The time now went on peacefully, one day very much like another, and
Helmsley steadily improved in health and strength, so far recovering
some of his old vigour and alertness as to be able to take a slow and
halting daily walk through the village, which, for present purposes
shall be called Weircombe. The more he saw of the place, the more he
loved it, and the more he was enchanted with its picturesque position.
In itself it was a mere cluster of little houses, dotted about on either
side of a great cleft in the rocks through which a clear mountain stream
tumbled to the sea,--but the houses were covered from basement to roof
with clambering plants and flowers, especially the wild fuschia, which,
with one or two later kinds of clematis and "morning glory" convolvolus,
were still in brilliant bloom when the mellow days of October began to
close in to the month's end. All the cottages in the "coombe" were
pretty, but to Helmsley's mind Mary Deane's was the prettiest, perched
as it was on a height overlooking the whole village and near to the tiny
church, which crowned the hill with a little tower rising heavenward.
The view of the ocean from Weircombe was very wide and grand,--on sunny
days it was like an endless plain of quivering turquoise-blue, with
white foam-roses climbing up here and there to fall and vanish
again,--and when the wind was high, it was like an onward sweeping array
of Titanic shapes clothed in silver armour and crested with snowy
plumes, all rushing in a wild charge against the shore, with such a
clatter and roar as often echoed for miles inland. To make his way
gradually down through the one little roughly cobbled street to the very
edge of the sea, was one of Helmsley's greatest pleasures, and he soon
got to know most of the Weircombe folk, while they in their turn, grew
accustomed to seeing him about among them, and treated him with a kindly
familiarity, almost as if he were one of themselves. And his new lease
of life was, to himself, singularly happy. He enjoyed every moment of
it,--every little incident was a novel experience, and he was never
tired of studying the different characters he met,--especially and above
all the character of the woman whose house was, for the time being, his
home, and who treated with him all the care and solicitude that a
daughter might show to her father. And--he was learning what might be
called a trade or a craft,--which fact interested and amused him. He who
had moved the great wheel of many trades at a mere touch of his finger,
was now docilely studying the art of basket-making, and training his
unaccustomed hands to the bending of withes and osiers,--he whose
deftly-laid financial schemes had held the money-markets of the world in
suspense, was now patiently mastering the technical business of forming
a "slath," and fathoming the mysteries of "scalluming." Like an obedient
child at school he implicitly followed the instructions of his teacher,
Mary, who with the first basket he completed went out and effected a
sale as she said "for fourpence," though really for twopence.
"And good pay, too!" she said, cheerfully--"It's not often one gets so
much for a first make."
"That fourpence is yours," said Helmsley, smiling at her--"You've the
right to all my earnings!"
She looked serious.
"Would you like me to keep it?" she asked--"I mean, would it please you
if I did,--would you feel more content?"
"I should--you know I should!" he replied earnestly.
"All right, then! I'll check it off your account!" And laughing merrily,
she patted his head as he sat bending over another specimen of his
basket manufacture--"At any rate, you're not getting bald over your
work, David! I never saw such beautiful white hair as yours!"
He glanced up at her.
"May I say, in answer to that, that I never saw such beautiful brown
hair as yours?"
She nodded.
"Oh, yes, you may say it, because I know it's true. My hair is my one
beauty,--see!"
And pulling out two small curved combs, she let the whole wealth of her
tresses unwind and fall. Her hair dropped below her knees in a glorious
mass of colour like that of a brown autumn leaf with the sun just
glistening on it. She caught it up in one hand and knotted it all again
at the back of her head in a minute.
"It's lovely, isn't it?"--she said, quite simply--"I should think it
lovely if I saw it on anybody else's head, or cut off hanging in a
hair-dresser's shop window. I don't admire it because it's mine, you
know! I admire it as hair merely."
"Hair merely--yes, I see!" And he bent and twisted the osiers in his
hands with a sudden vigour that almost snapped them. He was thinking of
certain women he had known in London--women whose tresses, dyed, waved,
crimped and rolled over fantastically shaped "frames," had moved him to
positive repulsion,--so much so that he would rather have touched the
skin of a dead rat than laid a finger on the tinted stuff called "hair"
by these feminine hypocrites of fashion. He had so long been accustomed
to shams that the open sincerity of the Weircombe villagers was almost
confusing to his mind. Nobody seemed to have anything to conceal.
Everybody knew, or seemed to know, all about everybody else's business.
There were no bye-roads or corners in Weircombe. There was only one way
out,--to the sea. Height at the one end,--width and depth at the other.
It seemed useless to have any secrets. He, David Helmsley, felt himself
to be singular and apart, in that he had his own hidden mystery. He
often found himself getting restless under the quiet observation of Mr.
Bunce's eye, yet Mr. Bunce had no suspicions of him whatever. Mr. Bunce
merely watched him "professionally," and with the kindest intention. In
fact, he and Bunce became great friends. Bunce had entirely accepted the
story he told about himself to the effect that he had once been "in an
office in the city," and looked upon him as a superannuated bank clerk,
too old to be kept on in his former line of business. Questions that
were put to him respecting his "late friend, James Deane," he answered
with apparent good faith by saying that it was a long time since he had
seen him, and that it was only as a "last forlorn hope" that he had set
out to try and find him, "as he had always been helpful to those in
need." Mary herself wished that this little fiction of her "father's
friend" should be taken as fact by all the village, and a curious part
of her character was that she never sought to ask Helmsley privately,
for her own enlightenment, anything of his history. She seemed content
to accept him as an old and infirm man, who must be taken care of simply
because he was old and infirm, without further question or argument.
Bunce was always very stedfast in his praise of her.
