Page 27, Paragraphs 4 - 6; Page 28, Paragraph 1

Page 27, Paragraph 4:

Now I come alongside the river and through the trees, where I now see, a ways off in front of me, the river bridge I saw from the valley's edge. It's so big, and it's all made of wood - now I understand how it is that there are so many stumps nearby. The bridge lies on top of a lot of river huts like beavers make, and the noise of the river becomes loud below it. On the other edge, across the river, I see a path go a ways off, all bright in the white light of the moon.

Paragraph 5:

I have an urge. I have an urge to walk across the bridge, to leave by the moon-white path from the valley and return here no more. My mother didn't raise me to do strange things like sit by huts with antler-headed men and girls that smell like flowers. I'm one of the nomadic people, and am made for walking. I want to rise up out of this valley, where everything's wet and rotten-smelling. A village by the river, where the shagfoal walk. There's no good in it.

Paragraph 6:

Yet I think now of a lot of things. If I walk all alone and don't find anything to eat, I'll go hungry, like before I came to the white-skin hut. I think of the girl, with the strip of ox-fur holding back her long bright hair, and the smell of flowers all around her and the many good things she says. I think about Hob's son, whom I want to hear about, and now I look at the bridge and the white path across it, and hear the loud noise of the river, falling there in the dark.

Page 28, Paragraph 1 (first full paragraph):

I take a piss against the tree, and turn, and go back by the river's edge, and through the reeds, up the dirt rise and around the white skin hut, where I come by the pigpen. I crawl in the branch hut and beneath the hay. I shut my eyes, so that all of the world goes from me.