They plodded on together side by side for some time in unbroken silence.
At last, after a short but stiff climb up a rough piece of road which
terminated in an eminence commanding a wide and uninterrupted view of
the surrounding country, they paused. The sea lay far below them, dimly
covered by the gathering darkness, and the long swish and roll of the
tide could be heard sweeping to and from the shore like the grave and
graduated rhythm of organ music.
"We'd best 'ave a bit of a jabber to keep us goin'," said Peke,
then--"Jabberin' do pass time, as the wimin can prove t' ye; an' arter
such a jumblegut lane as this, it'll seem less lonesome. We're off the
main road to towns an' sich like--this is a bye, an' 'ere it stops.
We'll 'ave to git over yon stile an' cross the fields--'taint an easy
nor clean way, but it's the best goin'. We'll see the lights o' the
'Trusty Man' just over the brow o' the next hill."
Helmsley drew a long breath, and sat down on a stone by the roadside.
Peke surveyed him critically.
"Poor old gaffer! Knocked all to pieces, aint ye! Not used to the road?
Glory be good to me! I should think ye wornt! Short in yer wind an' weak
on yer pins! I'd as soon see my old grandad trampin' it as you. Look
'ere! Will ye take a dram out o' this 'ere bottle?"
He held up the bottle he spoke of,--it was black, and untemptingly
dirty. Yet there was such a good-natured expression in the man's eyes,
and so much honest solicitude written on his rough bearded face, that
Helmsley felt it would be almost like insulting him to refuse his
invitation.
"Tell me what's in it first!" he said, smiling.
"'Taint whisky," said Peke. "And 'taint brandy neither. _Nor_ rum. _Nor_
gin. Nor none o' them vile stuffs which brewers makes as arterwards goes
to Parl'ment on the profits of 'avin' poisoned their consti_too_ants.
'Tis nowt but just yerb wine."
"Yerb wine? Wine made of herbs?"
"That's it! 'Erbs or yerbs--I aint pertikler which--I sez both.
This,"--and he shook the bottle he held vigorously--"is genuine yerb
wine--an' made as I makes it, what do the Wise One say of it? 'E
sez:--'It doth strengthen the heart of a man mightily, and refresheth
the brain; drunk fasting, it braceth up the sinews and maketh the old
feel young; it is of rare virtue to expel all evil humours, and if
princes should drink of it oft it would be but an ill service to the
world, as they might never die!'"
Peke recited these words slowly and laboriously; it was evident that he
had learned them by heart, and that the effort of remembering them
correctly was more or less painful to him.
Helmsley laughed, and stretched out his hand.
"Give it over here!" he said. "It's evidently just the stuff for me. How
much shall I take at one go?"
Peke uncorked the precious fluid with care, smelt it, and nodded
appreciatively.
"Swill it all if ye like," he remarked graciously. "'Twont hurt ye, an'
there's more where that came from. It's cheap enuff, too--nature don't
keep it back from no man. On'y there aint a many got sense enuff to
thank the Lord when it's offered."
As he thus talked, Helmsley took the bottle from him and tasted its
contents. The "yerb wine" was delicious. More grateful to his palate
than Chambertin or Clos Vougeot, it warmed and invigorated him, and he
took a long draught, Matthew Peke watching him drink it with great
satisfaction.
"Let the yerbs run through yer veins for two or three minits, an' ye'll
step across yon fields as light as a bird 'oppin' to its nest," he
declared. "Talk o' tonics,--there's more tonic in a handful o' green
stuff growin' as the Lord makes it to grow, than all the
purr-escriptions what's sent out o' them big 'ouses in 'Arley Street,
London, where the doctors sits from ten to two like spiders waitin' for
flies, an' gatherin' in the guineas for lookin' at fools' tongues. Glory
be good to me! If all the world were as sick as it's silly, there'd be
nowt wantin' to 't but a grave an' a shovel!"
Helmsley smiled, and taking another pull at the black bottle, declared
himself much better and ready to go on. He was certainly refreshed, and
the weary aching of his limbs which had made every step of the road
painful and difficult to him, was gradually passing off.
"You are very good to me," he said, as he returned the remainder of the
"yerb wine" to its owner. "I wonder why?"
Peke took a draught of his mixture before replying. Then corking the
bottle, he thrust it in his pocket.
"Ye wonders why?" And he uttered a sound between a grunt and a
chuckle--"Ye may do that! I wonders myself!"
And, giving his basket a hitch, he resumed his slow trudging movement
onward.
"You see," pursued Helmsley, keeping up the pace beside him, and
beginning to take pleasure in the conversation--"I may be anything or
anybody----"
"Ye may that," agreed Peke, his eyes fixed as usual on the ground. "Ye
may be a jail-bird or a missioner,--they'se much of a muchity, an' goes
on the road lookin' quite simple like, an' the simpler they seems the
deeper they is. White 'airs an' feeble legs 'elps 'em along
considerable,--nowt's better stock-in-trade than tremblin' shins. Or ye
might be a War-office neglect,--ye looks a bit set that way."
