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FORTITUDE
By Hugh Walpole
To
Charles Maude
The best of friends and the most honest of critics
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BOOK I: SCAW HOUSE
I INTRODUCTION TO COURAGE
II HOW THE WESTCOTT FAMILY SAT UP FOR PETER
III OF THE DARK SHOP OF ZACHARY TAN, AND OF THE DECISIONS THAT THE
PEOPLE IN SCAW HOUSE CAME TO CONCERNING PETER
IV IN WHICH “DAWSON'S,” AS THE GATE OF LIFE, IS PROVED A DISAPPOINTMENT
V DAWSON'S, THE GATE INTO HELL
VI A LOOKING-GLASS, A SILVER MATCH-BOX, A GLASS OF WHISKY, AND
VOX POPULI
VII PRIDE OF LIFE
VIII PETER AND HIS MOTHER
IX THE THREE WESTCOTTS
X SUNLIGHT, LIMELIGHT, DAYLIGHT
XI ALL KINDS OF FOG IN THE CHARING CROSS ROAD
XII BROCKETT'S: ITS CHARACTERS AND ESPECIALLY MRS. BROCKETT
BOOK II: THE BOOKSHOP
I “REUBEN HALLARD”
II THE MAN ON THE LION
III ROYAL PERSONAGES ARE COMING
IV A LITTLE DUST
V A NARROW STREET
VI THE WORLD AND BUCKET LANE
VII DEVIL'S MARCH
VIII STEPHEN'S CHAPTER
BOOK III: THE ROUNDABOUT
I NO. 72, CHEYNE WALK
II A CHAPTER ABOUT SUCCESS: HOW TO WIN IT, HOW TO KEEP IT--WITH A
NOTE AT THE END FROM HENRY GALLEON
III THE ENCOUNTER
IV THE ROUNDABOUT
V THE IN-BETWEENS
VI BIRTH OF THE HEIR
VII DECLARATION OF HAPPINESS
VIII BLINDS DOWN
IX WILD MEN
X ROCKING THE ROUNDABOUT
XI WHY?
XII A WOMAN CALLED ROSE BENNETT
XIII “MORTIMER STANT”
XIV PETER BUYS A PRESENT
XV MR. WESTCOTT SENIOR CALLS CHECKMATE
BOOK IV: SCAW HOUSE
I THE SEA
II SCAW HOUSE
III NORAH MONOGUE
IV THE GREY HILL
BOOK I -- SCAW HOUSE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION TO COURAGE
I
“'Tisn't life that matters! 'Tis the courage you bring to it” ... this
from old Frosted Moses in the warm corner by the door. There might have
been an answer, but Dicky Tasset, the Town Idiot, filled in the pause
with the tale that he was telling Mother Figgis. “And I ran--a mile or
more with the stars dotted all over the ground for yer pickin', as yer
might say....”
A little boy, Peter Westcott, heard what old Frosted Moses had said,
and turned it over in his mind. He was twelve years old, was short and
thick-necked, and just now looked very small because he was perched on
so high a chair. It was one of the four ancient chairs that Sam Figgis
always kept in the great kitchen behind the taproom. He kept them there
partly because they were so very old and partly because they fell in
so pleasantly with the ancient colour and strength of the black smoky
rafters. The four ancient chairs were carved up the legs with faces and
arms and strange crawling animals and their backs were twisted into the
oddest shapes and were uncomfortable to lean against, but Peter Westcott
sat up very straight with his little legs dangling in front of him and
his grey eyes all over the room at once. He could not see all of the
room because there were depths that the darkness seized and filled,
and the great fiery place, with its black-stained settle, was full
of mysterious shadows. A huge fire was burning and leaping in the
fastnesses of that stone cavity, and it was by the light of this alone
that the room was illumined--and this had the effect as Peter noticed,
of making certain people, like Mother Figgis and Jane Clewer, quite
monstrous, and fantastic with their skirts and hair and their shadows
on the wall. Before Frosted Moses had said that sentence about Courage,
Peter had been taking the room in. Because he had been there very often
before he knew every flagstone in the floor and every rafter in the roof
and all the sporting pictures on the walls, and the long shining row of
mugs and coloured plates by the fire-place and the cured hams hanging
from the ceiling ... but to-night was Christmas Eve and a very especial
occasion, and he was sure to be beaten when he got home, and so must
make the very most of his time. He watched the door also for Stephen
Brant, who was late, but might arrive at any moment. Had it not been for
Stephen Brant Peter knew that he would not have been allowed there at
all. The Order of the Kitchen was jealously guarded and Sam Figgis,
the Inn-keeper, would have considered so small a child a nuisance, but
Stephen was the most popular man in the county, and he had promised that
Peter would be quiet--and he _was_ quiet, even at that age; no one could
be so quiet as Peter when he chose. And then they liked the boy after
a time. He was never in the way, and he was wonderfully wise for his
years: he was a strong kid, too, and had muscles....
