FACT AND WONDER--CLASH
Uncle Felix paused over his last bit of bread and jam, Tim and Judy
cocked their ears up. Maria's eyes stood still a moment in the heavens,
and the Tramp stopped eating. He picked up the butter and replaced it
carefully in his pocket.
"I know those steps," he murmured half to himself and half to the
others. "They're all over the world. They follow me wherever I go. I
hear 'em even in me sleep." He sighed, and the tone of his voice was
weary and ill at ease.
"How horrid for you," said Judy very softly.
"It keeps me moving," he muttered, trying to conceal all signs of face
behind hair and beard, which he pulled over him like a veil. "It's the
Perliceman."
"The Policeman!" they echoed, staring.
"But he can't find you here!"
"He'll never see you!"
"You're quite safe inside the fence with us, for this is the End of the
World, you know."
"He's not afraid--never!" exclaimed Judy proudly.
"He goes everywhere and sees everything," whispered the Tramp. "He's
been following me since time began. So far he has not caught me up, but
his boots are so much bigger than my own--the biggest, strongest boots
in the world--that in the hend he is bound to get me."
"But you've done nothing," said Judy.
The wanderer smiled. "That's why," he said, holding up a warning
finger. "It's because I do nothing. 'ush!" he whispered. The steps came
nearer, and he lowered his voice so that the end of the sentence was
not audible.
"'ide me," he said in a whisper. And he waved his arms imploringly,
like the branches of some wind-hunted tree.
There was a tarpaulin near the rubbish-heap, and some sacking used for
keeping the vegetables warm at night. "That'll do," he said, pointing.
"Quick!--Good-bye!" In a moment he was beneath the spread black
covering, the children were sitting on its edges, quietly eating more
bread and jam, and looking as innocent as stars. Uncle Felix poked the
fire busily, a grave and anxious look upon his face.
The steps came nearer, paused, came on again then finally stopped
outside the gate. The flowing road that bore them ceased running past
in its accustomed way. The evening stopped still too. The silence could
be heard. The setting sun looked on. Upon the crumbling wall the orange
flowers shook their little warning banners.
And there came a tapping on the wooden gate.
No one moved.
The tapping was repeated. There was a sound of drums about it. The
round brass handle turned. The door pushed open, and in the empty space
appeared--the Policeman.
"Good evening," he said in a heavy, uncompromising way. He looked
enormous, framed there by the open gate, the white road behind him like
a sheet. He looked very blue--a great towering shadow against the
sunlight. It was very clear that he _knew_ he was a policeman and could
think of nothing else. He was dressed up for the part, and received
many shillings a week from a radculgovunment to look like that. It
would have been a dereliction of duty to forget it. He was stuffed with
duty. His brass buttons shone.
"Good _evening_," he repeated, as no one spoke.
"_Good_ evening," replied Uncle Felix calmly. The Policeman accentuated
the word "evening," but Uncle Felix emphasised the adjective "good."
From the very beginning the two men disagreed. "This is private
property, very private indeed. We are having tea, in fact, privately,
upon our own land."
"No property is private," returned the Policeman, "and to the Law no
thing nor person either."
For a moment the children felt afraid. It seemed incredible that Uncle
Felix could be arrested, and yet things had an appearance of it.
"Kindly close the gate so that we cannot be overheard," he said firmly,
"and then be good enough to state your business here." He did not offer
him a seat; he did not suggest a cup of tea; he spoke like a brave man
who expected danger but was prepared to meet it.
The Policeman stepped back and closed the gate. He then stepped forward
again a little nearer than before. From a pocket, hitherto invisible
inside his belt, he drew forth a crumpled notebook and a stub of
pencil. He was very dignified and very grave. He took a deep breath,
held the paper and pencil ready to use, expanded his chest till it
resembled a toy balloon in the Park, and said:
"I am looking for a man." He paused, then added: "Have you seen a man
about?"
"About what?" asked Uncle Felix innocently.
"About fifty or thereabouts," replied the other. "Disguised in rags and
a wig of hair and a false beard."