"She ought--yes--she ought possibly to have married,--" he said, in his
slow, reflective way--"She would have made a good wife, and a still
better mother. But an all-wise Providence has a remarkable habit--yes, I
think we may call it quite a remarkable habit!--of persuading men
generally to choose thriftless and flighty women for their wives, and to
leave the capable ones single. That is so. Or in Miss Deane's case it
may be an illustration of the statement that 'Mary hath chosen the
better part.' Certainly when either men or women are happy in a state of
single blessedness, a reference to the Seventh Chapter of the Epistle of
St. Paul to the Corinthians, will strengthen their minds and
considerably assist them to remain in that condition."
Thus Bunce would express himself, with a weighty air as of having given
some vastly important and legal pronouncement. And when Helmsley
suggested that it was possible Mary might yet marry, he shook his head
in a strongly expressed negative.
"No, David--no!" he said--"She is what we call--yes, I think we call
it--an old maid. This is not a kind term, perhaps, but it is a true one.
She is, I believe, in her thirty-fifth year,--a settled and mature
woman. No man would take her unless she had a little money--enough, let
us say, to help him set up a farm. For if a man takes youth to his
bosom, he does not always mind poverty,--but if he cannot have youth he
always wants money. Always! There is no middle course. Now our good Miss
Deane will never have any money. And, even if she had, we may take
it--yes, I certainly _think_ we may take it--that she would not care to
_buy_ a husband. No--no! Her marrying days are past."
"She is a beautiful woman!" said Helmsley, quietly.
"You think so? Well, well, David! We have got used to her in
Weircombe,--she seems to be a part of the village. When one is familiar
with a person, one often fails to perceive the beauty that is apparent
to a stranger. I believe this to be so--I believe, in general, we may
take it to be so."
And such was the impression that most of the Weircombe folks had about
Mary--that she was just "a part of the village." During his slow
ramblings about the little sequestered place, Helmsley talked to many of
the cottagers, who all treated him with that good-humour and tolerance
which they considered due to his age and feebleness. Young men gave him
a ready hand if they saw him inclined to falter or to stumble over rough
places in the stony street,--little children ran up to him with the
flowers they had gathered on the hills, or the shells they had collected
from the drift on the shore--women smiled at him from their open doors
and windows--girls called to him the "Good morning!" or
"Good-night!"--and by and by he was almost affectionately known as "Old
David, who makes baskets up at Miss Deane's." One of his favourite
haunts was the very end of the "coombe," which,--sharply cutting down to
the shore,--seemed there to have split asunder with volcanic force,
hurling itself apart to right and left in two great castellated rocks,
which were piled up, fortress-like, to an altitude of about four hundred
or more feet, and looked sheer down over the sea. When the tide was high
the waves rushed swirlingly round the base of these natural towers,
forming a deep blackish-purple pool in which the wash to and fro of pale
rose and deep magenta seaweed, flecked with trails of pale grassy green,
were like the colours of a stormy sunset reflected in a prism. The
sounds made here by the inflowing and outgoing of the waves were
curiously musical,--like the thudding of a great organ, with harp
melodies floating above the stronger bass, while every now and then a
sweet sonorous call, like that of a silver trumpet, swung from the
cavernous depths into clear space and echoed high up in the air, dying
lingeringly away across the hills. Near this split of the "coombe" stood
the very last house at the bottom of the village, built of white stone
and neatly thatched, with a garden running to the edge of the mountain
stream, which at this point rattled its way down to the sea with that
usual tendency to haste exhibited by everything in life and nature when
coming to an end. A small square board nailed above the door bore the
inscription legibly painted in plain black letters:--
ABEL TWITT,
Stone Mason,
N. B. Good Grave-Work Guaranteed.
The author of this device, and the owner of the dwelling, was a round,
rosy-faced little man, with shrewd sparkling grey eyes, a pleasant
smile, and a very sociable manner. He was the great "gossip" of the
place; no old woman at a wash-tub or behind a tea-tray ever wagged her
tongue more persistently over the concerns of he and she and you and
they, than Abel Twitt. He had a leisurely way of talking,--a "slow and
silly way" his wife called it,--but he managed to convey a good deal of
information concerning everybody and everything, whether right or wrong,
in a very few sentences. He was renowned in the village for his
wonderful ability in the composition of epitaphs, and by some of his
friends he was called "Weircombe's Pote Lorit." One of his most
celebrated couplets was the following:--
"_This Life while I lived it, was Painful and seldom Victorious,
I trust in the Lord that the next will be Pleasant and Glorious!_"
Everybody said that no one but Abel Twitt could have thought of such
grand words and good rhymes. Abel himself was not altogether without a
certain gentle consciousness that in this particular effort he had done
well. But he had no literary vanity.
"It comes nat'ral to me,"--he modestly declared--"It's a God's gift
which I takes thankful without pride."
Helmsley had become very intimate with both Mr. and Mrs. Twitt. In his
every-day ramble down to the ocean end of the "coombe" he often took a
rest of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at Twitt's house before
climbing up the stony street again to Mary Deane's cottage, and Mrs.
Twitt, in her turn, was a constant caller on Mary, to whom she brought
all the news of the village, all the latest remedies for every sort of
ailment, and all the oddest superstitions and omens which she could
either remember or invent concerning every incident that had occurred to
her or to her neighbours within the last twenty-four hours. There was no
real morbidity of character in Mrs. Twitt; she only had that peculiar
turn of mind which is found quite as frequently in the educated as in
the ignorant, and which perceives a divine or a devilish meaning in
almost every trifling occurrence of daily life. A pin on the ground
which was not picked up at the very instant it was perceived, meant
terrible ill-luck to Mrs. Twitt,--if a cat sneezed, it was a sign that
there was going to be sickness in the village,--and she always carried
in her pocket "a bit of coffin" to keep away the cramp. She also had a
limitless faith in the power of cursing, and she believed most
implicitly in the fiendish abilities of a certain person, (whether male
or female, she did not explain) whose address she gave vaguely as, "out
on the hills," and who, if requested, and paid for the trouble, would
put a stick into the ground, muttering a mysterious malison on any man
or woman you chose to name as an enemy, with the pronounced guarantee:--
"As this stick rotteth to decay,
So shall (Mr, Miss or Mrs So-and-so) rot away!"
