Among the many wild and lovely tangles of foliage and flower which
Nature and her subject man succeed in working out together after
considerable conflict and argument, one of the most beautiful and
luxuriant is a Somersetshire lane. Narrow and tortuous, fortified on
either side with high banks of rough turf, topped by garlands of
climbing wild-rose, bunches of corn-cockles and tufts of meadow-sweet,
such a lane in midsummer is one of beauty's ways through the world,--a
path, which if it lead to no more important goal than a tiny village or
solitary farm, is, to the dreamer and poet, sufficiently entrancing in
itself to seem a fairy road to fairyland. Here and there some grand elm
or beech tree, whose roots have hugged the soil for more than a century,
spreads out broad protecting branches all a-shimmer with green
leaves,--between the uneven tufts of grass, the dainty "ragged robin"
sprays its rose-pink blossoms contrastingly against masses of snowy
star-wort and wild strawberry,--the hedges lean close together, as
though accustomed to conceal the shy confidences of young lovers,--and
from the fields beyond, the glad singing of countless skylarks, soaring
one after the other into the clear pure air, strikes a wave of repeated
melody from point to point of the visible sky. All among the delicate or
deep indentures of the coast, where the ocean creeps softly inland with
a caressing murmur, or scoops out caverns for itself among the rocks
with perpetual roar and dash of foam, the glamour of the green
extends,--the "lane runs down to meet the sea, carrying with it its
garlands of blossoms, its branches of verdure, and all the odour and
freshness of the woodlands and meadows, and when at last it drops to a
conclusion in some little sandy bay or sparkling weir, it leaves an
impression of melody on the soul like the echo of a sweet song just
sweetly sung. High up the lanes run;--low down on the shoreline they
come to an end,--and the wayfarer, pacing along at the summit of their
devious windings, can hear the plash of the sea below him as he
walks,--the little tender laughing plash if the winds are calm and the
day is fair,--the angry thud and boom of the billows if a storm is
rising. These bye-roads, of which there are so many along the
Somersetshire coast, are often very lonely,--they are dangerous to
traffic, as no two ordinary sized vehicles can pass each other
conveniently within so narrow a compass,--and in summer especially they
are haunted by gypsies, "pea-pickers," and ill-favoured men and women of
the "tramp" species, slouching along across country from Bristol to
Minehead, and so over Countisbury Hill into Devon. One such
questionable-looking individual there was, who,--in a golden afternoon
of July, when the sun was beginning to decline towards the west,--paused
in his slow march through the dust, which even in the greenest of hill
and woodland ways is bound to accumulate thickly after a fortnight's
lack of rain,--and with a sigh of fatigue, sat down at the foot of a
tree to rest. He was an old man, with a thin weary face which was
rendered more gaunt and haggard-looking by a ragged grey moustache and
ugly stubble beard of some ten days' growth, and his attire suggested
that he might possibly be a labourer dismissed from farm work for the
heinous crime of old age, and therefore "on the tramp" looking out for a
job. He wore a soft slouched felt hat, very much out of shape and
weather-stained,--and when he had been seated for a few minutes in a
kind of apathy of lassitude, he lifted the hat off, passing his hand
through his abundant rough white hair in a slow tired way, as though by
this movement he sought to soothe some teasing pain.
"I think," he murmured, addressing himself to a tiny brown bird which
had alighted on a branch of briar-rose hard by, and was looking at him
with bold and lively inquisitiveness,--"I think I have managed the whole
thing very well! I have left no clue anywhere. My portmanteau will tell
no tales, locked up in the cloak-room at Bristol. If it is ever sold
with its contents 'to defray expenses,' nothing will be found in it but
some unmarked clothes. And so far as all those who know me are
concerned, every trace of me ends at Southampton. Beyond Southampton
there is a blank, into which David Helmsley, the millionaire, has
vanished. And David Helmsley, the tramp, sits here in his place!"
The little brown bird preened its wing, and glanced at him sideways
intelligently, as much as to say: "I quite understand! You have become
one of us,--a wanderer, taking no thought for the morrow, but letting
to-morrow take thought for the things of itself. There is a bond of
sympathy between me, the bird, and you, the man--we are brothers!"
