He raised his cap with the deferential easy grace which was habitual to him, and Miss Tranter"s pale cheeks reddened suddenly and violently.
"Oh, I"m only a rough sort!" she said hastily. "But the men like me because I don"t give them away. I hold that the poor must get a bit of attention as well as the rich."
"The poor deserve it more," rejoined Helmsley. "The rich get far too much of everything in these days,--they are too much pampered and too much flattered. Yet, with it all, I daresay they are often miserable."
"It must be pretty hard to be miserable on twenty or thirty thousand a year!" said Miss Tranter.
"You think so? Now, I should say it was very easy. For when one has everything, one wants nothing."
"Well, isn"t it all right to want nothing?" she queried, looking at him inquisitively.
"All right? No!--rather all wrong! For want stimulates the mind and body to work, and work generates health and energy,--and energy is the pulse of life. Without that pulse, one is a mere husk of a man--as I am!" He doffed his cap again. "Thank you for all your friendliness. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye! Perhaps I shall see you again some time this way?"
"Perhaps--but----"
"With your friend?" she suggested.
"Ay--if I find my friend--then possibly I may return. Meanwhile, all good be with you!"
He turned away, and began to ascend the path indicated across the moor.
Once he looked back and waved his hand. Miss Tranter, in response, waved her piece of knitting. Then she went on clicking her needles rapidly through a perfect labyrinth of st.i.tches, her eyes fixed all the while on the tall, thin, frail figure which, with the a.s.sistance of a stout stick, moved slowly along between the nodding daisies.
"He"s what they call a mystery," she said to herself. "He"s as true-born a gentleman as ever lived--with a gentleman"s ways, a gentleman"s voice, and a gentleman"s hands, and yet he"s "on the road" like a tramp! Well!
there"s many ups and downs in life, certainly, and those that"s rich to-day may be poor to-morrow. It"s a queer world--and G.o.d who made it only knows what it was made for!"
With that, having seen the last of Helmsley"s retreating figure, she went indoors, and relieved her feelings by putting Prue through her domestic paces in a fashion that considerably flurried that small damsel and caused her to wonder, "what "ad come over Miss Tranter suddint, she was that beside "erself with work and temper!"
CHAPTER IX
It was pleasant walking across the moor. The July sun was powerful, but to ageing men the warmth and vital influences of the orb of day are welcome, precious, and salutary. An English summer is seldom or never too warm for those who are conscious that but few such summers are left to them, and David Helmsley was moved by a devout sense of grat.i.tude that on this fair and tranquil morning he was yet able to enjoy the lovely and loving beneficence of all beautiful and natural things. The scent of the wild thyme growing in prolific patches at his feet,--the more pungent odour of the tall daisies which were of a hardy, free-flowering kind,--the "strong sea-daisies that feast on the sun,"--and the indescribable salty perfume that swept upwards on the faint wind from the unseen ocean, just now hidden by projecting shelves of broken ground fringed with trees,--all combined together to refresh the air and to make the mere act of breathing a delight. After about twenty minutes" walking Helmsley"s step grew easier and more springy,--almost he felt young,--almost he pictured himself living for another ten years in health and active mental power. The la.s.situde and _ennui_ inseparable from a life spent for the most part in the business centres of London, had rolled away like a noxious mist from his mind, and he was well-nigh ready to "begin life again," as he told himself, with a smile at his own folly.
"No wonder that the old-world philosophers and scientists sought for the _elixir vitae_!" he thought. "No wonder they felt that the usual tenure is too short for all that a man might accomplish, did he live well and wisely enough to do justice to all the powers with which nature has endowed him. I am myself inclined to think that the "Tree of Life"
exists,--perhaps its leaves are the "leaves of the Daura," for which that excellent fellow Matt Peke is looking. Or it may be the "Secta Croa"!"