But with the exception of these little weaknesses, Mrs. Twitt was a good
sort of motherly old body, warm-hearted and cheerful, too, despite her
belief in omens. She had taken quite a liking to "old David" as she
called him, and used to watch his thin frail figure, now since his
illness sadly bent, jogging slowly down the street towards the sea, with
much kindly solicitude. For despite Mr. Bunce's recommendation that he
should "sit quiet," Helmsley could not bring himself to the passively
restful condition of weak and resigned old age. He had too much on his
mind for that. He worked patiently every morning at basket-making, in
which he was quickly becoming an adept; but in the afternoon he grew
restless, and Mary, seeing it was better for him to walk as long as
walking was possible to him, let him go out when he fancied it, though
always with a little anxiety for him lest he should meet with some
accident. In this anxiety, however, all the neighbours took a share, so
that he was well watched, and more carefully guarded than he knew, on
his way down to the shore and back again, Abel Twitt himself often
giving him an arm on the upward climb home.
"You'll have to do some of that for me soon!" said Helmsley on one of
these occasions, pointing up with his stick at the board over Twitt's
door, which said "Good Grave-Work Guaranteed:"
Twitt rolled his eyes slowly up in the direction indicated, smiled, and
rolled them down again.
"So I will,--so I will!" he replied cheerfully--"An I'll charge ye
nothin' either. I'll make ye as pretty a little stone as iver ye
saw--what'll last too!--ay, last till th' Almighty comes a' tearin' down
in clouds o' glory. A stone well bedded in, ye unnerstan'?--one as'll
stay upright--no slop work. An' if ye can't think of a hepitaph for
yerself I'll write one for ye--there now! Bible texes is goin' out o'
fashion--it's best to 'ave somethin' orig'nal--an' for originality I
don't think I can be beat in these parts. I'll do ye yer hepitaph with
pleasure!"
"That will be kind!" And Helmsley smiled a little sadly--"What will you
say of me when I'm gone?"
Twitt looked at him thoughtfully, with his head very much on one side.
"Well, ye see, I don't know yer history,"--he said--"But I considers ye
'armless an' unfortunate. I'd 'ave to make it out in my own mind like.
Now Timbs, the grocer an' 'aberdashery man, when 'is wife died, he
wouldn't let me 'ave my own way about the moniment at all. 'Put 'er
down,' sez 'e--'Put 'er down as the Dearly-Beloved Wife of Samuel
Timbs.' 'Now, Timbs,' sez I--'don't ye go foolin' with 'ell-fire! Ye
know she wor'nt yer Dearly Beloved, forbye that she used to throw wet
dish-clouts at yer 'ed, screechin' at ye for all she was wuth, an' there
ain't no Dearly Beloved in that. Why do ye want to put a lie on a stone
for the Lord to read?' But 'e was as obst'nate as pigs. 'Dish-clouts or
no dish-clouts,' sez 'e, 'I'll 'ave 'er fixed up proper as my
Dearly-Beloved Wife for sight o' parson an' neighbours.' 'Ah, Sam!' sez
I--'I've got ye! It's for parson an' neighbours ye want the hepitaph,
an' not for the Lord at all! Well, I'll do it if so be yer wish it, but
I won't take the 'sponsibility of it at the Day o' Judgment.' 'I don't
want ye to'--sez 'e, quite peart. 'I'll take it myself.' An' if ye'll
believe me, David, 'e sits down an' writes me what 'e calls a 'Memo' of
what 'e wants put on the grave stone, an' it's the biggest whopper I've
iver seen out o' the noospapers. I've got it 'ere--" And, referring to a
much worn and battered old leather pocket-book, Twitt drew from it a
soiled piece of paper, and read as follows--
Here lies
All that is Mortal
of
CATHERINE TIMBS
The Dearly Beloved Wife
of
Samuel Timbs of Weircombe.
She Died
At the Early Age of Forty-Nine
Full of Virtues and Excellencies
Which those who knew Her
Deeply Deplore
and
NOW is in Heaven.
"And the only true thing about that hepitaph,"--continued Twitt, folding
up the paper again and returning it to its former receptacle,--"is the
words 'Here Lies.'"
Helmsley laughed, and Twitt laughed with him.
"Some folks 'as the curiousest ways o' wantin' theirselves remembered
arter they're gone"--he went on--"An' others seems as if they don't care
for no mem'ry at all 'cept in the 'arts o' their friends. Now there was
Tom o' the Gleam, a kind o' gypsy rover in these parts, 'im as murdered
a lord down at Blue Anchor this very year's July----"
Helmsley drew a quick breath.
"I know!" he said--"I was there!"
"So I've 'eerd say,"--responded Twitt sympathetically--"An' an awsome
sight it must a' bin for ye! Mary Deane told us as 'ow ye'd bin ravin'
about Tom--an' m'appen likely it give ye a turn towards yer long
sickness."
"I was there,"--said Helmsley, shuddering at the recollection--"I had
stopped on the road to try and get a cheap night's lodging at the very
inn where the murder took place--but--but there were two murders that
day, and the _first_ one was the worst!"
"That's what I said at the time, an' that's what I've allus
thought!"--declared Twitt--"Why that little 'Kiddie' child o' Tom's was
the playfullest, prettiest little rogue ye'd see in a hundred mile or
more! 'Oldin' out a posy o' flowers to a motor-car, poor little
innercent! It might as well 'ave 'eld out flowers to the devil!--though
my own opinion is as the devil 'imself wouldn't 'a ridden down a child.