A sudden smile illumined his face. The situation was novel, and to him
enjoyable. He was greatly fatigued,--he had over-exerted himself during
the past three or four days, walking much further than he had ever been
accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely--nevertheless, with the sense
of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit,
like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is
defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the
rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new"
experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the
"social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as
empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly
profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of
finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had
exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which
ended in a loathing of the thing gained. Others might and would consume
themselves in fevers of avarice, and surfeits of luxury,--but for him
such temporary pleasures were past. He desired a complete change,--a
change of surroundings, a change of associations--and for this, what
could be more excellent or more wholesome than a taste of poverty? In
his time he had met men who, worn out with the constant fight of the
body's materialism against the soul's idealism, had turned their backs
for ever on the world and its glittering shows, and had shut themselves
up as monks of "enclosed" or "silent" orders,--others he had known, who,
rushing away from what we call civilisation, had encamped in the
backwoods of America, or high up among the Rocky Mountains, and had
lived the lives of primeval savages in their strong craving to assert a
greater manliness than the streets of cities would allow them to
enjoy,--and all were moved by the same mainspring of action,--the
overpowering spiritual demand within themselves which urged them to
break loose from cowardly conventions and escape from Sham. He could not
compete with younger men in taking up wild sport and "big game" hunting
in far lands, in order to give free play to the natural savage
temperament which lies untamed at the root of every man's individual
being,--and he had no liking for "monastic" immurements. But he longed
for liberty,--liberty to go where he liked without his movements being
watched and commented upon by a degraded "personal" press,--liberty to
speak as he felt and do as he wished, without being compelled to weigh
his words, or to consider his actions. Hence--he had decided on his
present course, though how that course was likely to shape itself in its
progress he had no very distinct idea. His actual plan was to walk to
Cornwall, and there find out the native home of his parents, not so much
for sentiment's sake as for the necessity of having a definite object or
goal in view. And the reason of his determination to go "on the road,"
as it were, was simply that he wished to test for himself the actual
happiness or misery experienced by the very poor as contrasted with the
supposed joys of the very wealthy. This scheme had been working in his
brain for the past year or more,--all his business arrangements had been
made in such a way as to enable him to carry it out satisfactorily to
himself without taking any one else into his confidence. The only thing
that might possibly have deterred him from his quixotic undertaking
would have been the moral triumph of Lucy Sorrel over the temptation he
had held out to her. Had she been honest to her better womanhood,--had
she still possessed the "child's heart," with which his remembrance and
imagination had endowed her, he would have resigned every other thought
save that of so smoothing the path of life for her that she might tread
it easily to the end. But now that she had disappointed him, he had, so
he told himself, done with fine illusions and fair beliefs for ever. And
he had started on a lonely quest,--a search for something vague and
intangible, the very nature of which he himself could not tell. Some
glimmering ghost of a notion lurked in his mind that perhaps, during his
self-imposed solitary ramblings, he might find some new and unexplored
channel wherein his vast wealth might flow to good purpose after his
death, without the trammels of Committee-ism and Red-Tape-ism. But he
expected and formulated nothing,--he was more or less in a state of
quiescence, awaiting adventures without either hope or fear. In the
meantime, here he sat in the shady Somersetshire lane, resting,--the
multi-millionaire whose very name shook the money-markets of the world,
but who to all present appearances seemed no more than a tramp, footing
it wearily along one of the many winding "short cuts" through the
country between Somerset and Devon, and as unlike the actual self of him
as known to Lombard Street and the Stock Exchange as a beggar is unlike
a king.
"After all, it's quite as interesting as 'big game' shooting!" he said,
the smile still lingering in his eyes. "I am after 'sport,'--in a novel
fashion! I am on the lookout for new specimens of men and women,--real
honest ones! I may find them,--I may not,--but the search will surely
prove at least as instructive and profitable as if one went out to the
Arctic regions for the purpose of killing innocent polar bears! Change
and excitement are what every one craves for nowadays--I'm getting as
much as I want--in my own way!"
He thought over the whole situation, and reviewed with a certain sense
of interest and amusement his method of action since he left London.
Benson, his valet, had packed his portmanteau, according to orders, with
everything that was necessary for a short sea trip, and then had seen
him off at the station for Southampton,--and to Southampton he had gone.
