at the table rose and fell steadily without a
pause; she was abusing the other woman, and the two drunken men were
laughing at her and shouting her on; Toby thought the other woman
lacked spirit because she stayed crouching on the floor and said
nothing.

At last the woman stopped her abuse, and one of the men turned and
shouted an order to the woman on the floor. She stood up and came
towards him, hesitating; this annoyed the man and he swore at her
brutally; when she came near enough he knocked her down with his
fist, and all the three burst out laughing.

Toby was so excited that he knelt up in his corner and clapped his
hands, but the others did not notice because the old man was up and
swaying wildly over the woman. He seemed to be threatening the man
who had struck her, and that one was evidently afraid of him, for he
rose unsteadily and lifted the chair on which he had been sitting
above his head to use as a weapon.

The old man raised his fist and the chair fell heavily on to his
wrinkled forehead and he dropped to the ground.

The woman at the table cried out, "The pension!" in her shrill voice,
and then they were all quiet, looking.

Then it seemed to Toby that through the forest there came flying,
with a harsh sweet voice and a tumult of wings, a bird of all
colours, ugly and beautiful, and he knew, though later there might be
people to tell him otherwise, that that was the end of everything.

Children Of The Moon

The boy stood at the place where the park trees stopped and the
smooth lawns slid away gently to the great house. He was dressed only
in a pair of ragged knickerbockers and a gaping buttonless shirt, so
that his legs and neck and chest shone silver bare in the moonlight.
By day he had a mass of rough golden hair, but now it seemed to brood
above his head like a black cloud that made his face deathly white by
comparison. On his arms there lay a great heap of gleaming dew-wet
roses and lilies, spoil of the park flower-beds. Their cool petals
touched his cheek, and filled his nostrils with aching scent. He felt
his arms smarting here and there, where the thorns of the roses had
torn them in the dark, but these delicate caresses of pain only
served to deepen to him the wonder of the night that wrapped him
about like a cloak. Behind him there dreamed the black woods, and
over his head multitudinous stars quivered and balanced in space; but
these things were nothing to him, for far across