But a motorin' lord o' these days is neither man nor beast nor
devil,--'e's a somethin' altogether _on_human--_on_human out an' out,--a
thing wi' goggles over his eyes an' no 'art in his body, which we aint
iver seen in this poor old world afore. Thanks be to the Lord no motors
can ever come into Weircombe,--they tears round an' round by another
road, an' we neither sees, 'ears, nor smells 'em, for which I often sez
to my wife--'O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands; serve the Lord with
gladness an' come before His presence with a song!' An' she ups an'
sez--'Don't be blaspheemous, Twitt,--I'll tell parson'--an' I sez--'Tell
'im, old 'ooman, if ye likes!' An' when she tells 'im, 'e smiles nice
an' kind, an' sez--'It's quite lawful, Mrs. Twitt, to quote Scriptural
thanksgiving on all _necessary_ occasions!' E's a good little chap, our
parson, but 'e's that weak on his chest an' ailing that 'e's goin' away
this year to Madeira for rest and warm--an' a blessid old Timp'rance
raskill's coming to take dooty in 'is place. Ah!--none of us Weircombe
folk 'ill be very reg'lar church-goers while Mr. Arbroath's here."
Helmsley started slightly.
"Arbroath? I've seen that man."
'Ave ye? Well, ye 'aven't seen no beauty!" And Twitt gave vent to a
chuckling laugh--"'E'll be startin' 'is 'Igh Jink purcessions an'
vestiments in our plain little church up yonder, an' by the Lord, 'e'll
'ave to purcess an' vestiment by 'isself, for Weircombe wont 'elp 'im.
We aint none of us 'Igh Jink folks."
"Is that your name for High Church?" asked Helmsley, amused.
"It is so, an' a very good name it be," declared Twitt, stoutly--"For if
all the bobbins' an' scrapins' an' crosses an' banners aint a sort o'
jinkin' Lord Mayor's show, then what be they? It's fair oaffish to bob
to the east as them 'Igh Jinkers does, for we aint never told in the
Gospels that th' Almighty 'olds that partikler quarter o' the wind as a
place o' residence. The Lord's everywhere,--east, west, north,
south,--why he's with us at this very minute!"--and Twitt raised his
eyes piously to the heavens--"He's 'elpin' you an' me to draw the breath
through our lungs--for if He didn't 'elp, we couldn't do it, that's
certain. An' if He makes the sun to rise in the east, He makes it to
sink in the west, an' there's no choice either way, an' we sez our
prayers simple both times o' day, not to the sun at all, but to the
Maker o' the sun, an' of everything else as we sees. No, no!--no 'Igh
Jinks for me!--I don't want to bow to no East when I sees the Lord's no
more east than He's west, an' no more in either place than He is here,
close to me an' doin' more for me than I could iver do for myself. 'Igh
Jinks is unchristin,--as unchristin as cremation, an' nothin's more
unchristin than that!"
"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Helmsley, surprised.
"What makes me think so?" And Twitt drew himself up with a kind of
reproachful dignity--"Now, old David, don't go for to say as _you_ don't
think so too?"
"Cremation unchristian? Well, I can't say I've ever thought of it in
that light,--it's supposed to be the cleanest way of getting rid of the
dead----"
"Gettin' rid of the dead!"--echoed Twitt, almost scornfully--"That's
what ye can never do! They'se everywhere, all about us, if we only had
strong eyes enough to see 'em. An' cremation aint Christin. I'll tell ye
for why,"--here he bent forward and tapped his two middle fingers slowly
on Helmsley's chest to give weight to his words--"Look y'ere! Supposin'
our Lord's body 'ad been cremated, where would us all a' bin? Where
would a' bin our 'sure an' certain 'ope' o' the resurrection?"
Helmsley was quite taken aback by this sudden proposition, which
presented cremation in an entirely new light. But a moment's thought
restored to him his old love of argument, and he at once replied:--
"Why, it would have been just the same as it is now, surely! If Christ
was divine, he could have risen from burnt ashes as well as from a
tomb."
"Out of a hurn?" demanded Twitt, persistently--"If our Lord's body 'ad
bin burnt an' put in a hurn, an' the hurn 'ad bin took into the 'ouse o'
Pontis Pilate, an' sealed, an' _kept till now_? Eh? What d'ye say to
that? I tell ye, David, there wouldn't a bin no savin' grace o'
Christ'anity at all! An' that's why I sez cremation is unchristin,--it's
blaspheemous an' 'eethen. For our Lord plainly said to 'is disciples
arter he came out o' the tomb--'Behold my hands and my feet,--handle me
and see,'--an' to the doubtin' Thomas He said--'Reach hither thy hand
and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.' David,
you mark my words!--them as 'as their bodies burnt in crematorums is
just as dirty in their souls as they can be, an' they 'opes to burn all
the blackness o' theirselves into nothingness an' never to rise no more,
'cos they'se afraid! They don't want to be laid in good old mother
earth, which is the warm forcin' place o' the Lord for raisin' up 'uman
souls as He raises up the blossoms in spring, an' all other things which
do give Him grateful praise an' thanksgivin'! They gits theirselves
burnt to ashes 'cos they don't _want_ to be raised up,--they'se never
praised the Lord 'ere, an' they wouldn't know 'ow to do it _there_! But,
mercy me!" concluded Twitt ruminatingly,--"I've seen orful queer things
bred out of ashes!--beetles an' sich like reptiles,--an' I wouldn't much
care to see the spechul stock as raises itself from the burnt bits of a
liar!"
Helmsley hardly knew whether to smile or to look serious,--such quaint
propositions as this old stonemason put forward on the subject of
cremation were utterly novel to his experience. And while he yet stood
under the little porch of Twitt's cottage, there came shivering up
through the quiet autumnal air a slow thud of breaking waves.
"Tide's comin' in,"--said Twitt, after listening a minute or two--"An'
that minds me o' what I was goin' to tell ye about Tom o' the Gleam.