Arrived there, he had proceeded to a hotel, where, under an assumed
name, he had stayed the night. The next day he had left Southampton for
Salisbury by train, and there staying another night, had left again for
Bath and Bristol. On the latter journey he had "tipped" the guard
heavily to keep his first-class compartment reserved to himself. This
had been done; and the train being an express, stopping at very few
stations, he had found leisure and opportunity to unpack his portmanteau
and cut away every mark on his linen and other garments which could give
the slightest clue to their possessor. When he had removed all possible
trace of his identity on or in this one piece of luggage, he packed it
up again, and on reaching Bristol, took it to the station's cloak-room,
and there deposited it with the stated intention of calling back for it
at the hour of the next train to London. This done, he stepped forth
untrammelled, a free man. He had with him five hundred pounds in
banknotes, and for a day or so was content to remain in Bristol at one
of the best hotels, under an assumed name as before, while privately
making such other preparations for his intended long "tramp" as he
thought necessary. In one of the poorest quarters of the town he
purchased a few second-hand garments such as might be worn by an
ordinary day-labourer, saying to the dealer that he wanted to "rig out"
a man who had just left hospital and who was going in for "field" work.
The dealer saw nothing either remarkable or suspicious in this seemingly
benevolent act of a kindly-looking well-dressed old gentleman, and sent
him the articles he had purchased done up in a neat package and
addressed to him at his hotel, by the name he had for the time assumed.
When he left the hotel for good, he did so with nothing more than this
neat package, which he carried easily in one hand by a loop of string.
And so he began his journey, walking steadily for two or three
hours,--then pausing to rest awhile,--and after rest, going on again.
Once out of Bristol he was glad, and at certain lonely places, when the
shadows of night fell, he changed all his garments one by one till he
stood transformed as now he was. The clothes he was compelled to discard
he got rid of by leaving them in unlikely holes and corners on the
road,--as for example, at one place he filled the pockets of his good
broadcloth coat with stones and dropped it into the bottom of an old
disused well. The curious sense of guilt he felt when he performed this
innocent act surprised as well as amused him.
"It is exactly as if I had murdered somebody and had sunk a body into
the well instead of a coat!" he said--"and--perhaps I have! Perhaps I am
killing my Self,--getting rid of my Self,--which would be a good thing,
if I could only find Some one or Some thing better than my Self in my
Self's place!"
When he had finally disposed of every article that could suggest any
possibility of his ever having been clothed as a gentleman, he unripped
the lining of his rough "workman's" vest, and made a layer of the
banknotes he had with him between it and the cloth, stitching it
securely over and over with coarse needle and thread, being satisfied by
this arrangement to carry all his immediate cash hidden upon his person,
while for the daily needs of hunger and thirst he had a few loose
shillings and coppers in his pocket. He had made up his mind not to
touch a single one of the banknotes, unless suddenly overtaken by
accident or illness. When his bit of silver and copper came to an end,
he meant to beg alms along the road and prove for himself how far it
was true that human beings were in the main kind and compassionate, and
ready to assist one another in the battle of life. With these ideas and
many others in his mind, he started on his "tramp"--and during the first
two or three days of it suffered acutely. Many years had passed since he
had been accustomed to long sustained bodily exercise, and he was
therefore easily fatigued. But by the time he reached the open country
between the Quantocks and the Brendon Hills, he had got somewhat into
training, and had begun to feel a greater lightness and ease as well as
pleasure in walking. He had found it quite easy to live on very simple
food,--in fact one of the principal charms of the strange "holiday" he
had planned for his own entertainment was to prove for himself beyond
all dispute that no very large amount of money is required to sustain a
man's life and health. New milk and brown bread had kept him going
bravely every day,--fruit was cheap and so was cheese, and all these
articles of diet are highly nourishing, so that he had wanted for
nothing. At night, the weather keeping steadily fine and warm, he had
slept in the open, choosing some quiet nook in the woodland under a
tree, or else near a haystack in the fields, and he had benefited
greatly by thus breathing the pure air during slumber, and getting for
nothing the "cure" prescribed by certain Artful Dodgers of the medical
profession who take handfuls of guineas from credulous patients for what
Mother Nature willingly gives gratis. And he was beginning to understand
the joys of "loafing,"--so much so indeed that he felt a certain
sympathy with the lazy varlet who prefers to stroll aimlessly about the
country begging his bread rather than do a stroke of honest work. The
