“Jack! Do come on and hide. It’s your turn. I hid last.”
But the boy was standing spellbound by the window, staring hard at something on the pavement. Sybil called and tugged in vain. Tears threatened. Jack would not budge. He declared he saw something.
“Oh, you’re always seeing something. I wish you’d go and hide. It’s only because you can’t think of a good place, really.”
“Look!” he cried in a voice of wonder. And as he said it his father rose quickly from his chair before the fire.
“Look!” the child repeated with delight and excitement. “It’s a great big horse. And it’s perfectly white all over.” His sister joined him at the window. “Where? Where? I can’t see it. Oh, do show me!”
Their father was standing close behind them now. “I heard it,” he was whispering, but so low the children did not notice him. His face was the colour of chalk.
“Straight in front of our door, stupid! Can’t you see it? Oh, I do wish it had come for me. It’s such a beauty!” And he clapped his hands with pleasure and excitement. “Quick, quick! It’s going away again!”
But while the children stood half-squabbling by the window, their father leaned over a sofa in the adjoining room above a figure whose heart in sleep had quietly stopped its beating. The great white horse had come. But this time he had not only heard its wonderful arrival. He had also heard it go. It seemed he heard the awful hoofs beat down the sky, far, far away, and very swiftly, dying into silence, finally up among the stars.
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note