After the inkwist, the gypsies came forward an' claimed the bodies o'
Tom an' 'is Kiddie,--an' they was buried accordin' to Tom's own wish,
which it seems 'e'd told one of 'is gypsy pals to see as was carried out
whenever an' wheresoever 'e died. An' what sort of a buryin'd'ye think
'e 'ad?"
Helmsley shook his head in an expressed inability to imagine.
"'Twas out there,"--and Twitt pointed with one hand to the shining
expanse of the ocean--"The gypsies put 'im an' is Kiddie in a basket
coffin which they made theirselves, an' covered it all over wi' garlands
o' flowers an' green boughs, an' then fastened four great lumps o' lead
to the four corners, an' rowed it out in a boat to about four or five
miles from the shore, right near to the place where the moon at full
'makes a hole in the middle o' the sea,' as the children sez, and there
they dropped it into the water. Then they sang a funeral song--an' by
the Lord!--the sound o' that song crept into yer veins an' made yer
blood run cold!--'twas enough to break a man's 'art, let alone a
woman's, to 'ear them gypsy voices all in a chorus wailin' a farewell to
the man an' the child in the sea,--an' the song floated up an' about,
'ere an' there an' everywhere, all over the land from Cleeve Abbey
onnards, an' at Blue Anchor, so they sez, it was so awsome an' eerie
that the people got out o' their beds, shiverin', an' opened their
windows to listen, an' when they listened they all fell a cryin' like
children. An' it's no wonder the inn where poor Tom did his bad deed and
died his bad death, is shut up for good, an' the people as kept it gone
away--no one couldn't stay there arter that. Ay, ay!" and Twitt sighed
profoundly--"Poor wild ne'er-do-weel Tom! He lies deep down enough now
with the waves flowin' over 'im an' 'is little 'Kiddie' clasped tight in
'is arms. For they never separated 'em,--death 'ad locked 'em up too
fast together for that. An' they're sleepin' peaceful,--an' there
they'll sleep till--till 'the sea gives up its dead.'"
Helmsley could not speak,--he was too deeply moved. The sound of the
in-coming tide grew fuller and more sonorous, and Twitt presently turned
to look critically at the heaving waters.
"There's a cry in the sea to-day,"--he said,--"M'appen it'll be rough
to-night."
They were silent again, till presently Helmsley roused himself from the
brief melancholy abstraction into which he had been plunged by the story
of Tom o' the Gleam's funeral.
"I think I'll go down on the shore for a bit,"--he said; "I like to get
as close to the waves as I can when they're rolling in."
"Well, don't get too close,"--said Twitt, kindly--"We'll be havin' ye
washed away if ye don't take care! There's onny an hour to tea-time, an'
Mary Deane's a punctooal 'ooman!"
"I shall not keep her waiting--never fear!" and Helmsley smiled as he
said good-day, and jogged slowly along his favourite accustomed path to
the beach. The way though rough, was not very steep, and it was becoming
quite easy and familiar to him. He soon found himself on the firm brown
sand sprinkled with a fringe of seaweed and shells, and further adorned
in various places with great rough boulders, picturesquely set up on
end, like the naturally hewn memorials of great heroes passed away.
Here, the ground being level, he could walk more quickly and with
greater comfort than in the one little precipitous street of Weircombe,
and he paced up and down, looking at the rising and falling hollows of
the sea with wistful eyes that in their growing age and dimness had an
intensely pathetic expression,--the expression one sometimes sees in the
eyes of a dog who knows that its master is leaving it for an indefinite
period.
"What a strange chaos of brain must be that of the suicide!" he
thought--"Who, that can breathe the fresh air and watch the lights and
shadows in the sky and on the waves, would really wish to leave the
world, unless the mind had completely lost its balance! We have never
seen anything more beautiful than this planet upon which we are
born,--though there is a sub-consciousness in us which prophesies of yet
greater beauty awaiting higher vision. The subconscious self! That is
the scientist's new name for the Soul,--but the Soul is a better term.
Now my subconscious self--my Soul,--is lamenting the fact that it must
leave life when it has just begun to learn how to live! I should like
to be here and see what Mary will do when--when I am gone! Yet how do I
know but that in very truth I shall be here?--or in some way be made
aware of her actions? She has a character such as I never thought to
find in any mortal woman,--strong, pure, tender,--and sincere!--ah, that
sincerity of hers is like the very sunlight!--so bright and warm, and
clean of all ulterior motive! And measured by a worldly estimate
only--what is she? The daughter of a humble florist,--herself a mere
mender of lace, and laundress of fine ladies' linen! And her sweet and
honest eyes have never looked upon that rag-fair of nonsense we call
'society';--she never thinks of riches;--and yet she has refined and
artistic taste enough to love the lace she mends, just for pure
admiration of its beauty,--not because she herself desires to wear it,
but because it represents the work and lives of others, and because it
is in itself a miracle of design. I wonder if she ever notices how
closely I watch her! I could draw from memory the shapely outline of her
hand,--a white, smooth, well-kept hand, never allowed to remain soiled
by all her various forms of domestic labour,--an expressive hand,
indicating health and sanity, with that deep curve at the wrist, and the
delicately shaped fingers which hold the needle so lightly and guide it
so deftly through the intricacies of the riven lace, weaving a web of
such fairy-like stitches that the original texture seems never to have
been broken. I have sat quiet for an hour or more studying her when she
has thought me asleep in my chair by the fire,--and I have fancied that
my life is something like the damaged fabric she is so carefully
repairing,--holes and rents everywhere,--all the symmetry of design
dropping to pieces,--the little garlands of roses and laurels snapped
asunder,--and she, with her beautiful white hands is gently drawing the
threads together and mending it,--for what purpose?--to what end?"
And here the involuntary action of some little brain-cell gave him the
memory of certain lines in Browning's "Rabbi Ben Ezra":--
"Therefore I summon age
To grant youth's heritage
Life's struggle having so far reached its term;
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a god, though in the germ.
