IV. THE RIDING FORTH OF MR. HOOPDRIVER

Only those who toil six long days out of the seven, and all the year

round, save for one brief glorious fortnight or ten days in the summer

time, know the exquisite sensations of the First Holiday Morning. All

the dreary, uninteresting routine drops from you suddenly, your chains

fall about your feet. All at once you are Lord of yourself, Lord of

every hour in the long, vacant day; you may go where you please, call

none Sir or Madame, have a lappel free of pins, doff your black morning

coat, and wear the colour of your heart, and be a Man. You grudge sleep,

you grudge eating, and drinking even, their intrusion on those exquisite

moments. There will be no more rising before breakfast in casual

old clothing, to go dusting and getting ready in a cheerless,

shutter-darkened, wrappered-up shop, no more imperious cries of,

"Forward, Hoopdriver," no more hasty meals, and weary attendance on

fitful old women, for ten blessed days. The first morning is by far

the most glorious, for you hold your whole fortune in your hands.

Thereafter, every night, comes a pang, a spectre, that will not be

exorcised--the premonition of the return. The shadow of going back, of

being put in the cage again for another twelve months, lies blacker and

blacker across the sunlight. But on the first morning of the ten the

holiday has no past, and ten days seems as good as infinity.

And it was fine, full of a promise of glorious days, a deep blue sky

with dazzling piles of white cloud here and there, as though celestial

haymakers had been piling the swathes of last night's clouds into cocks

The Wheels of Chance