o belabour. Peter, pursuing his trade in solitude,
gradually became morbid and depressed. The melancholy estuary became
haunted by ghostly visions. He had to groan and sweat with no vent for
his passion:--

Thus by himself compelled to live each day,
To wait for certain hours the tide's delay;
At the same time the same dull views to see,
The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;
The water only, when the tides were high,
When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry;
The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,
And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;
Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,
As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.

Peter grew more sullen, and the scenery became more weird and
depressing. The few who watched him remarked that there were three
places where Peter seemed to be more than usually moved. For a time he
hurried past them, whistling as he rowed; but gradually he seemed to be
fascinated. The idle loungers in the summer saw a man and boat lingering
in the tideway, apparently watching the gliding waves without casting a
net or looking at the wildfowl. At last his delirium becoming stronger,
he is carried to the poorhouse, and tells his story to the clergyman.
Nobody has painted with greater vigour that kind of externalised
conscience which may still survive in a brutalised mind. Peter Grimes,
of course, sees his victims' spirits and hates them. He fancies that his
father torments him out of spite, characteristically forgetting that the
ghost had some excuse for his anger:--

'Twas one hot noon, all silent, still, serene,
No living being had I lately seen;
I paddled up and down and dipped my net,
But (such his pleasure) I could nothing get--
A father's pleasure, when his toil was done,
To plague and torture thus an only son!
And so I sat and looked upon the stream,
How it ran on, and felt as in a dream;
But dream it was not; no!--I fixed my eyes
On the mid stream and saw the spirits rise;
I saw my father on the water stand,
And hold a thin pale boy in either hand;
And there they glided ghastly on the top
Of the salt flood, and never touched a drop;
I would have struck them, but they knew the intent,
And smiled upon the oar, and down they went.

Remorse in Peter's mind takes the shape of bitter hatred for his
victims; and with another characteristic confusion, he partly attribute