings. ‘I say,’ Kay said, ‘how far is Hope-under-Chesters from here?’
    ‘Thirty or thirty-five miles.’
    ‘Do you know it at all?’
    ‘No, not more than one can know by passing.’
    ‘I thought it looked a wonderful sort of place. I’d like to go exploring there.’
    ‘It’s deep, wild country,’ she said, ‘but it is just a little far away for winter exploring. Leave it till the summer.’
    ‘When I grow up,’ Kay said, ‘I mean to explore all the wild bits left in England.’
    ‘There aren’t very many,’ she said, ‘but the Chesters are the wildest near here.’
    ‘Do you think any of the people are pagans, there, still?’
    ‘Not at heart, the Bishop says, but a good many in outward observance.’
    ‘There’s some snow,’ he said. ‘I do hope we shall have a real deep snow, so that we can make a snowman.’
    ‘The paper says that there will be snow, and the glass is falling.’
    As they entered the little street, it was so dark with the promise of snow that the shops were being lighted. They were all decked out with holly, mistletoe, tinsel, crackers, toys, oranges,
model Christmas trees with tapers and glass balls, apples, sweets, sucking pigs, sides of beef, turkeys, geese, Christmas cakes and big plum puddings.
    ‘I say, I do love Christmas,’ Kay said. ‘You’ll have to give me a whole lot of tin presently, please, for I’ll have to get four extra presents for the Joneses. And
I wonder if I could get Jane to give me a plum pudding that I could give to that old man? I wouldn’t like him to have no plum pudding on Christmas. And would you mind stopping at
Bob’s?’
    ‘Jane will give you a plum pudding,’ she said, as she stopped the car in the busy market-place. There were open-air booths there selling all manner of matters for Christmas; chiefly
woollen mufflers, nailed boots, cloth caps, hedger’s gloves and the twenty-eight-pound cheeses, known as Tatchester Double Stones. The keepers of the stalls were flogging their arms against
the cold; some of them were packing up before the snow began. Kay passed through these in some excitement. ‘Of course, it’s all rot,’ he said. ‘How can he know that there
will be a woman near the door there . . . And yet, there is one, sure enough . . .’
    Bob was the baker and confectioner of the little town. His shop was always sweet and pleasant with the smell of new bread. His window at this Christmas time was a sight to see. In it were two
Christmas cakes, four storeys high, in pink and white sugar, both crowned with little dancers in tinsel who went round and round, each holding little electric light bulbs. All round these cakes
were the most marvellous crackers that eye ever saw or child pulled. But Kay was not thinking of cake or crackers. He looked only at the figure of a woman who stood near the shopwindow, with her
back to the wall, staring at the man who was calling at a near-by booth:
    ‘The very best warm caps and mufflers
    As worn by the great Explorer Shackleton.
    The North Pole caps and mufflers.
    As worn by Airmen.
    North and South Pole caps and mufflers.’
    She was plaided over the head and shoulders with a grey plaid shawl. Now, as Kay drew near, the woman, who had been motionless, stirred. Her right hand came from underneath the
plaid, drew the plaid closer about her, and held it there. Her hand was wearing what looked like a chamois-leather glove. On the middle finger outside the glove, and, therefore, very conspicuous,
was a ring such as the old man had worn, a heavy gold ring arranged in a St Andrew’s Cross and set with garnets. At