Chapter 25 Chapter 24 Brothers Meet

That Thursday night, Peter had just fallen asleep for a while and then woke himself up dissatisfied: the dream he had was completely wrong.Night after night he had dreamed of himself with Tom, and of the garden that Tom had described in his letters.Tonight, knowing nothing of Tom's plans, he wished all the more to see what Tom was doing in his imagination--but tonight he had not dreamed of the garden at all.What he had dreamed just now was a very tall gray thing, like a large ship at anchor, towering over the surrounding water level.At first he didn't know what he was seeing, but when he opened his eyes from his sleep, he saw the postcard of the Erie clock tower.The postcard was placed on the mantelpiece, illuminated by the light of the street lamp, and the general idea could be seen vaguely.

Peter closed his eyes again, he did not want to see the bell tower of the cathedral.He concentrated on imagining what Tom would do at this very moment.At the same time he began to count silently, trying to make himself fall asleep quickly.He did not count the sheep over the fence, as he usually did, because there were neither sheep nor fences in the garden.He just counted the numbers in his head. The monotonous and rhythmic numbers slowly sent Peter to sleep.He was delighted by the vague feeling that he was looking for Tom eagerly, and it was needless to say that he would soon see the garden.He just had to follow Tom...he was really asleep by this time.Even in his sleep he continued to count numbers, which now became the number of something concrete.The garden is still not found.He counted the steps--swirling upward steps in a gray bell tower, though in his sleep he saw with chagrin that it was still the bell tower of Ely Cathedral.

There are nearly three hundred steps—two hundred and eighty-six, to be exact—to the top of the bell tower of Ely Cathedral.At least, that's what Tom got when he walked and counted.He was at the end of the group of tourists, and in front of him was Hattie. Finally, they ducked through a small door and onto the lead roof of the bell tower.This is the highest place here.From the low parapet they looked down and saw the roof of the great nave of the church below.Looking beyond the rows of roofs in Erie, they saw black chimney pots, from which smoke curled up to keep warm in winter.The trail of smoke was no longer vertically upward, because there was a little wind in all directions.The faint sound of the wind, and the puffing and puffing of a train at the Erie Station, was all they could hear.

As soon as they saw the town, they saw the outside of the town, because Erie was a small place.They saw the creek running down one side of the town.Their eyes traced downstream, and saw a white expanse of ice, winding and twisting, glittering in the setting sun, towards Little Harbor, Denver, Kings Lynn and the sea, disappearing into the distant mist and dusk.Then they looked back over the way they had come all the way from Castleford: what a distance, a shocking distance. The clock tower keeper pointed to something in the distance and said it was Castleford's steeple.He then guided the tourists to the other side to look in the direction of Peterborough.Hatty passed with the others.

Tom remained where he was, still looking beyond Castleford.He was alone on this side of the roof now, but then he had a strong feeling that he was not alone.Someone had just come out of the small door of the spiral staircase and was standing next to him at this moment.Before he even turned around, he knew it was Peter. Hatty turned from the other side of the roof, looking for Tom.It turned out that instead of one boy, she saw two: they looked alike, and wore identical pajamas.The second boy looked as unreal and unreal as she had noticed with Tom lately.She was almost certain that she could see through the two men to the retaining wall of the clock tower.She stared at them in surprise.

"But, Tom, where's the garden?" complained Peter dissatisfied. "I thought you were with Hatty, in the garden." Tom answered him immediately, for he had an intuitive sense that time was short, and getting shorter. "The garden is where it is," he said simply, waving his arm in Castleford's direction. "Here is Hattie." "Where? I can't see her," said Peter. Tom pointed to him, and Peter's face was on Hattie across the roof--she was the only one of the tourists looking in their direction. "There!" said Tom, "opposite you—the one with the skates."

"But,"—Peter said angrily—"that's not Hattie: it's a grown woman!" Tom stared at Hattie as if he was seeing her for the first time, and he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. "It's time,"—cries the bell-keeper—"to go down, please, ladies and gentlemen!" The small group of tourists gathered in front of the small door of the spiral staircase and went in one by one.Only Hattie remained where he was, and the two boys. "But she's a grown-up," repeated Peter. Hatty started walking towards them, and Tom felt Peter shrink back.

"Who is he? Who is he?" Hatty asked Tom in a low voice.Tom still didn't have to look back to know that Peter had disappeared from him—slowly fading and fading, disappearing. "He looks just like you," said Hatty in a low voice, "and doesn't look as real as you do." "Let's go, ma'am!" shouted the Clock Tower Keeper, looking at Hatty curiously, probably thinking that she was too young to be confused, talking to herself. "He's my brother Peter," stammered Tom, "but he's real, Hatty. He's as real as I am. You admit I'm real, Hatty."

