Part 22 (1/2)

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 fas.h.i.+on 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!”