Fred's vivid
descriptions rushed to my mind, and I looked out expecting to see S.
Philip and S. James standing up like dark rocks in a sea of dancing
flames, their bells ringing backwards, "as witches say prayers." It
was only when I saw both the towers standing grey and quiet above the
grey and quiet town, and when I found that the light upon the wall
came from the street lamp below, that my head seemed to grow clearer,
and I knew that no bells were ringing, and that those I fancied I
heard were only the prolonged echoes of a bad dream.
I was very glad that it was so, and I did not exactly wish for war or
the plague to come back; and yet the more I heard of Fred's tales the
more restless I grew, because the days were so dull, and because we
never went anywhere, and nothing ever happened.
CHAPTER VII.
WE RESOLVE TO RUN AWAY--SCRUPLES--BABY CECIL--I PREPARE--I RUN AWAY.
I think it was Fred's telling me tales of the navy captain's boyhood
which put it into our heads that the only way for people at our age,
and in our position, to begin a life of adventure is to run away.
The captain had run away. He ran away from school. But then the school
was one which it made your hair stand on end to hear of.
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