I'm the King of the Castle: Chapters 4-6

The gowns and crinolines and veils worn by the dolls were all faded to beige and grey and fawn, and the faces were almost worn away.

The furniture seemed to have been dumped here arbitrarily, having served its purpose in another part of the house.

We cannot fathom the minds of young children.

He watched the darkening countryside and then, after a time, returned to his magazine, more settled in his mind. He felt exonerated.

For he was irritated by the feeling that the other boy had somehow slipped through his fingers, had taken a little of the initiative.

Over the business of the stuffed crow, Hooper had felt a grudging respect, though he had withdrawn it later, in fury, when Kingshaw had derided him the next morning.

He was a methodical planner, but he was feeling his way.

It did not seem to him a strange, or ridiculous thing to be planning, and certainly not a lark.

He was neither courageous nor frivolous.

I have found the draughts and a bagatelle board.

Hooper made a derisive noise in the back of his throat.

Hooper was sly.

His friends would come down from London, and he would make contact with country neighbours, he would consolidate his position in the area.

He surprised himself, as he spoke in that way, for he was a reticent, even a severe man.

People gave him pound and ten shilling notes for Christmas and birthdays, they gave him more because he hadn't got a father, and then there was pocket money.

'Charles is settling down so happily,' she had said, and Kingshaw had been appalled, hearing it, though not really surprised.

He came to a deeper rut, and recognized it as the place where he had fallen, and where the crow had perched on his shoulders.

But he was no longer afraid, he was too intent upon plodding ahead.

The treads of the huge tyres in front were caked in and out with mud and manure and crushed straw.

At the bottom of the scrub lay Barnard’s Forest, which stretched for about seven miles, lying like a dark animal pelt across the back of the land, and reaching out into the next county.

The undergrowth came up almost as far as his knees.

It came out of the undergrowth, not far away from him, with an odd, bumping movement, and then sat down in a shaft of sunlight, and began to wash itself like a cat.

Kingshaw only felt a dull sense of inevitability.

His arms and legs looked oddly white, in the aqueous light of the wood.

There seemed to be a churning and boiling inside his head, when Hooper stood in front of him like this, so that he could only flail out savagely in all directions, missing his target, unable to stop himself, and talking like a baby.

Now, there was only the thick, greenish-brown carpet of foliage, the sticks and twigs and sinewy roots of the trees, like ropes coming up out of the ground.

He had a sudden vision of things watching him, from in among the trees, of eyes glinting, and spears poised.

You won’t see anything if you make all that din.

Its neck looked taut enough to snap.

Hooper’s face puckered with scorn.