high. He was growing old--twelve was an age--and there would soon be a time
when beatings must no longer be endured. He shivered when he thought of
what would happen then--the mere idea of defying his father sent shudders
down his back, but he was twelve, he would soon be thirteen....

But this Scaw House, with its strange silence and distresses, was only half
his life. There was the other existence that he had down in the town, out
at Stephen's farm, wandering alone on the Grey Hill, roaming about along
the beach and in amongst the caves, tramping out to The Hearty Cow, a
little inn amongst the gorse, ten miles away, or looking for the lost
church among the sand-dunes at Porthperran. All these things had nothing
whatever to do with his father and old Parlow and his lessons--and it was
undoubtedly this other sort of life that he would lead, with the gipsies
and the tramps, when the time came for him to run away. He knew no other
children of his own age, but he did not want them; he liked best to talk
to old Curtis the gardener, to Dicky the Idiot, to Sam Figgis when that
splendid person would permit it--and, of course, to Stephen.

He passed the old town wall and stepped out into the high road. Far below
him was the sea, above him a sky scattered with shining stars and around
him a white dim world. Turning a corner the road lay straight before him
and to the right along the common was the black clump of trees that hid his
home. He discovered that he was very tired, it had been a most exhausting
day with old Parlow so cross in the morning and the scene in the inn at
night--and now--!

His steps fell slower and slower as he passed along the road. One hot hand
was clutching Parlow's note and in his throat there was a sharp pain that
made it difficult to swallow, and his eyes were burning. Suppose he never
went home at all! Supposing he went off to Stephen's farm!--it was a long