the sun
at noon
My father had now begun to teach me as well as Tom , but I confess I did not then value the privilege . I had got much too fond of the society of Peter Mason , and all the time I could command I spent with him . Always full of questionable frolic , the spirit of mischief gathered in him as the dark nights drew on . The sun , and the wind , and the green fields , and the flowing waters of summer kept him within bounds ; but when the ice and the snow came , when the sky was grey with one cloud , when the wind was full of needle-points of frost and the ground was hard as a stone , when the evenings were dark , and the sun at noon shone low down and far away in the south , then the demon of mischief awoke in the bosom of Peter Mason , and , this winter , I am ashamed to say , drew me also into the net . Nothing very bad was the result before the incident I am about to relate . There must have been , however , a gradual declension towards it , although the pain which followed upon this has almost obliterated the recollection of preceding follies . Nobody does anything bad all at once .