So Peter crept there when he could, although it very often meant a
beating afterwards, but the Kitchen was worth a good many beatings,
and he would have gone through Hell--and did indeed go through his own
special Hell on many occasions--to be in Stephen's company. They were
all nice to him even when Stephen wasn't there, but there were other
reasons, besides the people, that drew Peter to the place.
It was partly perhaps because The Bending Mule was built right out into
the sea, being surrounded on three sides by water. This was all twenty
years ago, and I believe that now the Inn has been turned into an Arts
Club, and there are tea-parties and weekly fashion papers where there
had once been those bloody fights and Mother Figgis sitting like some
witch over the fire; but it is no matter. Treliss is changed, of course,
and so is the world, and there are politeness and sentiment where once
there were oaths and ferocity, and there is much soap instead of grimy
hands and unwashen faces ... and the fishing is sadly on the decline,
but there are good drapers' shops in the town.
For Peter the charm of the place was that “he was out at sea.” One could
hear quite distinctly the lap of the waves against the walls and on
stormy nights the water screamed and fought and raged outside and rolled
in thundering echoes along the shore. To-night everything was still, and
the snow was falling heavily, solemnly over the town.
The snow, and the black sea, and the lights that rose tier on tier like
crowds at a circus, could be seen through the uncurtained windows.
The snow and quiet of the world “out-along” made the lights and warmth
of the room the more comforting and exciting, and Sam Figgis had hung
holly about the walls and dangled a huge bunch of mistletoe from
the middle beam and poor Jane Clewer was always walking under it
accidentally and waiting a little, but nobody kissed her. These things
Peter noticed; he also noticed that Dicky the Idiot was allowed to be
present as a very great favour because it was Christmas Eve and snowing
so hard, that the room was more crowded than he had ever seen it, and
that Mother Figgis, with her round face and her gnarled and knotted
hands, was at her very merriest and in the best of tempers. All these
things Peter had noticed before Frosted Moses (so called because of his
long white beard and wonderful age) made his remark about Courage, but
as soon as that remark was made Peter's thoughts were on to it as the
hounds are on to a fox.
“'Tisn't life that matters, but the Courage yer bring to it....”
That, of course, at once explained everything. It explained his own
father and his home, it explained poor Mrs. Prothero and her two sons
who were drowned, it explained Stephen's cousin who was never free from
the most painful rheumatics, and it explained Stephen himself who was
never afraid of any one or anything. Peter stared at Frosted Moses,
whose white beard was shining in the fire-place and his boots were like
large black boats; but the old man was drawing at his pipe, and had made
his remark apparently in connection with nothing at all. Peter was also
disappointed to see that the room at large had paid no attention to the
declaration.
Courage. That was what they were all there for, and soon, later in the
evening, he would take his beating like a man, and would not cry out as
he had done the last time. And then, at the thought of the beating,
he shivered a little on his tall chair and his two short legs in their
black stockings beat against the wooden bars, and wished that he might
have stayed in some dark corner of The Bending Mule during the rest of
the night and not go home until the morning--or, indeed, a very much
better and happier thing, never go home again at all. He would get a
worse beating for staying out so late, but it was something of a comfort
to reflect that he would have been beaten in any case; old Simon Parlow,
who taught him mathematics and Latin, with a little geography and
history during six days of the week, had given him that morning a letter
to his father directed in the old man's most beautiful handwriting to
the effect that Master Westcott had made no progress at all in his sums
during the last fortnight, had indeed made no attempt at progress,
and had given William Daffoll, the rector's son, a bleeding nose last
Wednesday when he ought to have been adding, dividing, and subtracting.
Old Parlow had shown him the letter so that Peter knew that there was
no escape, unless indeed Peter destroyed the paper, and that only meant
that punishment was deferred.
