at the mouth of the cockatrice's cave edmund stopped, very much out of breath, to look back at the town. as he ran he had felt his little legs tremble and shake, while the shadows of the great yellow cloud fell upon him. now he stood once more between warm earth and blue sky, and looked down on the green plain dotted with fruit trees and red-roofed farms and plots of gold corn. in the middle of that plain the gray town lay, with its strong walls with the holes pierced for the archers, and its square towers with holes for dropping melted lead on the heads of strangers; its bridges and its steeples; the quiet river edged with willow and alder; and the pleasant green garden place in the middle of the town, where people sat on holidays to smoke their pipes and listen to the band.