g the
rubbish-heaps, still circumvented by the yawning crater of the quarry;
or perhaps he only thought so, for the darkness was already dense, the
snow was growing thicker, and he moved like a blind man, and with a
blind man's terrors. At last he climbed a fence, thinking to drop into
the road, and found himself staggering, instead, among the iron furrows
of a ploughland, endless, it seemed, as a whole county. And next he was
in a wood, beating among young trees; and then he was aware of a house
with many lighted windows, Christmas carriages waiting at the doors, and
Christmas drivers (for Christmas has a double edge) becoming swiftly
hooded with snow. From this glimpse of human cheerfulness he fled like
Cain; wandered in the night, unpiloted, careless of whither he went;
fell and lay, and then rose again and wandered farther; and at last,
like a transformation scene, behold him in the lighted jaws of the city,
staring at a lamp which had already donned the tilted night-cap of the
snow. It came thickly now, a "Feeding Storm"; and while he yet stood
blinking at the lamp, his feet were buried. He remembered something like
it in the past, a street lamp crowned and caked upon the windward side
with snow, the wind uttering its mournful hoot, himself looking on, even
as now; but the cold had struck too sharply on his wits, and memory
failed him as to the date and sequel of the reminiscence.

His next conscious moment was on the Dean Bridge; but whether he was
John Nicholson of a bank in California Street, or some former John, a
clerk in his father's office, he had now clean forgotten. Another blank,
and he was thrusting his pass-key into the door-lock of his father's
house.

Hours must have passed. Whether crouched on the cold stones or wandering
in the fields among the snow, was more than he could tell; but hours had
passed. The finger of the hall clock was close on twelve; a narrow peep
of gas in the hall-lamp shed shadows; and the door of the back room--his
father's room--was open and emitted a warm light. At so late an hour all
this was strange; the lights should have been out, the doors locked, the
good folk safe in bed. He marvelled at the irregularity, leaning on the
hall table; and marvelled to himself there; and thawed and grew once
more hungry in the warmer air of the house.

The clock uttered its premonitory catch; in five minutes Christmas Day
would be among the days of the past--Christmas!--what a Christmas! W