saw his face. It had grown much older in the last twenty minutes. “And now,” said the man jauntily, though his eyes belied the carelessness of the words, “for the open road.” Perhaps the robin understood that speech. At any rate it sang a sweet sturdy song of Amen. [Pg 8] [Pg 8] CHAPTER I THE PIPER Peter was sitting under a hedge, playing on a penny whistle. Behind him was a bush, snowy with the white flowers of the hawthorn. In front of him was a field, warm with the gold of buttercups. Away in a distant valley were the roofs of cottages and a farmhouse. The smoke from one of its chimneys rose thin and blue in the still air. It was all very peaceful, ideally English. Peter Peter was an artist. It seemed almost incredible that a tin instrument which could be purchased for a penny could be made to produce such sounds. He was playing a joyous lilt. You could hear the song of birds and feel the soft west wind blowing from distant places; and through it was a measured beat as of feet walking along the open [Pg 9]road. Yet under all the gaiety and light-heartedness lay a strange minor note, a note that somehow found reflection in Peter’s blue eyes. [Pg 9] Peter finished his tune and put the whistle-pipe in his pocket. From a wallet beside him he pulled out a hunch of bread and cheese and a very red and shiny apple. He opened a large clasp-knife, cut the hunch of bread in two, and fell to eating slowly. His hands were long-fingered, flexible, and very brown. There was a lean, muscular look about Peter altogether. His clothes were distinctly shabby. They consisted of a pair of grey trousers, very frayed at the edges, and with a patch of some darker material on one knee; a soft white shirt, spotlessly clean; and a loose jacket, grey flannel like the trousers. A felt hat lay on the ground near him. In it was fantastically stuck a peacock feather. Beside the hat was a small bundle rolled up in a bit of sacking. Peter finished the bread and cheese and the apple, and put
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