"What's a War-office neglect?" asked Helmsley, laughing.
"One o' them totterin' old chaps as was in the Light Brigade," answered
Peke. "There's no end to 'em. They'se all over every road in the
country. All of 'em fought wi' Lord Cardigan, an' all o' 'em's driven to
starve by an ungrateful Gov'ment. They won't be all dead an' gone till a
hundred years 'as rolled away, an' even then I shouldn't wonder if one
or two was still left on the tramp a-pipin' his little 'arf-a-league
onard tale o' woe to the first softy as forgits the date o' the battle."
Here he gave an inquisitive side-glance at his companion. "But you aint
quite o' the Balaclava make an' colour. Yer shoulders is millingterry,
but yer 'ead is business. Ye might be a gentleman if 'twornt for yer
clothes."
Helmsley heard this definition of himself without flinching.
"I might be a thief," he said--"or an escaped convict. You've been kind
to me without knowing whether I am one or the other, or both. And I want
to know why?"
Peke stopped in his walk. They had come to the stile over which the way
lay across the fields, and he rested himself and his basket for a moment
against it.
"Why?" he repeated,--then suddenly raising one hand, he whispered,
"Listen! Listen to the sea!"
The evening had now almost closed in, and all around them the country
lay dark and solitary, broken here and there by tall groups of trees
which at night looked like sable plumes, standing stiff and motionless
in the stirless summer air. Thousands of stars flashed out across this
blackness, throbbing in their orbits with a quick pulsation as of uneasy
hearts beating with nameless and ungratified longing. And through the
tense silence came floating a long, sweet, passionate cry,--a shivering
moan of pain that touched the edge of joy,--a song without words, of
pleading and of prayer, as of a lover, who, debarred from the possession
of the beloved, murmurs his mingled despair and hope to the
unsubstantial dream of his own tortured soul. The sea was calling to the
earth,--calling to her in phrases of eloquent and urgent
music,--caressing her pebbly shores with winding arms of foam, and
showering kisses of wild spray against her rocky bosom. "If I could come
to thee! If thou couldst come to me!" was the burden of the waves,--the
ceaseless craving of the finite for the infinite, which is, and ever
shall be, the great chorale of life. The shuddering sorrow of that low
rhythmic boom of the waters rising and falling fathoms deep under cliffs
which the darkness veiled from view, awoke echoes from the higher hills
around, and David Helmsley, lifting his eyes to the countless
planet-worlds sprinkled thick as flowers in the patch of sky immediately
above him, suddenly realised with a pang how near he was to death,--how
very near to that final drop into the unknown where the soul of man is
destined to find All or Nothing! He trembled,--not with fear,--but with
a kind of anger at himself for having wasted so much of his life. What
had he done, with all his toil and pains? He had gathered a multitude of
riches. Well, and then? Then,--why then, and now, he had found riches
but vain getting. Life and Death were still, as they have always been,
the two supreme Facts of the universe. Life, as ever, asserted itself
with an insistence demanding something far more enduring than the mere
possession of gold, and the power which gold brings. And Death presented
its unwelcome aspect in the same perpetual way as the Last Recorder who,
at the end of the day, closes up accounts with a sum-total paid exactly
in proportion to the work done. No more, and no less. And with Helmsley
these accounts were reaching a figure against which his whole nature
fiercely rebelled,--the figure of Nought, showing no value in his life's
efforts or its results. And the sound of the sea to-night in his ears
was more full of reproach than peace.
"When the water moans like that," said Peke softly, under his breath,
"it seems to me as if all the tongues of drowned sailors 'ad got into it
an' was beggin' of us not to forget 'em lyin' cold among the shells an'
weed. An' not only the tongues o' them seems a-speakin' an' a-cryin',
but all the stray bones o' them seems to rattle in the rattle o' the
foam. It goes through ye sharp, like a knife cuttin' a sour apple; an'
it's made me wonder many a time why we was all put 'ere to git drowned
or smashed or choked off or beat down somehows just when we don't expect
it. Howsomiver, the Wise One sez it's all right!"
"And who is the Wise One?" asked Helmsley, trying to rouse himself from
the heavy thoughts engendered in his mind by the wail of the sea.
