THE FIRST-BORN
It was about five o'clock in the afternoon that Peter entered a small
market-town.
There were a good many people in the streets, for it was market-day,
and there was an air of leisurely business about the place; completed
business chiefly, for already stalls were being dismantled, and unsold
butter, eggs, and chickens were being repacked in big baskets. Small
groups of men stood about together discussing the weather and the
prospect of the various crops. Carts drove slowly down the steep High
Street, returning to outlying farms.
Peter walked up the hill. One or two people turned to look at him.
Something about him--probably the peacock feather in his hat--attracted
attention.
Half-way up the street stood a big red-brick post-office. It was an
imposing edifice, and seemed to dominate the other buildings with an
air of Government importance.
As Peter approached it he felt his heart beating quickly. On the steps
he paused for a moment. A girl with a small Yorkshire terrier tucked
under her arm was just coming out. She saw Peter on the steps, and kept
her hand on the swinging door in order that he might enter. There was
nothing for it but to go forward quickly and catch the door from her
with a murmured word of thanks. Peter was inside the post-office. He
approached the counter.
"Are there any letters for the name of Carden?" he asked. And he could
hear his heart going klip-klop.
The young woman behind the counter glanced at him. Her look was rather
disdainful, and she turned in a nonchalant fashion to the pigeon-holes
behind her. She did not think it likely there would be letters. The
young man was--A, B, C. She took a parcel and several letters from the
pigeon-hole marked C and ran carelessly through them.
Peter saw her stop. She put back several documents and came towards
him. There was a letter and a parcel in her hand.
The girl looked at him. She was a little puzzled. Perhaps her first
instinct had been at fault. In spite of the shabby coat and hat and the
extremely fantastic feather, he did not look altogether a tramp. She
handed the things across the counter.
"Thanks," said Peter. He tried hard to keep a note of excited pleasure
out of his voice.
He put the letter into his pocket, but kept the parcel in his hand.
He came out of the post-office and turned up the hill, walking rather
quickly. He passed shops and some old-fashioned houses in a row. At
the top of the street was a big house wall-enclosed. He left it on his
right, and passed more houses of the villa order, evidently recently
built. Presently they gave place to cottages. Peter quickened his pace,
and all the time he was fingering that brown-paper parcel. At last the
cottages, too, were left behind, and there was nothing but hedges and
fields before him.
Peter turned into one of the fields and sat down on the grass. He took
out his clasp-knife and cut the string that held the parcel, pulling
forth the contents. A book, green-covered, with the title in gold
lettering, was in his hand.
"_Under the Span of the Rainbow_, by Robin Adair," so the lettering
ran. The last was, of course, a pseudonym.
Peter looked at it; then slowly, shyly, he opened the cover.
With almost just such reverence might a mother look on her new-born
babe, marvelling at her own creation, and quite regardless of the fact
that the same great miracle has been performed times out of number in
the world, and will be performed again as frequently.
This was Peter's child, his first-born. Through months of slow travail
it had been created and brought forth. Under hedges in the open air, in
barns by the light of a single candle, he had worked while dumb beasts
had looked at him with mild, wondering eyes. In sunshine and in cloud
it had been with him; soft winds had rustled its pages, cold blasts had
crept under doors and chilled his fingers while he wrote. And now at
last, fair and in dainty garb, it came forth to the world, breathing
the clean freshness of open spaces, of sun and wind and rain; tender
with the magic of nights, buoyant with the vitality of sunrise. And
yet through it all, as through his piping, lay the strange minor note,
the underhint of longing.
Peter looked up. His blue eyes were dancing with happiness.
"Ouf!" he said with a sigh of supreme content, stretching his long lean
limbs; "it's good to have done it."
Then he opened the letter. It was merely a typewritten communication
from the publishers, informing him that they were sending him one copy
only of his book, according to his wish, and were addressing both it
and the letter to the post-office he had mentioned. It ended by hoping
that the book would be successful, to their mutual advantage.
The businesslike tone of the letter brought Peter down to earth again.
He had been temporarily in heaven. The descent, however, was not a
jarring one.
He replaced the book in the brown paper, put it carefully in his
wallet, and started off across the fields.