Read The Box of Delights Online
Authors: John Masefield
The Box of Delights
Other books by John Masefield
The Midnight Folk
Note on the Text
The text of this edition is based on a proof copy preceding the first English edition, corrected from the manuscript (held at The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The
University of Texas at Austin) by Dr Philip W. Errington. A few short passages which were deleted to accommodate the original illustrations have been restored, in addition to some sections present
in the manuscript that failed to appear in print through error. The spelling of words has been made consistent, and rendered in modern usage (‘to-day’ becomes ‘today’, for
example).
The Box of Delights
first published in Great Britain 1935
This edition published 2008
by Egmont UK Limited
239 Kensington High Street
London W8 6SA
Text copyright © 1935, 1957 The Estate of John Masefield
This text, newly corrected from the manuscript by
Philip W. Errington, copyright © 2008 The Estate of John Masefield
The moral rights of the illustrator have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 4052 3253 1
eISBN 978 1 7803 1139 5
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Typeset by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford on Avon, Warwickshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Group
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
To My Wife
A wandering Showman dreads to hear
Red Riding Hood’s Attackers near
The Wolf Pack hunts him through the snow.
Where shall the ’nighted Showman go?
Has a Dark Midnight in the Past
A Way, or is tonight his last?
What is this Secret? Who can learn
The Wild Wood better than from Herne?
In dark of Cellars underneath
Blood-hungry Sea-Wolves snap their Teeth
The Oak-Tree-Lady with the Ring
Gives Kay the Marvel of the Spring
Kay dares the Cockatrice’s Bite.
Maria once more sees the Light
Blackness of hidden Caves, and Men
Black as their Caves, at Sins agen
The Spider in the Web declares
Why he his cruel Net prepares
The Sea-Wolves, snapping Teeth at Kay,
Bid him Beware of Yesterday
O Greatness, hear, O Brightness, hark,
Leave us not Little, nor yet Dark
Ring, blessed Bells, for Christmas Morn,
Joy in Full Measure, Hope new-born
A
s Kay was coming home for the Christmas holidays, after his first term at school, the train stopped at Musborough Station. An old man, ringing a
hand-bell, went along the platform, crying ‘Musborough Junction . . . Change for Tatchester and Newminster.’
Kay knew that he had to change trains there, with a wait of forty minutes. He climbed down on to the platform in the bitter cold and stamped his feet to try to get warmth into them. The old man,
ringing the hand-bell, cried, ‘All for Condicote and Tatchester . . . All for Yockwardine and Newminster go to Number Five Platform by the subway.’
As the passengers set off towards the subway-entrance, Kay put his fingers into his pocket for his ticket: it was not there. ‘Did I drop it in the carriage?’ he wondered. He went
back to the carriage. ‘Stand back, master, please,’ a porter said. ‘We’re going to shift the train.’
‘Please, I think I’ve dropped my ticket in the carriage.’
‘Oh . . . one minute, then,’ the porter said, opening the door. ‘Which seat were you sitting at, master?’
‘Here,’ Kay said. He looked under the seat and in what he called ‘the crink’ between the back and the seat: there was no ticket there.
‘I don’t seem to see it,’ the porter said. ‘Had you it when they punched tickets at Blunafon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you’d better explain at the subway. We’ve got to shunt this train.’
The train presently moved away; Kay went to the bench where he had left his bag; he began to rummage through all his pockets. He felt that the ticket-collector who was watching him at the subway
gate was beginning to think him a suspicious character.
An Irish terrier came up to Kay, sniffed at him and wagged the stump of his tail. ‘Good boy,’ Kay said. ‘Nice old boy, then,’ and rumpled his head for him, which made the
dog bounce about with delight. Still, he could not find the ticket.
Two men, who had been standing near the subway-entrance watching the people go out, moved up to the bench and sat down upon it. Kay had noticed them, for he had been told that detectives often
stand near ticket-collectors, watching for escaping murderers. He had thought, ‘Probably those are two men from the Yard, after somebody.’ Now he thought, ‘Supposing they arrest
me, for not having a ticket?’
‘Well,’ one of the men said, ‘he’s diddled us. He’s simply not on the train. Here’s the description sent: “Travelling first class. In appearance like a
French cavalry colonel, with waxed moustaches, very smart and upright, height five feet eight, age about forty to forty-five.” He’s hopped off the train where it slowed down somewhere;
depend upon it.’
‘We’d better telephone at once that he wasn’t on the train.’
