Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/99

 was an end to all Stephen's morbid condition, sitting alone by himself, drinking, seeing no one—now that he'd got Bur stead between the eyes life would be a vigorous, decent thing once more.

Stephen stopped his hymn and came and put his arm round Peter's neck. “Well, boy, to think of you coming round this evening. All these months I've been sittin' 'ere thinking of you—but I've been in a nasty, black state, ^Master Peter, doing nothing but just brood. And the devil's got thicker and thicker about me and I was just going off my head thinking of my girl in the 'ands of that beast up along. At last to-night I suddenly says, ‘Stephen, my fine feller, you've 'ad enough of this,’ I says. ‘You go up and 'ave a good knock at 'im,’ I says, ‘and to-morrer marnin' you just go off to another bit o' country and start doin' something different.’ Up I got and I caught hold of this stick here and out up along I walked. Sure enough there 'e was, through the winder, bullyin' her and she crying. So I just jumped through the winder and was up on to 'im. Lord, you should 'ave seen 'im jump.

“‘Fair fight, Sam Burstead,’ I says. “‘Yer bloody pirate!’ says 'e.

“‘Pirate, is it?’ says I, landing him one—and at that first feel of my 'and along o' 'is cheek all these devils that I've been sufferin' from just turned tail and fled.

“Lord, I give it 'im! Lord, I give it 'im!

“He's living, I reckon, but that's about all 'e is doing. And then, without a word to 'er, I come away, and here I am, a free man and to-morrer marning I go out to tramp the world a bit—and to come back one day when she wants me.”

And then in Peter there suddenly leapt to life a sense of battle, of glorious combat and conflict.

As he stood there in the bare kitchen—he and Stephen there under the light of the jumping candle—with the rain beating on the panes, the trees of the wood bending to the wind, he was seized, exalted, transformed with a sense of the vigour, the adventure, the surprising energy of life.

“Stephen! Stephen!” he cried. “It's glorious! By God! I wish I'd been there!”