III

And indeed throughout the dreary supper Peter's brain was in a whirl.

It often happened that supper passed without a word of conversation from first to last. His father very rarely said anything, Peter never said anything at all, and if Aunt Jessie did venture on a little conversation she received so slender an encouragement that she always forsook the attempt after a very short time. It was a miserable meal.

It was cold beef and beetroot and blanc-mange with a very, very little strawberry jam round the edges of the glass dish, and there was a hard red cheese and little stiff woolly biscuits.

But old grandfather Westcott was always hungry, and his querulous complaints were as regular an accompaniment to the evening meal as the ticking of the marble clock. But his beef had to be cut up for him into very tiny pieces and that gave Aunt Jessie a great deal of work, so that his appeals for a second helping were considered abominable selfishness.

"Oh, my dear, just a leetle piece of beef" (this from the very heart of the cushions). "Just the leetlest piece of beef for a poor old man--such a leetle piece he had, and he's had such a hunger." No answer to this and at last a strange noise from the cushions like the sound of dogs quarrelling. At last again, "Oh, just the leetlest piece of beef for a poor old man--" and then whimpering and "poor old man" repeated at intervals that lengthened gradually into sleep.

At last the meal was over, the things had been cleared away, and Peter was bending over a sum in preparation for lessons on Monday. Such a sum--add this and this and this and this and then divide it by that and multiply the result by this!... and the figures (bad ill-written figures) crept over the page and there were smudgy finger marks, and always between every other line "London, looking-glasses, and fat Mr.

Zanti laughing until the tears ran down his face." Such a strange world where all these things could be so curiously confused, all of them, one supposed, having their purpose and meaning--even grandfather--and even 2469 X 2312 X 6201, and ever so many more until they ran races round the page and up and down and in and out.

And then suddenly into the middle of the silence his father's voice:

"What are you doing there?"

"Sums, father--for Monday."

"You won't go back on Monday" (and this without the _Cornish Times_ moving an inch).

"Not go back?"

"No. You are going away to school--to Devonshire--on Tuesday week."

And Peter's pencil fell clattering on to the paper, and the answer to that sum is still an open question.

CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH "DAWSON'S," AS THE GATE OF LIFE, IS PROVED A DISAPPOINTMENT

I

It was, of course, very strange that this should come so swiftly after the meeting with the London gentleman--it was almost as though he had known about it, because it was a first step towards that London that he had so confidently promised. To Peter school meant the immediate supply of the two things that he wanted more than anything in the world--Friendship and Knowledge; not knowledge of the tiresome kind, Knowledge that had to do with the Kings of Israel and the capital of Italy, but rather the experience that other gentlemen of his own age had already gathered during their journey through the world. Stephen, Zachary, Moses, Dicky, Mrs. Trussit, old Curtis, even Aunt Jessie--all these people had knowledge, of course, but they would not give it you--they would not talk to you as though they were at your stage of the journey, they could not exchange opinions with you, they could not share in your wild surmises, they could not sympathise with your hatred of addition, multiplication, and subtraction. The fellow victims at old Parlow's might have been expected to do these things, but they were too young, too uninterested, too unenterprising. One wanted real boys--boys with excitement and sympathy... _real_ boys.

He had wanted it, far, far more terribly than any one had known. He had sat, sometimes, in the dark, in his bedroom, and thought about it until he had very nearly cried, because he wanted it so badly, and now it had suddenly come out of the clouds... bang!

II

That last week went with a rattling speed and provided a number of most interesting situations. In the first place there was the joy--a simple but delightful one--on Monday morning, of thinking of those "others" who were entering, with laggard foot, into old Parlow's study--that study with the shining map of Europe on the wall, a bust of Julius Caesar (conquered Britain? B.C.), and the worn red carpet. They would all be there. They would wonder where he was, and on discovering that he would never come again, Willie Daffoll, of recent tragic memory, would be pleased because now he would be chief and leader. Well, let him!... Yes, that was all very pleasant to think of.

There was further the thought that school might not, after all, be exactly what Peter imagined it. The pictures in his mind were evolved from his reading of "David Copperfield." There would be people like Steerforth and dear Traddles, there would be a master who played the flute, there would be rebellions and riots--would there?

Mrs. Trussit was of little value on this occasion:

"Mrs. Trussit, were you ever at school?"