freedom of such a life is self-evident,--and freedom is the broadest and
best way of breathing on earth. To "tramp the road" seems to the
well-dressed, conventional human being a sorry life; but it may be
questioned whether, after all, he with his social trammels and household
cares, is not leading a sorrier one. Never in all his brilliant,
successful career till now had David Helmsley, that king of modern
finance, realised so intensely the beauty and peace of being alone with
Nature,--the joy of feeling the steady pulse of the Spirit of the
Universe throbbing through one's own veins and arteries,--the quiet yet
exultant sense of knowing instinctively beyond all formulated theory or
dogma, that one is a vital part of the immortal Entity, as
indestructible as Itself. And a great calm was gradually taking
possession of his soul,--a smoothing of all the waves of his emotional
and nervous temperament. Under this mystic touch of unseen and
uncomprehended heavenly tenderness, all sorrows, all disappointments,
all disillusions sank out of sight as though they had never been. It
seemed to him that he had put away his former life for ever, and that
another life had just begun,--and his brain was ready and eager to rid
itself of old impressions in order to prepare for new. Nothing of much
moment had occurred to him as yet. A few persons had said "good-day " or
"good-night" to him in passing,--a farmer had asked him to hold his
horse for a quarter of an hour, which he had done, and had thereby
earned threepence,--but he had met with no interesting or exciting
incidents which could come under the head of "adventures." Nevertheless
he was gathering fresh experiences,--experiences which all tended to
show him how the best and brightest part of life is foolishly wasted and
squandered by the modern world in a mad rush for gain.
"So very little money really suffices for health, contentment, and
harmless pleasure!" he thought. "The secret of our growing social
mischief does not lie with the natural order of created things, but
solely with ourselves. We will not set any reasonable limit to our
desires. If we would, we might live longer and be far happier!"
He stretched out his limbs easefully, and dropped into a reclining
posture. The tree he had chosen to rest under was a mighty elm, whose
broad branches, thick with leaves, formed a deep green canopy through
which the sunbeams filtered in flecks and darts of gold. A constant
twittering of birds resounded within this dome of foliage, and a thrush
whistled melodious phrases from one of the highest boughs. At his feet
was spread a carpet of long soft moss, interspersed with wild thyme and
groups of delicate harebells, and the rippling of a tiny stream into a
hollow cavity of stones made pleasant and soothing music. Charmed with
the tranquillity and loveliness of his surroundings, he determined to
stay here for a couple of hours, reading, and perhaps sleeping, before
resuming his journey. He had in his pocket a shilling edition of Keats's
poems which he had bought in Bristol by way of a silent companion to his
thoughts, and he took it out and opened it now, reading and re-reading
some of the lines most dear and familiar to him, when, as a boy, he had
elected this poet, so wickedly done to death ere his prime by
commonplace critics, as one of his chief favourites among the highest
Singers. And his lips, half-murmuring, followed the verse which tells of
that
"untrodden region of the mind,
Where branchëd thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind;
Far, far around shall these dark clustered trees,
Fledge the wild ridgëd mountains steep by steep,
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds and bees,
The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness,
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,
With buds and bells and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight,
That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!"
A slight sigh escaped him.
"How perfect is that stanza!" he said. "How I used to believe in all it
suggested! And how, when I was a young man, my heart was like that
'casement ope at night, to let the warm Love in!' But Love never
came,--only a spurious will-o'-the-wisp imitation of Love. I wonder if
many people in this world are not equally deceived with myself in their
conceptions of this divine passion? All the poets and romancists may be
wrong,--and Lucy Sorrel, with her hard materialism encasing her youth
like a suit of steel armour, may be right. Boys and girls 'love,' so
they say,--men and women 'love' and marry--and with marriage, the
wondrous light that led them on and dazzled them, seems, in nine cases
out of ten, to suddenly expire! Taking myself as an example, I cannot
say that actual marriage made me happy. It was a great disillusion; a
keen disappointment. The birth of my sons certainly gave me some
pleasure as well as latent hope, for as little children they were
lovable and lovely; but as boys--as men--what bitterness they brought
me! Were they the heirs of Love? Nay!--surely Love never generated such
callous hearts! They were the double reflex of their mother's nature,
grasping all and giving nothing. Is there no such virtue on earth as
pure unselfish Love?--love that gives itself freely, unasked, without
hope of advantage or reward--and without any personal motive lurking
behind its offered tenderness?"