"The Wise One was a man what wrote a book a 'underd years ago about
'erbs," said Peke. "'_The Way o' Long Life_,' it's called, an' my father
an' grandfather and great-grandfather afore 'em 'ad the book, an' I've
got it still, though I shows it to nobody, for nobody but me wouldn't
unnerstand it. My father taught me my letters from it, an' I could spell
it out when I was a kid--I've growed up on it, an' it's all I ever
reads. It's 'ere"--and he touched his ragged vest. "I trusts it to keep
me goin' 'ale an' 'arty till I'm ninety,--an' that's drawin' it mild,
for my father lived till a 'underd, an' then on'y went through slippin'
on a wet stone an' breakin' a bone in 'is back; an' my grandfather saw
'is larst Christmas at a 'underd an' ten, an' was up to kissin' a wench
under the mistletoe, 'e was sich a chirpin' old gamecock. 'E didn't look
no older'n you do now, an' you're a chicken compared to 'im. You've wore
badly like, not knowin' the use o' yerbs."
"That's it!" said Helmsley, now following his companion over the stile
and into the dark dewy fields beyond--"I need the advice of the Wise
One! Has he any remedy for old age, I wonder?"
"Ay, now there ye treads on my fav'rite corn!" and Peke shook his head
with a curious air of petulance. "That's what I'm a-lookin' for day an'
night, for the Wise One 'as got a bit in 'is book which 'e's cropped
out o' another Wise One's savin's,--a chap called Para-Cel-Sus"--and
Peke pronounced this name in three distinct and well-divided syllables.
"An this is what it is: 'Take the leaves of the Daura, which prevent
those who use it from dying for a hundred and twenty years. In the same
way the flower of the _secta croa_ brings a hundred years to those who
use it, whether they be of lesser or of longer age.' I've been on the
'unt for the 'Daura' iver since I was twenty, an' I've arskt ivery
'yerber I've ivir met for the 'Secta Croa,' an' all I've 'ad sed to me
is 'Go 'long wi' ye for a loony jackass! There aint no sich thing.' But
jackass or no, I'm of a mind to think there _is_ such things as both the
'Daura' an' the 'Secta Croa,' if I on'y knew the English of 'em. An'
s'posin' I ivir found 'em----"
"You would become that most envied creature of the present age,--a
millionaire," said Helmsley; "you could command your own terms for the
wonderful leaves,--you would cease to tramp the road or to gather herbs,
and you would live in luxury like a king!"
"Not I!"--and Peke gave a grunt of contempt. "Kings aint my notion of
'appiness nor 'onesty neither. They does things often for which some o'
the poor 'ud be put in quod, an' no mercy showed 'em, an' yet 'cos
they're kings they gits off. An' I aint great on millionaires neither.
They'se mis'able ricketty coves, all gone to pot in their in'ards
through grubbin' money an' eatin' of it like, till ivery other kind o'
food chokes 'em. There's a chymist in London what pays me five shillings
an ounce for a little green yerb I knows on, cos' it's the on'y med'cine
as keeps a millionaire customer of 'is a-goin'. I finds the yerb, an'
the chymist gits the credit. I gits five shillin', an' the chymist gits
a guinea. _That's_ all right! _I_ don't mind! I on'y gathers,--the
chymist, 'e's got to infuse the yerb, distil an' bottle it. I'm paid my
price, an 'e's paid 'is. All's fair in love an' war!"
He trudged on, his footsteps now rendered almost noiseless by the thick
grass on which he trod. The heavy dew sparkled on every blade, and here
and there the pale green twinkle of a glow-worm shone like a jewel
dropped from a lady's gown. Helmsley walked beside his companion at an
even pace,--the "yerb wine" had undoubtedly put strength in him and he
was almost unconscious of his former excessive fatigue. He was
interested in Peke's "jabber," and wondered, somewhat enviously, why
such a man as this, rough, ragged, and uneducated, should seem to
possess a contentment such as he had never known.
"Millionaires is gin'rally fools," continued Peke; "they buys all they
wants, an' then they aint got nothin' more to live for. They gits into
motor-cars an' scours the country, but they never sees it. They never
'ears the birds singin', an' they misses all the flowers. They never
smells the vi'lets nor the mayblossom--they on'y gits their own petrol
stench wi' the flavour o' the dust mixed in. Larst May I was a-walkin'
in the lanes o' Devon, an' down the 'ill comes a motor-car tearin' an'
scorchin' for all it was worth, an' bang went somethin' at the bottom o'
the thing, an' it stops suddint. Out jumps a French chauffy, parlyvooin'
to hisself, an' out jumps the man what owns it an' takes off his
goggles. 'This is Devonshire, my man?' sez 'e to me. 'It is,' I sez to
'im. An' then the cuckoo started callin' away over the trees. 'What's
that?' sez 'e lookin' startled like. 'That's the cuckoo,' sez I. An' he
takes off 'is 'at an' rubs 'is 'ead, which was a' fast goin' bald.
'Dear, dear me!' sez 'e--'I 'aven't 'eard the cuckoo since I was a boy!'
