II
It seemed to Peter that now at Scaw House the sense of expectation that had been with them all during the last weeks was charged with suspense—at supper that night his aunt burst suddenly into tears and left the room. Shortly afterwards his father also, without a word, got up from the table and went upstairs....
Peter was left alone with his grandfather. The old man, sunk beneath his pile of cushions, his brown skinny hand clenching and unclenching above the rugs, was muttering to himself. In Peter himself, as he stood there by the fire, looking down on the old man, there was tremendous pity. He had never felt so tenderly towards his grandfather before; it was, perhaps, because he had himself grown up all in a day. Last night had proved that one was grown up indeed, although one was but seventeen. But it proved to him still more that the time had come for him to deal with the situation all about him, to discover the thing that was occupying them all so deeply.
Peter bent down to the cushions.
“Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?”
He could hear, faintly, beneath the rugs something about “hell” and “fire” and “poor old man.”
“Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?” but still only “Poor old man ... poor old man ... nobody loves him ... nobody loves him ... to hell with the lot of 'em ... let 'em grizzle in hell fire ... oh! such nasty pains for a poor old man.”
“Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?”
The old brown hand suddenly stopped clenching and unclenching, and out from the cushions the old brown head with its few hairs and its parchment face poked like a withered jack-in-the-box.
“Hullo, boy, you here?”