"Do you still want to go home tonight, miss?" asked the administrator impatiently. Hearing what he said, Hattie suddenly picked up his head and looked around: the sun had already set, and the windows of every house in the town were lit with orange lights; in a place farther than the town, the swamp had turned into a piece of darkness , I can no longer see the winding river. "It's so late," she cried out in panic, "yes, we have to hurry up!" "Us?" said the Superintendent. "You've got to hurry! I've been waiting for you—" Hattie began to hurry downstairs, Tom following her.The administrator was still muttering there, then locked the door and followed them down.

It was pitch black in the bell tower, as if night had fallen completely.It seemed to Tom that the darkness of the night made Hatty's anxiety to get home all the more urgent.Hatty's haste, and the panic behind it, prevented Tom from thinking calmly about their strange encounter and conversation.He just wondered how Peter had found them, and wondered if he would show up again. This kind of thing didn't happen.Peter Long woke up at home from a dream - a bad one, if not a nightmare.Lying in bed, he recalled the dream scene, but only vaguely remembered some fragmentary fragments: he first counted himself to sleep, he remembered counting to two hundred and eighty-six, and then, he went to a place he didn't want to Go to a particularly high place, and the garden seems far away.Somehow, Tom was there, and he remembered Tom pointing at someone and telling him that it was Hattie, and he remembered shouting that it couldn't be, because it was a grown woman, not a child at all.He remembered looking at Tom's face: it was a strange mixture of amazement and terror of sudden realization.

