Peter, after hearing a sermon at the village chapel, grew profoundly sorry for the Devil. It seemed so dreadful to have to burn for ever and ever. He made a secret promise to God that he would take the Devil’s place. Then he thought it over for some days in horror; he had been too generous—he wanted to go back on his bargain. His mother found him crying one night; she suspected that he had been sleeping little by the dark blue rings under his eyes. She coaxed him, and he told her.
Another sign of his ‘maginativeness was his anxiety to know whether cows had souls.
“That boy thinks too much,” said his father; “he needs to rough and tumble with other boys of his own age. At ten his worst trouble should be tummy-ache.”
Nan smiled. “But Peter’s different, you know.”
“I know. But, if he’s to grow up strong, he must change. Little woman, I don’t like it.”
“Billy boy, I sometimes think it’s our doing, yours and mine. When we put toys in the empty nursery before he was born, before he was thought of, we were making him a ‘maginative child.”
“The sins of the parents, eh?”
“Not that. The love of the parents shall be visited upon the children unto the third and——”
“Pepperminta, you know more about God and Peter and love than I do. You’re right, and you’re always right. How is it that you learn so much by sitting so quiet?”
Matters came to a head through Kay. In the cottage where they stayed, Peter slept with her in the same bed, in a narrow room beneath a sloping roof. She was nervous to be left alone there—it was so dark, so far away, so strange; Peter, a willing martyr, went to bed with her at the same time. Lying awake in the dark or twilight, he would tell her stories.