But across it, like a mob's menace, fell the thunder, flung up to them from below, swelling from a menace to a sudden crash, then from crash to echo, dying to murmur again. It had in it anger and power, also pity and tenderness, also scorn and defiance. It cared for no one--it loved every one. It was more intimate than any confidence ever made, and then it shouted that intimacy to the whole world. It flung itself into Peter's face, beat his body, lashed his soul--“Oh! you young fool--you've come slinking back, have you? After all these years you've come slinking back. Where are all your fine hopes now, where all those early defiances, those vast ambitions?--Worthless, broken, defeated--worthless, broken, defeated.” And then it seemed to change: “Peter--Peter--Hold out a little longer--the battle isn't over yet--struggle on for a little, Peter--I'll help you--I'll bring your courage back to you--Trust me, Peter--trust me....” Through the rattle of the surf there came the sick melancholy lowing of the Bell Rock; swinging over a space of waters it fell across fields, unutterably, abominably sad. And in the boy there instantly leapt to life his soul. Maimed and bruised and stunned it had been--now alive, tearing him, bringing on to his bending shoulders an awful tide of knowledge: “Everything is gone--your wife, your boy, your friend, your work.... We have won, Peter, we have won. The House is waiting for you....” And above those dreadful voices the thundering echo, indifferent to his agonies, despising his frailties, flinging him, sea-wreck of the most miserable, to any insignificant end.... Peter suddenly stood up, rocking on his box. He seized the whip from the driver's hands. He lashed the miserable horse. “Get on, you devil, get on--leave this noise behind you--get out of it, get out of it--” The cab rocked and tossed, Mr. Jackson caught the boy about the shoulders, held him down. The horse, tired and weary, paid no heed to anything that might be happening but stumbled on. “Good Lord, sir,” Mr. Jackson cried, “you might have had us over--What's it all about, sir?” But Peter now was huddled down with his coat about his ears and did not move again. “Catchin' the whip like that--might 'ave 'ad us right into the 'edge,” muttered Mr. Jackson, wishing his journey well over. As they turned the corner the lights of Treliss burst into view. CHAPTER II SCAW HOUSE I Mr. Jackson inquired as to the hotel that Peter preferred and was told to drive anywhere, so he chose The Man at Arms. The Man at Arms had been turned, by young Mr. Bannister, from a small insignificant hostelry into the most important hotel in the West of England. It stood above the town, looking over the bay, the roofs of the new town, the cottages of the old one, the curving island to the right, the lighthouse to the left--all Cornwall in those grey stones, that blue sea, the grave fishing boats, the flocks of gulls, far, far below.