Tom and Hatty hurried out of the cathedral and back down to the river as most of Ely's skaters drifted away.It seems that only the two of them have just started skating. The three old men had just finished skating, and now they were leaning on a few pillars by the water, watching everything that happened around them.They thought they were old and experienced enough to give Hatty some advice.One of them asked Hatty where she was skating so late.Hatty said, "Castelford." All three shook their heads. "It's all right if the ice is firm," said one, "but this nasty southwesterly wind is likely to bring rain and melt the ice." The little wind that Tom and Hatty had just noticed on the top of the clock tower, Now it has become bigger and has become a wind with great momentum.Even Tom felt that the wind was warmer and softer on his face than the cold, still air. "I hear someone has fallen in," said the second old man, "somewhere upriver. He didn't drown, though. Some friends were with him, and they set up a ladder on the ice, and in time the He made it up. There's a hole in the ice, and the ice isn't solid around it. You'd better watch out. By the way, Matthew, where did they say that place was?" The first old man didn't know, but the third thought the hole must be big, and Hattie would have noticed it when he slid close.She also had to be careful of the ice under bridges, under trees, and on reeds, where danger could easily emerge. The first man went back and said Hatty might as well take a train from Ely to Castleford. Hatty thanked the three of them and went on tying her skates.Tom thought she was very brave.Together they stood upright on the ice, and Hattie wished the three old men a safe and happy day, and they wished her good luck as well, with one shouting after her that she would enjoy at least one full moon.When they had slipped so far out that the old men could not hear them, Hattie told Tom that she didn't have enough money on her to buy a train ticket from Ely to Castleford. They glided forward, being met by a flood of people returning home.Soon, the last batch slid over, leaving only the two of them on the ice.Tom knew it was a good time to talk to Hatty, but Hatty was obviously not in the mood for a conversation.She put all her energy into skating.Tom slid forward after Hattie, watching her furtively from side to side, thinking about what Peter had just said.He said nothing to Hatty. The moon had risen, and indeed, as the old man said, it was a full moon with a halo around it, and it seemed that it was going to rain.The moonlight illuminated the road ahead of them, making the road more desolate and making them more lonely and desolate.There was silence all around, only the whistling wind and the scraping of steel knives on the ice.Neither Hatty nor Tom liked the silence, but neither of them broke it.In the moonlight, in the silence and solitude, they slid onward. A short distance ahead, on the right bank, they noticed a dark, upright figure, about six feet high.It must have been a post or a stump, but they ignored it.But suddenly, they saw the shadow move. Hattie took a deep breath, but she didn't stop sliding—she seemed unable to stop even if she wanted to.As soon as she turned this bend in the river, she was fully in the bright moonlight, but the man—yes, it was a man—looked black in the moonlight, and strangely tall.He seemed to be watching something intently, and Tom thought he was watching them. They were already very close, and would soon be parallel to him.The figure on the shore moved again, calling out a name through the ice, like asking, or greeting: "Miss Hattie..." Tom felt that his rhythm was out of step with Hattie's because Hattie's footsteps became hesitant. "Who is it?" she called, but Tom thought she had recognized the voice and he had not.Hattie's skating speed picked up, and she began to arc toward the shore. "It's me, Barty Jr." "Oh, Barty, it's good to see you!" cried Hattie, and for a moment she forgot her shyness with a sigh of relief. Little Barty came down to the river—a tall, stocky young man in a coat with a shawl and leggings like a farmer's. "But it's so late, where are you skating on this ice alone?" "To Castleford. From there I can take the train or walk home. I must hurry home." "Go home—yes, of course," agreed Barty Jr., "but you ain't supposed to be skating by yourself like that. I'd better give you a ride in my buggy." He appeared to be driving his buggy home from the market at Castleford.He had just turned onto the side road to see the condition of the river and the ice.That's when Tom and Hatty saw him. Fortunately, although the horses and carriages could not be seen from the river, they were just a few meters away on the embankment on the opposite side of the river.Little Barty helped Hatty up the embankment, and they saw the horse standing between the poles, lit by the little yellow flames of the headlights—they saw candlelight from the windows of every house in Erie from the top of the tower After mixing with the light, this is the first time I saw the warm and soft light again.Behind the carriage the narrow branch road led away to join the main road leading to Castleford, leading home. They all got into the buggy, Barty Jr. and Hattie sitting on either side of the front seat, leaving a large space between them, and Tom squeezed into it. "I'll drive you to Water Beach," said little Barty, "and from there you can take the train to Castleford. Excuse me if I ask—have you got enough money for a train ticket? If not, I can lend you some." "You're very thoughtful," said Hatty primly, and then she added, "I'm afraid I'm taking you a long way." Apparently, in order to see her off, Barty Jr. had strayed off the road he was going to go back to one of his father's farms in the swamp.But Barty Jr. made it clear to Hatty that he was more than happy to do it, and that he didn't mean it when he said it. Then they drove on in silence. "I'd better take you to Castleford," said Barty Jr., sounding very cheerful.So they continued on their way.Tom noticed that the conversation between the other two increased at this time.They talked of the weather, of their trip, and Hattie talked at first a little awkwardly, then more naturally.Barty Jr. said he had spoken to James at Castleford's fair that afternoon.Then it occurred to Tom that he had heard that the young man was a friend of three cousins ​​in Melbourne.They used to go to school together at Castleford. After a while, Hatty and Barty Jr. naturally talked about skating.Barty Jr. appreciated Hatty's bravery that day.Needless to say, he has been skating a lot himself this winter.But very few women have skied that far.His own mother had slipped that far—he remembered the story.That was many years ago, when Barty Sr. and his mother were still in love, and that year also caught up with such a large area of ​​hard ice.Together they skated from Castleford to Ely, and from Ely to Little Harbor and beyond.They skated so far and for so long that at last the young girl almost fell asleep while skating, half-dreaming to feel that she and her sweetheart were skating all the way to the sea, skimming across the smooth, frozen ice. On hard waves, slipping to distant lands. Having said this, he and Hattie laughed together.Then Barty Jr. talked about the many opportunities to skate this winter and the next.He loves skating as much as Hatty. Tom found their conversation uninteresting, mostly because he couldn't join in it himself.He was very angry with Hattie: she seemed either to have forgotten him, or to have lost sight of him--or both, the way she looked.On several occasions, she passed right through him while gesticulating.Another time, she turned and listened more closely to little Barty, and put her arm across the back of the carriage seat, and her hand and wrist were right on Tom's throat, making it a strange pain for him to swallow. of. Tom was delighted when they reached Castleford Station at last.The last train hadn't left yet, but it was going to be a long time to come.So Barty Jr. said he might as well drive the last five miles and drive her straight home, and Hatty made no objection.Tom objected wholeheartedly, but he couldn't say it.He'd been hoping to sit in an empty train car and talk to Hattie in private, to make it all clear: she had to talk to Hattie as soon as possible. The carriage continued to drive forward.Tom sat alone, preoccupied, while the other two talked and laughed across and through him, and they seemed to be chatting more and more happily and congenially.The bells of some village church came from the dark moor, and Tom thought of time again: he had thought that he could control time completely, that he could definitely exchange his own time for the eternity of Hatty's time, and then forever. Live happily in the garden.Now, the garden is still there, and Hattie's time has sneaked ahead of him, transforming Hattie from his playmate to a grown woman.What Peter saw was not false at all. Over the clatter of hooves, Tom listened to the conversation between Hatty and Barty Jr.: grown-up conversations that didn't mean anything to him, and his own thoughts offended him. .Slowly, his mind went blank.He wasn't tired from skating or sleepy from the late hours, but he fell asleep anyway.Maybe it was the monotonous sound of hoofbeats that lulled you to sleep, maybe he felt that Hatty was no longer thinking about him, and he felt a little uncomfortable in his heart, so he felt less awake and less alive. He had a vague feeling that the carriage was swaying into the bend beside the white cabin and driving down the path towards the big house. When Mrs. Melbourne came to meet them at the front door with a stern look of surprise and anger, she saw only two people in the carriage: that was to be expected.However, even Hatty saw only one other person besides her, and that person was little Barty.