response, attention and affection, and all a child's capacity for
dependence and unrestricted dulness and misery.

The Vicar, walking down the village road some sunlit morning, would
encounter an ungainly eighteen feet of the Inexplicable, as fantastic
and unpleasant to him as some new form of Dissent, as it padded fitfully
along with craning neck, seeking, always seeking the two primary needs
of childhood--something to eat and something with which to play.

There would come a look of furtive respect into the creature's eyes and
an attempt to touch the matted forelock.

In a limited way the Vicar had an imagination--at any rate, the remains
of one--and with young Caddles it took the line of developing the huge
possibilities of personal injury such vast muscles must possess. Suppose
a sudden madness--! Suppose a mere lapse into disrespect--! However, the
truly brave man is not the man who does not feel fear but the man who
overcomes it. Every time and always the Vicar got his imagination under.
And he used always to address young Caddles stoutly in a good clear
service tenor.

"Being a good boy, Albert Edward?"

And the young giant, edging closer to the wall and blushing deeply,
would answer, "Yessir--trying."

"Mind you do," said the Vicar, and would go past him with at most a
slight acceleration of his breathing. And out of respect for his manhood
he made it a rule, whatever he might fancy, never to look back at the
danger, when once it was passed.