The man dropped without a word and lay motionless. It was over.
Stephen gravely watched for a moment the senseless body and then sat back
in his chair, his head bowed on his chest.
The fight had not, perhaps, been like that--there must have been many other
things that happened, but that was always how Peter remembered it. And now
there was confusion--a great deal of noise and people talking very loudly,
but Stephen said nothing at all. He did not look at the body again, but
when he had recovered a little, still without a word to any one and with
his eyes grave and without expression, he moved to the corner where his
clothes lay.
"'E's not dead."
"No--give 'im room there, he's moving," and from the back of the crowd the
Fool's silly face, peering over...
Peter crept unnoticed to the door. The clocks were striking ten, and some
one in the street was singing. He pulled up his stockings and fastened his
garters, then he slipped out into the snow and saw that the sky was full of
stars and that the storm had passed.
CHAPTER II
HOW THE WESTCOTT FAMILY SAT UP FOR PETER
I
The boy always reckoned that, walking one's quickest, it took half an hour
from the door of The Bending Mule to Scaw House, where his father lived. If
a person ran all the way twenty minutes would perhaps cover it, but, most
of the time, the road went up hill and that made running difficult; he had
certainly no intention of running to-night, there were too many things to
think about.
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