It was all a return to Albert's childhood. In spite of fifteen years in London, of a man's work and a man's love and a man's faith, he had gone back completely to the work and love and faith of his childhood. Odiam had swallowed him up, it had swallowed him up completely, his very hell was bounded by it. He spoke with a Sussex accent; he forgot the names of the women he had loved, and cried instead the names of places, and he forgot that he did not believe in hell, but thought of it as Boarzell Moor punctured by queer singing flames. Pete lay and listened shuddering, waiting with sick desire for the kindling of the dawn and the whiteness that moved among the trees. At last they came, the sky bloomed, and the orchard flickered against it, stirred by a soundless wind. The poor fellow sat up in bed, all troubled and muddled by things that had never touched him before. He stretched himself and yawned from force of habit, for he was not in the least sleepy, then he began to dress. "What is it?" mumbled Albert, himself again for a moment. "I'm going to fetch a parson," said Pete. It was very gallant of him to do so, for it meant venturing still further into new spheres of thought. None of the Backfields had been to church for years, though Reuben prided himself on being a good churchman, and Pete was rather at a loss what to do in a ghostly crisis such as this. However, on one thing he was resolved--that he would not go through another night like the last, and he credited a parson with mysterious cabalistic powers which would miraculously soothe the invalid and assure him of sleep in future. So he tramped off towards the Rectory, wondering a little what he should say when he got there, but leaving it to the inspiration of the moment. He warmed his honest heart with thoughts of Albert sleeping peacefully and dying beautifully, though it chilled him a little to think of death. Why could not Albert live?--Pete would have liked to think of him lying for years and years in that big untidy bed, pathetic and feeble, and always claiming by his weakness the whole strength that a day of unresting toil had left his brother. The morning flushed. A soft pink crept into ponds and dawn-swung windows. The light perfumes of April softened the cold, clear air--the scent of sprouting leaves in the woods, and of primroses in the grass, while the anemones frothed scentless against the hedges. Pete was about half a mile from the village when he heard the sound of angry voices round a bend in the lane, pricked by little screams from a woman. Expecting a fight he hurried up eagerly, and was just in time to see one of the grandest upper cuts in his life. A short, well-built man in black had just knocked down a huge, hulking tramp who had evidently been improving the hour with a woman now blotted against the hedge. He lay flat in the road, unconscious, while his adversary stood over him, his fist still clenched and all the skin off his knuckles.