Yes, it meant a beating, and Peter had hung about the town and the shore
all the afternoon and evening because he was afraid. This fact of his
fear puzzled him and he had often considered the matter. He was not, in
any other way, a coward, and he had done, on many occasions, things that
other friends of his own age had hung back from, but the thought of
his father made him quite sick with fear somewhere in the middle of his
stomach. He considered the matter very carefully and he decided at last
(and he was very young for so terrible a discovery) that it was because
his father liked beating him that he was afraid. He knew that his father
liked it because he had watched his mouth and had heard the noise that
came through his lips. And this, again, was rather strange because his
father did not look as though he would like it; he had a cold face like
a stone and was always in black clothes, but he did not, as a rule, show
that he was pleased or angry or sorry--he never showed things.
Now these words of Frosted Moses explained everything. It was because
his father knew that it was Courage that mattered that he liked to beat
Peter ... it was good for Peter to learn Courage.
“'Tisn't life that matters” ... it isn't a beating that matters....
Frosted Moses was a great deal wiser than old Simon Parlow, who, in
spite of his knowing so much about sums, knew nothing whatever about
life. He knew nothing whatever about Courage either and shook like a
leaf when his sister, Miss Jessel Parlow, was angry with him, as she
very often had reason to be. Peter despised the old man with his long
yellow tooth that hung over his lower lip, and his dirty grey hair that
strayed from under his greasy black velvet cap (like wisps of hay).
Peter never cared anything for the words or the deeds of old Parlow....
But Frosted Moses! ... he had lived for ever, and people said that he
could never die. Peter had heard that he had been in the Ark with Noah,
and he had often wished to ask him questions about that interesting
period, about Ham, Shem and Japheth, and about the animals. Of course,
therefore, he knew everything about Life, and this remark of his about
Courage was worth considering. Peter watched him very solemnly and
noticed how his white beard shone in the fire-light, how there was a red
handkerchief falling out of one enormous pocket, and how there was a
big silver ring on one brown and bony finger ... and then the crowd of
sailors at the door parted, and Stephen Brant came in.
II
Stephen Brant, the most wonderful person in the world! Always, through
life, Peter must have his most wonderful person, and sometimes those
Heroes knew of it and lived up to his worshipping and sometimes they
knew of it and could not live up to it, but most frequently they never
knew because Peter did not let them see. This Hero worship is at the
back of a great deal that happened to Peter, of a great deal of his
sorrow, and of all of his joy, and he would not have been Peter without
it; very often these Heroes, poor things, came tumbling from their
pedestals, often they came, in very shame, down of their own accord,
and perhaps of them all Stephen only was worthy of his elevation, and he
never knew that he was elevated.
He knew now, of course, that Peter loved him; but Peter was a little
boy, and was taken by persons who were strong and liked a laugh and were
kind in little ways. Stephen knew that when Peter grew older he must
love other and wiser people. He was a very large man, six foot three
and broad, with a brown beard, and grey eyes like Peter's. He had been
a fisherman, but now he was a farmer, because it paid better--he had an
old mother, one enemy, and very many friends; he had loved a girl, and
she had been engaged to him for two years, but another man had taken her
away and married her--and that is why he had an enemy. He greeted his
friends and kissed poor Jane Clewer under the mistletoe, and then
kissed old Mother Figgis, who pushed him away with a laugh and “Coom
up there--where are yer at?”--and Peter watched him until his turn
also should come. His legs were beating the wooden bars again with
excitement, but he would not say anything. He saw Stephen as something
very much larger and more stupendous than any one else in the
room. There were men there bigger of body perhaps, and men who were
richer--Stephen had only four cows on his farm and he never did much
with his hay--but there was no one who could change a room simply by
entering it as Stephen could.
At last the moment came--Stephen turned round--“Why, boy!”
Peter was glad that the rest of the room was busied once more with its
talking, laughing, and drinking, and some old man (sitting on a table
and his nose coming through the tobacco-smoke like a rat through a hole
in the wall) had struck up a tune on a fiddle. Peter was glad, because
no one watched them together. He liked to meet Stephen in private. He
buried his small hand in the brown depths of Stephen's large one,
and then as Stephen looked uncertainly round the room, he whispered:
“Steve--my chair, and me sitting on you--please.”
