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Updated: May 4, 2025
The result was that a minute later Jimbo was chasing butterflies along the green lane, and throwing stones into the water of the ditch. It was the evening of a hot summer's day, and the butterflies were still out in force. Jimbo's delight was intense.
"Thin gruel and skim milk," she explained, pouring out a substance like paste into the soup plate, and handing him a big wooden spoon. But Jimbo's hunger had somehow vanished. "It wasn't real hunger," she told him, "but only a sort of memory of being hungry.
The spirit of disorder monstrous, uncouth, terrifying reigned supreme; and Jimbo's whole desire, though inarticulate, was to escape back into order and harmony again.
Alone, the children certainly must have got lost in the first five minutes. Their cousin gathered up the threads from Monkey's hair and Jimbo's eyes, and held them in one hand like reins. He sang to them a moment while they recovered their breath and forces:
And the fearful joy of very high speed, especially when the exhilaration of escape is added to it, means a condition little short of real ecstasy. Yet Jimbo's first flight, the governess had been careful to tell him, could not be the flight of final escape; for, even if the wings proved equal to a prolonged effort, escape was impossible until there was somewhere safe to escape to.
And with that she left him, disappearing without another word into the hole below the trap, and leaving him, disconsolate yet excited, alone in the room. With every one, of course, the measurement of time depends largely upon the state of the emotions, but in Jimbo's case it was curiously exaggerated.
Thus the Empty House remained an object of somewhat dreadful delight, lending a touch of wonderland to that part of the lane where it stood, and forming the background for many an enchanting story over the nursery fire in winter-time. It appealed vividly to their imaginations, especially to Jimbo's.
But in Jimbo's imagination it was especially haunted, and if he had ceased to reveal to the others what he knew went on under its roof, it was only because they were unable to follow him, and were inclined to greet his extravagant recitals with "Now, Jimbo, you know perfectly well you're only making up."
He heard it outside, pushing against the door. The handle turned with a rattle, and a moment later the door slowly opened. For a second Jimbo's breath failed him, and he nearly fell in a heap upon the floor. Round the edge of the door he saw a dim huge figure come crawling into the room creeping along the floor and trailing behind it a pair of immense black wings that stretched along the boards.
But there are others !" She held up a warning finger, and Jimbo's eyes nearly dropped out of his head. "No," she added, in reply to his questions, "you can't learn all this at once. Perhaps " She hesitated a little.
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