“If you won’t come to Heaven, then you’ll have to go to hell,” sang Grace and her followers; it sounded as though they were passing sentence.
To the driver’s amazement, Peter helped him into the hansom. “Trot us round for an hour or two,” he said.
“If you won’t come to Heaven, then you’ll have to go to hell.” The singing hurled itself after them—seemed to be running and to grow out of breath as they drew into the distance.
They set off through Holloway. They reached the foot of Highgate Hill and had not spoken. Ahead blazed the dome of St. Joseph’s, catching the redness of the sinking sun. The cabby asked for further instructions. “Go up the hill and out to Hampstead.”
Waterlow Park brought a breath of country; children were laughing and playing there. The sternness of the city, like the brutality of just judgments, was dropping away behind them. Streets took on a village aspect. Over to the left, within sound of the living children, lay the stone-garden where little Philip rested. The horse clambered slowly to the top of the ascent.
Peter touched the knee of the man beside him. “I’m glad you sent for me. It’s—it’s a long time since we met. I mean—what I mean to say is, you might have forgotten me. I’m glad you didn’t.”
“A long time since we met!” The dull eyes stared at him as lifelessly as through a pair of smoked glasses. “I’ve been buried. They’d better have dug a hole for me.”
The man paused and looked from side to side stealthily. He had the hoarse prison voice which whispered and cracked. It was painful to see how he cringed and shrank. He pulled himself together and laughed huskily. “They didn’t let us speak in there.” He spoke reflectively, as if to himself. “Silent for more than four years! Strange to be back!”
They were bowling down a smooth road. To the right were cricket-fields and boys at the nets. Across the blue stillness of evening came the sharp “click” of balls against bats.
“So this is Uncle Waffles! So this is Uncle Waffles!” Peter kept saying to himself. His thoughts searched back, trying to trace a resemblance between the irrepressible, joking companion of his childhood and this mutilated scrap of humanity. The low-pitched voice crawled on like the sound of dragging footsteps. “I couldn’t have done anything bad enough to deserve that. If I’d only known that someone outside was caring. There were no letters, no—no anything. Just to get up in the morning and to work, and then to go back to bed. Sundays were the worst—there wasn’t any work.—And then they opened the gates and shoved me out. I couldn’t think of anyone but you, Peter.”