The first shadow of light was stealing across the white undulating common and creeping through the bare trees of the desolate garden when four dark figures, one tall, two fat, and one small, stole softly up the garden path. They halted beneath the windows of the house; the snow had ceased falling, and their breath rose in clouds above their heads. They danced a little in the snow and drove their hands together, and then the tall figure said:

"Now, Tom Prother, out with thy musick." One of the fat figures felt in his coat and produced four papers, and these were handed round.

"Bill, my son, it's for thee to lead off at thy brightest, mind ye. Let 'em have it praper."

The small figure came forward and began; at first his voice was thin and quavering, but in the second line it gathered courage and rang out full and bold:

_As oi sat under a sicymore tree A sicymore tree, a sicymore tree, Oi looked me out upon the sea On Christ's Sunday at morn._

"Well for thee, lad," said the tall figure approvingly, "but the cold is creepin' from the tips o' my fingers till my singin' voice is most frozen. Now, altogether."

And the birds in the silent garden woke amongst the ivy on the distant wall and listened:

_Oi saw three ships a-sailin' there-- A sailin' there, a-sailin' there, Jesu, Mary, and Joseph they bare On Christ's Sunday at morn._

A small boy curled up, like the birds, under the roof stirred uneasily in his sleep and then slowly woke. He moved, and gave a little cry because his back hurt him, then he remembered everything. The voices came up to him from the garden:

_Joseph did whistle and Mary did sing, Mary did sing, Mary did sing, And all the bells on earth did ring For joy our Lord was born._

_O they sail'd in to Bethlehem, To Bethlehem, to Bethlehem; Saint Michael was the steersman, Saint John sate in the horn._

_And all the bells on earth did ring, On earth did ring, on earth did ring; "Welcome be thou Heaven's King, On Christ's Sunday at morn."_

He got slowly out of bed and went to the window. The light was coming in broad bands from the East and he could hear the birds in the ivy. The four black figures stood out against the white shadowy garden and their heads were bent together. He opened his window, and the fresh morning air swept about his face.

He could hear the whispers of the singers as they chose another carol and suddenly above the dark iron gates of the garden appeared the broad red face of the sun.

CHAPTER III

OF THE DARK SHOP OF ZACHARY TAN, AND OF THE DECISIONS THAT THE PEOPLE IN SCAW HOUSE CAME TO CONCERNING PETER

I

But it was of the nature of the whole of life that these things should pass. "Look back on this bitterness a year hence and see how trivial it seems" was one of the little wisdoms that helped Peter's courage in after years. And to a boy of twelve years a beating is forgotten with amazing quickness, especially if it is a week of holiday and there have been other beatings not so very long before.

It left things behind it, of course. It was the worst beating that Peter had ever had, and that was something, but its occurrence marked more than a mere crescendo of pain, and that evening stood for some new resolution that he did not rightly understand yet--something that was in its beginning the mere planting of a seed. But he had certainly met the affair in a new way and, although in the week that followed he saw his father very seldom and spoke to him not at all beyond "Good morning" and "Good night," he fancied that he was in greater favour with him than he had ever been before.

There were always days of silence after a beating, and that was more markedly the case now when it was a week of holidays and no Parlow to go to. Peter did not mind the silence--it was perhaps safer--and so long as he was home by six o'clock he could spend the day where he pleased. He asked Mrs. Trussit about the carol-singers. There was a little room, the housekeeper's room, to which he crept when he thought that it was safe to do so. She was a different Mrs. Trussit within the boundary of her kingdom--a very cosy kingdom with pink wall-paper, a dark red sofa, a canary in a cage, and a fire very lively in the grate. From the depths of a big arm-chair, her black silk dress rustling a little every now and then, her knitting needles clinking in the firelight, Mrs. Trussit held many conversations in a subdued voice with Peter, who sat on the table and swung his legs. She was valuable from two points of view--as an Historian and an Encyclopaedia. She had been, in the first place, in the most wonderful houses--The Earl of Twinkerton's, Bambary House, Wiltshire, was the greatest of these, and she had been there for ten years; there were also Lady Mettlesham, the Duchess of Cranburn, and, to Peter, the most interesting of all, Mr. Henry Galleon, the famous novelist who was so famous that American ladies used to creep into his garden and pick leaves off his laurels.