And I shall thereupon
Take rest ere I be gone
Once more on my adventures brave and new--
Fearless--and unperplexed
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armour to indue!"
* * * * *
He turned his eyes again to the sea just as a lovely light, pale golden
and clear as topaz, opened suddenly in the sky, shedding a shower of
luminant reflections on the waves. He drew a deep breath, and
unconsciously straightened himself.
"When death comes it shall find me ready!" he said, half aloud;--and
then stood, confronting the ethereal glory. The waves rolled in slowly
and majestically one after the other, and broke at his feet in long
wreaths of creamy foam,--and presently one or two light gusts of a
rather chill wind warned him that he had best be returning homeward.
While he yet hesitated, a leaf of paper blew towards him, and danced
about like a large erratic butterfly, finally dropping just where the
stick on which he leaned made a hole in the sand. He stooped and picked
it up. It was covered with fine small handwriting, and before he could
make any attempt to read it, a man sprang up from behind one of the
rocky boulders close by, and hurried forward, raising his cap as he
came.
"That's mine!" he said, quickly, with a pleasant smile--"It's a loose
page from my notebook. Thank-you so much for saving it!"
Helmsley gave him the paper at once, with a courteous inclination of the
head.
"I've been scribbling down here all day,"--proceeded the new comer--"And
there's not been much wind till now. But"--and he glanced up and about
him critically; "I think we shall have a puff of sou'wester to-night."
Helmsley looked at him with interest. He was a man of distinctive
appearance,--tall, well-knit, and muscular, with a fine intellectual
face and keen clear grey eyes. Not a very young man;--he seemed about
thirty-eight or forty, perhaps more, for his dark hair was fairly
sprinkled with silver. But his manner was irresistibly bright and
genial, and it was impossible to meet his frank, open, almost boyish
gaze, without a desire to know more of him, and an inclination to like
him.
"Do you make the seashore your study?" asked Helmsley, with a slight
gesture towards the notebook into which the stranger was now carefully
putting the strayed leaflet.
"Pretty much so!" and he laughed--"I've only got one room to live
in--and it has to serve for both sleeping and eating--so I come out here
to breathe and expand a bit." He paused, and then added gently--"May I
give you my arm up to Miss Deane's cottage?"
"Why, how do you know I live there?" and Helmsley smiled as he put the
question.
"Oh, well, all the village knows that!--and though I'm quite new to the
village--I've only been here a week--I know it too. You're old David,
the basket-maker, aren't you?"
"Yes." And Helmsley nodded emphatically--"That's me!"
"Then I know all about you! My name's Angus Reay. I'm a Scotchman,--I
am, or rather, I _was_ a journalist, and as poor as Job! That's _me_!
Come along!"
The cheery magnetism of his voice and look attracted Helmsley, and
almost before he knew it he was leaning on this new friend's arm,
chatting with him concerning the village, the scenery, and the weather,
in the easiest way possible.
"I came on here from Minehead,"--said Reay--"That was too expensive a
place for me!" And a bright smile flashed from lips to eyes with an
irresistible sunny effect; "I've got just twenty pounds in the world,
and I must make it last me a year. For room, food, fuel, clothes, drink
and smoke! I've promptly cut off the last two!"
"And you're none the worse for it, I daresay!" rejoined Helmsley.
"Not a bit! A good deal the better. In Fleet Street the men drank and
smoked pretty heavily, and I had to drink and smoke with them, if I
wanted to keep in with the lot. I did want to keep in with them, and yet
I didn't. It was a case of 'needs must when the devil drives!'"
"You say you were a journalist. Aren't you one now?"
"No. I'm 'kicked off'!" And Reay threw back his head and laughed
joyously. "'Off you go!' said my editor, one fine morning, after I had
slaved away for him for nearly two years--'We don't want any canting
truth-tellers here!' Now mind that stone! You nearly slipped. Hold my
arm tighter!"
Helmsley did as he was told, quite meekly, looking up with a good deal
of curiosity at this tall athletic creature, with the handsome head and
masterful manner. Reay caught his enquiring glance and laughed again.
"You look as if you wanted to know more about me, old David!" he said
gaily--"So you shall! I've nothing to conceal! As I tell you I was
'kicked off' out of journalism--my fault being that I published a
leaderette exposing a mean 'deal' on the part of a certain city
plutocrat. I didn't know the rascal had shares in the paper. But he
_had_--under an 'alias.' And he made the devil's own row about it with
the editor, who nearly died of it, being inclined to apoplexy--and
between the two of them I was 'dropped.' Then the word ran along the
press wires that I was an 'unsafe' man. I could not get any post worth
having--I had saved just twenty pounds--so I took it all and walked away
from London--literally _walked_ away! I haven't spent a penny in other
locomotion than my own legs since I left Fleet Street."
Helmsley listened with eager interest. Here was a man who had done the
very thing which he himself had started to do;--"tramped" the road.
But--with what a difference! Full manhood, physical strength, and
activity on the one side,--decaying power, feebleness of limb and
weariness on the other. They had entered the village street by this
time, and were slowly walking up it together.
"You see,"--went on Reay,--"of course I could have taken the train--but
twenty pounds is only twenty pounds--and it must last me twelve solid
months. By that time I shall have finished my work."
"And what's that?" asked Helmsley.
"It's a book. A novel. And"--here he set his teeth hard--"I intend that
it shall make me--famous!"
"The intention is good,"--said Helmsley, slowly--"But--there are so many
novels!"
"No, there are not!" declared Reay, decisively--"There are plenty of
rag-books _called_ novels--but they are not real 'novels.' There's
nothing 'new' in them. There's no touch of real, suffering, palpitating
humanity in them! The humanity of to-day is infinitely more complex than
it was in the days of Scott or Dickens, but there's no Scott or Dickens
to epitomise its character or delineate its temperament. I want to be
the twentieth century Scott and Dickens rolled into one stupendous
literary Titan!"
