ssion of a child when once aroused
in him rose higher and higher in his mind. When the lady sprang lightly
down, and held out her arms to receive him as he alighted, the little
fellow made a nervous leap clear of her, and stood shaking and quivering
with the effort, on his guard, and distrustful of any advance. "Nobody
is going to harm you, my little fellow," said the man, kindly enough:
while the lady asked why he was frightened, with laughter, which confused
and alarmed him more and more; for Geoff was accustomed to be taken
seriously, and did not understand being laughed at. He wanted to be
civil, notwithstanding, and was about to follow in-doors, plucking up
his courage, when a glance round, which showed him how high the walls
were, and that the gates had been closed, and that in the somewhat
strait inclosure inside there was no apparent outlet by which he could
communicate with the world in which his mother and Theo and everybody
he knew were left behind, brought a thrill of panic, which he could
not overcome, through him. As he paused, scared and frightened, on the
threshold, he saw at the farther end of the inclosure a door standing a
little ajar, at which some one had entered on foot. Geoff did not pause
to think again, but made for the opening with a sudden start, and, when
outside, ran like a hunted hare. He ran straight on seeing houses before
him where he knew there must be safety,--houses with no high walls,
cottages such as a small heart trusts in, be it beggar or prince. He
ran, winged with fear, till he got as far as Mrs. Bagley's shop. It was
not far, but he was unused to violent exertion, and his little body and
brain were both quivering with excitement and with the shock of his fall.
The dread of some one coming after him, of the house that looked like a
prison, of the strangeness of the circumstances altogether, subsided at
the sight of the village street, the church in the distance, the open
door of the little shop. All these things were utterly antagonistic to
ogres, incompatible with enchantresses. Geoff became lively again when
he reached the familiar and recognisable; and when he saw the cakes in
Mrs. Bagley's window, his want of a dinner became an overpowering
consciousness. He stopped himself, took breath, wiped his little hot
forehead, and went in in a very gentlemanly way, taking off his hat,
which was dusty and crushed with his fall, to the astonished old lady
behind the counter. "Would you m