the room at once. He could not see all of the room because there were
depths that the darkness seized and filled, and the great fiery place, with
its black-stained settle, was full of mysterious shadows. A huge fire was
burning and leaping in the fastnesses of that stone cavity, and it was by
the light of this alone that the room was illumined--and this had the
effect as Peter noticed, of making certain people, like Mother Figgis and
Jane Clewer, quite monstrous, and fantastic with their skirts and hair and
their shadows on the wall. Before Frosted Moses had said that sentence
about Courage, Peter had been taking the room in. Because he had been there
very often before he knew every flagstone in the floor and every rafter in
the roof and all the sporting pictures on the walls, and the long shining
row of mugs and coloured plates by the fire-place and the cured hams
hanging from the ceiling ... but to-night was Christmas Eve and a very
especial occasion, and he was sure to be beaten when he got home, and so
must make the very most of his time. He watched the door also for Stephen
Brant, who was late, but might arrive at any moment. Had it not been for
Stephen Brant Peter knew that he would not have been allowed there at
all. The Order of the Kitchen was jealously guarded and Sam Figgis, the
Inn-keeper, would have considered so small a child a nuisance, but Stephen
was the most popular man in the county, and he had promised that Peter
would be quiet--and he _was_ quiet, even at that age; no one could be so
quiet as Peter when he chose. And then they liked the boy after a time. He
was never in the way, and he was wonderfully wise for his years: he was a
strong kid, too, and had muscles....

So Peter crept there when he could, although it very often meant a beating
afterwards, but the Kitchen was worth a good many beatings, and he would
have gone through Hell--and did indeed go through his own special Hell on
many occasions--to be in Stephen's company. They were all nice to him even
when Stephen wasn't there, but there were other reasons, besides the