This was Peter’s child, his first-born. Through months of slow travail it had been created and brought forth. Under hedges in the open air, in barns by the light of a single candle, he had worked while dumb beasts had looked at him with mild, wondering eyes. In sunshine and in cloud it had been with him; soft winds had rustled its pages, cold blasts had crept under doors and chilled his fingers while he wrote. And now at last, fair and in dainty garb, it came forth to the world, breathing the clean freshness of open spaces, of sun and wind and rain; tender with the magic of nights, [Pg 25]buoyant with the vitality of sunrise. And yet through it all, as through his piping, lay the strange minor note, the underhint of longing. [Pg 25] Peter looked up. His blue eyes were dancing with happiness. “Ouf!” he said with a sigh of supreme content, stretching his long lean limbs; “it’s good to have done it.” Then he opened the letter. It was merely a typewritten communication from the publishers, informing him that they were sending him one copy only of his book, according to his wish, and were addressing both it and the letter to the post-office he had mentioned. It ended by hoping that the book would be successful, to their mutual advantage. The businesslike tone of the letter brought Peter down to earth again. He had been temporarily in heaven. The descent, however, was not a jarring one. He replaced the book in the brown paper, put it carefully in his wallet, and started off across the fields. [Pg 26] [Pg 26] CHAPTER III THE DESERTED COTTAGE For some time there was nothing but open country around him, though in the far distance he saw an occasional farmhouse. For At last, however, he saw the roofs of cottages, and realized that he was approaching a village. The square tower of a church, and a big house half-hidden by trees on higher ground beyond the cottages, made it probable that it was more than merely a hamlet.
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