Peter went daily to school in a dirty quarter of the town at least two miles from home. The house of the Paragons was upon the borders of the western or fashionable suburb of Hamingburgh. The school barely escaped the great manufacturing district to the east and south. It was a branch school of the great local foundation of King Edward VI. In the phrase of the local roughs, through whose courts and alleys he passed, Peter was a "grammar-cat."

He was supposed to go to school by the main road, where he was more or less under the protection of the police. For between the roughs and the grammar-cats was perpetual war; and to take the shorter route through the courts and alleys was an act of provocation. But Peter hankered after the forbidden road. His father, showing him the way to school, had stopped at a certain corner:

"This," he said, "is the shortest way; but you had better go round by the main road."

"Why?" Peter had asked.

"It's a nasty neighbourhood," said Mr. Paragon.

From that moment the shortest route became for Peter a North-West Passage. He would[Pg 22] stand at the fatal corner, looking up the street with its numberless small entries. Then, on a memorable day, he plunged.

First he had a soaring sense of his audacity. He felt he had left the laws behind. To win through now must entirely depend on his personal resource. At the doors of an immense factory men, women, and boys stood in line, waiting for the signal to blow them into work. Peter felt with a sinking at the stomach that he was an object of curiosity. He indeed looked strangely out of place in his neat suit of a small tar, with a sailor's knot foppishly fastened at the breast. The curious eyes of the waiting group followed him up the street. He was painfully aware, as he passed, that jocular remarks in sleepy midland slang were freely exchanged upon his apparition. Higher up the street a little rough stopped for a moment and stared, then started into an alley screaming.

The street was suddenly alive. Peter, flinging self-respect to the winds, started to run. A stone caught him smartly on the heel, and he thought he was lost. But another cry was almost immediately sounded. The helmet of a policeman came glinting up the street.

The roughs vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

Peter did not again venture into this district alone. At least a dozen of his school friends lived in the western suburb. He formed them[Pg 23] into a company, which daily took the forbidden way to school. Such was the origin of a feud whose deeds and passages would fill a chronicle. Peter's company was long remembered.

He soon made some striking discoveries. You cannot fight with a persistent enemy, even though his methods are not your methods, without touching his good points. It soon became evident that he and the roughs were less bitterly opposed than either of them was to the police. It was also clear that the men and women of the factory were "sports." They encouraged the boys quite impartially, and saw fair play.

Peter particularly remembered one morning of snow and dirt outside the big factory, when he slipped and fell, squirming with bitter pain of a snowball hard as ice in his ear. A stalwart woman with naked arms grimed with lead, picked him up and pressed him in a comfortable and friendly way against her bosom. She was in that dark hour an angel of strength and solace. The incident always lived in Peter's memory along with the faint smell in his nostrils of the factory grime.

On the morning after the transit of Jupiter's third moon Peter was late. His company had not waited. Peter had to pass his enemies alone.

He still wondered at the change which had come over him yesterday. Nothing that morning seemed of the least importance save a curious necessity to be still and inquire of himself what had happened.

[Pg 24]

He thought only of Miranda, wondering why he saw her now at a distance.

A company of roughs lay between Peter and his friends. He was cut off; but it did not seem to matter. Everything that morning was unreal. He walked quite indifferently towards them. They seemed so remote that, had they vanished into air, he would not have been surprised.

Peter pushed loftily past a handsome young rough.

"Now then," said the fellow.

"Let me pass," said Peter, curiously pedantic beside the other.

"Not so fast."

"Let go of my arm," said Peter.

"Not much," said the enemy.

Peter flew into a rage.

"Funk," he said, without point or reason.

"Say it again."

"Funk."

"Who's a funk?"

"You are."

"Are you calling me a funk?"

"Yes."

"Say it again."

"Funk."

There was a deadlock. Peter must try something else.

"See this face?" he inquired with deadly offensiveness, thrusting forward his countenance for exhibition.

[Pg 25]

"Take it away," said the other.

"Hit it," said Peter.

"I shall if you don't take it away."

"Just you hit it."

Peter's enemy did hit it. Immediately a ring was formed. Peter fell back into his mood of indifference to the world. This fight was a nuisance, but it had to go on.

They fought three vigorous rounds. From every court and alley spectators poured. Windows were flung up.

Then a policeman was seen, and in ten seconds the street was empty again. Peter jogged off to the main road. The roughs scattered into holes.

Peter, late for school, came up for inspection with a swollen lip and an eye which became more remarkable as time went on. But pain this morning meant as little to Peter as reproof. He was unable to take things seriously. He felt curiously above them.

Home at midday he avoided his family. He felt a necessity to be alone, to dream and to exult over something that had neither shape nor name. He went into a secret passage.

