Green Street at the top, past the post office, then down again into the
Square where the Tower was, then through winding turnings up the hill past
the gates and dark trees of The Man at Arms, then past the old wall of the
town and along the wide high road that runs above the sea until at last one
struck the common, and, hidden in a black clump of trees (so black on a
night like this), the grim grey stones of Scaw House.

Peter was not afraid of being alone, although when snow had fallen
everything seemed strange and monstrous, the trees were like animals,
and the paths of all the world were swept away. But he was not afraid of
ghosts; he was too accustomed to their perpetual company; old Frosted Moses
and Dicky, and even men like Stephen, had seen ghosts so often, and Peter
himself could tell odd stories about the Grey Hill--no, ghosts held no
terror. But, very slowly, the shadow of all that he must very soon go
through was creeping about him. When he first came out of The Bending Mule
he still was as though he were in a dream. Everything that had happened
there that evening had been so strange, so amazing, that it belonged to
the world of dreams--it was of the very stuff of them, and that vision of
Stephen, naked, bleeding, so huge and so terrible, was not to be easily
forgotten.

But, as he climbed the steep street, Peter knew that however great a dream
that might be, there was to be no dreaming at all about his meeting with
his father, and old Frosted Moses' philosophy would be very sadly needed.
As he climbed the hill the reaction from the excitement of his late
adventure suddenly made him very miserable indeed, so that he had an
immediate impulse to cry, but he stood still in the middle of the street
and made fists with his hands and called himself "a damned gawky idiot,"
words that he had admired in the mouth of Sam Figgis some days before.
"Gawky" was certainly the last thing that he was, but it was a nice queer