‘Asses that we are,’ the other cried suddenly. ‘Oh silly chumps and fatheads . . . Of course . . . he got under a seat in a first class carriage and he’s been shunted out
and away. Quick, quick . . . we may get him yet in the shunting yard . . .’
‘Of course, that’s it,’ the other said. ‘Lively, then.’
At once, the two men ran off, past the subway-entrance and away along the platform in the direction in which the train had gone.
Now that the men were running, it seemed to Kay that some dogs, which he had not before noticed, were running with them. ‘They are Alsatian dogs,’ he thought, ‘but they seem
thicker in the shoulder than most Alsatians . . .
‘Why, of course,’ he exclaimed. ‘They are Police Dogs, and they are going to be put on the scent. Oh I do wish I knew what the criminal had done.’
As he watched, one of the men paused in his run to signal with his hand to a man on Number Five Platform, who signalled back with a real pair of handcuffs and then ran out of the station.
‘I say,’ Kay said to himself, ‘I’ve never been so near to detectives before. Oh I do wish I could find this ticket.’
The Irish terrier was at his feet again, begging to have his head rumpled, which Kay did for him. Then he noticed that the owner of the dog was standing near him.
He was a little old man in a worn grey overcoat. He had travelled there in the end coach of Kay’s train. Since leaving the train he had been at the platform end securing a big case in a
cover of green baize. This he now carried in his hand.
‘Ah, young Master,’ the old man said, ‘I see that my Barney Dog has made friends with you at first sight. That’s the time that likings are made. And you are looking for
your ticket, which, lo, is on the platform, dropped at your feet.’
‘Why, so it is,’ Kay said, picking it up. ‘So it is. Thank you ever so much.’
‘You must have slipped it out as you rumpaged,’ the man said.
Kay noticed that the man had very bright eyes, alert as a bird’s or squirrel’s.
‘We must be moving along, young Master,’ he said, ‘or they’ll be wondering if we’ve got no tickets.’
‘Could I give you a hand, please, to help you carry your case?’ Kay asked. He noticed that it was an awkward load for a little old man.
‘No, I thank you, Master,’ the old man said. ‘But if you would be so kind as to steady her when I swing her; then I could get her to my back, which is where she rides
a-triumph. Only I do date from pagan times and age makes joints to creak. Or doesn’t it?’
‘I should think it does,’ Kay said.
‘Now, I’m going to swing,’ the old man said, ‘and keep it, you, young Master, from rolling me over, if you will be so gracious.’ He swung his bundle up to his
shoulder; and, indeed, if Kay had not been there to steady it, the load might have pulled him over; he had a frail little old withered body, ‘like the ghost of ninepence,’ as he
said.
Kay walked with him through the subway to Number Five Platform, and there helped him to set down his bundle at a seat. After this, he went into the refreshment room and bought some biscuits for
Barney, for which the old man was grateful. After this, as there was still half an hour to wait before the Condicote train came in, he tried to get to the shunting yard, to find out if the
detectives had caught the criminal and what it was that the criminal had done.
He was not allowed inside the shunting yard. The young porter who headed him off at the gates told him that no one was allowed in. Kay asked if the detectives had found the criminal under one of
the seats. ‘What, just now?’ the porter asked. ‘Yes; they got him. He was under one of the seats dressing up as a Duchess. In another minute, he’d have finished, so that not
even the Prime Minister would have told the difference.’
‘What had he done?’ Kay asked.
‘Done?’ the porter said. ‘Er, he was a bad one. He had a row with his father-in-law, and he got a big sharp knife and cut the poor old man up, put him through the mincer and
sold him to the dog’s-meat man. The dog’s-meat man wouldn’t have noticed it, only one of the buttons stuck in a dog’s throat and the lady who owned the dog complained, and
then it all came out, and it’s thought it isn’t the first man he put through the mincer, it’s a habit that’s been growing on him for years.’
‘What will be done to him?’ Kay asked.
‘He’ll get the rope,’ the porter said. ‘Madame Tussaud’s are offering any money already for the mincer he did the deed with.’
‘I say,’ Kay said, ‘couldn’t you let me peep in and just see him where he is, with the detectives?’
‘Oh, they’ve gone, gone a long while,’ the porter said. ‘They’d a special car and went off at once to London with an armed guard.’
Kay was thrilled with the story, but as he walked back to the platform he wondered whether the porter had been telling the truth. He bought a newspaper but could find nothing at all about any
such crime. While he was searching through the newspaper, the train came in. He got into a carriage and was soon on his way home.