"Now," he said, "take off that rag around your neck."
The rag was an old red handkerchief, inconceivably soiled. The tramp
removed it, grumbling and whining. Mifflin gave me the pistol to
hold while he tied our prisoner's wrists together. In the meantime
we heard a shout from the quarry. The three vagabonds were gazing up
in great excitement.
"You tell those fashion plates down there," said Mifflin, as he
knotted the tramp's hands together, "that if they make any fight
I'll shoot them like crows." His voice was cold and savage and he
seemed quite master of the situation, but I must confess I wondered
how we could handle four of them.
The greasy ruffian shouted down to his pals in the quarry, but I did
not hear what he said, as just then the Professor asked me to keep
our captive covered while he got a stick. I stood with the pistol
pointed at his head while Mifflin ran back into the birchwood to cut
a cudgel.
The tramp's face became the colour of the under side of a fried egg
as he looked into the muzzle of his own gun.
"Say, lady," he pleaded, "that gun goes off awful easy, point her
somewhere else or you'll croak me by mistake."
I thought a good scare wouldn't do him any harm and kept the barrel
steadily on him.
The rascals down below seemed debating what to do. I don't know
whether they were armed or not; but probably they imagined that
there were more than two of us. At all events, by the time Mifflin
came back with a stout birch staff they were hustling out of the
quarry on the lower side. The Professor swore, and looked as if he
would gladly give chase, but he refrained.
"Here, you," he said in crisp tones to the tramp, "march on ahead of
us, down to the quarry."
The fat ruffian shambled awkwardly down the trail. We had to make
quite a detour to get into the quarry, and by the time we reached
there the other three tramps had got clean away. I was not sorry, to
tell the truth. I thought the Professor had had enough scrapping for
one twenty-four hours.
Peg whinneyed loudly as she saw us coming, but Bock was not in sight.
"What have you done with the dog, you swine?" said Mifflin. "If
you've hurt him I'll make you pay with your own hide."
Our prisoner was completely cowed. "No, boss, we ain't hurt the
dog," he fawned. "We tied him up so he couldn't bark, that's all.
He's in the 'bus." And sure enough, by this time we could hear
smothered yelping and whining from Parnassus.
I hurried to open the door, and there was Bock, his jaws tied
together with a rope-end. He bounded out and made super-canine
efforts to express his joy at seeing the Professor again. He paid
very little attention to me.
"Well," said Mifflin, after freeing the dog's muzzle, and with
difficulty restraining him from burying his teeth in the tramp's
shin, "what shall we do with this heroic specimen of manhood? Shall
we cart him over to the jail in Port Vigor, or shall we let him go?"
The tramp burst into a whining appeal that was almost funny, it was
so abject. The Professor cut it short.
"I ought to pack you into quod," he said. "Are you the Phoebus
Apollo I scuffled with down the lane last night? Was it you skulking
around this wagon then?"
"No, boss, that was Splitlip Sam, honest to Gawd it was. He come
back, boss; said he'd been fightin' with a cat-o'-mountain! Say,
boss, you sure hit him hard. One of his lamps is a pudding! Boss,
I'll swear I ain't had nothin' to do with it."
"I don't like your society," said the Professor, "and I'm going to
turn you loose. I'm going to count ten, and if you're not out of
this quarry by then, I'll shoot. And if I see you again I'll skin
you alive. Now get out!"
He cut the knotted handkerchief in two. The hobo needed no urging.
He spun on his heel and fled like a rabbit. The Professor watched
him go, and as the fat, ungainly figure burst through a hedge and
disappeared he fired the revolver into the air to frighten him still
more. Then he tossed the weapon into the pool near by.
"Well, Miss McGill," he said with a chuckle, "if you like to
undertake breakfast, I'll fix up Peg." And he drew the horse-shoe
from his pocket once more.
