And still, all through that hot afternoon, when even the Rope Walk did not offer any shade, and when the Pol was of so clear a colour that you could see trout and emerald stones and golden sand as under glass, and when Hamlet was compelled to run ahead and find a piece of shade and lie there stretched, panting, with his tongue out, until they came up to him--even all these signs of a true and marvellous summer did not relieve Jeremy of his burden.

Something horrible was going to happen.

He knew it with such certainty that he wondered how Mary and Helen could be so gaily light-hearted, and despised them for their carelessness.

This was connected in some way with the hot weather; he felt as though, were a cold breeze suddenly to come, and rain to fall, he would be happy again.

There had been once a boy, older than he, called Jimmy Bain, a fat, plump boy, who had lived next door to the Coles.