Christina Alberta's father

by H. G. Wells

What was it Sargon had to remember?

The friends and believers were waiting for him. They were waiting now. Where the river ran out of the city wall; that was to say where the little streamlet ran out of the grounds. That would be this way—to the left, where the fields dropped down-hill. He stepped on to the grass, for his feet made loud sounds on the gravel. The grass hissed crisply. It was heavy with white frost and his footmarks made black blots in the wet silvery grey.

He walked past and away from the ponderous dark mass of the asylum into the open, colder air of freedom. He unlatched and went through the small iron gate in the iron fencing that separated the trim grass plots of the front from the cabbage field. It complained a little on its hinge and he opened and closed it very carefully. He struck across the field. The path ran before him into a mist. It came out of the mist to his feet and vanished behind him. It was as if it went past him while he marked time. He could not remember whither the path ran, nor how it lay with regard to the corner he sought. But every moment things grew clearer.

Every moment things grew clearer. There had been something dark and brooding in the sky that hung over him and seemed to watch him. He had done his best to ignore the vague presence, because he was afraid of his own imagination. But suddenly he saw plainly that it was just the tops of trees showing above the mist. That must be the line of trees along the hedge parallel to the asylum front. He must go through these if he wanted to go down-hill. He left the path and made his way slowly along a frozen ridge of dug earth. He skirted long rows of stalky cabbages, black and shrivelled and unkempt they looked like Cossack sentinels afoot. They all leant towards him as though they listened to the sound of him.

As he drew near the hedge and the trees he heard a sound like the feet of an army of midgets. It was the drip, drip of moisture from the trees.

Far away behind him and quite invisible to him a motor car scurried along the high-road.

He had some difficulty in finding a way through the hedge and a bramble scratched his ankle. He told himself there was no hurry; the friends waited. Beyond the hedge the ground went down-hill and the mist grew whiter and thicker. The daylight was strong enough now to show the mist dead-white. It veiled the stream altogether.

He walked slowly. He had no sense of being pursued. Brand would not go into the ward for an hour yet; he might not miss him for a long time....

What a wonderful thing, thought Sargon, is daybreak, and how little one sees of it! Every day begins with this miraculous drama and we sleep through it as though it did not concern us and rouse ourselves only for the trite day. A little while ago the world had been an inky monochrome and now it was touched with colour. The sky was blue. All the stars had gone—but no! not all. One still shone, a large pale star, the star of Sargon. And the sky about it was flushed with a faint increasing pinkiness. That must be the east and that star must be the morning star, hanging above the outhouse chimneys. Those chimneys were very distinct. The butt end of the asylum which had been a black and shapeless monster a little while ago, had now become a dark purple shape outlined with an exquisite clearness, eaves and ridges and chimneys and creasings and window-frames. Four windows shone a fading orange and two of them suddenly blinked and vanished.

Would anyone look out of a window there and see him?