A brief inspection of Parnassus satisfied me that the thieves had
not had time to do any real damage. They had got out most of the
eatables and spread them on a flat rock in preparation for a feast;
and they had tracked a good deal of mud into the van; but otherwise
I could see nothing amiss. So while Mifflin busied himself with
Peg's foot it was easy for me to get a meal under way. I found a
gush of clean water trickling down the face of the rock. There were
still some eggs and bread and cheese in the little cupboard, and an
unopened tin of condensed milk. I gave Peg her nose bag of oats, and
fed Bock, who was frisking about in high spirits. By that time the
shoeing was done, and the Professor and I sat down to an improvised
meal. I was beginning to feel as if this gipsy existence were the
normal course of my life.
"Well, Professor," I said, as I handed him a cup of coffee and a
plate of scrambled eggs and cheese, "for a man who slept in a wet
haystack, you acquit yourself with excellent valour."
"Old Parnassus is quite a stormy petrel," he said. "I used to think
the chief difficulty in writing a book would be to invent things to
happen, but if I were to sit down and write the adventures I'd had
with her it would be a regular Odyssey."
"How about Peg's foot?" I asked. "Can she travel on it?"
"It'll be all right if you go easy. I've scraped out the injured
part and put the shoe back. I keep a little kit of tools under the
van for emergencies of all sorts."
It was chilly, and we didn't dawdle over our meal. I only made a
feint of eating, as I had had a little breakfast before, and also
as the events of the last few hours had left me rather restless. I
wanted to get Parnassus out on the highway again, to jog along in
the sun and think things over. The quarry was a desolate, forbidding
place anyway. But before we left we explored the cave where the
tramps had been preparing to make themselves comfortable for the
winter. It was not really a cave, but only a shaft into the granite
cliff. A screen of evergreen boughs protected the opening against
the weather, and inside were piles of sacking that had evidently
been used as beds, and many old grocery boxes for tables and chairs.
It amused me to notice a cracked fragment of mirror balanced on a
corner of rock. Even these ragamuffins apparently were not totally
unconscious of personal appearance. I seized the opportunity, while
the Professor was giving Peg's foot a final look, to rearrange my
hair, which was emphatically a sight. I hardly think Andrew would
have recognized me that morning.
We led Peg up the steep incline, back into the lane where I had
strayed, and at length we reached the main road again. Here I began
to lay down the law to Redbeard.
"Now look here, Professor," I said, "I'm not going to have you tramp
all the way back to Port Vigor. After the night you've had you need
a rest. You just climb into that Parnassus and lie down for a good
snooze. I'll drive you into Woodbridge and you can take your train
there. Now you get right into that bunk. I'll sit out here and drive."
He demurred, but without much emphasis. I think the little fool was
just about fagged out, and no wonder. I was a trifle groggy myself.
In the end he was quite docile. He climbed into the van, took off
his boots, and lay down under a blanket. Bock followed him, and I
think they both fell asleep on the instant. I got on the front seat
and took the reins. I didn't let Peg go more quickly than a walk as
I wanted to spare her sore foot.
My, what a morning that was after the rain! The road ran pretty
close to the shore, and every now and then I could catch a glimpse
of the water. The air was keen--not just the ordinary, unnoticed air
that we breathe in and out and don't think about, but a sharp and
tingling essence, as strong in the nostrils as camphor or ammonia.
The sun seemed focussed upon Parnassus, and we moved along the white
road in a flush of golden light. The flat fronds of the cedars
swayed gently in the salty air, and for the first time in ten
years, I should think, I began amusing myself by selecting words to
describe the goodness of the morning. I even imagined myself writing
a description of it, as if I were Andrew or Thoreau. The crazy
little Professor had inoculated me with his literary bug, I guess.
And then I did a dishonourable thing. Just by chance I put my hand
into the little pocket beside the seat where Mifflin kept a few odds
and ends. I meant to have another look at that card of his with the
poem on it. And there I found a funny, battered little notebook,
evidently forgotten. On the cover was written, in ink, "Thoughts
on the Present Discontents." That title seemed vaguely familiar. I
seemed to recall something of the kind from my school days--more
than twenty years ago, goodness me! Of course if I had been
honourable I wouldn't have looked into it. But in a kind of
quibbling self-justification I recalled that I had bought Parnassus
and all it contained, "lock, stock, barrel and bung" as Andrew used
to say. And so....