An' he rubs 'is 'ead again, an' laughs to hisself--'Not since I was a
boy!' 'e sez. 'An' that's the cuckoo, is it? Dear, dear me!' 'You
'aven't bin much in the country p'r'aps?' sez I. 'I'm always in the
country,' 'e sez--'I motor everywhere, but I've missed the cuckoo
somehow!' An' then the chauffy puts the machine right, an' he jumps in
an' gives me a shillin'. 'Thank-ye, my man!' sez 'e--'I'm glad you told
me 'twas a _real_ cuckoo!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er!" And Peke gave
vent to a laugh peculiarly his own. "Mebbe 'e thought I'd got a Swiss
clock with a sham cuckoo workin' it in my basket! 'I'm glad,' sez 'e,
'you told me 'twas a _real_ cuckoo!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er!"
The odd chuckling sounds of merriment which were slowly jerked forth as
it were from Peke's husky windpipe, were droll enough in themselves to
be somewhat infectious, and Helmsley laughed as he had not done for many
days.
"Ay, there's a mighty sight of tringum-trangums an' nonsense i' the
world," went on Peke, still occasionally giving vent to a suppressed
"Hor--er--hor"--"an' any amount o' Tom Conys what don't know a real
cuckoo from a sham un'. Glory be good to me! Think o' the numskulls as
goes in for pendlecitis! There's a fine name for ye! Pendlecitis!
Hor--er--hor! All the fash'nables 'as got it, an' all the doctors 'as
their knives sharpened an' ready to cut off the remains o' the tail we
'ad when we was all 'appy apes together! Hor--er--hor! An' the bit o'
tail 's curled up in our in'ards now where it ain't got no business to
be. Which shows as 'ow Natur' don't know 'ow to do it, seein' as if we
'adn't wanted a tail, she'd a' took it sheer off an' not left any
behind. But the doctors thinks they knows a darn sight better'n Natur',
an' they'll soon be givin' lessons in the makin' o' man to the Lord
A'mighty hisself! Hor--er--hor! Pendlecitis! That's a precious monkey's
tail, that there! In my grandfather's day we didn't 'ear 'bout no
monkey's tails,--'twas just a chill an' inflammation o' the in'ards, an'
a few yerbs made into a tea an' drunk 'ot fastin', cured it in
twenty-four hours. But they've so many new-fangled notions nowadays,
they've forgot all the old 'uns. There's the cancer illness,--people
goes off all over the country now from cancer as never used to in my
father's day, an' why? 'Cos they'se gittin' too wise for Nature's own
cure. Nobody thinks o' tryin' agrimony,--water agrimony--some calls it
water hemp an' bastard agrimony--'tis a thing that flowers in this month
an' the next,--a brown-yellow blossom on a purple stalk, an' ye find it
in cold places, in ponds an' ditches an' by runnin' waters. Make a drink
of it, an' it'll mend any cancer, if 'taint too far gone. An' a cancer
that's outside an' not in, 'ull clean away beautiful wi' the 'elp o' red
clover. Even the juice o' nettles, which is common enough, drunk three
times a day will kill any germ o' cancer, while it'll set up the blood
as fresh an' bright as iver. But who's a-goin' to try common stuff like
nettles an' clover an' water hemp, when there's doctors sittin' waitin'
wi' knives an' wantin' money for cuttin' up their patients an' 'urryin'
'em into kingdom-come afore their time! Glory be good to me! What wi'
doctors an' 'omes an' nusses, an' all the fuss as a sick man makes about
hisself in these days, I'd rather be as I am, Matt Peke, a-wanderin' by
hill an' dale, an' lyin' down peaceful to die under a tree when my times
comes, than take any part wi' the pulin' cowards as is afraid o' cold
an' fever an' wet feet an' the like, just as if they was poor little
shiverin' mice instead o' men. Take 'em all round, the wimin's the
bravest at bearin' pain,--they'll smile while they'se burnin' so as it
sha'n't ill-convenience anybody. Wonderful sufferers, is wimin!"
"Yet they are selfish enough sometimes," said Helmsley, quickly.
"Selfish? Wheer was ye born, D. David?" queried Peke--"An' what wimin
'ave ye know'd? Town or country?"
Helmsley was silent.
"Arsk no questions an' ye'll be told no lies!" commented Peke, with a
chuckle. "I sees! Ye've bin a gay old chunk in yer time, mebbe! An' it's
the wimin as goes in for gay old chunks as ye've made all yer larnin of.
