Chapter 21 Chapter 20 What the Angel Said

That Tuesday night Tom wondered how he was going to find Hattie—was she still lying in bed wounded, or was she moving about in the garden again, or was she already trying the tantalizing social pastimes James had suggested? Tom was prepared for the change in Hatty, and when he opened the garden door, he was startled by the change of seasons.It was the depths of winter outside—no longer the dull, gray, sweltering heat of summer, but a snow that had just fallen, and everything was sparkling.Every tree, every bush, every kind of flower was covered with snow, only the deep recesses in the yew trees were not covered with snow, and they looked at Tom like dark, deep eyes. .

In a way, this weather is just as perfect as previous summers. There was silence: Tom held his breath, stunned by what he saw.At this moment, a black waterfowl—probably having to leave the creek to find food in the garden because of the freezing weather—appeared from a bush near the lawn.With its head down, it nervously walked and stopped, but its speed was unhurried. It gently stepped across the snow-covered lawn, and disappeared under the bushes again. The movement woke Tom from his stupor.He looked around and found that besides the shallow, three-toed footprints of the black water chicken, there were other footprints on the snow.Someone's feet had gone out of the garden gate and followed the path, across the corner of the lawn, around the conservatory, towards the pond.Tom decided at once that they were Hattie's footprints, and followed them.

He followed Hatty's footsteps around the conservatory, and the pond appeared in front of him.Hattie was there.The pond was frozen to ice, and the snow had been swept off one side: Hattie was skating in this clearing—if that counted as skating.She put a chair in the conservatory in front of her and pushed the skates forward, panting loudly because of too much effort and concentration.When Tom called her, she turned her head, beaming with joy. "Ah, Tom!" She staggered toward the edge of the pond, and then stopped, with her toes turned inward, as if the skates would have darted off in the opposite direction of their own accord.

"Harty," said Tom, "I want you—you promised—" "But you've grown thin!" said Hatty, frowning. "Thin?" said Tom. "No, I'm fat." He knew he must be, because Aunt Gwen had been fattening him up at all costs lately, and she was very pleased with the results. "I didn't mean that, I meant thin," Hatty said, and then, suddenly looking terrified, added, "Oh, no, I didn't mean that either—at least, I didn't know what I meant either, Anyway—” "Never mind," said Tom impatiently, "I just want you to help me figure out what that picture on the grandfather clock means." Seeing Hatty hesitate, he added, "You said you'd help me of."

"Did I say that?" "The time you fell from our tree house, we talked about it later." "Oh, that was a long time ago! Since you've been waiting so long, Tom, can't you just wait a little longer? You must know now? You'd better watch me skate first, won't you?" She was impatient. Patiently told Tom how quickly she was improving at skating, and how soon she would be skating with the others—with Hubert, James, and Edgar, and Bertie Cordlin , the Chapman girls, Barty Jr., and all the others. "Don't you like skating, Tom?" she asked at last. "Have you ever learned?"

"Yes," said Tom, "but now, Hatty, as you promised, go and unblock the grandfather clock for me, and let me see what the picture means!" Hatty sighed, sat down in the conservatory chair, took off her skates and skates, put on her usual shoes, and walked with Tom toward the big house.On the way Tom seemed to hear her say that the interpretation of the picture was a revelation—but he might have misheard. In the hall Hatty stood before the grandfather clock and listened attentively for a while. "Aunt may be upstairs." She turned the key in the keyhole and opened the pendulum case.Tom glanced into the pendulum case as she fumbled for the latch that would open the clock face.He saw that it was dark and cobwebbed, and then he saw the pendulum swinging back and forth with the ticking of the great clock.Beneath the pendulum was a flat, gilded metal disc: it shone like the sun as it swung from side to side.Tom saw its gilt surface carved with ornate cursive letters.Although the pendulum keeps swinging.He could see, too, that it said: "There Are No More Days."

"No more time?" asked Tom in surprise. "Yes," Hatty said, as she worked on the unfamiliar latch, "these are the words." "But what if time is no longer there?" "No, no! You don't understand. Wait—" At last she found the latch and flung it open, and the door of the clock-dial popped out.She pointed out to Tom the line of writing, very low under the wide-spread feet of the angel with the book. "Look! I thought it was the Book of Revelation, but I can't remember which chapter or verse it was." Tom read: "Revelation, Chapter Ten, Verses 1-6." He repeated it aloud, trying to get it in his head.Just then Hatty said, "Hush! Is there something going on upstairs?" She shut the clock-bell door again in a panic, and urged Tom out into the garden.

