§ 14
After the midday meal on Wednesday Peter loafed for a little time in the playground.
“Coming to play cricket, Simon Peter?” said Probyn.
“Got to stay in the schoolroom,” said Peter.
“He’s going to write his five hundred lines,” said young Newton. “I said he would.”
(Young Newton would know better later.)
Peter went back unobtrusively to the schoolroom. In his desk were two slices of bread-and-butter secreted from the breakfast table and wrapped in clean pages from an exercise-book. These were his simple provisions. With these, a pencil, and a good serviceable catapult he proposed to set out into the wide, wide world. He had no money.
He “scouted” Mr. Mainwearing into his study, marked that he shut the door, and heard him pull down the blind. The armchair creaked as the schoolmaster sat down for the afternoon’s repose. That would make a retreat from the front door of the school house possible. The back of the house meant a risk of being seen by the servants, the playground door or the cricket-field might attract the attention of some sneak. But from the front door to the road and the shelter of the playground wall was but ten seconds dash. Still Peter, from the moment he crept out of the main class-room into the passage to the moment when he was out of sight of the windows was as tightly strung as a fiddlestring. Never before in all his little life had he lived at such a pitch of nervous intensity. Once in the road he ran, and continued to run until he turned into the road to Clewer. Then he dropped into a good smart walk. The world was all before him.
The world was a warm October afternoon and a straight road, poplars and red roofs ahead. Whither the road ran he had no idea, but in the back of his mind, obscured but by no means hidden by a cloud of dreams, was the necessity of getting to Ingle-Nook. After he had walked perhaps half a mile upon the road to Clewer it occurred to Peter that he would ask his way.
The first person he asked was a nice little old lady with a kind face, and she did not know where the road went nor whence it came. “That way it goes to Pescod Street,” she said, “if you take the right turning, and that way it goes past the racecourse. But you have to turn off, you know. That’s Clewer Church.”
No, she didn’t know which was the way to Limpsfield. Perhaps if Peter asked the postman he’d know.
No postman was visible....
The next person Peter asked was as excessive as the old lady was deficient. He was a large, smiling, self-satisfied man, with a hearty laugh.
“Where does the road go, my boy?” he repeated. “Why! it goes to Maidenhead and Cookham. Cookham! Have you heard the story? This is the way the man told the waiter to take the underdone potatoes. Because it’s the way to Cookham. See? Good, eh? But not so good as telling him to take peas that was. Through Windsor, you know. Because it’s the way to Turnham Green. Ha, ha!
“How far is Maidenhead? Oh! a tidy bit—a tidy bit. Say four miles. Put it at four miles.”
When Peter asked for Limpsfield the large man at once jumped to the conclusion he meant Winchfield. “That’s a bit on your left,” he said, “just a bit on your left. How far? Oh! a tidy bit. Say five miles—five miles and a ’arf, say.”
When he had gone on a little way the genial man shouted back to Peter: “Might be six miles, perhaps,” he said. “Not more.”
Which was comforting news. So Peter went on his way with his back to Limpsfield—which was a good thirty miles and more away from him—and a pleasant illusion that Aunts Phyllis and Phœbe were quite conveniently just round the corner....
About four o’clock he had discovered Maidenhead bridge, and thereafter the river held him to the end. He had never had a good look at a river before. It was a glowing October afternoon, and the river life was enjoying its Indian summer. High Cross School was an infinite distance away, and all its shadows were dismissed from his mind. Boats are wonderful things to a small boy who has lived among hills. He wandered slowly along the towing-path, and watched several boats and barges through the lock. In each boat he hoped to see Uncle Nobby. But it just happened that Uncle Nobby wasn’t there. Near the lock some people were feeding two swans. When they had gone through the lock Peter went close down to the swans. They came to him in a manner so friendly that he gave them the better part of his provisions. After that he watched the operations of a man repairing a Canadian canoe beside a boat-letting place. Then he became interested in the shoaling fish in the shallows. After that he walked for a time, on past some little islands. At last, as he was now a little foot-sore, he sat down on the bank in the lush grass above some clumps of sweet rush.
He was just opposite the autumnal fires of the Cleveden woods, amidst which he could catch glimpses of Italian balustrading. The water was a dark mirror over which hung a bloom of mist. Now and then an infrequent boat would glide noiselessly or with a measured beat of rowlocks, through the brown water. Afar off was a swan....
Presently he would go on to Ingle-Nook. But not just yet. When his feet and legs were a little rested he would go on. He would ask first for Limpsfield and then for Ingle-Nook. It would be three or four miles. He would get there in time for supper.
He was struck by a thought that should have enlightened him. He wondered no one had ever brought him before from Ingle-Nook to this beautiful place. It was funny they did not know of it....
Above that balustrading among the trees over there, must be a palace, and in that palace lived a beautiful princess who loved Peter....