He turned over the pages of the book he held, with a vague idea that
some consoling answer to his thoughts would flash out in a stray line or
stanza, like a beacon lighting up the darkness of a troubled sea. But no
such cheering word met his eyes. Keats is essentially the poet of the
young, and for the old he has no comfort. Sensuous, passionate, and
almost cloying in the excessive sweetness of his amorous muse, he offers
no support to the wearied spirit,--no sense of strength or renewal to
the fagged brain. He does not grapple with the hard problems of life;
and his mellifluous murmurings of delicious fantasies have no place in
the poignant griefs and keen regrets of those who have passed the
meridian of earthly hopes, and who see the shadows of the long night
closing in. And David Helmsley realised this all suddenly, with
something of a pang.
"I am too old for Keats," he said in a half-whisper to the leafy
branches that bowed their weight of soft green shelteringly over him.
"Too old! Too old for a poet in whose imaginative work I vised to take
such deep delight. There is something strange in this, for I cherished a
belief that fine poetry would fit every time and every age, and that no
matter how heavy the burden of years might be, I should always be able
to forget myself and my sorrows in a poet's immortal creations. But I
have left Keats behind me. He was with me in the sunshine,--he does not
follow me into the shade."
A cloud of melancholy darkened his worn features, and he slowly closed
the book. He felt that it was from henceforth a sealed letter. For him
the half-sad, half-scornful musings of Omar Khayyám were more fitting,
such as the lines that run thus:--
"Fair wheel of heaven, silvered with many a star,
Whose sickly arrows strike us from afar,
Never a purpose to my soul was dear,
But heaven crashed down my little dream to mar.
Never a bird within my sad heart sings
But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings;
O valiant wheel! O most courageous heaven,
To leave me lonely with the broken wings!"
tinging pain, as of tears that rose but would not fall, troubled his
eyes. He passed his hand across them, and leaned back against the sturdy
trunk of the elm which served him for the moment as a protecting haven
of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the clover, the soft
subdued twittering of the birds, and the laughing ripple of the little
stream hard by, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound which
lulled his senses to a drowsiness that gradually deepened into slumber.
He made a pathetic figure enough, lying fast asleep there among the
wilderness of green,--a frail and apparently very poor old man, adrift
and homeless, without a friend in the world. The sun sank, and a crimson
after-glow spread across the horizon from west to east, the rich colours
flung up from the centre of the golden orb merging by slow degrees into
that pure pearl-grey which marks the long and lovely summer twilight of
English skies. The air was very still, not so much as the rumble of a
distant cart wheel disturbing the silence. Presently, however, the slow
shuffle of hesitating footsteps sounded through the muffling thickness
of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little
rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and
honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a
prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and
dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging
together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might
expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a
large basket on his back, seemingly full of weeds,--the rope which
supported it was tied across his chest, and he clasped this rope with
both hands crossed in the middle, after the fashion of a praying monk.
Smoking a short black pipe, he trudged along, keeping his eyes fixed on
the ground with steady and almost surly persistence, till arriving at
the tree where Helmsley lay, he paused, and lifting his head stared long
and curiously at the sleeping man. Then, unclasping his hands, he
lowered his basket to the ground and set it down. Stealthily creeping
close up to Helmsley's side, he examined the prone figure from head to
foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on
the grass where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he
took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and
finger.
"Portry!" he ejaculated. "Glory be good to me! 'E's a reg'ler noddy
none-such! An' measly old enuff to know better!"
He threw the book on the grass again with a sniff of contempt. At that
moment Helmsley stirred, and opening his eyes fixed them full and
inquiringly on the lowering face above him.
"'Ullo, gaffer! Woke up, 'ave yer?" said the man gruffly. "Off yer lay?"
Helmsley raised himself on one elbow, looking a trifle dazed.
"Off my what?" he murmured. "I didn't quite hear you----?"
"Oh come, stow that!" said the man. "You dunno what I'm talkin' about;
that's plain as a pike. _You_ aint used to the road! Where d'ye come
from?"
"I've walked from Bristol," he answered--"And you're quite right,--I'm
not used to the road."
The man looked at him and his hard face softened. Pushing back his
tattered cap from his brows he showed his features more openly, and a
smile, half shrewd, half kindly, made them suddenly pleasant.
