He passed beyond the little row of cottages, of which his mother’s was one, over the hill by a foot-path, and then along the mine car-track to the breaker. Before him the great building loomed up, like some huge castle of old, cutting its outlines sharply against the moon-illumined sky, and throwing a broad black shadow for hundreds of feet to the west.
Through the shadow went Tom, around by the engine-room, where the watchman’s light was glimmering faintly through the grimy window; out again into the moonlight, up, by a foot-path, to the summit of another hill, along by another row of darkened dwellings, to a cottage where a light was still burning, and there he stopped.
The door opened before he reached it, and a man in shirt-sleeves stepped out and hailed him:
“Is that you, Tom? An’ did ye find Bennie?”
“Yes, Sandy. I came to tell you we just got home. Found him down in the south chambers; he tried to come out alone, an’ got lost. So I’ll not need you, Sandy, with the same thanks as if I did, an’ good-night to you!”
“Good-nicht till ye, Tom! I’m glad the lad’s safe wi’ the mither. Tom,” as the boy turned away, “ye’ll not be afeard to be goin’ home alone?”
Tom laughed.
“Do I looked scared, Sandy? Give yourself no fear for me; I’m afraid o’ naught.”
Before Sandy turned in at his door, Tom had disappeared below the brow of the hill. The loose gravel rolled under his feet as he hurried down, and once, near the bottom, he slipped and fell.