"What has he done?" It was like a game of chess, both opponents well
matched. Uncle Felix was too big to be caught napping by clever
questions that hid traps. The children felt the danger in the air, and
watched their uncle with quivering admiration. Only their uncle stood
alone, whereas behind the Policeman stretched a line of other policemen
that reached to London and was in touch with the Government itself.
"What has he done?" repeated their champion.
"He's disappeared," came the deep-voiced answer.
"There's no crime in that," was the comment, given flatly.
"But he's disappeared with"--the Policeman consulted his notebook a
moment--"a chicken and a roll of butter what don't belong to him--"
"Roll _and_ butter, did you say?"
"No, sir, roll _of_ butter was what I said." He spoke respectfully, but
was grave and terrible. "He is a thief."
"A thief!"
"He lives nowhere and has no home. You see, sir, duty is duty, and
we're expected to run in people who live nowhere and have no homes."
"Which road did he take?" Uncle Felix clearly was pretending in order
to gain time.
The man of law looked puzzled. "It was a roll of butter and a bird,
sir," he said, consulting his book again, "and my duty is to run him
in--"
"The moment you run into him."
"Precisely," replied the blue giant. "And, having seen him come in here
some time ago, I now ask you formally whether you have seen him too,
and I call upon you to show me where he's hiding." He thrust one huge
foot forward and held his notebook open with the pencil ready.
"Anything you say will be used against you later, remember. You must
all be witnesses."
"_If_ you find him," put in Uncle Felix dryly.
"_When_ I find him," said the other. And his eye wandered over to the
tarpaulin that was spread out beside the rubbish-heap. For it had
suddenly moved.
Everybody had seen that movement. There was no disguising it. Feeling
uncomfortable the Tramp had shifted his position. He probably wanted
air.
"I saw it move," the Policeman growled, moving a step towards the
rubbish-heap. "He's under there all right enough, and the sooner he
comes out the better for him. That's all I've got to say."
It was a most disagreeable and awkward moment. No one knew quite what
was best to do. Maria turned her eyes as innocently upon the tarpaulin
as she could manage, but it was obvious what she was really looking at.
Her brother held his breath and stared, expecting a pistol might appear
and some one be shot dead with a marvellous aim, struck absolutely in
the mathematical centre of the heart. Uncle Felix, upon whom fell the
burden of rescue or defence, sat there with a curious look upon his
face. For a moment it seemed he knew not what to do.
The Policeman, approaching still nearer to the tarpaulin, glared at him.
"You're an accessory," he said sternly, "both before and after the
fact."
"I didn't say he _wasn't_ there."
"You didn't say he _was_," was the severe retort. It was unanswerable.
"He'll hang by the neck till he's dead," thought Tim, "and afterwards
they'll bury the body in a lime-kiln so that even his family can't
visit the grave." He looked wildly about him, thinking of possible ways
of escape he had read or heard about, and his eye fell upon his sister
Judy.
Now Judy was a queer, original maid. She believed everything in the
world. She believed not only what was told her but also what she
thought. And among other things she believed herself to be very
beautiful, though in reality she was the ugly duckling of the brood.
"All God has made is beautiful," Aunt Emily had once reproved her, and,
since God had made everything, everything must be beautiful. It was.
God had made her too, therefore she was simply lovely. She enjoyed
numerous romances; one romance after another flamed into her puzzled
life, each leaving her more lovely than it found her. She was also
invariably good. To be asked if she was good was a blundering question
to which the astonished answer was only an indignant "Of course." And,
similarly, all she loved herself was beautiful. Her romances had
included gardeners and postmen, stable-boys and curates, age of no
particular consequence provided they stimulated her creative
imagination. And the latest was--the Tramp.
Something about the woebegone figure of adventure had set on fire her
mother instinct _and_ her sense of passionate romance. She saw him
young, without the tangled beard, without the rags, without the
dilapidated boots. She saw him in her mind as a warrior hero, storming
difficulty, despising danger, wandering beneath the stars, a being
resplendent as a prince and fearless as a deity. He was a sun of the
morning, and the dawn was in his glorious blue eyes.
