Peter was partaking of a noonday meal of bread and cheese and beer when a knock came on his cottage door. For a moment or two he thought his ears must have deceived him, and he did not move. But the knock was repeated.  
Peter got up and opened the door. A man in footman’s garb was standing outside. He looked Peter up and down with a slightly supercilious expression.
 
“Well?” demanded Peter.
 
“The Lady Anne Garland wishes you to bring your penny whistle-pipe to the terrace at four o’clock this afternoon, and be punctual,” he announced.
 
It was not precisely the formula in which Lady Anne had worded the message, but Burton considered it an exact enough paraphrase to be delivered to a mere vagabond. It was in his eyes an even over-courteous method of delivering the message.
 
“Indeed!” said Peter.
 
“Four punctual,” repeated the man with a slightly insolent air. And he turned from the door.
 
Had he lingered a moment longer Peter would quite probably have kicked him. Astonishment on Peter’s part and a swift retreat on his alone saved him.
 
“Upon my word!” ejaculated Peter, looking after the retreating figure. Then he went into the cottage and shut the door.
 
“Insolence or fame,” remarked Peter to his glass of beer, “in which light shall I regard it?” And then suddenly he laughed.
 
After all it smacked finely of medieval days, this command from the lady of the manor to appear before her. Annoyance began to vanish; even the insolence of the flunkey was in the picture. It was fame, there was no question about it.
 
“And, Robin Adair, you writer of tales, here’s a subject made to your hand,” he quoted.
 
Oh, he’d act the part well! A hint more disarray than usual about his costume, his oldest coat and trousers—he had two day suits now, this possessor of a cottage—must certainly be worn, with the peacock feather at its jauntiest angle. He must also allow himself a slight air of swagger, as of one conferring a favour; in appearance the vagabond they regarded him, in manner a Kubelik stepping with assurance before his audience.
 
Peter began to be pleased; to look forward to the appointed hour with interest. It was the writer in him, the man who sees, in any novel situation in which he may find himself, new material for his pen.
 
“Fate,” quoth Peter to himself, “is thrusting another rôle upon me.” And then as children—and grown-ups for the matter of that—count cherry stones, he ticked them off on his fingers. “Gentleman, scamp, jail-bird, tramp, author, writer of letters to an Unknown Fair One, and piper to the lady of the manor. Peter, my son, what else have the Fates in store for you?” And then he gave a little involuntary sigh, for after all, was not the chief rôle assigned to him—the one which superseded all others—that of a lonely man?
 
“Fool!” cried Peter to his heart. “Does not the sun shine for you, the wind blow for you, and the birds sing for you? Have you not free and untrammelled communion with Nature in all her varying moods?”
 
But all the same the very enumeration of the many rôles seemed to have emphasized the one more strongly.
 
At a quarter to four Peter, in his oldest and shabbiest garments, with the peacock feather extremely jaunty in his shabby felt hat and his whistle-pipe in his pocket, set off for the white house on the hill.
 
It was a still sunny day, like many of its predecessors that summer. June had taken the earth into a warm, peaceful grasp. There was a restfulness about the atmosphere, a quiet assurance of continued heat and sunshine. A faint breeze came softly from the west, barely stirring the leaves on the hedges. To the east were great masses of luminous cloud, piled like snow-mountains, motionless and still. The dust [Pg 107]lay thick and powdery in the lane, whitening Peter’s boots; the grass, too, was powdered, but slightly, for there was little traffic this way. Peter, to whom the passing of a vehicle was somewhat of an event, barely ever counted more than two or three in the day.
 
He left the lane behind him and came out on to the village green. As he passed across it men looked at him suspiciously, and a woman carrying a basket stepped hastily to one side as if she feared contact with him. Peter smiled brilliantly, and raised his hat with an air of almost exaggerated courtliness. One man spat on the ground and muttered something that sounded like a curse, but Peter went on his way apparently unheeding.
 
He passed the lodge gates and went up the drive, under beeches green, copper, and purple, their trunks emerald and silver in the sunlight. On the terrace to the right of the house he saw two figures, one in white and one in some neutral colour. As he drew near the white-robed figure raised her hand, beckoning him to approach.
 
Peter came up to the terrace, standing just below on the gravel path. He swept off his [Pg 1............