Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/144

 the astounded Mrs. Pascoe. As he moved he saw a surprising sight, his grandfather's door was opened and his grandfather (who had not been on his feet for a great many years) was standing in the middle of it, cackling with laughter, dressed in a very ugly yellow dressing-gown, his old knotted hands clutching the sides of the door, his shrivelled body shaking, and his feet in large red slippers.

“Dear me, that was a nasty knock,” he chattered.

And so Peter left them.

The high road was cool and fresh and dark. The sea sung somewhere below amongst the rocks, and Peter immediately was aware that he was leaving Cornwall.

Now he had no other thought. The streets of the town were deserted, clean, smelling of the fields, hay-carts, and primroses, with the darkness broken by dim lamps, and a very slender moon. His heart was full, his throat burning. He crossed the market-place and suddenly bent down and kissed the worn stones of the Tower. There was no one to see.

He was in the station at twenty minutes past seven. The platform was long and cold and deserted, but in the waiting-room was Mr. Zanti enveloped in an enormous black coat.

“Ah, my dear boy, this is indeed splendid. And 'ave you said farewell to your father?”

“Yes, I've said good-bye to every one,” he answered slowly. Suddenly he would have given all the wide world and his prospects in it not to be going. The terrors of Scaw House were as nothing beside that little grey town with the waves breaking on the jetty, the Grey Hill above it, the twisted cobbled streets.

The morning wind blew up the platform, the train rolled in; there were porters, but Mr. Zanti had only a big brown bag which he kept with him.

Soon they were in corners facing one another. As the train swept past the Tower the grey dawn was breaking into blue over the houses that rose, tier by tier, to the sky over the grey rolling breakers, over the hills beyond Cornwall!

Poor Peter stared with passionate eyes as the vision passed.

“London soon,” said Mr. Zanti, gaily.