With gleaming eyes, and a keen sense of adventure, he got off the bed and took his cap in his hand, and went to the little window that stood out from the roof to see if he could open it and let himself down from there. It might have been well if he had not undone that fastening, or if his mother had come upstairs, or if he had reflected that he had vexed her once that evening, and that it would be better for him not to vex her again. But the rusty fastening only detained him for a minute, and there was no sound of any footstep on the stairs, and he only thought that he had been already punished, and that his mother and Annie should not triumph over him. So easily, with such heedless footsteps, do we make our own paths to the temptations of our lives. All was quiet outside when he had dropped from the window; the noise in the village had completely died away; in the west, beyond the great, dim field of the Thackbusk, a pale after-glow from the sunset still lingered. The public-house at the corner was quiet, though it was lighted; he came out of the lane into the lower village-street; and, turning into the principal street, where the Rantan had begun, he began to mount the hill towards the Manor Farm. A wan, blurred moon was shining, the street was dark and dim, from a public-house and from shops there came faint streams of light; there were lounging lads like dark shadows in the corners, or tramping together towards the public-house. In one of the shop-windows there was a light behind rows of bottles, and this threw the shadows of the bottles across the road; they stood in a row on the cottage wall opposite, with a curious effect, like that of an upright regiment. Nat passed by these things, and by the dim steps and church, without stopping once either to loiter or to speak; for he had no wish to join himself to the shadows in the corners, and was glad that the night-time kept his face concealed. It was only when he had reached the top of the street and hill, a more silent part of the world where no wayfarers were, that he turned aside to the fields upon the left, and sat down on a ledge of stone beneath a stile. All was quiet, the Fens were dark in the distance, there was the soft noise made by cows grazing in the darkness. Nat leant his head against the stile, and lingered--the ledge was a familiar resting-place for Sunday afternoons, but he had never rested here at this time of night before. Perhaps the strangeness frightened him, or his own natural nervousness, for he began to ask himself whether after all he should go on. What should he say to Miss Gillan when he gave back her basket?.... it was so late, she would not understand why he had come.