The Box of Delights Read Online Free Page B

the afternoon gave a strangeness to the firelight that glowed in many
windows.
    From the cross-roads behind him a rider came cloppetting up, the horse slipping a little, the rider bent into a long white overall to keep the snow from blowing down his neck. ‘How
d’you do, Master Kay?’ the rider cried, checking his horse and looking down upon him. Kay did not recognise the man, but he noticed that his eyes were very bright. The man suddenly put
his right hand to his chin. The hand wore a pale wash-leather glove; outside the glove on the middle finger was a gold St Andrew’s Cross, set with garnets.
    ‘They tell me, Master Harker,’ the man said, ‘that Wolves are Running. If you see Someone,’ he added meaningly, ‘say Someone’s safe.’
    ‘I will,’ Kay said.
    ‘And, look out for fun, Master Harker,’ the man said, shaking up the horse and riding on. Kay watched him go. He went skittering a little sideways and champing on the bit. It seemed
to Kay that the man’s arms were hung with little silver chains which jangled. Later it seemed to him that it was not a horse and rider at all, but a great stag from the forest. Certainly the
figure that passed round the bend out of sight was a stag.
    ‘“If I see Someone,”’ Kay repeated, ‘“tell him that Someone’s safe.” I suppose he must mean the Punch and Judy man.’
    At this moment Kay caught sight of the village policeman coming from the Beast-Market, and putting on his oil-skin cape.
    ‘If you please,’ Kay said, ‘have you seen anything of a Punch and Judy man in the Beast-Market?’
    ‘Why, it’s Master Kay Harker,’ the policeman said. ‘Why, Master Kay, how you’ve grown. You are back for the holidays, I suppose. Now, a Punch and Judy man, now.
Why, I saw one that might be called such with his show on his back. Would it be a one with a brown dog, Master Harker?’
    ‘Yes,’ Kay said, ‘an Irish terrier.’
    ‘Well, I did see such an one,’ the policeman said. ‘He was down by Cherry Fields. He will be in one of the pubs, Master Kay, down by Lower Lock, sure to be. He wouldn’t
play in the snow and this bitter cold. It’s going to be a bad fall, by the look of it.’
    Kay thanked the policeman and walked on.
    The Beast-Market was empty of people, save for one man who had just loaded a pile of hurdles into a cart, and was now turning for home with a horse thankful to be going from the cold.
    ‘Please have you seen a Punch and Judy man?’ Kay called. The man was singing:
    ‘Though blind the seed, and dull the earth,
    Yet sweet shall be the flower.’
    The horse’s excitement, his song, and the noise of the great wheels on the paving kept him from hearing the question. He went on over the ridge and away.
    At the top of the ridge, Kay saw the woodland about the camp known as ‘King Arthur’s Court’ standing up black against the West. There was a stab of savage yellow and red over
the wood. Every tree stood out distinct and seemed very near. He thought that he had never seen a landscape look so awful.
    Kay went on to Lower Lock, which was a sort of double alley of very old houses near Tibbs’s Wharf where the barges were lying up for Christmas. The two alleys were known as Lockside and
Quayside. There was a brew-house at Lockside, and in between the two alleys was a little public-house known as the Lock and Key . A lot went on down at Tibbs’s Wharf, around the Lock
and Key . The bargemen used to come there, ‘just like pirates from foreign parts,’ so Ellen said, and would fight the landsmen for half-a-crown or a gallon of ale (or for the fun of
it if times were hard). Then the poachers used to bring their game there, and plan their big drives with the men from the city shops. Then there was cock-fighting, and sometimes dog-fighting; and
men would come in sometimes from the cities, to nobble a horse at the races, or to burgle a house, and so away. No matter at what time of the day or night you came near to Lower