He smiled,--and having arrived at the end of the path which he had followed from the door of the "Trusty Man," he saw before him a descending bank, which sloped into the highroad, a wide track white with thick dust stretching straight away for about a mile and then dipping round a broad curve of land, overarched with trees. He sat down for a few minutes on the warm gra.s.s, giving himself up to the idle pleasure of watching the birds skimming through the clear blue sky,--the bees bouncing in and out of the b.u.t.tercups,--the varicoloured b.u.t.terflies floating like blown flower-petals on the breeze,--and he heard a distant bell striking the half-hour after eleven. He had noted the time when leaving the "Trusty Man," otherwise he would not have known it so exactly, having left his watch locked up at home in his private desk with other personal trinkets which would have been superfluous and troublesome to him on his self-imposed journey. When the echo of the bell"s one stroke had died away it left a great stillness in the air. The heat was increasing as the day veered towards noon, and he decided that it would be as well to get on further down the road and under the shadow of the trees, which were not so very far off, and which looked invitingly cool in their spreading dark soft greenness. So, rising from his brief rest, he started again "on the tramp," and soon felt the full glare of the sun, and the hot sensation of the dust about his feet; but he went on steadily, determining to make light of all the inconveniences and difficulties, to which he was entirely unaccustomed, but to which he had voluntarily exposed himself. For a considerable time he met no living creature; the highroad seemed to be as much his own as though it were part of a private park or landed estate belonging to him only; and it was not till he had nearly accomplished the distance which lay between him and the shelter of the trees, that he met a horse and cart slowly jogging along towards the direction from whence he had come.
The man who drove the vehicle was half-asleep, stupefied, no doubt, by the effect of the hot sun following on a possible "gla.s.s" at a public-house, but Helmsley called to him just for company"s sake.
"Hi! Am I going right for Watchett?"
The man opened his drowsing eyes and yawned expansively.
"Watchett? Ay! Williton comes fust."
"Is it far?"
"Nowt"s far to your kind!" said the man, flicking his whip. "An" ye"ll meet a bobby or so on the road!"
On he went, and Helmsley without further parley resumed his tramp.
Presently, reaching the clump of trees he had seen in the distance, he moved into their refreshing shade. They were broad-branched elms, luxuriantly full of foliage, and the avenue they formed extended for about a quarter of a mile. Cool dells and dingles of mossy green sloped down on one side of the road, breaking into what are sometimes called "coombs" running precipitously towards the sea-coast, and slackening his pace a little he paused, looking through a tangle of shrubs and bracken at the pale suggestion of a glimmer of blue which he realised was the shining of the sunlit ocean. While he thus stood, he fancied he heard a little plaintive whine as of an animal in pain. He listened attentively.
The sound was repeated, and, descending the shelving bank a few steps he sought to discover the whereabouts of this piteous cry for help. All at once he spied two bright sparkling eyes and a small silvery grey head perking up at him through the leaves,--the head of a tiny Yorkshire "toy" terrier. It looked at him with eloquent anxiety, and as he approached it, it made an effort to move, but fell back again with a faint moan. Gently he picked it up,--it was a rare and beautiful little creature, but one of its silky forepaws had evidently been caught in some trap, for it was badly mangled and bleeding. Round its neck was a small golden collar, something like a lady"s bracelet, bearing the inscription: "I am Charlie. Take care of me!" There was no owner"s name or address, and the entreaty "Take care of me!" had certainly not been complied with, or so valuable a pet would not have been left wounded on the highroad. While Helmsley was examining it, it ceased whining, and gently licked his hand. Seeing a trickling stream of water making its way through the moss and ferns close by, he bathed the little dog"s wounded paw carefully and tied it up with a strip of material torn from his own coat sleeve.
"So you want to be taken care of, do you, Charlie!" he said, patting the tiny head. "That"s what a good many of us want, when we feel hurt and broken by the hard ways of the world!" Charlie blinked a dark eye, c.o.c.ked a small soft ear, and ventured on another caress of the kind human hand with his warm little tongue. "Well, I won"t leave you to starve in the woods, or trust you to the tender mercies of the police,--you shall come along with me! And if I see any advertis.e.m.e.nt of your loss I"ll perhaps take you back to your owner. But in the meantime we"ll stay together."