But they ain't wimin--not as the country knows 'em. Country wimin works
all day an' as often as not dandles a babby all night,--they've not got
a minnit but what they aint a-troublin' an' a-worryin' 'bout 'usband or
childer, an' their faces is all writ over wi' the curse o' the garden of
Eden. Selfish? They aint got the time! Up at cock-crow, scrubbin' the
floors, washin' the babies, feedin' the fowls or the pigs, peelin' the
taters, makin' the pot boil, an' tryin' to make out 'ow twelve shillin's
an' sixpence a week can be made to buy a pound's worth o' food, trapsin'
to market, an' wonderin' whether the larst born in the cradle aint
somehow got into the fire while mother's away,--'opin' an' prayin' for
the Lord's sake as 'usband don't come 'ome blind drunk,--where's the
room for any selfishness in sich a life as that?--the life lived by
'undreds o' wimin all over this 'ere blessed free country? Get 'long wi'
ye, D. David! Old as y' are, ye 'ad a mother in yer time,--an' I'll take
my Gospel oath there was a bit o' good in 'er!"
Helmsley stopped abruptly in his walk.
"You are right, man!" he said, "And I am wrong! You know women better
than I do, and--you give me a lesson! One is never too old to
learn,"--and he smiled a rather pained smile. "But--I have had a bad
experience!"
"Well, if y'ave 'ad it ivir so bad, yer 'xperience aint every one's,"
retorted Peke. "If one fly gits into the soup, that don't argify that
the hull pot 's full of 'em. An' there's more good wimin than
bad--takin' 'em all round an' includin' 'op pickers, gypsies an' the
like. Even Miss Tranter aint wantin' in feelin', though she's a bit sour
like, owin' to 'avin missed a 'usband an' all the savin' worrity
wear-an-tear a 'usband brings, but she aint arf bad. Yon's the lamp of
'er 'Trusty Man' now."
A gleam of light, not much larger than the glitter of one of the
glow-worms in the grass, was just then visible at the end of the long
field they were traversing.
"That's an old cart-road down there wheer it stands," continued Peke.
"As bad a road as ivir was made, but it runs straight into Devonshire,
an' it's a good place for a pub. For many a year 'twornt used, bein' so
rough an' ready, but now there's such a crowd o' motors tearin, over
Countisbury 'Ill, the carts takes it, keepin' more to theirselves like,
an' savin' smashin'. Miss Tranter she knew what she was a-doin' of when
she got a licence an' opened 'er bizniss. 'Twas a ramshackle old
farm-'ouse, goin' all to pieces when she bought it an' put up 'er sign
o' the 'Trusty Man,' an' silly wenches round 'ere do say as 'ow it's
'aunted, owin' to the man as 'ad it afore Miss Tranter, bein' found dead
in 'is bed with 'is 'ands a-clutchin' a pack o' cards. An' the ace o'
spades--that's death--was turned uppermost. So they goes chatterin' an'
chitterin' as 'ow the old chap 'ad been playin' cards wi' the devil, an'
got a bad end. But Miss Tranter, she don't listen to maids'
gabble,--she's doin' well, devil or no devil--an' if any one was to talk
to 'er 'bout ghosteses an' sich-like, she'd wallop 'em out of 'er bar
with a broom! Ay, that she would! She's a powerful strong woman Miss
Tranter, an' many's the larker what's felt 'er 'and on 'is collar
a-chuckin' 'im out o' the 'Trusty Man' neck an' crop for sayin'
somethin' what aint ezackly agreeable to 'er feelin's. She don't stand
no nonsense, an' though she's lib'ral with 'er pennorths an' pints she
don't wait till a man's full boozed 'fore lockin' up the tap-room. 'Git
to bed, yer hulkin' fools!' sez she, 'or ye may change my '_O_tel for
the Sheriff's.' An' they all knuckles down afore 'er as if they was
childer gettin' spanked by their mother. Ah, she'd 'a made a grand wife
for a man! 'E wouldn't 'ave 'ad no chance to make a pig of hisself if
she'd been anywheres round!"
"Perhaps she won't take me in!" suggested Helmsley.
"She will, an' that sartinly!" said Peke. "She'll not refuse bed an'
board to any friend o' mine."
"Friend!" Helmsley echoed the word wonderingly.
"Ay, friend! Any one's a friend what trusts to ye on the road, aint 'e?
Leastways that's 'ow I take it."
"As I said before, you are very kind to me," murmured Helmsley; "and I
have already asked you--Why?"
"There aint no rhyme nor reason in it," answered Peke. "You 'elps a man
along if ye sees 'e wants 'elpin', sure-_ly_,--that's nat'ral. 'Tis on'y
them as is born bad as don't 'elp nothin' nor nobody. Ye're old an'
fagged out, an' yer face speaks a bit o' trouble--that's enuff for me.
Hi' y' are!--hi' y' are, old 'Trusty Man!'"
And striding across a dry ditch which formed a kind of entrenchment
between the field and the road, Peke guided his companion round a dark
corner and brought him in front of a long low building, heavily
timbered, with queer little lop-sided gable windows set in the slanting,
red-tiled roof. A sign-board swung over the door and a small lamp fixed
beneath it showed that it bore the crudely painted portrait of a
gentleman in an apron, spreading out both hands palms upwards as one who
has nothing to conceal,--the ideal likeness of the "Trusty Man" himself.
