CHAPTER I.THE BLUE BALL.
There was a large, brilliant evening star in the early twilight, and underfoot the earth was half frozen.

It was Christmas Eve.

Also the War was over, and there was a sense of relief that was almost a new menace.
A man felt the violence of the nightmare released now into the general air.

Also there had been another wrangle among the men on the pit-bank that evening.
Aaron Sisson was the last man on the little black railway-line climbing the hill home from work.

He was late because he had attended a meeting of the men on the bank.