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 Progress read to him on Sundays.  He envied “Christian,” who not only usually enjoyed the benefit of some reassuring companion, such as “Mr. Interpreter,” or “Mr. Greatheart,” to help him on his road, but had also been expressly told, “Keep in the midst of the path, and no harm shall come to thee.”  This was distinctly comforting, and Christian enjoyed another conspicuous advantage.  All the lions he encountered in the course of his journey were chained up, and could not reach him provided he adhered to the Narrow Way.  The little boy thought seriously of tying a rolled-up tablecloth to his back to represent Christian’s pack; in his white suit, he might perhaps then pass for a pilgrim, and the strip of carpet down the centre of the passage would make an admirable Narrow Way, but it all depended on whether the crocodile, bears, and hunchbacks knew, and would observe the rules of the game.  It was most improbable that the crocodile had ever had the Pilgrim’s Progress read to him in his youth, and he might not understand that the carpet representing the Narrow Way was inviolable territory.  Again, the bears might make their spring before they realised that, strictly speaking, they ought to consider themselves chained up.  The ferocious little hunchbacks were clearly past praying for; nothing would give them a sense of the most elementary decency.  On the whole, the safest plan seemed to be, on reaching the foot of the stairs, to keep an eye on the distant lamp and to run to it as fast as short legs and small feet could carry one.  Once safe under its friendly beams, panting breath could be recovered, and the necessary stolid look assumed before entering the hall.