The door itself stood open, and the sound of male voices evinced the
presence of customers within. Peke entered without ceremony, beckoning
Helmsley to follow him, and made straight for the bar, where a tall
woman with remarkably square shoulders stood severely upright, knitting.
"'Evenin', Miss Tranter!" said Peke, pulling off his tattered cap. "Any
room for poor lodgers?"
Miss Tranter glanced at him, and then at his companion.
"That depends on the lodgers," she answered curtly.
"That's right! That's quite right, Miss!" said Peke with propitiatory
deference. "You 'se allus right whatsoever ye does an' sez! But yer
knows _me_,--yer knows Matt Peke, don't yer?"
Miss Tranter smiled sourly, and her knitting needles glittered like
crossed knives as she finished a particular row of stitches on which she
was engaged before condescending to reply. Then she said:--
"Yes, I know _you_ right enough, but I don't know your company. I'm not
taking up strangers."
"Lord love ye! This aint a stranger!" exclaimed Peke. "This 'ere's old
David, a friend o' mine as is out o' work through gittin' more years on
'is back than the British Gov'ment allows, an' 'e's trampin' it to see
'is relations afore 'e gits put to bed wi' a shovel. 'E's as 'armless as
they makes 'em, an' I've told 'im as 'ow ye' don't take in nowt but
'spectable folk. Doant 'ee turn out an old gaffer like 'e be, fagged an'
footsore, to sleep in open--doant 'ee now, there's a good soul!"
Miss Tranter went on knitting rapidly. Presently she turned her piercing
gimlet grey eyes on Helmsley.
"Where do you come from, man?" she demanded.
Helmsley lifted his hat with the gentle courtesy habitual to him.
"From Bristol, ma'am."
"Tramping it?"
"Yes."
"Where are you going?"
"To Cornwall."
"That's a long way and a hard road," commented Miss Tranter; "You'll
never get there!"
Helmsley gave a slight deprecatory gesture, but said nothing.
Miss Tranter eyed him more keenly.
"Are you hungry?"
He smiled.
"Not very!"
"That means you're half-starved without knowing it," she said
decisively. "Go in yonder," and she pointed with one of her knitting
needles to the room beyond the bar whence the hum of male voices
proceeded. "I'll send you some hot soup with plenty of stewed meat and
bread in it. An old man like you wants more than the road food. Take him
in, Peke!"
"Didn't I tell ye!" ejaculated Peke, triumphantly looking round at
Helmsley. "She's one that's got 'er 'art in the right place! I say, Miss
Tranter, beggin' yer parding, my friend aint a sponger, ye know! 'E can
pay ye a shillin' or two for yer trouble!"
Miss Tranter nodded her head carelessly.
"The food's threepence and the bed fourpence," she said. "Breakfast in
the morning, threepence,--and twopence for the washing towel. That makes
a shilling all told. Ale and liquors extra."
With that she turned her back on them, and Peke, pulling Helmsley by the
arm, took him into the common room of the inn, where there were several
men seated round a long oak table with "gate-legs" which must have been
turned by the handicraftsmen of the time of Henry the Seventh. Here
Peke set down his basket of herbs in a corner, and addressed the company
generally.
"'Evenin', mates! All well an' 'arty?"
Three or four of the party gave gruff response. The others sat smoking
silently. One end of the table was unoccupied, and to this Peke drew a
couple of rush-bottomed chairs with sturdy oak backs, and bade Helmsley
sit down beside him.
"It be powerful warm to-night!" he said, taking off his cap, and showing
a disordered head of rough dark hair, sprinkled with grey. "Powerful
warm it be trampin' the road, from sunrise to sunset, when the dust lies
thick and 'eavy, an' all the country's dry for a drop o' rain."
"Wal, _you_ aint got no cause to grumble at it," said a fat-faced man in
very dirty corduroys. "It's _your_ chice, an' _your_ livin'! _You_ likes
the road, an' _you_ makes your grub on it! 'Taint no use _you_ findin'
fault with the gettin' o' _your_ victuals!"
"Who's findin' fault, Mister Dubble?" asked Peke soothingly. "I on'y
said 'twas powerful warm."
"An' no one but a sawny 'xpects it to be powerful cold in July," growled
Dubble--"though some there is an' some there be what cries fur snow in
August, but I aint one on 'em."
"No, 'e aint one on 'em," commented a burly farmer, blowing away the
foam from the brim of a tankard of ale which was set on the table in
front of him. "'E alluz takes just what cooms along easy loike, do
Mizter Dubble!"