His mellow laughter was hearty and robust. Helmsley caught its infection
and laughed too.
"But why,"--he asked--"do you want to write a novel? Why not write a
real _book_?"
"What do you call a real book, old David?" demanded Reay, looking down
upon him with a sudden piercing glance.
Helmsley was for a moment confused. He was thinking of such books as
Carlyle's "Past and Present"--Emerson's "Essays" and the works of
Ruskin. But he remembered in good time that for an old "basket-maker" to
be familiar with such literary masterpieces might seem strange to a
wide-awake "journalist," therefore he checked himself in time.
"Oh, I don't know! I believe I was thinking of 'Pilgrim's Progress'!" he
said.
"'Pilgrim's Progress'? Ah! A fine book--a grand book! Twelve years and a
half of imprisonment in Bedford Jail turned Bunyan out immortal! And
here am I--_not_ in jail--but free to roam where I choose,--with twenty
pounds! By Jove! I ought to be greater than Bunyan! Now 'Pilgrim's
Progress' was a 'novel,' if you like!"
"I thought,"--submitted Helmsley, with the well-assumed air of a man who
was not very conversant with literature--"that it was a religious book?"
"So it is. A religious novel. And a splendid one! But humanity's gone
past that now--it wants a wider view--a bigger, broader outlook. Do you
know--" and here he stopped in the middle of the rugged winding street,
and looked earnestly at his companion--"do you know what I see men doing
at the present day?--I see them rushing towards the verge--the very
extreme edge of what they imagine to be the Actual--and from that edge
getting ready to plunge--into Nothingness!"
Something thrilling in his voice touched a responsive chord in
Helmsley's own heart.
"Why--that is where we all tend!" he said, with a quick sigh--"That is
where _I_ am tending!--where _you_, in your time, must also
tend--nothingness--or death!"
"No!" said Reay, almost loudly--"That's not true! That's just what I
deny! For me there is no 'Nothingness'--no 'death'! Space is full of
creative organisms. Dissolution means re-birth. It is all
life--life:--glorious life! We live--we have always lived--we _shall_
always live!" He paused, flushing a little as though half ashamed of
his own enthusiasm--then, dropping his voice to its normal tone he
said--"You've got me on my hobby horse--I must come off it, or I shall
gallop too far! We're just at the top of the street now. Shall I leave
you here?"
"Please come on to the cottage,"--said Helmsley--"I'm sure Mary--Miss
Deane--will give you a cup of tea."
Angus Reay smiled.
"I don't allow myself that luxury,"--he said.
"Not when you're invited to share it with others?"
"Oh yes, in that way I do--but I'm not overburdened with friends just
now. A man must have more than twenty pounds to be 'asked out'
anywhere!"
"Well, _I_ ask you out!"--said Helmsley, smiling--"Or rather, I ask you
_in_. I'm sure Miss Deane will be glad to talk to you. She is very fond
of books."
"I've seen her just once in the village,"--remarked Reay--"She seems to
be very much respected here. And what a beautiful woman she is!"
"You think so?" and Helmsley's eyes lighted with pleasure--"Well, I
think so, too--but they tell me that it's only because I'm old, and apt
to see everyone beautiful who is kind to me. There's a good deal in
that!--there's certainly a good deal in that!"
They could now see the garden gate of Mary's cottage through the boughs
of the great chestnut tree, which at this season was nearly stripped of
all its leaves, and which stood like a lonely forest king with some
scanty red and yellow rags of woodland royalty about him, in solitary
grandeur at the bending summit of the hill. And while they were yet
walking the few steps which remained of the intervening distance, Mary
herself came out to the gate, and, leaning one arm lightly across it,
watched them approaching. She wore a pale lilac print gown, high to the
neck and tidily finished off by a plain little muslin collar fastened
with a coquettish knot of black velvet,--her head was uncovered, and the
fitful gleams of the sinking sun shed a russet glow on her shining hair
and reddened the pale clear transparency of her skin. In that restful
waiting attitude, with a smile on her face, she made a perfect picture,
and Helmsley stole a side-glance at his companion, to see if he seemed
to be in any way impressed by her appearance. Angus Reay was certainly
looking at her, but what he thought could hardly be guessed by his
outward expression. They reached the gate, and she opened it.
"I was getting anxious about you, David!"--she said; "you aren't quite
strong enough to be out in such a cold wind." Then she turned her eyes
enquiringly on Reay, who lifted his cap while Helmsley explained his
presence.
"This is a gentleman who is staying in the village--Mr. Reay,"--he
said--"He's been very kind in helping me up the hill--and I said you
would give him a cup of tea."
"Why, of course!"--and Mary smiled--"Please come in, sir!"
She led the way, and in another few minutes, all three of them were
seated in her little kitchen round the table and Mary was busy pouring
out the tea and dispensing the usual good things that are always found
in the simplest Somersetshire cottage,--cream, preserved fruit, scones,
home-made bread and fresh butter.
"So you met David on the seashore?" she said, turning her soft dark-blue
eyes enquiringly on Reay, while gently checking with one hand the
excited gambols of Charlie, who, as an epicurean dog, always gave
himself up to the wildest enthusiasms at tea-time, owing to his
partiality for a small saucer of cream which came to him at that
hour--"I sometimes think he must expect to pick up a fortune down among
the shells and seaweed, he's so fond of walking about there!"--And she
smiled as she put Helmsley's cup of tea before him, and gently patted
his wrinkled hand in the caressing fashion a daughter might show to a
father whose health gave cause for anxiety.
"Well, _I_ certainly don't go down to the shore in any such
expectation!" said Reay, laughing--"Fortunes are not so easily picked
up, are they, David?"
"No, indeed!" replied Helmsley, and his old eyes sparkled up humorously
under their cavernous brows; "fortunes take some time to make, and one
doesn't meet millionaires every day!"