It was a piece of impertinence to call him “Steve,” of course, and when
other people were there it was “Mr. Brant,” but in their own privacy it
was their own affair. Peter slipped down from his chair, and Stephen
sat down on it, and then Peter was lifted up and leant his head back
somewhere against the middle button of Stephen's waistcoat, just where
his heart was noisiest, and he could feel the hard outline of Stephen's
enormous silver watch that his family had had, so Stephen said, for a
hundred years. Now was the blissful time, the perfect moment. The rest
of the world was busied with life--the window showed the dull and then
suddenly shining flakes of snow, the lights and the limitless sea--the
room showed the sanded floor, the crowd of fishermen drinking, their
feet moving already to the tune of the fiddle, the fisher girls with
their coloured shawls, the great, swinging smoky lamp, the huge fire,
Dicky the fool, Mother Figgis, fat Sam the host, old Frosted Moses ...
the gay romantic world--and these two in their corner, and Peter so
happy that no beatings in the world could terrify.
“But, boy,” says Stephen, bending down so that the end of his beard
tickles Peter's neck, “what are yer doing here so late? Your
father...?”
“I'm going back to be beaten, of course.”
“If yer go now perhaps yer won't be beaten so bad?”
“Oh, Steve! ... I'm staying ... like this ... always.”
But Peter knew, in spite of the way that the big brown hand pressed his
white one in sympathy, that Stephen was worried and that he was thinking
of something. He knew, although he could not see, that Stephen's eyes
were staring right across the room and that they were looking, in the
way that they had, past walls and windows and streets--somewhere for
something....
Peter knew a little about Stephen's trouble. He did not understand it
altogether, but he had seen the change in Stephen, and he knew that
he was often very sad, and that moods came upon him when he could do
nothing but think and watch and wait--and then his face grew very grey
and his eyes very hard, and his hands were clenched. Peter knew that
Stephen had an enemy, and that one day he would meet him.
Some of the men and girls were dancing now in the middle of the room.
The floor and the walls shook a little with the noise that the heavy
boots of the fishermen made and the smoky lamp swung from side to side.
The heat was great and some one opened the window and the snow
came swirling, in little waves and eddies, in and out, blown by the
breeze--dark and heavy outside against the clouded sky, white and
delicate and swiftly vanishing in the room. Dicky the Fool came across
the floor and talked to Stephen in his smiling, rambling way. People
pitied Dicky and shook their heads when his name was mentioned, but
Peter never could understand this because the Fool seemed always to be
happy and cheerful, and he saw so many things that other people never
saw at all. It was only when he was drunk that he was unhappy, and he
was pleased with such very little things, and he told such _wonderful_
stories.
Stephen was always kind to the Fool, and the Fool worshipped him, but
to-night Peter saw that he was paying no heed to the Fool's talk. The
Fool had a story about three stars that he had seen rolling down the
Grey Hill, and behold, when they got to the bottom--“little bright
nickety things, like new saxpennies--it was suddenly so dark that Dicky
had to light his lantern and grope his way home with that, and all the
frogs began croaking down in the marsh 'something terrible'--now what
was the meaning of that?”
But Stephen was paying no attention. His eyes were set on the open
window and the drifting snow. Men came in stamping their great boots on
the floor and rubbing their hands together--the fiddle was playing more
madly than ever--and at every moment some couple would stop under the
mistletoe and the girl would scream and laugh, and the man's kiss could
be heard all over the room; through the open window came the sound of
church bells.
Stephen bent down and whispered in the boy's ear: “Yer'd best be going
now, Peter, lad. 'Tis half-past nine and, chance, if yer go back now yer
lickin' 'ull not be so bad.”
But Peter whispered back: “Not yet, Stephen--a little while longer.”
Peter was tremendously excited. He could never remember being quite so
excited before. It was all very thrilling, of course, with the dancing
and the music and the lights, but there was more than that in it.
Stephen was so unlike himself, but then possibly Christmas made him sad,
because he would be thinking of last Christmas and the happy time that
he had had because his girl had been with him--but there was more than
that in it. Then, suddenly, a curious thing happened to Peter. He was
not asleep, he was not even drowsy--he was sitting with his eyes wide
open, staring at the window. He saw the window with its dark frame, and
he saw the snow .. and then, in an instant, the room, the people, the
music, the tramping of feet, the roar of voices, these things were all
swept away, and instead there was absolute stillness, only the noise
that a little wind makes when it rustles through the blades of grass,
and above him rose the Grey Hill with its funny sugar-loaf top and
against it heavy black clouds were driving--outlined sharply against the
sky was the straight stone pillar that stood in the summit of the Grey
Hill and was called by the people the Giant's Finger. He could hear
some sheep crying in the distance and the tinkling of their bells. Then
suddenly the picture was swept away, and the room and the people and the
dancing were before him and around him once more. He was not surprised
by this--it had happened to him before at the most curious times, he had
seen, in the same way, the Grey Hill and the Giant's Finger and he had
felt the cold wind about his neck, and always something had happened.