And Tim now saw that this sister of his, alone of all the party, was
about to do something unexpected. She had left her place upon the
fallen trunk and stepped up in front of the Policeman.
"Stand aside, missy," this individual said, and his voice was rough,
his gesture very decided. It was, in fact, his "arresting" manner. He
was about to do his duty.
"Just wait a moment," said Judy calmly; and she placed herself directly
in his path, her legs apart, her arms akimbo on her hips. "You say the
man you want to find is old and ragged and looks like a tramp?"
"That's it," replied the Policeman, greatly astonished, and pausing a
moment in spite of himself. "You'll see him in a moment. Jest help me
to lift a corner o' this 'ere tarpaulin, and I'll show him to you." He
pushed her deliberately aside.
"All right," said Judy, her eyes shining brilliantly, her gestures
touched with a confidence that surprised everybody into silence, "but
first I want to tell you that the person underneath this old sheet
thing is not a tramp at all--"
"You don't say so," interrupted the other, half impudently, half
sarcastically. "What is he then, I'd like to know?"
The girl drew herself up and looked the great blue figure straight in
the eyes.
"He's my brother," she said, in a clear strong voice, "and he's not a
thief."
"Your brother!" repeated the man, a trifle taken aback. He guffawed.
"He's young and noble," she went on, half singing the words in her
excitement and belief, "and he's dressed all in gold. He walks like
wind about the world, has curly hair, and wears a sword of silver. He's
simply beautiful, and he's _got no beard at all!_"
"And he's your brother, is he?" cried the Policeman, laughing rudely,
"and he jest wears all that get-up for fun, don't he?" And he stooped
down and pulled the tarpaulin violently to one side.
"He is my brother, and I love him, and he is beautiful," she answered,
dancing lightly round him and flinging her arms in the air to the
complete amazement of policeman, Uncle Felix, and her brother and
sister into the bargain. "There! You can see for yourself!"
The Policeman stood aghast and stared. He drew a long, deep breath; he
whistled softly; he pushed his big, spiked helmet back. He staggered.
"Seems there's a mistake," he stammered stupidly, "a kind of mistake
somewhere, as it were. I--" He stuck fast. He wiped his lips with his
thick brown hand.
"A mistake everywhere, I think," said Uncle Felix sternly. "Your
mistake."
The two men faced each other, for Uncle Felix had risen to his feet.
The children held back and stared in silence. They were not quite sure
what it was they saw. On Judy's face alone was a radiant confidence.
For, in place of the bedraggled and unkempt figure that had crawled
beneath the sheet ten minutes before, there rose before them all
apparently a tall young stripling, clean and white and shining as a
fair Greek god. His hair was curly, he was dressed in gold, a silver
sword hung down beside him, and his beardless face and beauty in it
that made it radiant as a glad spring day. The sunlight was very
dazzling just at that moment.
"You said," continued Uncle Felix, in a voice of deadly quiet, "that
the man you wanted had a wig of hair and a beard--a false beard?"
The Policeman stared as though his eyes would drop out upon the
tarpaulin. But he said no word. He consulted his note-book in a dazed,
flustered kind of way. Then he looked up nervously at the astonishing
figure of the "Tramp." Then he looked back at his book again.
"And old?" said Uncle Felix.
"And old," repeated the officer thickly, poring over the page.
"About fifty, I think, you mentioned?"
"'Bout fifty--did I?" He said it faintly, like a man not sure of a
lesson he ought to know by heart.
"Disguised into the bargain!" Uncle Felix raised his voice till it
seemed to thunder out the words.
"Them was my instructions, sir," the man was heard to mumble sulkily.
Uncle Felix, to the children's immense delight and admiration, took a
step nearer to the man of law. The latter moved slowly backwards,
glancing half fiercely, half suspiciously at the glorious figure of the
person he had expected to arrest as a dangerous thief and tramp.
"And, following what you stupidly call your instructions," cried Uncle
Felix, looking sternly at him, "you have broken in our gate, trespassed
on our private property, disturbed our guests, and removed forcibly our
tarpaulin from its rightful place."
The crestfallen and amazed Policeman gasped and raised his hands with a
gesture of despair. He looked like a ruined man. Had there been a
handkerchief in his bulging coat, he must have cried.
