The lamps were being lighted in the streets, yet he could hardly see
them. Not once, however, did his feet stray from the path of his
well-remembered way.
With the autumnal sleet ever beating upon his bared head, he found
himself again in the streets of the great city. On the threshold
of a public-house, flaring with many garish lights, he saw a boy
selling matches. He was whimpering with the cold, and his teeth were
chattering, for he had neither shoes nor stockings; indeed, his only
garments were a pair of ragged trousers and a shirt. As the wayfarer
discerned this unhappy figure he stayed his steps, and, pulling off his
own broken boots and threadbare stockings, bade the boy sit down and
put them on. When the boy had obeyed, the wayfarer took from his own
shoulders the shepherd’s shawl which he wore, and wrapped it about him.
Thereafter it was in the scantiest of raiment that he took his way. Yet
ere he had come to the threshold of the little room, which he seemed
only to have left the day before yesterday, he was destined to take
part in a curious adventure.
It happened as he turned into a familiar thoroughfare, a street long
and narrow, and wondrously busy with a great press of people and
traffic, that he suddenly became aware of a strange clamour that was
arising before him. Cries of consternation resounded on every side;
they overcame the shrieks of the piercing winds as they swept round the
houses and shops. With his dim eyes the wayfarer could perceive the
drivers of the vehicles make frantic efforts to escape from an oncoming
danger that threatened them.
Suddenly there came through the failing light of the afternoon the
great form of a horse, a huge animal attached to a heavy railway van.
There was no driver, the reins were dangling loose; with tossing mane
and wild nostrils, the mighty horse was devouring the roadway with
furious strides. It escaped a tramcar as by a miracle; it crashed into
a milk-seller’s cart, and sent milk-cans with their contents rolling in
all directions. Yet still it kept its course unchecked, a menace to all
whom it passed.
The passers-by, huddling together as far away from the kerb as they
could squeeze themselves, were then astonished by a strange sight.
A ragged, half-naked beggar, hatless, coatless, without shoes and
stockings, and with long, matted hair which fell down upon his
shoulders, moved off the pavement. He appeared to turn his back upon
the mad thing that was approaching him, and then, with a leap of
superhuman courage and address, seemed to fling himself at the head
of the infuriated brute as it grazed his bare ankles with its hoofs.
He was seen to take the reins in his grasp, and, leaping along at the
side of the horse, began an attempt to control its furious speed that
was little short of miraculous. In the struggle he was several times
carried completely off his feet, and borne yards at a time without
touching the earth. And though man and brute and vehicle swayed and
rocked in all directions, no obstacles intervened to shatter them;
and at almost every yard he was borne the man seemed to gain a firmer
purchase on the brute.
For half the length of the thoroughfare the titanic struggle was waged
between the man and the brute on the slippery, circumscribed and
narrow road. At times it seemed that the man must be hurled away from
the brute altogether; at other times it seemed that he must be flung
beneath the hoofs of the brute and trampled lifeless; while, again, in
the frantic efforts of the animal to be rid of its burden, it seemed
that they must both be hurled through the windows of the shops.
Ere long, however, the fury of the horse began to spend itself. And as
it did so, with the man still retaining his grasp of the reins, two
policemen, stalwart and hardy, and finely-grown men, stepped from the
pavement, and, lending their aid at a timely moment, the poor animal
was brought under control.
“Well done, my lad,” said the policemen to the half-naked beggar in a
kind of generous wonder. “Well done, well done! Are you sure you are
all right?”
Among the witnesses of the incident was a tall, bronzed man, with
closely-cropped hair, who was dressed with remarkable care, and whose
bearing was that of a soldier. At his side was a slight, youthful,
handsome woman, who was breathless with excitement.
“Upon my word,” said the man, “that is the best thing I ever saw. That
chap deserves a medal.”
The woman, with a strange, dancing brightness in her eyes, looked up
wistfully into the face of her companion. “Get him one,” she said.
Stimulated by their generous curiosity, they walked up to the spot
where a small crowd was rapidly collecting around the unkempt and
extraordinary figure that was almost naked.
“Better take his name and address,” said the tall, bronzed man to the
two police constables in a slow and calm voice which caused them to
touch their helmets.
The tall, bronzed man then proceeded to survey the circle of interested
bystanders at a dignified leisure, and said in the same tone, “Suppose
we send round the hat?”
Removing his own immaculately-ironed silk head-gear, he proceeded with
an air of exaggerated self-possession, which the conspiracy of the
circumstances rendered bizarre, to drop several pieces of gold into its
interior, and then, standing bare-headed, so that the sleet glistened
upon the pomatum of his hair, handed his hat to a man near to him, who
was of a similar type to himself. However, while this gentleman, also
with extraordinary nonchalance, was adding further pieces of gold to
the hat, this somewhat impressive munificence was frustrated.
The half-naked beggar appeared suddenly to realize that he was the
cynosure of all eyes. He gave a gaunt look all about him, and then,
with a motion of indescribable rapidity, he passed through the ring
that had been formed. With a swiftness so great that his flight could
hardly be followed, the mists of the evening received him.
The bare-headed man gave a glance of courteous deprecation, which
almost took the form of a personal apology, to the man who was placing
pieces of gold in his hat.
“Rather a pity,” he said; “rather a pity to let him go.”
“Yes, a pity,” said the other, wiping a speck of sleet off the brim of
the hat very carefully with his glove, and handing it back.
As with an air of disappointment the crowd dispersed reluctantly, the
slight, youthful, handsome woman turned with an eager gesture to the
owner of the hat. Her cheeks, under their powder, were the colour of
snow.
“Did you--did you see his face?” said she in quick, nervous accents. “I
shall carry it to my grave. It was--it was the most beautiful face in
the world.”
The owner of the hat gave the woman a little smile of affectionate
indulgence, in which, however, pride was uppermost, and handed her very
carefully into a hansom.