CHAPTER V
THE SOUL OF A WOMAN
Thus Peter entered upon his estate, since there was evidently no man would say him nay. He, the wayfarer, who for two years had slept by the hedge-side or in barns, found himself possessed of a castle.
It might be conjectured whether he would find the change cramping, stifling. He did not. The windows, which he mended, he set wide open to the sun and wind. Big fires of sticks and fir-cones aired and freed the place from the odour of damp and decay that hung about it. He took the precaution of buying a couple of blankets and a mattress. Also, as he was once more to become a civilized being, at all events in his own eyes, he bought three suits of the garments called pyjamas.
They pleased Peter enormously. Blue, pink, and [Pg 45]green, he placed them on the table and looked at them. They told him as plainly as their flannel tongues could speak that he had returned to his birthright. He had purchased them in the market town already mentioned, which lay some eight miles distant from the cottage, and the purchase had been made with an air of swagger. Piping had proved a not unremunerative occupation. There was now, however, another source of income. Certainly the income would not be large at present, but it well sufficed. Peter would therefore pipe no longer for pay, but merely for pleasure.
He had also laid in a store of fair foolscap paper and a large bottle of ink. The joy of creation had taken possession of him. His brain was again fertile. It was partly on this account that he had been ready to take up a fixed abode, since fate had flung one in his path. He owed it to the children of his brain to give them every chance, though his first child had been brought forth amidst difficulties and hardships.
The news that a stranger, wearing a peacock feather in his hat, had taken up his abode in the cottage of ill-omen spread like wild-fire through [Pg 46]the village. Women glanced at him with frightened eyes, men regarded him with suspicion. The owner of the provision shop, indeed, held a kind of neutral ground. Until it should be proved that Peter’s shillings were accursed, he might as well have the advantage of them.
The children looked at Peter with awe, mingled with curiosity. There was a kind of fearful joy in watching one who was a friend of that terrible personage the Devil. At night, truly, he was to be avoided, but in daylight, with his bronzed face and brilliant peacock feather, he looked not unprepossessing.
Moreover, he could pipe. Wee Rob, the miller’s lame son, had first heard him, and had called to the other children. There had been a reconnoitring party down the lane. On tiptoe feet, breath suspended, eyes round with awe, they had gone. Through the bushes they had seen him at the cottage door, the pipe at his lips. And the music had been full of they knew not what of magic, joy and gladness. With parted lips and eyes full of childish wonder they had listened. Fear had vanished to the four winds of heaven, blown far far away by the sweet notes of the pipe.
And then Peter had stopped and moved. There had been the scuttling of little feet and the tapping of a crutch. But the tapping of the crutch had been reluctant in its retreat, for the magic of the piping lingered with Wee Rob.