She looked down the road towards the open country, and up it where the cottages clustered, and she chose the forward way. Wayfarers had almost cleared out of the village street, for it was quite dark now and bitterly cold; fires were burning and supper was preparing behind frosty windows and scanty window-curtains. Here and there a weary labourer or hurrying house-wife trudged past, but most people were indoors by now, most people were at home. The girl walked on till she came near to the public-house near the village-end, where the signpost points separate fingers up the fork of the road. There was a solitary lamp above the post-office hard by, and she stopped under it and put her hand in her pocket; the thimble and one halfpenny was all that she drew out, and she put them back again. Then she looked behind her. There was no one by, no one coming, and she crept stealthily up to the window of the “public,” and laid her face against the cold pane, gazing into the light and brightness and warmth within. There were four or five men clustered round a table near the fire, and a few more standing at the bar with a couple of girls. One of them at the table was singing in a loud voice; he was young—very young—and it was a good voice, and whatever were the words, the ditty seemed to please the company. There was a roar of laughter every now and then, and whenever he stopped a cry of “Go on, Nat, go on, lad! That’s right,” and so forth. The boy grew more and more excited, and the men cheered, and the girls clapped their hands and bent themselves double with laughter, and then the men laughed again till they coughed and choked with their merriment. The song was funny, or the point lay in the youth of the singer. And the girl outside listened. Twice she crept to the door, twice had the knob in her hand to open and go in, and twice her pluck seemed to fail. The song stopped, there was a lull within; the warmth drew her as a magnet, and the third time she turned the handle. But she stood with the door ajar; for on a sudden there was a sound of chairs moved, of scuffling, of quick words and quick retorts within; the laughter was changed to angry altercation, words of which she could not catch the sense were flung to and fro, and all at once a man threw the door wide, and the lad who had been singing was suddenly flung forth into the road. The girl started back at the first noise, then turned and fled into the darkness. But the boy stood where they had hurled him, and the men slammed the door to again behind him. There had been furious words in his mouth when he had made his ignominious exit, but they had died suddenly away as though frozen in his throat, and his limbs, that had struggled to deal revenge on his foes, had become paralyzed, his hot face had turned white with fear; he stood as one petrified, horror-struck, gazing after the thin cotton dress that flitted away in the gloom.