Page:Cuthbert Bede - The White Wife.djvu/21

2, and was accompanied with a great deal of noise and shouting, so that the slumbers of the townspeople were greatly disturbed thereby, and many of them would arise from their beds and remonstrate with the boys, or would even come forth from their houses and give them chase; but this proceeding was considered to heighten the sport, and never made matters any the quieter.

On New Year's morning, at the date mentioned, I had been round the streets with the other boys, and had continued with them until all the fuel for my torch was expended, when I left them and returned home. My father had proposed to go on business, at an early hour that morning, to a farm town called Ranochan, which was a walk of about four miles. I petitioned to accompany him; and he consented, on condition that I went to bed for a couple of hours before we started on our walk.

It was barely daylight when we set out; but, after we had walked two miles, the landscape began to show its features in the early light of morning. There was neither snow nor frost;