Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 86: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

82 - ALGERNON BLACKWOOD father; he knows I’ve got his stick. He wants it!” On the heels of this flashed instantly another amazing certainty. “He sleeps in there, He’s having dreams. That’s what being dead means.” | fe _.His first impulse, then, took the form of, “I must let Father know; it'll make him burst for joy”; but his second was for himself—to finish his adven- | ture. And it was this, naturally enough, that gained the day. He could tell his father later. His first duty was plainly to go through the door into the Other Wing. He must give the stick back to its owner. He must hand it back. The test of will and character came now. Tim had imagination, and so knew the meaning of fear: but there was nothing craven in him. He could howl and scream and stamp like any other person of his age when the occa- sion called for such behaviour, but such occasions were due to temper roused by a thwarted will, and the histrionics were half “pretended” to produce a cal- culated effect.. There was no one to thwart his will at present. He also knew how to be afraid of Nothing, to be afraid without ostensible.cause, that: is— which was merely “nerves.” He could have “the shudders” with the best of them. But, when a real thing faced him, Tim’s character emerged to meet it. He would clench his hands, brace his muscles, set his teeth—and wish to heaven he was bigger. But he would not flinch. Being imaginative, he‘lived’ the worst a dozen times before it happened, yet in the final crash he stood up like a man. He had that highest pluck—the courage of a sensitive temperament. And at this particular juncture, somewhat ticklish for a boy of eight or nine, it did not fail him. He lifted the cane and pushed the swinging door wide open. » Then he walked through it—into the Other Wing. : oe . —_— a he 3 » The green baize door swung to behind him; he was even sufficiently master of himself to turn and close it with a steady hand, because he did not care-to hear the series of muffled thuds its lessening swings would cause. But he realised clearly his position, knew he was doing a tremendous thing. Folding the cane between fingers very tightly clenched, he advanced bravely along the corridor that stretched before him.- And all fear left him from that moment, replaced, it seemed, by a mild and exquisite surprise. His footsteps made no sound, he walked on air; instead of darkness, or the twi- light he expected, a diffused and gentle light that seemed like the silver on the lawn when a half-moon sails a cloudless sky, lay everywhere. He knew his way, moreover, knew exactly where he was and whither he was going. The corridor was as familiar to him as the floor of his own bedroom; he recognised the shape and length Of it; it agreed exactly with the map he had constructed: Commcbooks«corn Pee