Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/102

 sunk beneath his pile of cushions, his brown skinny hand clenching and unclenching above the rugs, was muttering to himself. In Peter himself, as he stood there by the fire, looking down on the old man, there was tremendous pity. He had never felt so tenderly towards his grandfather before; it was, perhaps, because he had himself grown up all in a day. Last night had proved that one was grown up indeed, although one was but seventeen. But it proved to him still more that the time had come for him to deal with the situation all about him, to discover the thing that was occupying them all so deeply.

Peter bent down to the cushions.

"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?”

He could hear, faintly, beneath the rugs something about “hell” and “fire” and “poor old man.”

"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?“ but still only “Poor old man poor old man  nobody loves him  nobody loves him  to hell with the lot of 'em  let 'em grizzle in hell fire  oh! such nasty pains for a poor old man.”

"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?”

The old brown hand suddenly stopped clenching and unclenching, and out from the cushions the old brown head with its few hairs and its parchment face poked like a withered jack-in-the-box.

“Hullo, boy, you here?”

“Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?”

The old man's fingers, sharp like pins, drew Peter close to him.

“Boy, I'm terribly frightened. I've been having such dreams. I thought I was dead—in a coffin”

But Peter whispered in his ear:

“Grandfather—tell me—what's the matter with every one here?”

The old man's eyes were suddenly sharp, like needles.

"Ah, he wants to know that, does he? He's found out something at last, has he? I know what they were about. They've been at it in here, boy, too. Oh, yes! for weeks and weeks—killing your mother, that's what my son's been doing  frightening her to death.  He's cruel, my son. I had the Devil once, and now he's got hold of me