“Stephen,” he whispered, “Stephen--”
But Stephen's hand was crushing his hand like an iron glove, and
Stephen's eyes were staring, like the eyes of a wild animal, at the
door. A man, a short, square man with a muffler round his throat, and a
little mouth and little ears, had come in and was standing by the door,
looking round the room.
Stephen whispered gently in Peter's ear: “Run home, Peter boy,” and he
kissed him very softly on the cheek--then he put him down on the floor.
Stephen rose from his chair and stood for an instant staring at the
door. Then he walked across the room, brushing the people aside, and
tapped the little man with the muffler on the shoulder:
“Samuel Burstead,” he said, “good evenin' to yer.”
III
All the room seemed to cease moving and talking at the moment when
Stephen Brant said that. They stood where they were like the people in
the _Sleeping Beauty_, and Peter climbed up on to his chair again to
see what was going to happen. He pulled up his stockings, and then sat
forward in his chair with his eyes gazing at Stephen and his hands very
tightly clenched. When, afterwards, he grew up and thought at all about
his childhood, this scene always remained, over and beyond all the
others. He wondered sometimes why it was that he remembered it all so
clearly, that he had it so dramatically and forcibly before him, when
many more recent happenings were clouded and dull, but when he was older
he knew that it was because it stood for so much of his life, it was
because that Christmas Eve in those dim days was really the beginning
of everything, and in the later interpretation of it so much might be
understood.
But, to a boy of that age, the things that stood out were not, of
necessity, the right things and any unreality that it might have had was
due perhaps to his fastening on the incidental, fantastic things that
a small child notices, always more vividly than a grown person. In the
very first instant of Stephen's speaking to the man with the muffler it
was Dicky the Fool's open mouth and staring eyes that showed Peter how
important it was. The Fool had risen from his chair and was standing
leaning forward, his back black against the blazing fire, his silly
mouth agape and great terror in his eyes. Being odd in his mind, he felt
perhaps something in the air that the others did not feel, and Peter
seemed to catch fright from his staring eyes.
The man at the door had turned round when Stephen Brant spoke to him,
and had pushed his way out of the crowd of men and stood alone fingering
his neck.
“I'm here, Stephen Brant, if yer want me.”
Sam Figgis came forward then and said something to Stephen, and then
shrugged his shoulders and went back to his wife. He seemed to feel
that no one could interfere between the two men--it was too late for
interference. Then things happened very quickly. Peter saw that they had
all--men and women--crowded back against the benches and the wall and
were watching, very silently and with great excitement. He found it very
difficult to see, but he bent his head and peered through the legs of a
big fisherman in front of him. He was shaking all over his body. Stephen
had never before appeared so terrible to him; he had seen him when he
was very angry and when he was cross and ill-tempered, but now he was
very ominous in his quiet way, and his eyes seemed to have changed
colour. The small boy could only see the middle of the floor and pieces
of legs and skirts and trousers, but he knew by the feeling in the room
that Stephen and the little man were going to fight. Then he moved his
head round and saw between two shoulders, and he saw that the two men
were stripping to the waist. The centre of the room was cleared, and Sam
Figgis came forward to speak to Stephen again, and this time there was
more noise, and the people began to shout out loud and the men grew more
and more excited. There had often been fights in that room before, and
Peter had witnessed one or two, but there had never been this solemnity
and ceremony--every one was very grave. It did not occur to Peter that
it was odd that it should be allowed; no one thought of policemen twenty
years ago in Treliss and Sam Figgis was more of a monarch in The Bending
Mule than Queen Victoria. And now two of the famous old chairs were
placed at opposite corners, and quite silently two men, with serious
faces, as though this were the most important hour of their life, stood
behind them. Stephen and the other man, stripped to their short woollen
drawers, came into the middle of the room. Stephen had hair all over his
chest, and his arms and his neck were tremendous; and Peter as he looked
at him thought that he must be the strongest man in the world. His enemy
was smooth and shiny, but he seemed very strong, and you could see the
muscles of his arms and legs move under his skin. Some one had marked a
circle with chalk, and all the men and women, quite silent now, made a
dark line along the wall. The lamp in the middle of the room was still
swinging a little, and they had forgotten to close the window, so that
the snow, which was falling more lightly now, came in little clouds with
breaths of wind, into the room--and the bells were yet pealing and could
be heard very plainly against the silence.