There followed a silence. It was instinctively felt that the discussion
was hardly important enough to be continued. Moreover, every man in the
room was conscious of a stranger's presence, and each one cast a furtive
glance at Helmsley, who, imitating Peke's example, had taken off his
hat, and now sat quietly under the flickering light of the oil lamp
which was suspended from the middle of the ceiling. He himself was
intensely interested in the turn his wanderings had taken. There was a
certain excitement in his present position,--he was experiencing the
"new sensation" he had longed for,--and he realised it with the fullest
sense of enjoyment. To be one of the richest men in the world, and yet
to seem so miserably poor and helpless as to be regarded with suspicion
by such a class of fellows as those among whom he was now seated, was
decidedly a novel way of acquiring an additional relish for the varying
chances and changes of life.
"Brought yer father along wi' ye, Matt?" suddenly asked a wizened little
man of about sixty, with a questioning grin on his hard weather-beaten
features.
"I aint up to 'awkin' dead bodies out o' their graves yet, Bill Bush,"
answered Peke. "Unless my old dad's corpsy's turned to yerbs, which is
more'n likely, I aint got 'im. This 'ere's a friend o' mine,--Mister
David--e's out o' work through the Lord's speshul dispensation an' rule
o' natur--gettin' old!"
A laugh went round, but a more favourable impression towards Peke's
companion was at once created by this introduction.
"Sorry for ye!" said the individual called Bill Bush, nodding
encouragingly to Helmsley. "I'm a bit that way myself."
He winked, and again the company laughed. Bill was known as one of the
most daring and desperate poachers in all the countryside, but as yet he
had never been caught in the act, and he was one of Miss Tranter's
"respectable" customers. But, truth to tell, Miss Tranter had some very
odd ideas of her own. One was that rabbits were vermin, and that it was
of no consequence how or by whom they were killed. Another was that
"wild game" belonged to everybody, poor and rich. Vainly was it
explained to her that rich landowners spent no end of money on breeding
and preserving pheasants, grouse, and the like,--she would hear none of
it.
"Stuff and nonsense," she said sharply. "The birds breed by themselves
quite fast enough if let alone,--and the Lord intended them so to do for
every one's use and eating, not for a few mean and selfish money-grubs
who'd shoot and sell their own babies if they could get game prices for
them!"
And she had a certain sympathy with Bill Bush and his nefarious
proceedings. As long as he succeeded in evading the police, so long
would he be welcome at the "Trusty Man," but if once he were to be
clapped into jail the door of his favourite "public" would be closed to
him. Not that Miss Tranter was a woman who "went back," as the saying
is, on her friends, but she had to think of her licence, and could not
afford to run counter to those authorities who had the power to take it
away from her.
"I'm a-shrivellin' away for want o' suthin' to do," proceeded Bill. "My
legs aint no show at all to what they once was."
And he looked down at those members complacently. They were encased in
brown velveteens much the worse for wear, and in shape resembled a
couple of sticks with a crook at the knees.
"I lost my sitiwation as gamekeeper to 'is Royal 'Ighness the Dook o'
Duncy through bein' too 'onest," he went on with another wink. "'Orful
pertikler, the Dook was,--nobuddy was 'llowed to be 'onest wheer '_e_
was but 'imself! Lord love ye! It don't do to be straight an' square in
this world!"
Helmsley listened to this bantering talk, saying nothing. He was pale,
and sat very still, thus giving the impression of being too tired to
notice what was going on around him. Peke took up the conversation.
"Stow yer gab, Bill!" he said. "When _you_ gits straight an' square,
it'll be a round 'ole ye'll 'ave to drop into, mark my wurrd! An' no
Dook o' Duncy 'ull pull ye out! This 'ere old friend o' mine don't
unnerstand ye wi' yer fustian an' yer galligaskins. 'E's kinder
eddicated--got a bit o' larnin' as I 'aves myself."
"Eddicated!" echoed Bill. "Eddication's a fine thing, aint it, if it
brings an old gaffer like 'im to trampin' the road! Seems to me the more
people's eddicated the less they's able to make a livin'."
"That's true! that's _dorned_ true!" said the man named Dubble, bringing
his great fist down on the table with a force that made the tankards
jump. "My darter, she's larned to play the pianner, an' I'm _dorned_ if
she kin do anythin' else! Just a gillflurt she is, an' as sassy as a
magpie. That's what eddication 'as made of 'er an' be _dorned_ to 't!"
"'Scuse me," and Bill Bush now addressed himself immediately to
Helmsley, "_ef_ I may be so bold as to arsk you wheer ye comes from,
meanin' no 'arm, an' what's yer purfession?"
Helmsley looked up with a friendly smile.
"I've no profession now," he answered at once. "But in my time--before I
got too old--I did a good deal of office work."
"Office work! In a 'ouse of business, ye means? Readin', 'ritin',
'rithmetic, an' mebbe sweepin' the floor at odd times an' runnin'
errands?"
