There is Thunder coming the
air is that still over the roof of the barn and the road's dead white.
Dear Boy, I am your friend,_
STEPHEN BRANT.
The candles blew a little in the breeze from the open window and the
lighted shadows ran flickering in silver lines, along the dark floor. Peter
stood holding the letter in his hand, looking out on to the black square of
sky; the lights of the barges swung down the river and he could hear, very
faintly, the straining of ropes and the turning of some mysterious wheel.
He saw Stephen--the great head, the flowing beard, the huge body--and
then the inn with the thunder coming over the hill, and then, beyond that
Treliss gleaming with its tiers of lights, above the breast of the sea. And
from here, from this wide Embankment, down to that sea, there stretched,
riding over hills, bending into valleys, always white and hard and stony,
the road....
For an instant he felt as though the studio, the lights, the comforts were
holding him like a prison--
"It's a letter from Stephen Brant," he said, turning back from the window.
"He seems well and happy--"
"Where is he?"
"Eating bread and cheese at an inn somewhere--on the road down to
Cornwall."
IV
On the following Tuesday "Reuben Hallard" was published and on the Thursday
afternoon Henry Galleon and Clare Rossiter were to come to tea.
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