"And you call yourself an Officer of the Law?" boomed the Defender of
Personal Liberty. He went still nearer to him. His voice, to the
children, sounded simply magnificent. "A uniformed and salaried
representative of the Government of England!"
"Oo calls me orl that?" asked the wretched man in a trembling tone. "I
gets twenty-five shillings a week, and that's orl I know."
There came a pause then, while the men faced each other.
"Uncle, let him go, please," said Judy. "He couldn't help it, you know.
And he's a married man with a family, I expect. Some day--"
A forgiving smile softened the features of both men at these gentle
words.
"This time, then," said Uncle Felix slowly, "I won't report you; but
don't let it occur again as long as you live. A day will come, perhaps,
when you will understand. And here," he added, holding out his hand
with something in it, "is another shilling to make it twenty-six. I
advise you--if you're still open to friendly advice--to buy a pair of
glasses with it."
The discredited official took the shilling meekly and pocketed it with
his note-book. He cast one last hurried glance of amazement and
suspicion at the man who had been beneath the tarpaulin, and began to
slink back ignominiously towards the gate. At the last minute he turned.
"Good _evenin'_," he said, as he vanished into the road.
"_Good_ evening," Uncle Felix answered him, as he closed the gate
behind him.
Then, how it happened no one knew exactly. Judy, walking up to the
shining figure, took him by the hand and led him slowly through the
gate on to the long white road. There was a blaze of sunset pouring
through the trees and the shafts of slanting light made it difficult to
see what every one was doing. In the general commotion he somehow
vanished. The gate was closed. Judy stood smiling and triumphant just
inside upon the mossy path.
"You saved his life," said some one.
"It's all right," she said--and burst into tears.
But children are not much impressed by the tears of others, knowing too
well how easily they are produced and stopped. Tim went burrowing to
find the bird, and Maria just mentioned that the Tramp had taken the
butter away in his pocket. By the time this fact was thoroughly
established the group was ready to leave, the tea-things all collected,
the fire put out, and the sun just dipping down below the top of the
old grey fence.
Then, and not till then, did the affair of the Tramp come under
discussion. What seemed most puzzling was why the Policeman had not
arrested him after all. They could not make it out at all; it seemed a
mystery. There was something quite unusual about it altogether. Uncle
Felix and Judy had been wonderful, but--
"Did you see him blink," said Tim, "when Judy went up and gave it him
hot?"
"Yes," observed Maria, who had done nothing herself but stare. "I did."
The brother, however, was not so sure. "I think he really believed
her," he declared with assurance, proud of her achievement. "He really
saw him young and with a sword and curly hair and all that."
Judy looked at him with surprise. Her tears had ceased flowing by this
time.
"Of course," she said. "Didn't _you?_" There was pain in her voice in
addition to blank astonishment.
"Of course we did," said Uncle Felix quickly with decision. "Of course
we did."
As they went into the house, however, Uncle Felix lingered behind a
moment as though he had forgotten something. His face wore a puzzled
expression. He seemed a little bewildered. He walked into the hat-rack
first, then into the umbrella-stand, then stopped abruptly and put his
hand to his head.
"Headache?" asked Tim, who had been watching him.
His uncle did not hear the question, at least he did not answer.
Instead he pulled something hurriedly out of his waistcoat pocket, held
it to his ear, listened attentively a moment, and then gave a sudden
start.
"What is it, Uncle?"
"Oh, nothing," was the reply; "my watch has stopped, that's all." He
stood still a moment or two, reflecting deeply. His eyebrows went up
and down. He pursed his lips. "Odd," he continued, half to himself;
"I'm sure I wound it up last night...!" he added, "it's going again
now. It stopped--only for a moment!"
"Aha," said Tim significantly, and looked about him. He waited
breathlessly for something more to happen. But nothing did happen--just
then.
Only, when at last Uncle Felix looked down, their eyes met and a flash
of knowledge too enormous ever to be forgotten passed noiselessly
between the two of them.
"Perhaps...!" murmured his uncle.
"I wonder...!"
That was all.