If it went on much longer it would make him
remember--he must not remember.
They turned down into a deep, mysterious lane and the whisper was hidden.
Now there was about them only the urgent crowding of the hedges, the
wild-flowers flinging their scent on to the night air, and above and below
and on every side of the old cab there streamed into the air the sweet
smell of crushed grass, as though many fields had been pressed between
giant's fingers and so had been left.
Peter sat there and about him, like flames licking woodwork, evil thoughts
devoured his body. He was going now at last to do all those things that,
these many years, he had prevented himself from doing. That at any rate he
knew.... He would drink and drink and drink, until he would never remember
anything again ... never again.... Meanwhile as the cab slowly began to
climb the hill again Mr. Jackson was telling a story.
He rolled his r's as though life were indeed a valuable and happy thing,
and now and again, waving his thin whip in the air, he would seem to appeal
to the moon.
"'Twas down to Dunotter Cove and I, a lad, my father bein' a fisherman, and
one night, I mind it as though it were yesterday, there was a mighty wreck.
Storm and wind and rain there was that night and there we were, out in it,
suddenly, all the village of us. I but a slip of a boy, you must know,
which it was thirty year back now and the rain sizzling on the cobbles and
the wind blawin' the chimneys crooked.
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