The notebook was full of little jottings, written in pencil in
the Professor's small, precise hand. The words were rubbed
and soiled, but plainly legible. I read this:
I don't suppose Bock or Peg get lonely, but by the bones of Ben
Gunn, I do. Seems silly when Herrick and Hans Andersen and Tennyson
and Thoreau and a whole wagonload of other good fellows are riding
at my back. I can hear them all talking as we trundle along. But
books aren't a _substantial_ world after all, and every now and then
we get hungry for some closer, more human relationships. I've been
totally alone now for eight years--except for Runt, and he might be
dead and never say so. This wandering about is fine in its way, but
it must come to an end some day. A man needs to put down a root
somewhere to be really happy.
What absurd victims of contrary desires we are! If a man is settled
in one place he yearns to wander; when he wanders he yearns to have
a home. And yet how bestial is content--all the great things in life
are done by discontented people.
There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning,
and yearning. A man should be learning as he goes; and he should
be earning bread for himself and others; and he should be yearning,
too: yearning to know the unknowable.
What a fine old poem is "The Pulley" by George Herbert! Those
Elizabethan fellows knew how to write! They were marred perhaps by
their idea that poems must be "witty." (Remember how Bacon said
that reading poets makes one witty? There he gave a clue to the
literature of his time.) Their fantastic puns and conceits are
rather out of our fashion nowadays. But Lord! the root of the
matter was in them! How gallantly, how reverently, they tackle the
problems of life!
When God at first made man (says George Herbert) He had a "glass of
blessings standing by." So He pours on man all the blessings in His
reservoir: strength, beauty, wisdom, honour, pleasure--and then He
refrains from giving him the last of them, which is rest, i.e.,
contentment. God sees that if man is contented he will never win
his way to Him. Let man be restless, so that
"If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast."
Some day I shall write a novel on that theme, and call it "The
Pulley." In this tragic, restless world there must be some
place where at last we can lay our heads and be at rest. Some
people call it death. Some call it God.
My ideal of a man is not the Omar who wants to shatter into bits
this sorry scheme of things, and then remould it nearer to the
heart's desire. Old Omar was a coward, with his silk pajamas and
his glass of wine. The real man is George Herbert's "seasoned
timber"--the fellow who does handily and well whatever comes to him.
Even if it's only shovelling coal into a furnace he can balance the
shovel neatly, swing the coal square on the fire and not spill it on
the floor. If it's only splitting kindling or running a trolley car
he can make a good, artistic job of it. If it's only writing a book
or peeling potatoes he can put into it the best he has. Even if he's
only a bald-headed old fool over forty selling books on a country
road, he can make an ideal of it. Good old Parnassus! It's a great
game.... I think I'll have to give her up soon, though: I must get
that book of mine written. But Parnassus has been a true glass of
blessings to me.
There was much more in the notebook; indeed it was half full of
jotted paragraphs, memoranda, and scraps of writing--poems I believe
some of them were--but I had seen enough. It seemed as if I had
stumbled unawares on the pathetic, brave, and lonely heart of the
little man. I'm a commonplace creature, I'm afraid, insensible to
many of the deeper things in life, but every now and then, like all
of us, I come face to face with something that thrills me. I saw how
this little, red-bearded pedlar was like a cake of yeast in the big,
heavy dough of humanity: how he travelled about trying to fulfil in
his own way his ideals of beauty. I felt almost motherly toward him:
I wanted to tell him that I understood him. And in a way I felt
ashamed of having run away from my own homely tasks, my kitchen and
my hen yard and dear old, hot-tempered, absent-minded Andrew. I
fell into a sober mood. As soon as I was alone, I thought, I would
sell Parnassus and hurry back to the farm. That was my job, that
was my glass of blessings. What was I doing--a fat, middle-aged
woman--trapesing along the roads with a cartload of books I didn't
understand?
I slipped the little notebook back into its hiding-place. I would
have died rather than let the Professor know I had seen it.