He felt the animal's hot breath upon his face, heard the shouts and cries around him, and, in very natural alarm, started back, caught at anything for safety (he had tumbled upon the broad and protective chest of Samuel Hogg), and had a general impression of whirling figures, of suns and roofs and shining faces and, finally, the high winds of heaven blowing upon his bare head.
In another moment the incident was closed. The courtier of Charles II. had rushed up; the elephant was pulled and hustled and kicked; for him swiftly the vision of power and glory and vengeance was over, and once again he was the tied and governed prisoner of modern civilisation. The top-hat lay, a battered and hapless remnant, beneath the feet of the now advancing procession.
Once the crowd realised that the danger was over a roar of laughter went up to heaven. There were shouts and cries. The Archdeacon tried to smile. He heard in dim confusion the cheery laugh of Samuel Hogg, he caught the comment of Croppet and the rest.
With only one thought that he must hide himself, indignation, humiliation, amazement that such a thing could be in his heart, he backed, turned, almost ran, finding at last sudden refuge in Bennett's book-shop. How wonderful was the dark rich security of that enclosure! The shop was always in a half-dusk and the gas burnt in its dim globes during most of the day. All the richer and handsomer gleamed the rows of volumes, the morocco and the leather and the cloth. Old Mr. Bennett himself, the son of the famous man who had known Scott and Byron, was now a prodigious age (in the town his nickname was Methusalem), but he still liked to sit in the shop in a high chair, his white beard in bright contrast with the chaste selection of the newest works arranged in front of him. He might himself have been the Spirit of Select Literature summoned out of the vasty deep by the Cultured Spirits of Polchester.
Into this splendid temple of letters the Archdeacon came, halted, breathless, bewildered, tumbled. He saw at first only dimly. He was aware that old Mr. Bennett, with an exclamation of surprise, rose in his chair. Then he perceived that two others were in the shop; finally, that these two were the Dean and Ronder, the men of all others in Polchester whom he least wished to find there.
"Archdeacon!" cried the Dean.
"Yes--om--ah--an extraordinary thing has occurred--I really--oh, thank you, Mr. Wilton...."
Mr. Frank Wilton, the young assistant, had offered a chair.
"You'll scarcely believe me--really, I can hardly believe myself." Here the Archdeacon tried to laugh. "As a matter of fact, I was coming out to see you...on my way...and the elephant..."
"The elephant?" repeated the Dean, who, in the way that he had, was nervously rubbing one gaitered leg against the other.