the gate, and waddle down to the little pond at the back of the yard; he
saw the school house that he had hated so much as a boy, and from which he
had so often run away to go a-fishing, or a-bird's-nesting. He saw the
prints on the school house wall on which the afternoon sun used to shine
when he was kept in; Jesus of Judea blessing the children, and one picture
just over the door where he hung with his arms stretched out and the blood
dropping from his feet. Then Peter Halket thought of the tower at the
ruins which he had climbed so often for birds' eggs; and he saw his mother
standing at her cottage gate when he came home in the evening, and he felt
her arms round his neck as she kissed him; but he felt her tears on his
cheek, because he had run away from school all day; and he seemed to be
making apologies to her, and promising he never would do it again if only
she would not cry. He had often thought of her since he left her, on board
ship, and when he was working with the prospectors, and since he had joined
the troop; but it had been in a vague way; he had not distinctly seen and
felt her. But tonight he wished for her as he used to when he was a small
boy and lay in his bed in the next room, and saw her shadow through the
door as she bent over her wash-tub earning the money which was to feed and
clothe him. He remembered how he called her and she came and tucked him in
and called him "Little Simon," which was his second name and had been his
father's, and which she only called him when he was in bed at night, or
when he was hurt.

He sat there staring into the blaze. He resolved he would make a great
deal of money, and she should live with him. He would build a large house
in the West End of London, the biggest that had ever been seen, and another
in the country, and they should never work any more.

Peter Halket sat as one turned into stone, staring into the fire.