Charlie evidently agreed to this proposition, for when Helmsley tucked him cosily under his arm, he settled down comfortably as though well accustomed to the position. He was certainly nothing of a weight to carry, and his new owner was conscious of a certain pleasure in feeling the warm, silky little body nestling against his breast. He was not quite alone any more,--this little creature was a companion,--a something to talk to, to caress and to protect. He ascended the bank, and regaining the highroad resumed his vagrant way. Noon was now at the full, and the sun"s heat seemed to create a silence that was both oppressive and stifling. He walked slowly, and began to feel that perhaps after all he had miscalculated his staying powers, and that the burden of old age would, in the end, take vengeance upon him for running risks of fatigue and exhaustion which, in his case, were wholly unnecessary.
"Yet if I were really poor," he argued with himself, "if I were in very truth a tramp, I should have to do exactly what I am doing now. If one man can stand "life on the road," so can another."
And he would not allow his mind to dwell on the fact that a temperament which has become accustomed to every kind of comfort and luxury is seldom fitted to endure privation. On he jogged steadily, and by and by began to be entertained by his own thoughts as pleasantly as a poet or romancist is entertained by the fancies which come and go in the brain with all the vividness of dramatic reality. Yet always he found himself harking back to what he sometimes called the "incurability" of life.
Over and over again he asked himself the old eternal question: Why so much Product to end in Waste? Why are thousands of millions of worlds, swarming with life-organisms, created to revolve in s.p.a.ce, if there is no other fate for them but final destruction?
"There _must_ be an Afterwards!" he said. "Otherwise Creation would not only be a senseless joke, but a wicked one! Nay, it would almost be a crime. To cause creatures to be born into existence without their own consent, merely to destroy them utterly in a few years and make the fact of their having lived purposeless, would be worse than the dreams of madmen. For what is the use of bringing human creatures into the world to suffer pain, sickness, and sorrow, if mere life-torture is all we can give them, and death is the only end?"
Here his meditations were broken in upon by the sound of a horse"s hoofs trotting briskly behind him, and pausing, he saw a neat little cart and pony coming along, driven by a buxom-looking woman with a brown sun-hat tied on in the old-fashioned manner under her chin.
"Would ye like a lift?" she asked. "It"s mighty warm walkin"."
Helmsley raised his eyes to the sun-bonnet, and smiled at the cheerful freckled face beneath its brim.
"You"re very kind----" he began.
"Jump in!" said the woman. "I"m taking cream and cheeses into Watchett, but it"s a light load, an" Jim an" me can do with ye that far. This is Jim."
She flicked the pony"s ears with her whip by way of introducing the animal, and Helmsley clambered up into the cart beside her.
"That"s a nice little dog you"ve got," she remarked, as Charlie perked his small black nose out from under his protector"s arm to sniff the subtle atmosphere of what was going to happen next. "He"s a real beauty!"
"Yes," replied Helmsley, without volunteering any information as to how he had found the tiny creature, whom he now had no inclination to part with. "He got his paw caught in a trap, so I"m obliged to carry him."
"Poor little soul! There"s a-many traps all about "ere, lots o" the land bein" private property. Go on, Jim!" And she shook the reins on her pony"s neck, thereby causing that intelligent animal to start off at a pleasantly regular pace. "I allus sez that if the rich ladies and gentlemen as eats up every bit o" land in Great Britain could put traps in the air to catch the noses of everything but themselves as dares to breathe it, they"d do it, singin" glory all the time. For they goes to church reg"lar."
"Ah, it"s a wise thing to be seen _looking_ good in public!" said Helmsley.
The woman laughed.
"That"s right! You can do a lot o" humbuggin" if you"re friends with the parson, what more often than not humbugs everybody hisself. I"m no church-goer, but I turn out the best cheese an" b.u.t.ter in these parts, an" I never tells no lies nor cheats any one of a penny, so I aint worryin" about my soul, seein" it"s straight with my neighbours."
"Are there many rich people living about here?" inquired Helmsley.
"Not enough to do the place real good. The owners of the big houses are here to-day and gone to-morrow, and they don"t trouble much over their tenantry. Still we rub on fairly well. None of us can ever put by for a rainy day,--and some folk as is as hard-working as ever they can be, are bound to come on the parish when they can"t work no more--no doubt o"
that. You"re a stranger to these parts?"
"Yes, I"ve tramped from Bristol."