"Millionaires!" exclaimed Reay--"Don't speak of them! I hate them!"
Helmsley looked at him stedfastly.
"It's best not to hate anybody,"--he said--"Millionaires are often the
loneliest and most miserable of men."
"They deserve to be!" declared Reay, hotly--"It isn't right--it isn't
just that two or three, or let us say four or five men should be able
to control the money-markets of the world. They generally get their
wealth through some unscrupulous 'deal,' or through 'sweating' labour. I
hate all 'cornering' systems. I believe in having enough to live upon,
but not too much."
"It depends on what you call enough,"--said Helmsley, slowly--"We're
told that some people never know when they _have_ enough."
"Why _this_ is enough!" said Reay, looking admiringly round the little
kitchen in which they sat--"This sweet little cottage with this oak
raftered ceiling, and all the dear old-fashioned crockery, and the
ingle-nook over there,--who on earth wants more?"
Mary laughed.
"Oh dear me!" she murmured, gently--"You praise it too much!--it's only
a very poor place, sir,----"
He interrupted her, the colour rushing to his brows.
"Please don't!"
She glanced at him in surprise.
"Don't--what?"
"Don't call me 'sir'! I'm only a poor chap,--my father was a shepherd,
and I began life as a cowherd--I don't want any titles of courtesy."
She still kept her eyes upon him thoughtfully.
"But you're a gentleman, aren't you?" she asked.
"I hope so!" And he laughed. "Just as David is! But we neither of us
wish the fact emphasised, do we, David? It goes without saying!"
Helmsley smiled. This Angus Reay was a man after his own heart.
"Of course it does!"--he said--"In the way you look at it! But you
should tell Miss Deane all about yourself--she'll be interested."
"Would you really care to hear?" enquired Reay, suddenly, turning his
clear grey eyes full on Mary's face.
"Why certainly I should!" she answered, frankly meeting his glance,--and
then, from some sudden and inexplicable embarrassment, she blushed
crimson, and her eyelids fell. And Reay thought what a clear, healthy
skin she had, and how warmly the blood flowed under it.
"Well, after tea I'll hold forth!" he said--"But there isn't much to
tell. Such as there is, you shall know, for I've no mysteries about me.
Some fellows love a mystery--I cannot bear it! Everything must be fair,
open and above board with me,--else I can't breathe! Pouf!" And he
expanded his broad chest and took a great gulp of air in as he spoke--"I
hate a man who tries to hide his own identity, don't you, David?"
"Yes--yes--certainly!" murmured Helmsley, absently, feigning to be
absorbed in buttering a scone for his own eating--"It is often very
awkward--for the man."
"I always say, and I always will maintain,"--went on Reay--"let a man be
a man--a something or a nothing. If he is a criminal, let him say he is
a criminal, and not pretend to be virtuous--if he is an atheist, let him
say he is an atheist, and not pretend to be religious--if he's a beggar
and can't help himself, let him admit the fact--if he's a millionaire,
don't let him skulk round pretending he's as poor as Job--always let him
be himself and no other!--eh?--what is it, David?"
For Helmsley was looking at him intently with eyes that were almost
young in their sudden animation and brilliancy.
"Did you ever meet a millionaire who skulked round pretending he was as
poor as Job?" he enquired, with a whimsical air--"_I_ never did!"
"Well no, I never did, either!" And Reay's mellow laughter was so loud
and long that Mary was quite infected by it, and laughed with him--"But
you see millionaires are all marked men. Everybody knows them. Their
portraits are in all the newspapers--horrid-looking rascals most of
them!--Nature doesn't seem to endow them with handsome features anyway.
'Keep your gold, and never mind your face,'--she seems to say--'_I'll_
take care of that!' And she does take care of it! O Lord! The only
millionaire I ever saw in my life was ugly enough to frighten a baby
into convulsions!"
"What was his name?" asked Helmsley.
"Well, it wouldn't be fair to tell his name now, after what I've said!"
laughed Reay--"Besides, he lives in America, thank God! He's one of the
few who have spared the old country his patronage!"
Here a diversion was created by the necessity of serving the tiny but
autocratic Charlie with his usual "dish of cream," of which he partook
on Mary's knee, while listening (as was evident from the attentive
cocking of his silky ears) to the various compliments he was accustomed
to receive on his beauty. This business over, they rose from the
tea-table. The afternoon had darkened into twilight, and the autumnal
wind was sighing through the crannies of the door. Mary stirred the fire
into a brighter blaze, and drawing Helmsley's armchair close to its warm
glow, stood by him till he was comfortably seated--then she placed
another chair opposite for Reay, and sat down herself on a low oaken
settle between the two.
"This is the pleasantest time of the day just now,"--she said--"And the
best time for talking! I love the gloaming. My father loved it too."
"So did _my_ father!" and Reay's eyes softened as he bent them on the
sparkling fire--"In winter evenings when the darkness fell down upon our
wild Highland hills, he would come home to our shieling on the edge of
the moor, shaking all the freshness of the wind and the scent of the
dying heather out of his plaid as he threw it from his shoulders,--and
he would toss fresh peat on the fire till it blazed red and golden, and
he would lay his hand on my head and say to me: 'Come awa' bairnie! Now
for a bogle story in the gloamin'!' Ah, those bogle stories! They are
answerable for a good deal in my life! They made me want to write bogle
stories myself!"
"And _do_ you write them?" asked Mary.
"Not exactly. Though perhaps all human life is only a bogle tale!
Invented to amuse the angels!"
She smiled, and taking up a delicate piece of crochet lace, which she
called her "spare time work," began to ply the glittering needle in and
out fine intricacies of thread, her shapely hands gleaming like
alabaster in the fire-light reflections.
"Well, now tell us your own bogle tale!" she said--"And David and I will
play the angels!"