"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!"
Stephen caught him by the arm and held him. The old dog came from under the
table and wagged his tail.
"Bless my soul," said Stephen, looking at him, "all these weeks I've been
forgetting him. I've been in a kind of dream, boy--a kind o' dream. Why
didn't I 'it 'im before? Lord, why didn't I 'it 'im before!"
Peter at the word thought of his mother.
"Yes," he thought, with clenched teeth, "I'll go for them!"
CHAPTER VIII
PETER AND HIS MOTHER
I
He had returned over the heavy fields, singing to a round-faced moon. In
the morning, when he woke after a night of glorious fantastic dreams, and
saw the sun beating very brightly across his carpet and birds singing
beyond his window, he felt still that same exultation.
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