Peter had from her a dazzling picture of wonderful houses--of staircases and garden walks, of thousands and thousands of shining rooms, of family portraits, and footmen with beautiful legs. Above it all was "my lady"

who was always beautiful and stately and, of course, devoted to Mrs.

Trussit. Why that good woman left these noble mansions for so dreary a place as Scaw House Peter never could understand, and for many years that remained a mystery to him--but in awed whispers he asked her questions about the lords and ladies of the land and especially about the famous novelist and, from the answers given to him, constructed a complete and most romantic picture of the Peerage.

But, as an Encyclopaedia, Mrs. Trussit was even more interesting. She had apparently discovered at an early age that the golden rule of life was never to confess yourself defeated by any question whatever, and there was therefore nothing that he could ask her for which she had not an immediate answer ready. Her brow was always unruffled, her black shining hair brushed neatly back and parted down the middle, her large flat face always composed and placid, and her voice never raised above a whisper.

The only sign that she ever gave of disturbance was a little clucking noise that she made in her mouth like an aroused hen. Peter's time in the little pink sitting-room was sometimes exceedingly short and he used to make the most of it by shooting questions at the good lady at an astonishing rate, and he was sometimes irritated by her slow and placid replies:

"What kind of stockings did Mr. Galleon wear?"

"He didn't wear stockings unless, as you might say, in country attire, and then, if I remember correctly, they were grey."

"Had he any children?"

"There was one little dear when I had the honour of being in the house--and since then I have heard that there are two more."

"Mrs. Trussit, where do children come from?"

"They are brought by God's good angels when we are all asleep in the night time."

"Oh!" (this rather doubtfully). A pause--then "Did the Earl of Twinkerton have hot or cold baths?"

"Cold in the morning, I believe, with the chill off and hot at night before dressing for dinner. He was a very cleanly gentleman."

"Mrs. Trussit, where _is_ Patagonia? It came in the history this morning."

"North of the Caribbean Sea, I believe, my dear."

And so on, and Peter never forgot any of her answers. About the carol-singers she was a little irritable. They had woken her it seemed from a very delightful sleep, and she considered the whole affair "savoured of Paganism." And then Peter found suddenly that he didn't wish to talk about the carol-singers at all because the things that he felt about them were, in some curious way, not the things that he could say to Mrs. Trussit.

She was very kind to him during that Christmas week and gave him mixed biscuits out of a brightly shining tin that she kept in a cupboard in her room. But outside the gates of her citadel she was a very different person, spoke to Peter but rarely, and then always with majesty and from a long way away. Her attitude to the little maid-of-all-work was something very wonderful indeed, and even to Aunt Jessie her tone might be considered patronising.

But indeed to Aunt Jessie it was very difficult to be anything else.

Aunt Jessie was a poor creature, as Peter discovered very early in life.

He found that she never had any answers ready to the questions that he asked her and that she hesitated when he wished to know whether he might do a thing or no. She was always trembling and shaking, and no strong-minded person ever wore mittens. He had a great contempt for his aunt....

On New Year's Eve, the last day but one of release from old Parlow, Mr. Westcott spent the day doing business in Truro, and at once the atmosphere over Scaw House seemed to lighten. The snow had melted away, and there was a ridiculous feeling of spring in the air; ridiculous because it was still December, but Cornwall is often surprisingly warm in the heart of winter, and the sun was shining as ardently as though it were the middle of June. The sunlight flooded the dining-room and roused old grandfather Westcott to unwonted life, so that he stirred in his chair and was quite unusually talkative.

He stopped Peter after breakfast, as he was going out of the room and called him to his side:

"Is that the sun, boy?"

"Yes, grandfather."

"Deary me, to think of that and me a poor, broken, old man not able to move an arm or foot."

He raised himself amongst his cushions, and Peter saw an old yellow wrinkled face with the skin drawn tight over the cheekbones and little black shining eyes like drops of ink. A wrinkled claw shot out and clutched Peter's hand.

"Do you love your grandfather, boy?"

"Of course, grandfather."

"That's right, that's right--on a nice sunny morning, too. Do you love your father, boy?"

"Of course, grandfather."

"He, he--oh, yes--all the Westcotts love their fathers. _He_ loved his father when he was young, didn't he? Oh, yes, I should rather think so."