Free Stone of Destiny by Ian Hamilton

the transept and came towards me. Shocked and frightened, I crouched behind a statue, hoping the watchman would miss me.
    The jangling stopped and the light shone in my face. I looked up, white and piteous.
    ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ The watchman’s voice was clear and masterful, like the voice of a public speaker. He was tall and bearded, and suddenly I knew that he had been badly frightened. He was restoring his self-confidence by being over-bearing in the presence of the poor moron that he saw before him.
    ‘I’ve been shut in,’ I said, hanging my head on my chest, and making myself smaller and more like a mouse than usual.
    ‘Why didn’t you shout then?’ he asked. He was not bullying me, and although he sounded as though he spoke with all the authority of the House of Lords, his voice was not unkind.
    ‘I thought I’d get a row,’ I said, and my voice quivered on the verge of tears. He told me that this would never do, and I cringed before him. Then he saw my shoes in my hand, and I had to tell him the truth, as I could think of no lie.
    ‘I was frightened someone would hear me,’ I said, ‘and come and catch me.’
    ‘Well, put them on,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t hit you over the head. I’m patrolling about here all night, you know.’
    For the first time a wild hope flamed up in me that perhaps he would put me out without handing me over to the police, who would be bound to search me. Then as I stooped to put on my shoes, the jemmy slipped from the sling under my armpit, andonly my arm pressing against my side kept it from falling with a clang onto the stone paving of the Abbey floor.
    I held it there in a sort of left-sided palsy, and then suddenly we were moving towards the door, the west door, through which I had entered with excitement and pride only an hour before. As we reached the door, he suddenly shot a question at me.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘John Alison,’ I replied, with a bland ability to improvise which amazed me.
    ‘Your address?’
    ‘Care of Fee, 49 Arlington Street, N14.’
    He noted it down on the back of his Post Office Savings Bank book. Then a thought seemed to strike him.
    ‘Have you any money?’
    I told him I had a pound.
    ‘You’re sure,’ he insisted. ‘You weren’t sheltering in the Abbey because you had nowhere else to go?’
    ‘No,’ I said. I did not feel that I looked like a down-and-out.
    Then he opened the door, led me down the steps, and with a kindly word and a ‘Merry Christmas’ he let me out into the concourse of people who had nothing on their conscience. I hitched the jemmy back into its sling but I did not dare to lift my head and step out like a free man until I was far from the Abbey.
    My first reaction was one of jubilation that I had won free of a dicey event. I had showed my willingness to take risks if not my ability to succeed. I had met the most unfavourable of situations, and coped with it with an ability to lie that rather shocked me, but gave me not a little pride as well.
    When, from the far side of Parliament Square, I turned and had a last look at the massive building that had almost been my prison, I realised that the Stone was still inside, and I wondered at my temerity and sneered at my complacency. With amazing folly I had thought that I might do something of note and of wonder,and I had only made myself ridiculous. I envied people who had someone to tell them what to do next, and walked on defeated.
    Then I thought of the nightwatchman with whom I had crossed swords and scored a contemptible victory. Success had been on my side, but so had the advantages, for I knew all that went on, and was fighting for a cause and striving for my own personal liberty, while he was only patrolling for pay. He had treated me gently and courteously; he had set me free when he could have exerted his petty authority. Yet when it came out in what circumstances we had met, he would become the reproach of his superiors,