The snow and mud in the yard below him showed a tangle of blurry tracks enlarged by yesterday's melting. At the rear of the yard rose the untidy grandeur of an elm. A lake of churned mud by the stable resembled a mammoth cluster of grapes, separate blobs of fruit supplied by outlying hoofprints. Near the base of the elm a murky area suggested a man sprawling with his head on his arm. Maybe this very day, Ben thought, he and Reuben could be climbing that hill road, discovering the far side of it. If he behaved politely his grandmother was bound to let them go.... That shadow under the elm did create a dreadfully potent illusion of humanity--almost-real legs in abandoned collapse. Ben gasped and clawed open the bedroom door. Anna Lloyd was pottering downstairs with a candle. At Ben's noise she jumped, shielding the flame. "Oh, it's you. What's up?" "Someone in the yard--" Ben shoved past her. She followed trembling, covering the candle so that it gave little help. He reached the back door of the kitchen. The key jammed; Anna Lloyd shuffled up behind him wheezing: "Now what's all this, boy?" The key gave way. Ben ignored her, running out across slush that had frozen crisp and hard. Jesse's face was recognizable. In the twist of his bluish open mouth one could imagine an apologetic smile. Ben clutched his arm; the whole body moved with it, stiff as a dead branch. Behind Ben Anna Lloyd wailed thinly. She was gripping her candle though it had blown out; morning light gave Ben her ugly peering face, more peevish than sad. "Land of mercy! Oh, law, the Mist'ess'll be terrible put out! Why, 'tis old Plum." "Yes, he came with us from Deerfield. He must have been trying to reach the stable, find some way to get in where it was warm without troubling my grandmother. Fell and couldn't rise with the liquor in him--oh, when the singing stopped I did think some friend----" "Singing? Ooh!--he done all that commotion last night?" Ben did not answer; she seemed useless, not open to communication, like a tiresome dog. "Must call the Mist'ess immediate. She'll be terrible put out--well, it a'n't _my_ fault, no one can say...." There was more in her mumbling about the wages of sin. Ben's stomach heaved. He lurched away from Anna Lloyd, back into the kitchen. He grabbed a chair and straddled it, fighting nausea, head on his arm. In this self-imposed darkness he heard the outer door bang, and Anna shuffled past him muttering. Only a few moments passed before the house was in a sputtering uproar--voices, hurrying feet, Jonas braying something or other. So long as he could keep his face hidden, his body quiet, he might not vomit. Soon enough his shoulder was tapped. "Benjamin!" "Yes, Grandmother." "I suppose you can stand up when spoken to?" He managed it. "I was feeling sick. Grandmother, I ought to have gone out last night--to find out----"