"That's it!" answered Helmsley, still smiling.
"An' they won't 'ave ye no more?"
"I am too old," he answered quietly.
Here Dubble turned slowly round and surveyed him.
"How old be ye?"
"Seventy."
Silence ensued. The men glanced at one another. It was plain that the
"one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin" was moving them
all to kindly and compassionate feeling for the age and frail appearance
of their new companion. What are called "rough" and "coarse" types of
humanity are seldom without a sense of reverence and even affection for
old persons. It is only among ultra-selfish and callous communities
where over-luxurious living has blunted all the finer emotions, that age
is considered a crime, or what by some individuals is declared worse
than a crime, a "bore."
At that moment a short girl, with a very red face and round beady eyes,
came into the room carrying on a tray two quaint old pewter tureens full
of steaming soup, which emitted very savoury and appetising odours.
Setting these down before Matt Peke and Helmsley, with two goodly slices
of bread beside them, she held out her podgy hand.
"Threepence each, please!"
They paid her, Peke adding a halfpenny to his threepence for the girl
herself, and Helmsley, who judged it safest to imitate Peke's behaviour,
doing the same. She giggled.
"'Ope you aint deprivin' yourselves!" she said pertly.
"No, my dear, we aint!" retorted Peke. "We can afford to treat ye like
the gentlemen doos! Buy yerself a ribbin to tie up yer bonnie brown
'air!"
She giggled again, and waited to see them begin their meal, then, with a
comprehensive roll of her round eyes upon all the company assembled, she
retired. The soup she had brought was certainly excellent,--strong,
invigorating, and tasty enough to have done credit to a rich man's
table, and Peke nodded over it with mingled surprise and appreciation.
"Miss Tranter knows what's good, she do!" he remarked to Helmsley in a
low tone. "She's cooked this up speshul! This 'ere broth aint flavoured
for _me_,--it's for _you_! Glory be good to me if she aint taken a fancy
ter yer!--shouldn't wonder if ye 'ad the best in the 'ouse!"
Helmsley shook his head demurringly, but said nothing. He knew that in
the particular position in which he had placed himself, silence was
safer than speech.
Meanwhile, the short beady-eyed handmaiden returned to her mistress in
the kitchen, and found that lady gazing abstractedly into the fire.
"They've got their soup," she announced, "an' they're eatin' of it up!"
"Is the old man taking it?" asked Miss Tranter.
"Yes'm. An' 'e seems to want it 'orful bad, 'orful bad 'e do, on'y 'e
swallers it slower an' more soft like than Matt Peke swallers."
Miss Tranter ceased to stare at the fire, and stared at her domestic
instead.
"Prue," she said solemnly, "that old man is a gentleman!"
Prue's round eyes opened a little more roundly.
"Lor', Mis' Tranter!"
"He's a gentleman," repeated the hostess of the "Trusty Man" with
emphasis and decision; "and he's fallen on bad times. He may have to beg
his bread along the road or earn a shilling here and there as best he
can, but nothing"--and here Miss Tranter shook her forefinger defiantly
in the air--"nothing will alter the fact that he's a gentleman!"
Prue squeezed her fat red hands together, breathed hard, and not knowing
exactly what else to do, grinned. Her mistress looked at her severely.
"You grin like a Cheshire cat," she remarked. "I wish you wouldn't."
Prue at once pursed in her wide mouth to a more serious double line.
"How much did they give you?" pursued Miss Tranter.
"'Apenny each," answered Prue.
"How much have you made for yourself to-day all round!"
"Sevenpence three fardin's," confessed Prue, with an appealing look.
"You know I don't allow you to take tips from my customers," went on
Miss Tranter. "You must put those three farthings in my poor-box."
"Yes'm!" sighed Prue meekly.
"And then you may keep the sevenpence."
"Oh thank y' 'm! Thank y', Mis' Tranter!" And Prue hugged herself
ecstatically. "You'se 'orful good to me, you is, Mis' Tranter!"
Miss Tranter stood a moment, an upright inflexible figure, surveying
her.
"Do you say your prayers every night and morning as I told you to do?"
Prue became abnormally solemn.
"Yes, I allus do, Mis' Tranter, wish I may die right 'ere if I don't!"
"What did I teach you to say to God for the poor travellers who stop at
the 'Trusty Man'?"
"'That it may please Thee to succour, help and comfort all that are in
danger, necessity and tribulation, we beseech Thee to hear us Good
Lord!'" gabbled Prue, shutting her eyes and opening them again with
great rapidity.
"That's right!" And Miss Tranter bent her head graciously. "I'm glad you
remember it so well! Be sure you say it to-night. And now you may go,
Prue."
Prue went accordingly, and Miss Tranter, resuming her knitting, returned
to the bar, and took up her watchful position opposite the clock, there
to remain patiently till closing time.