Then Sam Figgis, who was standing with his legs wide apart, said
something that Peter could not catch, and a little sigh of excitement
went up all round the room. Peter, who was clutching his chair with both
hands, and choking, very painfully, in his throat, knew, although he had
no reason for his knowledge, that the little man with the shining chest
meant to kill Stephen if he could.
The two men moved round the circle very slowly with their fists clenched
and their eyes watching every movement--then, suddenly, they closed.
At once Peter saw that the little man was very clever, cleverer than
Stephen. He moved with amazing quickness. Stephen's blows came like
sledge-hammers, and sometimes they fell with a dull heavy sound on
the other man's face and on his chest, but more often they missed
altogether. The man seemed to be everywhere at once, and although the
blows that he gave Stephen seemed to have little effect yet he got past
the other's defence again and again.
Then, again, the figures in front of Peter closed in and he saw nothing.
He stood on his chair--no one noticed him now--but he could not see. His
face was very white, and his stockings had fallen down over his boots,
but with every movement he was growing more afraid. He caught an
instant's vision of Stephen's face, and he saw that it was white and
that he was breathing hard. The room seemed to be ominously silent,
and then men would break out into strange threatening sounds, and Peter
could see one woman--a young girl--with a red shawl about her shoulders,
her back against the wall, staring with a white face.
He could not see--he could not see....
He murmured once very politely--he thought he said it aloud but it was
really under his breath: “Please, please--would you mind--if you stood
aside--just a little....” but the man in front of him was absorbed and
heard nothing. Then he knew that there was a pause, he caught a glimpse
of the brick floor and he saw that Stephen was sitting back in his
chair--his face was white, and blood was trickling out from the corner
of his mouth on to his beard. Then Peter remembered old Frosted Moses'
words: “The courage you bring to it....” and he sat back in his chair
again and, with hands clenched, waited. He would be brave, braver than
he had ever been before, and perhaps in some strange way his bravery
would help Stephen. He determined with all the power that he had to
be brave. They had begun again, he heard the sound of the blows, the
movement of the men's feet on the rough brick of the floor; people cried
out, the man in front of him pressed forward and he had a sudden view.
Stephen was on one knee and his head was down and the other man was
standing over him. It was all over--Stephen was beaten--Stephen would
be killed, and in another minute Peter would have pushed past the people
and run into the middle of the room, but Sam Figgis had again come
forward, and the two men were in their chairs again. There followed
another terrible time when Peter could see nothing. He waited--he could
hear them moving again, the noise of their breathing and of their feet,
the men in the crowd were pressing nearer, but there was no word spoken.
He must see--at all costs he must see. And he climbed down from his
chair, and crept unnoticed towards the front. Nobody saw him or realised
him.... Stephen was bending back, he seemed to be slowly sinking down.
The other man, from whose face blood was now streaming, was pressing
on to him. Peter knew that it was all over and that there was no
hope; there was a dreadful cold, hard pain in his throat, and he could
scarcely see. Courage! he must have it for Stephen. With every bit of
his soul and his mind and his body he was brave. He stood taut--his
little legs stiff beneath him and flung defiance at the world. He
and Stephen were fighting that shiny man together--both of them--now.
Courage! Stephen's head lifted a little, and then slowly Peter saw him
pulling his body together--he grew rigid, he raised his head, and, as
a tree falls, his fist crashed into his enemy's face. The man dropped
without a word and lay motionless. It was over. Stephen gravely watched
for a moment the senseless body and then sat back in his chair, his head
bowed on his chest.
The fight had not, perhaps, been like that--there must have been many
other things that happened, but that was always how Peter remembered it.
And now there was confusion--a great deal of noise and people talking
very loudly, but Stephen said nothing at all. He did not look at the
body again, but when he had recovered a little, still without a word to
any one and with his eyes grave and without expression, he moved to the
corner where his clothes lay.
“'E's not dead.”
“No--give 'im room there, he's moving,” and from the back of the crowd
the Fool's silly face, peering over...
Peter crept unnoticed to the door. The clocks were striking ten, and
some one in the street was singing. He pulled up his stockings and
fastened his garters, then he slipped out into the snow and saw that the
sky was full of stars and that the storm had passed.