I was a boy of eight years old, dressed in a sailor suit, and
with my hair clipped quite short like a French boy's, and my right
knee was stiff with a half-healed cut where I had fallen on the
gravel path under the schoolroom window, it was a really wet, grey
day. I could hear the rain dripping from the fir-trees on to the
scullery roof, and every now and then a gust of wind drove the rain
down on the soaked lawn with a noise like breaking surf. I could hear
the water gurgling in the pipe that was hidden by the ivy, and I saw
with interest that one of the paths was flooded, so that a canal ran
between the standard rose bushes and recalled pictures of Venice. I
thought it would be nice if it rained truly hard and flooded the
house, so that we should all have to starve for three weeks, and then
be rescued excitingly in boats; but I had not really any hope. Behind
me in the schoolroom my two brothers were playing chess, but had not
yet started quarrelling, and in a corner my little sister was
patiently beating a doll. There was a fire in the grate, but it was
one of those sombre, smoky fires in which it is impossible to take
any interest. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked very slowly, and I
realised that an eternity of these long seconds separated me from
dinner-time. I thought I would like to go out.
The enterprise presented certain difficulties and dangers, but none
that could not be surpassed. I would have to steal down to the hall
and get my boots and waterproof on unobserved.
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