Part 28 (1/2)
”From Watchett.”
”Oh! We've just had news of a murder up at Blue Anchor. Have you heard anything of it?”
”Yes.” And Helmsley looked his questioner squarely in the face. ”It's a terrible business! But the murderer's caught!”
”Caught is he? Who's got him?”
”Death!” And Helmsley, lifting his cap, stood bareheaded in the moonlight. ”He'll never escape again!”
The constable looked amazed and a little awed.
”Death? Why, I heard it was that wild gypsy, Tom o' the Gleam----”
”So it was,”--said Helmsley, gently,--”and Tom o' the Gleam is dead!”
”No! Don't say that!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the constable with real concern.
”There's a lot of good in Tom! I shouldn't like to think he's gone!”
”You'll find it's true,” said Helmsley. ”And perhaps, when you get all the details, you'll think it for the best. Good-night!”
”Are you staying in Dunster?” queried the officer with a keen glance.
”No. I'm moving on.” And Helmsley smiled wearily as he again said--”Good-night!”
He walked steadily, though slowly, through the sleeping town, and pa.s.sed out of it. Ascending a winding bit of road he found himself once more in the open country, and presently came to a field where part of the fence had been broken through by the cattle. Just behind the damaged palings there was a covered shed, open in front, with a few bundles of straw packed within it. This place suggested itself as a fairly comfortable shelter for an hour's rest, and becoming conscious of the intense aching of his limbs, he took possession of it, setting the small ”Charlie” down to gambol on the gra.s.s at pleasure. He was far more tired than he knew, and remembering the ”yerb wine” which Matt Peke had provided him with, he took a long draught of it, grateful for its reviving warmth and tonic power. Then, half-dreamily, he watched the little dog whom he had rescued and befriended, and presently found himself vaguely entertained by the graceful antics of the tiny creature which, despite its wounded paw, capered limpingly after its own shadow flung by the moonlight on the greensward, and attempted in its own playful way to attract the attention of its new master and wile him away from his mood of utter misery. Involuntarily he thought of the frenzied cry of Shakespeare's ”Lear” over the dead body of Cordelia:--
”What! Shall a dog, a horse, a rat, have life And thou no breath at all!”
What curious caprice of destiny was it that saved the life of a dog, yet robbed a father of his child? Who could explain it? Why should a happy innocent little lad like Tom o' the Gleam's ”Kiddie” have been hurled out of existence in a moment as it were by the mad speed of a motor's wheels,--and a fragile ”toy” terrier, the mere whim of dog-breeders and plaything for fanciful women, be plucked from starvation and death as though the great forces of creation deemed it more worth cheris.h.i.+ng than a human being! For the murder of Lord Wrotham, Helmsley found excuse,--for the death of Tom there was ample natural cause,--but for the wanton killing of a little child no reason could justly be a.s.signed.
Propping his elbows on his knees, and resting his aching head on his hands, he thought and thought,--till Thought became almost as a fire in his brain. What was the use of life? he asked himself. What definite plan or object could there possibly be in the perpetuation of the human race?
”To pace the same dull round On each recurring day, For seventy years or more Till strength and hope decay,-- To trust,--and be deceived,-- And standing,--fear to fall!
To find no resting-place-- _Can this be all?_”
Beginning with hope and eagerness, and having confidence in the good faith of his fellow-men, had he not himself fought a hard fight in the world, setting before him a certain goal,--a goal which he had won and pa.s.sed,--to what purpose? In youth he had been very poor,--and poverty had served him as a spur to ambition. In middle life he had become one of the richest men in the world. He had done all that rich and ambitious men set themselves out to do. He might have said with the Preacher:
”Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them,--I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do, and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”
He had loved,--or rather, he had imagined he loved,--he had married, and his wife had dishonoured him. Sons had been born to him, who, with their mother's treacherous blood in their veins, had brought him to shame by their conduct,--and now all the kith and kin he had sought to surround himself with were dead, and he was alone--as alone as he had ever been at the very commencement of his career. Had his long life of toil led him only to this? With a sense of dull disappointment, his mind reverted to the plan he had half entertained of benefiting Tom o' the Gleam in some way and making him happy by prospering the fortunes of the child he loved so well,--though he was fully aware that perhaps he could not have done much in that direction, as it was more than likely that Tom would have resented the slightest hint of a rich man's patronage. Death, however, in its fiercest shape, had now put an abrupt end to any such benevolent scheme, whether or not it might have been feasible,--and, absorbed in a kind of lethargic reverie, he again and again asked himself what use he was in the world?--what could he do with the brief remaining portion of his life?--and how he could dispose, to his own satisfaction, of the vast wealth which, like a huge golden mill-stone, hung round his neck, dragging him down to the grave? Such poor people as he had met with during his tramp seemed fairly contented with their lot; he, at any rate, had heard no complaints of poverty from them. On the contrary, they had shown an independence of thought and freedom of life which was wholly incompatible with the mere desire of money. He could put a five-pound note in an envelope and post it anonymously to Matt Peke at the ”Trusty Man” as a slight return for his kindness, but he was quite sure that though Matt might be pleased enough with the money he would equally be puzzled, and not entirely satisfied in his mind as to whether he was doing right to accept and use it. It would probably be put in a savings bank for a ”rainy day.”
”It is the hardest thing in the world to do good with money!” he mused, sorrowfully. ”Of course if I were to say this to the unthinking majority, they would gape upon me and exclaim--'Hard to do good! Why, there's nothing so easy! There are thousands of poor,--there are the hospitals--the churches!' True,--but the thousands of _real_ poor are not so easily found! There are thousands, ay, millions of 'sham' poor.
But the _real_ poor, who never ask for anything,--who would not know how to write a begging letter, and who would shrink from writing it even if they did know--who starve patiently, suffer uncomplainingly, and die resignedly--these are as difficult to meet with as diamonds in a coal mine. As for hospitals, do I not know how many of them pander to the barbarous inhumanity of vivisection!--and have I not experienced to the utmost dregs of bitterness, the melting of cash through the hands of secretaries and under-secretaries, and general Committee-ism, and Red Tape-ism, while every hundred thousand pounds bestowed on these necessary inst.i.tutions turns out in the end to be a mere drop in the sea of incessant demand, though the donors may possibly purchase a knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage, in return for their gifts!
And the churches!--my G.o.d!--as Madame Roland said of Liberty, what crimes are committed in Thy Name!”
He looked up at the sky through the square opening of the shed, and saw the moon, now changed in appearance and surrounded by a curious luminous halo like the nimbus with which painters encircle the head of a saint.
It was a delicate aureole of prismatic radiance, and seemed to have swept suddenly round the silver planet in companions.h.i.+p with a light mist from the sea,--a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew. A few fleecy clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.
”It will soon be morning,”--thought Helmsley--”The sun will rise in its same old glorious way--with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it has made from the beginning. The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of Caesar, the crucifixion of Christ,--the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and fruitfulness, itself indifferent as to what becomes of the atoms germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed whether a man dies or lives--neither does G.o.d!”