Anthony trudged along the empty village street, past the gleaming
squares of ruddy gold, starting on either side out of the darkness. Now
and then he looked furtively backwards. The straight open road lay
behind him, glimmering wanly: the organ seemed to have ceased: the
figure on the bridge had left the parapet, and appeared to be moving
away towards the church. Anthony halted, watching it till it had
disappeared into the blackness beneath the churchyard trees. Then, after
a moment's hesitation, he left the road, and mounted an upland meadow
towards his mother's farm.
It was a bare, oblong house. In front, a whitewashed porch, and a narrow
garden-plot, enclosed by a low iron railing, were dimly discernible:
behind, the steep fell-side loomed like a monstrous, mysterious curtain
hung across the night. He passed round the back into the twilight of a
wide yard, cobbled and partially grass-grown, vaguely flanked by the
shadowy outlines of long, low farm-buildings. All was wrapped in
darkness: somewhere overhead a bat fluttered, darting its puny scream.
Inside, a blazing peat-fire scattered capering shadows across the
smooth, stone floor, flickered among the dim rows of hams suspended from
the ceiling and on the panelled cupboards of dark, glistening oak.
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