"No, Master Peter, I was never at school. My good mother, who died at the ripe old age of ninety-two with all her faculties, gave me a liberal and handsome education with her own hands."

"Do you think it will be like 'David Copperfield'?"

Mrs. Trussit was ignorant of the work in question. "Of course, Master Peter. How can you ask such a thing? They are all like that, I believe.

But, there, run away now. It's time for me to be looking after your mother's supper," &c. &c.

Mrs. Trussit obviously knew nothing whatever about it, although Peter heard her once murmuring "Poor lamb" as she gave him mixed biscuits out of her tin.

Stephen also was of little use, and he didn't seem especially glad when he heard about it.

"And it's a good school, do you think?" he said.

"Of course," said Peter valiantly, "one of the very best. It's in Devonshire, and I leave by the eight o'clock train" (this very importantly).

The fact of the matter was that Peter was so greatly excited by it all that abandoning even Stephen was a minor sorrow. It was a dreadful pity of course, but Peter intended to write most wonderful letters, and there would be the joyful meeting when the holidays came round, and he would be a more sensible person for Stephen to have for a friend after he'd seen the world.

"Dear Stephen--I shall write every week--every Friday I expect. That will be a good day to choose."

"Yes--that'll be a good day. Well, 'ere's the end of yer as yer are.

It'll be another Peter coming back, maybe. Up along they'll change yer."

"But never me and you, Steve. I shall love you always."

The man seized him almost fiercely by the shoulders and looked him in the face. "Promise me that, boy," he said, "promise me that. Yer most all I've got now. But I'm a fool to ask yer--of course yer'll change.

I'm an ignorant fool."

They were standing in the middle of one of Stephen's brown ploughed fields, and the cold, sharp day was drawing to a close as the mist stole up from the ground and the dim sun sank behind the hedgerows.

Peter in the school years that followed always had this picture of Stephen standing in the middle of his field--Stephen's rough, red brown clothes, his beard that curled a little, his brown corduroys that smelt of sheep and hay, the shining brass buttons of his coat, his broad back and large brown hands, his mild blue eyes and nose suddenly square at the end where it ought to have been round--this Stephen Brant raised from the very heart of the land, something as strong and primitive as the oaks and corn and running stream that made his background.

Stephen suddenly caught up Peter and kissed him so that the boy cried out. Then he turned abruptly and left him, and Peter did not see him again.

He said his farewells to the town, tenderly and gravely--the cobbled streets, the dear market-place, and the Tower, The Bending Mule (here there were farewells to be said to Mr. and Mrs. Figgis and old Moses); the wooden jetty, and the fishing-boats--then the beach and the caves and the sea....

Last of all, the Grey Hill. Peter climbed it on the last afternoon of all. He was quite alone, and the world was very still; he could not hear the sea at all. At last he was at the top and leant his back against the Giant's Finger. Looking round there are the hills that guard Truro, there are the woods where the rabbits are, there is the sea, and a wonderful view of Treliss rising into a peak which is The Man at Arms--and the smoke of the town mingled with the grey uncertain clouds, and the clouds mingled with the sea, and the only certain and assured thing was the strength of the Giant's Finger. That at least he could feel cold and hard against his hands. He felt curiously solemn and grave, and even a little tearful--and he stole down, through the dusk, softly as though his finger were on his lips.

And then after this a multitude of hurrying sensations with their climax in a very, very early morning, when one dressed with a candle, when one's box was corded and one's attic looked strangely bare, when there was a surprising amount to eat at breakfast, when one stole downstairs softly. He had said good-bye to his mother on the previous evening, and she had kissed him, and he had felt uncomfortable and shy.

Then there were Mrs. Trussit and his aunt to see him off, there was a cab and, most wonderful of all, there was his father coming in the cab.

That was a dreadful thing and the journey to the station seemed endless because of it. His father was perfectly silent, and any thrill that Peter might have snatched from the engines, the porters, the whistles, and his own especial carriage were negatived by this paralysing occurrence. He would have liked to have said something himself, but he could only think of things that were quite impossible like "How funny Mrs. Trussit's nose is early in the morning," "I wonder what old Parlow's doing."

It was terrible.

He was in his carriage--they were hurrying, every one was hurrying.