He fell asleep. The big owl hooted softly from the top of a stub near the mill, and the flying squirrel was joined by its mate in a game of tag on the roof. The moon sailed higher, and under it a buck and a doe crossed within a stone's throw of Peter's window. All this Peter missed in an excitement of his own as his unsettled mind traveled swiftly from one dream to another. First he was fleeing with his father, and they were pursued by a horde of enemies, and all of these enemies were Aleck Currys. After that he dreamed of Aleck and Mona, and he fought so fiercely, with Mona's dark eyes and hair filling his vision, that Simon heard him twisting and groaning and climbed quietly up the ladder from below to look at him.
For a long time the stern Scotchman watched Peter, and in the fainter light of the moon which now filled the room a miracle of change passed over his face and it became as gentle as a woman's. No one, since long years ago, had ever caught that gentleness in Simon McQuarrie's face.
"It seems only yesterday," he whispered softly to himself, in a moment when Peter's pale face lay quietly in the crook of his arm. "Only yesterday, Helen."
Something trembled inside him, and he knew the mother was in that room with Peter, watching over him as he had seen her many times in those years when he had cared for the two, those beautiful but pitiless years when he had hardened his heart against all hope for himself in his devotion and duty to his hunted friend, Donald McRae. Only yesterday! And yet many hard and tedious years had passed since then, and through them he had gone like a piece of iron that is hardened into steel by the alchemy of fire. Tonight had come the mysterious change. He climbed down softly, his heart trembling. He loved Peter. He loved him as he had loved the mother.
Peter awoke with the dawn, and with that dawn he saw Five Fingers rousing itself into life. All the sweetness of spring was in the air. The delicious morning song of the robins was the first cheering sound that came to him. It was like a beautiful chorus.
"A man cannot be so wicked that the song of a robin will not stir some good in his heart," Donald McRae had taught Peter. "God made that song to begin the day with, and only those buried in the darkness of cities cannot hear or understand the message. Always think kindly of people in the cities, Peter. They are unfortunate."