"Av coorse you're not!" he declared. "Glory be good to me! I've tramped
this bit o' road for years, an' never come across such a poor old
chuckle-headed gammer as you sleepin' under a tree afore! Readin' portry
an' droppin' to by-by over it! The larst man as iver I saw a' readin'
portry was what they called a 'Serious Sunday' man, an' 'e's doin' time
now in Portland."
Helmsley smiled. He was amused;--his "adventures," he thought, were
beginning. To be called "a poor old chuckle-headed gammer" was a new and
almost delightful experience.
"Portland's an oncommon friendly place," went on his uninvited
companion. "Once they gits ye, they likes ye to stop. 'Taint like the
fash'nable quality what says to their friends: 'Do-ee come an' stay wi'
me, loveys!' wishin' all the while as they wouldn't. Portland takes ye
willin', whether ye likes it or not, an' keeps ye so fond that ye can't
git away nohow. Oncommon 'ospitable Portland be!"
And he broke into a harsh laugh. Then he glanced at Helmsley again with
a more confiding and favourable eye.
"Ye seems a 'spectable sort," he said. "What's wrong wi' ye? Out o'
work?"
Helmsley nodded.
"Turned off, eh? Too old?"
"That's about it!" he answered.
"Well, ye do look a bit of a shivery-shake,--a kind o'
not-long-for-this-world," said the man. "Howsomiver, we'se be all
'elpless an' 'omeless soon, for the Lord hisself don't stop a man
growin' old, an' under the new ways o' the world, it's a reg'lar crime
to run past forty. I'm sixty, an' I gits my livin' my own way, axin'
nobody for the kind permission. _That's_ my fortin!"
And he pointed to the basket of weedy stuff which he had just set down.
Helmsley looked at it with some curiosity.
"What's in it?" he asked.
"What's in it? What's _not_ in it!" And the man gave a gesture of
mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their
guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe
no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An'
minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an'
seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an'
beast, Matthew Peke's got 'em all in there. An' Matthew Peke wouldn't be
the man he is, if he didn't know where to find 'em better'n any livin'
soul iver born! Ah!--an' there aint a toad in a hole hoppin' out between
Quantocks an' Cornwall as hasn't seen Matthew Peke gatherin' the
blessin' an' health o' the fields at rise o' sun an' set o' moon,
spring, summer, autumn, ay, an' even winter, all the year through!"
Helmsley became interested.
"And you are the man!" he said questioningly--"You are Matthew Peke?"
"I am! An' proud so ter be! An' you--'ave yer got a name for the
arskin'?"
"Why, certainly!" And Helmsley's pale face flushed. "My name is David."
"Chrisen name? Surname?"
"Both."
Matthew Peke shook his head.
"'Twon't fadge!" he declared. "It don't sound right. It's like th' owld
Bible an' the Book o' Kings where there's nowt but Jews; an' Jews is
the devil to pay wheriver you finds 'em!"
"I'm not a Jew," said Helmsley, smiling.
"Mebbe not--mebbe not--but yer name's awsome like it. An' if ye put it
short, like D. David, that's just Damn David an' nothin' plainer. Aint
it?"
Helmsley laughed.
"Exactly!" he said--"You're right! Damn David suits me down to the
ground!"
Peke looked at him dubiously, as one who is not quite sure of his man.
"You're a rum old sort!" he said; "an' I tell ye what it is--you're as
tired as a dog limpin' on three legs as has nipped his fourth in a
weasel-trap. Wheer are ye goin' on to?"
"I don't know," answered Helmsley--"I'm a stranger to this part of the
country. But I mean to tramp it to the nearest village. I slept out in
the open yesterday,--I think I'd like a shelter over me to-night."
"Got any o' the King's pictures about ye?" asked Peke.
Helmsley looked, as he felt, bewildered.
"The King's pictures?" he echoed--"You mean----?"
"This!" and Peke drew out of his tattered trouser pocket a dim and
blackened sixpence--"'Ere 'e is, as large as life, a bit bald about the
top o' 'is blessed old 'ead, Glory be good to 'im, but as useful as if
all 'is 'air was still a blowin' an' a growin'! Aint that the King's
picture, D. David? Don't it say 'Edwardus VII. D. G. Britt.,' which
means Edward the Seventh, thanks be to God Britain? Don't it?"