This secret passage was intimately bound up with his life of adventure. The gardens of Peter's road met at the bottom the gardens of a parallel highway. The two rows were parted by a line of trees and a wall. On the farther side of the wall a thick hedge, planted a few feet from the foot of the wall, had been trained to meet it[Pg 26] overhead. After many years it formed a natural green tunnel between the gardens. This tunnel, cleared of dead shoots and leaves, was large enough for Peter and Miranda to crawl from end to end of the wall's foot, and gave them access, after pioneering, to the trees which rose regularly from the midst of the hedge.

Peter to-day climbed into the secret passage, not for adventure but to be alone. The old life seemed very remote. Could he really have believed that the tree against which he leaned was a fortress that had cost him ten thousand men?

A humble bee bustled into the shade and fell, overloaded with pollen. Peter watched it closely. Already he found himself seeing little things—their beauty and a vague impulse in himself to express it.

Peter's indifference to the impertinent call of the things of yesterday was quite wonderful.

"Hullo!" said Mr. Paragon at dinner, "you've been fighting."

"Yes, father," said Peter.

"Goodness gracious!" Mrs. Paragon exclaimed. "Look at Peter's face!"

"Yes, mother," said Peter.

"Tell us about it, my boy," twinkled Mr. Paragon.

"There's nothing to tell, father."

"Was he a big boy?" Mr. Paragon asked.

"Middling."

[Pg 27]

"Did you beat him?"

"No, father."

"Did he beat you?"

"No, father."

Mr. Paragon looked at Peter with misgiving.

"Mary," said Mr. Paragon in the late evening, "Peter's growing up."

They were sitting together in the garden, Mr. Paragon smoking a pipe after supper. It was warm and quiet, with occasional light noises from the wood and the near houses. It was Mr. Paragon's moment of peace—a time for minor meditations, softened by the stars and the flowers, equally his by right of conquest.

Mrs. Paragon sighed. She divined a coming rift between herself and Peter.

"He is very young," she protested.

"He was always older than his years," said Mr. Paragon; and, after a silence, he added: "Don't lose touch with the boy, Mary. We have got to help him over these discoveries. Life's too fine to be picked up anyhow."

"It's not easy to keep with the young. There's so much to understand."

Mrs. Paragon said this a little sadly, and Mr. Paragon felt bound to comfort her.

"Peter's a good boy," he said.

Meantime Peter in his attic was not asleep. It was his habit, shut in his room for the night, to climb through the skylight, and sit upon a flat and cozy space of the roof by the warm chimney.[Pg 28] There he was frequently joined by Miranda from the attic of the next house.

But Peter sat this evening at the window. The garden was quick with faint play of the wind; and Peter's ears were sensitive to small noises of the trees.

There was a faint tapping upon the wall. Peter was instantly alert, and as instantly amazed at the effect upon himself of this familiar signal. He had heard it a hundred times. It was thus that he and Miranda communicated with one another when they went up to their nook by the chimney.

He looked into the dark room. The signal was repeated, but he sat by the window like alabaster, his heart beating in his ears.

The knocking ceased, and for a long while Peter sat still as a stone. Then he sprang at the cord of the skylight window, opened it and crept out. Miranda was perched between the chimneys. It was quite dark. Peter could only see that she was staring away from him.

"Miranda!" His voice trembled and broke, but she did not move.

He knew now he had not been dreaming. Miranda, too, was changed. He felt it in the poise of her averted face and in her silence.

He waited to say he knew not what, and stayed there, a queer figure sitting astride the slates. Miranda's arm lay along the skylight. He touched her.

[Pg 29]

She caught her breath, and Peter knew she was crying.

"Miranda," he called, "why are you crying?"

She turned in the dark and a tear splashed on his hand.

"I'm not crying!" she flashed. "I thought you were never coming," she added inconsequently.

It was Peter's first encounter with a woman. He was for a moment checked.

"Miranda!" he said; and again his voice trembled and broke on the name. Miranda, in a single day as old as a thousand years, vibrated to the word half-uttered. She dropped her head into her hands, and wept aloud.

Peter held her tight, speaking now at random.

"I always meant to come," he quavered. "You know I always meant to come. Miranda, don't cry so. I was afraid when first I heard you knocking."

"You'll always love me, Peter."

"For ever and ever."

Every little sound was exaggerated. There was a low mutter of voices in the garden below. Peter saw the glow of his father's pipe. So near it seemed, he fancied he could smell the tobacco.

Mr. and Mrs. Paragon, talking of Peter, sat later than usual. Before going to bed, they went into the attic, and stood together for a while. Peter had fallen happily asleep. Miranda was comforted, and he was lifted above all the heroes.[Pg 30] The shadow of adolescence lay upon him. His mother saw it, and, as she kissed him, it seemed as if she were bidding him farewell upon a great adventure.