I see some short grass peeping between the stones. There
was a patch of moss, too, like a dark green velvet pin-cushion on the
top of the little penthouse where the big bell lived on the end of a
great curly spring, otherwise everything was carefully painted, and the
row of stabling buildings with rooms over looked like prisons for horses
and their warders, who must, I felt, live very unhappy lives.

There was one door up in a corner of the great yard, right in the wall,
and down towards this, from where it had grown on the other side, there
hung a few strands of ivy in a very untidy fashion, and it struck me
that this ivy did not belong to the yard, or else it would have been
clipped or cut away.

In summer, with the warm glow of the setting sun in the sky, the place
looked shivery and depressing, and as I waited for Mr Solomon I found
myself thinking what a place it must be in the winter when the snow had
fallen and drifted into the corners, and how miserable the poor dogs
must be.

Then as I stood looking at my box and wondering what Shock was doing,
and whether he had gone to his home or was sleeping in the loft, and why
Ike was so surly to me, and what a miserable piece of business it was
that I should have to leave that pleasant old garden and Old Brownsmith,
I suddenly felt a hand laid upon my shoulder.

I started and stared as I saw Mr Solomon's cold, stern face.

"Come along," he said; and he led the way to that door in the corner
that seemed to me as if it led into an inner prison.

I shivered and felt depressed and cold as we went towards the door, and,
to make matters worse, the dogs rattled their chains and howled in
chorus as if, having made friends, they were very sorry for me. The big
hound, Nero, seemed the most sorrowful of all, and putting his head as
high as he could reach he uttered a deep hollow howl, that to my excited
fancy sounded like "Poooooor boooooy!" just as Mr Solomon, with a face
as stern as an executioner's might have been as he led someone to the
Tower block, threw open the great door in the wall and said shortly:

"Go on!"

I went on before him, passed through in a wretched, despairing way,
wishing I had been a boy like Shock, who was not ashamed to run away,
and then, as I took a few steps forward, I uttered a loud "Oh!"

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

I LOOK ROUND.

My ejaculation made Mr Solomon look completely changed, for, as I
glanced back at him, I could see that there