XXIII. A DREADFUL ADVENTURE.

The more I saw of Marc the better I liked him. Every day I respected and admired him more. I secretly made him the model which I did all I could to copy. In every situation which troubled and puzzled me in my character of schoolboy, I would ask myself the question, “Now in my place what would Marc do?” and that decided me.

One night when my father was reading his newspaper in the dining-room, I sat beside my mother talking quietly to her, and, as was my wont, extolling my hero Marc: for the hundredth time did I draw his picture in vivid word-painting for my mother’s edification. She listened as usual and smiled. Presently I noticed that she began looking about her as if she had lost something. She searched in her work-basket, on the floor, in the table drawers, and at last she tapped her forehead and said: “To be sure! I remember now, I must have left them in the garden.”

“What is it, mamma?” I asked.

“My scissors; I went into the garden this afternoon and was working there. I must have left them on the bench, or perhaps they fell under it.”

She turned to go out of the room; as she did so I followed softly, and without her seeing me I opened the door which led from the corridor into the garden and went out. It was very dark. I saw little squares of light thrown through the kitchen window on the gravel; and that seemed to be the only light I could see anywhere. There was no moon, and no stars. I hesitated for a moment, one moment only, and then I said to myself, “What would Marc do? He would go and find his mother’s scissors, I am sure; I will go then: yes, I will certainly go.” But as I made an uncertain and trembling step forward, my courage almost forsook me: it seemed as if it was not I walking there in the dark. I heard the loud beating of my heart, each throb was painful! I heard a surging in my ears and I held my breath involuntarily. All sorts of vague forms floated before my eyes. Something, surely, moved amongst the dead leaves to the right, I thought. I passed by quickly. But something is surely stealing along at the top of the wall to the left? Here I stopped, and waited a moment. What could it be? Something, I felt certain, was watching me, following every movement! However, on I went, and arrived at last, more dead than alive, at the wooden seat under the large cherry-tree. I passed my hand rapidly over the seat—no! the scissors were not there. “They must, then, be upon the ground,” said I to myself, and I said again, in a whisper, “What is easier than to pick them up? I must of course feel for them under the seat. Of course I must pick them up.”

It was very easy to talk of picking them up; but how was I to do it? If I stooped, surely that mysterious something that had certainly been stealthily following me, would pounce out upon my back. And if it should be hidden behind the seat! If it should jump into my face! Horrible! Then, too, what a dreadful feeling it would be to pass one’s hand over the earth without being able to see what one touched! who could tell what dirty, horrible, slimy and cold creature I might not come in contact with? Without trying to invent any new monster to terrify myself with, supposing a toad should touch my hand!

But I now remembered Marc, and I determined I would be worthy of his friendship. In desperation I stooped suddenly and placed my hand on the gravel under the seat. I uttered a piercing cry and lost consciousness.