on this outbreak of garrotting. The little boy had heard his
elders talking about this garrotting, and had somehow mixed it up with
a story about hunchbacks and the fascinating local tales about "the wee
people," but the terror was a very real one for all that. The
hunchbacks baffled, there only remained a dark archway to pass, but
this archway led to the "Robbers' Passage." A peculiarly bloodthirsty
gang of malefactors had their fastnesses along this passage, but the
dread of being in the immediate neighbourhood of such a band of
desperadoes was considerably modified by the increasing light, as the
solitary oil-lamp of the passage was approached. Under the comforting
beams of this lamp the little boy would pause until his heart began to
thump less wildly after his deadly perils, and he would turn the handle
of the door and walk into the great hall as demurely as though he had
merely traversed an ordinary everyday passage in broad daylight. It was
very reassuring to see the big hall blazing with light, with the logs
roaring on the open hearth, and grown-ups writing, reading, and talking
unconcernedly, as though unconscious of the awful dangers lurking
within a few yards of them. In that friendly atmosphere, what with toys
and picture-books, the fearful experiences of the "Passage of Many
Terrors" soon faded away, and the return journey upstairs would be free
from alarms, for Catherine, the nursery-maid, would come to fetch the
little boy when his bedtime arrived.

Catherine was fat, freckled, and French. She was also of a very stolid
disposition. She stumped unconcernedly along the "Passage of Terrors,"
and any reference to its hidden dangers of robbers, hunchbacks, bears,
and crocodiles only provoked the remark, "Quel tas de betises!" In
order to reassure the little boy, Catherine took him to view the
stuffed crocodile reposing inertly under its marble slab. Of course,
before a grown-up the crocodile would pretend to be dead and stuffed,
but ... the little boy knew better. It occurred gleefully to him, too,
that the plump French damsel might prove more satisfactory as a repast
to a hungry saurian than a skinny little boy with thin legs. In the
cheerful nursery, with its fragrant peat fire (we called it "turf"),
the terrors of the evening were quickly forgotten, only to be renewed
with tenfold activity next evening, as the moment for making the
dreaded journey again approached.

The little boy had had the Pilgrim's Pr