The high road was cool and fresh and dark. The sea sung somewhere below amongst the rocks, and Peter immediately was aware that he was leaving Cornwall.

Now he had no other thought. The streets of the town were deserted, clean, smelling of the fields, hay-carts, and primroses, with the darkness broken by dim lamps, and a very slender moon. His heart was full, his throat burning. He crossed the market-place and suddenly bent down and kissed the worn stones of the Tower. There was no one to see.

He was in the station at twenty minutes past seven. The platform was long and cold and deserted, but in the waiting-room was Mr. Zanti enveloped in an enormous black coat.

"Ah, my dear boy, this is indeed splendid. And 'ave you said farewell to your father?"

"Yes, I've said good-bye to every one," he answered slowly. Suddenly he would have given all the wide world and his prospects in it not to be going. The terrors of Scaw House were as nothing beside that little grey town with the waves breaking on the jetty, the Grey Hill above it, the twisted cobbled streets.

The morning wind blew up the platform, the train rolled in; there were porters, but Mr. Zanti had only a big brown bag which he kept with him.

Soon they were in corners facing one another. As the train swept past the Tower the grey dawn was breaking into blue over the houses that rose, tier by tier, to the sky over the grey rolling breakers, over the hills beyond ... Cornwall!

Poor Peter stared with passionate eyes as the vision passed.

"London soon," said Mr. Zanti, gaily.

CHAPTER XI

ALL KINDS OF FOG IN THE CHARING CROSS ROAD

I

Towards the middle of the dim afternoon as the first straight pale houses began to close in upon the train, a lady and gentleman on the opposite side to Peter were discovered by him, as he awoke from a long sleep, to be talking:

"Well, my dear Lucy, how we are ever to get on if you want to do these absurd things I don't know. In London one must do as London does. In the country of course..."

He was short, breathless and a little bald. The lady was young and very upset.

"But, Henry, what does it matter?"

"What does it matter? My dear Lucy, in London everything matters--"

She was excited. "In Kensington perhaps, but in London--"

"Allow me, my dear Lucy, to decide for you. When you are my age--"

Peter went to sleep again.

II

The vast iron-girdled station was very dark and Mr. Zanti explained that this was because, outside, there was a Fog--

"The Fog," he added, as though it had been a huge and ferocious animal, "is very yellow and has eaten up London. It will take us a very long time to find our home."

To Peter, short and square, in his rough suit shouldering his bag, this was all as the infernal regions. The vast place towered high, into misty distances above him. Trains, like huge beasts, stretched their limbs into infinity; screams, piercing and angry, broke suddenly the voices and busy movement that flooded the place with sounds. He was jostled and pushed aside and people turned and swore at him and a heated porter ran a truck into his legs. And through it and above it all the yellow fog came twisting in coils from the dark street beyond and every one coughed and choked and cursed England.

Mr. Zanti, after five minutes' angry pursuit, caught a reluctant and very shabby four-wheeler, and they both climbed into its cavernous depths and Peter's nose was filled with something that had leather and oranges and paper bags and whisky in it; he felt exactly as though Mr.

Zanti (looking very like an ogre in the mysterious yellow light with his bowler on the back of his head and mopping his face with a huge crimson handkerchief) were decoying him away to some terrible fastness where it was always dark and smelly.

And indeed that first vision of London, seen through the grimy windows of the cab, was terrible enough. The cab moved a little, stopped, moved again; it seemed that they would be there for ever and they exchanged no word. There were no buildings to be seen; a vast wall of darkness surrounded him and ever and again, out of the heart of it, a great cauldron of fire flamed and by the side of it there were wild, agitated faces--and again darkness. On every side of the stumbling cab there was noise--voices shouting, women screaming, the rumbling of wheels, the plunging of horses' hoofs; sometimes things brushed against their cab--once Peter thought that they were down because they were jerked right forward against the opposite seats. And then suddenly, in the most wonderful way, they would plunge into silence, a silence so deep and cavernous that it was more fearful than those other noises had been, and the yellow darkness seemed to crowd upon them with a closer eagerness and it was as though they were driving over the edge of the world. Then the noises returned, for a moment the fog lifted showing houses, rising like rocks from the sea sheer about them on every side, then darkness again and the cab stopped with a jerk.

"Ah, good," said Mr. Zanti, rolling his red handkerchief into a ball.

"'Ere we are, my young friend--Mr. Peter, after you, please."

Before him a light faintly glimmered and towards this, after stumbling on the slippery pavement, he made his way. He found himself in a bookshop lighted with gas that hissed and spit like an angry cat; the shop was low and stuffy but its walls were covered with books that stretched into misty fog near the ceiling. Behind a dingy counter a man was sitting. This man struck Peter's attention at once because of the enormous size of his head and the amount of hair that covered it--starting out of the mist and obscurity of the shop, this head looked like some strange fungus, and from the heart of it there glittered two very bright eyes.

Peter, standing awkwardly in the middle of the shop, gazed at this head and was speechless.

Outside, Mr. Zanti could be heard disputing with the cabman.

"You can go and be damned--ze bags were not on ze outside--Zat is plenty for your pay and you be damned--"

The shop door closed with a bang shutting out the fog and Mr. Zanti filled the little bookshop. He seemed taller and larger than he had been in Cornwall and his voice was sharper. The head removed itself from the counter and Peter saw that it belonged to a small man with a hump who came forward to Mr. Zanti very humbly.

"Ah, Gottfried," said Zanti, "you well?"

"Very, sir," answered the little man, bowing a little and smiling; his voice was guttural with a very slight accent.

"This is Mr. Peter Westcott. 'E will work here and 'elp you with ze books. 'E is a friend of mine and you will be kind to him. Mr. Peter, zis is Herr Gottfried Hanz--I owe 'im much--ver' clever man."

They shook hands and Peter liked the pair of eyes that gazed into his.

Then Mr. Zanti said, "Come, I will show you ze rest of ze place. It is not a mansion, you will find."

Indeed it was not. Behind the shop there was a room, brown and green, with two windows that looked on to a yard, so Mr. Zanti said. There was no furniture in it save a table and some chairs; a woman was spreading a cloth on the table as they came in. This woman had grey hair that escaped its pins and fell untidily about her shoulders. She was very pale, tall and thin and her most striking features were her piercing black eyes and with these she stared at Peter.

"Zis is Mrs. Dantzig," said Mr. Zanti, "an old friend--Mr. Peter Westcott, Mrs. Dantzig. 'E will work wiz us."

The woman said nothing but nodded her head and continued her work. They passed out of the room. Stairs ran both up and down.

"What is down there?" asked Peter.

"Ah, zat is ze kitchen," said Mr. Zanti, laughing. Upstairs there was a clean and neat bedroom with a large bed in it, an old sofa and two chairs.

"Zis is where I sleep," said Mr. Zanti. "For a night or two until you 'ave discovered a lodging you shall sleep on zat sofa. Zay will make it whilst we 'ave supper."

It was now late and Peter was very very tired. Downstairs there was much bread and butter and bacon and eggs, and beer. The woman waited upon them but they were all very silent and Peter was too sleepy to be hungry.

The table was cleared and Mr. Zanti sat smoking his pipe and talking to the woman. Peter sat there, nodding, and he thought that their conversation was in a foreign tongue and he thought that they looked at him and that the woman was angry about something--but the sleep always gained upon him--he could not keep it away.

At last a hand was upon his shoulder and he was led up to bed.