"It _do_!" replied Helmsley emphatically, taking a fantastic pleasure in
the bad grammar of his reply. "I've got a few more pictures of the same
kind," and he took out two or three loose shillings and pennies--"Can we
get a night's lodging about here for that?"
"Av coorse we can! I'll take ye to a place where ye'll be as welcome as
the flowers in May with Matt Peke interroducin' of ye. Two o' them
thank-God Britts in silver will set ye up wi' a plate o' wholesome food
an' a clean bed at the 'Trusty Man.' It's a pub, but Miss Tranter what
keeps it is an old maid, an' she's that proud o' the only 'Trusty Man'
she ever 'ad that she calls it an '_O_tel!"
He grinned good-humouredly at what he considered his own witticism
concerning the little weakness of Miss Tranter, and proceeded to
shoulder his basket.
"_You_ aint proud, are ye?" he said, as he turned his ferret-brown eyes
on Helmsley inquisitively.
Helmsley, who had, quite unconsciously to himself, drawn up his spare
figure in his old habitual way of standing very erect, with that
composed air of dignity and resolution which those who knew him
personally in business were well accustomed to, started at the question.
"Proud!" he exclaimed--"I? What have I to be proud of? I'm the most
miserable old fellow in the world, my friend! You may take my word for
that! There's not a soul that cares a button whether I live or die! I'm
seventy years of age--out of work, and utterly wretched and friendless!
Why the devil should _I_ be proud?"
"Well, if ye never was proud in yer life, ye can be now," said Peke
condescendingly, "for I tell ye plain an' true that if Matt Peke walks
with a tramp on this road, every one round the Quantocks knows as how
that tramp aint altogether a raskill! I've took ye up on trust as
'twere, likin' yer face for all that it's thin an' mopish,--an' steppin'
in wi' me to the 'Trusty Man' will mebbe give ye a character. Anyways,
I'll do my best for ye!"
"Thank you," said Helmsley simply.
Again Peke looked at him, and again seemed troubled. Then, stuffing his
pipe full of tobacco, he lit it and stuck it sideways between his teeth.
"Now come along!" he said. "You're main old, but ye must put yer best
foot foremost all the same. We've more'n an hour's trampin' up hill an'
down dale, an' the dew's beginnin' to fall. Keep goin' slow an'
steady--I'll give ye a hand."
For a moment Helmsley hesitated. This shaggy, rough, uncouth
herb-gatherer evidently regarded him as very feeble and helpless, and,
out of a latent kindliness of nature, wished to protect him and see him
to some safe shelter for the night. Nevertheless, he hated the position.
Old as he knew himself to be, he resented being pitied for his age,
while his mind was yet so vigorous and his heart felt still so warm and
young. Yet the commonplace fact remained that he was very tired,--very
worn out, and conscious that only a good rest would enable him to
continue his journey with comfort. Moreover, his experiences at the
"Trusty Man" might prove interesting. It was best to take what came in
his way, even though some episodes should possibly turn out less
pleasing than instructive. So putting aside all scruples, he started to
walk beside his ragged comrade of the road, finding, with some secret
satisfaction, that after a few paces his own step was light and easy
compared to the heavy shuffling movement with which Peke steadily
trudged along. Sweet and pungent odours of the field and woodland
floated from the basket of herbs as it swung slightly to and fro on its
bearer's shoulders, and amid the slowly darkening shadows of evening, a
star of sudden silver brilliance sparkled out in the sky.
"Yon's the first twinkler," said Peke, seeing it at once, though his
gaze was apparently fixed on the ground. "The love-star's allus up early
o' nights to give the men an' maids a chance!"
"Yes,--Venus is the evening star just now," rejoined Helmsley,
half-absently.
"Stow Venus! That's a reg'lar fool's name," said Peke surlily. "Where
did ye git it from? That aint no Venus,--that's just the love-star, an'
it'll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!"
Helmsley made no answer. He walked on patiently, his limbs trembling a
little with fatigue and nervous exhaustion. But Peke's words had started
the old dream of his life again into being,--the latent hope within him,
which though often half-killed, was not yet dead, flamed up like newly
kindled vital fire in his mind,--and he moved as in a dream, his eyes
fixed on the darkening heavens and the brightening star.