"Revelation, Chapter Ten, Verses 1-6," Tom muttered as he walked. "I'd better get my Bible and look it up for you," Hatty said.But she seemed very reluctant to go into the big house and upstairs again. Then Tom remembered the "Bible" that Abel kept in the heating room, so they went there.Tom noticed that Hatty opened the door with ease now: she could reach the square iron top of the door without even standing on tiptoe.Apparently she had grown quite a bit since Tom first met her in the garden. The inside of the heated room in winter looks completely different from before.A high fire was burning in the stove, heating the water in the heating pipes of the conservatory, and the small room was stuffy and hot, and was glowing red with the light of the fire.Hatty found the Bible in no time, and brought it to Tom.

She turned the pages of the book and said softly to herself: "...The Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation is the last part of the Bible." Hatty turned to the Revelation of St. John now, and Tom read the words over her arm.Just then there was a soft sound--the sound of a pair of feet on the snow--and both looked up: Abel was coming round the corner of the hazel stump.He might have come to poke the stove, or perhaps—for he had a long-handled twig broom in his hand—to help Hatty sweep the snow off the rest of the pond. He stood there dumbfounded. Hattie misunderstood the startled look on Abel's face. She thought Abel was staring at the Bible when in fact he was staring at Tom—or, more accurately, at Tom with the Bible. "Abel," Hatty said uneasily, "are you mad? We--I mean, I, of course, I--I want to look up something in the Bible, soon. "

Abel was still staring. "I'm very sorry if you objected," Hatty finished, waiting for his reaction. "No...no..." He seemed to be clearing his mind, "There is 'truth' in that book, and there is 'salvation of the soul'. Anyone who reads this book—no, they should never To hell." He touched a lock of hair that hung over his forehead, as if to offer an apology at the wrong time, but Tom knew he was consciously apologizing, apologizing to him.Then, Abel seemed unwilling to disturb them any more, turned and left. They kept searching in the Bible, and at last Hatty found the verses of that chapter.

"And I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, clothed with clouds, with a rainbow on his head, his face like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire. He held a little scroll in his hand, which was open. He stamped his feet on the ground and cried out like a lion roaring. At the end of his shouting, seven thunders uttered their voices. After the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write this when I heard a voice from heaven saying: "'Seal what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it.' "The angel that I saw walking on the sea and on the earth lifted up his right hand toward heaven, and swears by him who made the sky and what is in it, and the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, forever and ever. Said: 'There will be no more days.'' When Tom had finished reading, his mind was full of clouds and rainbows, and fire and thunder, and the splendor of all this combined--probably as it had been in the mind of the unknown clock-dial painter many years ago. Same. But Tom understood nothing, and he told Hatty so. "It's really puzzling," agreed Hattie. "I don't think anyone knows what it really means. The Book of Revelation is full of angels and monsters and inexplicable words. That's it." "But what does that last line—'There are no more days'—mean?" Tom pursued. Sworn to say that too—he swore he would not have time any more. What did he mean by that?" "Perhaps it refers to the sounding of the Trumpet of Judgment Day—the end of the world is coming." Hatty said vaguely.Tom saw that she was not going to be of much help to him.She had closed the Bible and took a step back to send it back to the heating room.She looked in the direction of the pond, and her eyes lit up immediately—Abel was indeed sweeping away the snow from other places in the pond for her. "There will be no more days..." murmured Tom, and he thought of all the clocks in the world not ticking or tolling, drowned out by the Trumpet of Judgment Day, and stopped forever. "There's no more time..." repeated Tom.He vaguely felt that these six words seemed to contain endless possibilities. Hatty had put the Bible back. "Will you come with me to the pond to watch me skate, Tom?" "No," said Tom, "I'll think about it." With heavy thoughts he turned away from Hatty, from all that frost and glisten in the garden which he loved so much that prevented him from thinking, went into the big house, went upstairs to bed.