Peter tapped his forehead with his fingers. (P. [227].)
He awoke as the first streaks of dawn appeared and sat up, placed his elbows on the table and rested his head upon his hands. As he remembered the whispering in his ears he said to himself: “Rhyme foolish Charcoal Peter, for goodness sake make a rhyme.” He tapped his forehead with his fingers, but no rhyme would come, and as he sat there sad and disturbed in his mind, trying hard to find a rhyme to “grow,” the young fellows passed the cottage and one of them was singing at the top of his voice:
“I stood beside a little hut,
Just where the pine-trees grow,
Peeped in for my beloved,
But her face she would not show.”
The words rushed through Peter’s ears like lightning; but like lightning they were gone again. He jumped up, ran from the cottage, pursued the three men, and seized the singer roughly by the arm. “Stop, friend,” he cried, “what did you rhyme with ‘grow’? Be good enough, please, to tell me what you were singing.”
“What’s that to you, fellow?” replied the Black Forester. “I can sing what I like, I suppose? Let go my arm, or——”
“No, no,” screamed Peter, clinging all the tighter to him, “I will not let you go until you have told me what you were singing.” But the singer’s two companions fell upon Peter and gave him such a drubbing he was forced to let go the singer’s clothing, and fell fainting to his knees.
“Now you have your deserts,” they said, laughing, “and perhaps you will know better another time than to molest honest folk on an open road.”