During this little altercation, the party round the table in the common room sat listening intently. Then Dubble, rousing himself from a pleasant ale-warm lethargy, broke the spell.
“Dorned if it aint old Arbroath!” he said.
“Ay, ay, ’tis old Arbroath zartin zure!” responded “Feathery” Joltram placidly. “Let ‘un coom in! Let ‘un coom in!”
Tom o’ the Gleam gave vent to a loud laugh, and throwing himself back in his chair, crossed his long legs and administered a ferocious twirl to his moustache, humming carelessly under his breath: —
“‘And they called the parson to marry them,
But devil a bit would he —
For they were but a pair of dandy prats
As couldn’t pay devil’s fee!’”
Helmsley’s curiosity was excited. There was a marked stir of expectation among the guests of the “Trusty Man”; they all appeared to be waiting for something about to happen of exceptional interest. He glanced inquiringly at Peke, who returned the glance by one of warning.
“Best sit quiet a while longer,” he said. “They won’t break up till closin’ hour, an’ m’appen there’ll be a bit o’ fun.”
“Ay, sit quiet!” said Tom o’ the Gleam, catching these words, and turning towards Helmsley with a smile— “There’s more than enough time for tramping. Come! Show me if you can smoke that!” “That” was a choice Havana cigar which he took out of the pocket of his crimson wool waistcoat. “You’ve smoked one before now, I’ll warrant!”
Helmsley met his flashing eyes without wavering.
“I will not say I have not,” he answered quietly, accepting and lighting the fragrant weed, “but it was long ago!”
“Ay, away in the Long, long ago!” said Tom, still regarding him fixedly, but kindly— “where we have all buried such a number of beautiful things, — loves and hopes and beliefs, and dreams and fortunes! — all, all tucked away under the graveyard grass of the Long Ago!”
Here Miss Tranter’s voice was heard again outside, saying acidly: —
“It’s clear out and lock up at half-past ten, business or no business, duty or no duty. Please remember that!”
“‘Ware, mates!” exclaimed Tom,— “Here comes our reverend!”
The door was pushed open as he spoke, and a short, dark man in clerical costume walked in with a would-be imposing air of dignity.
“Good-evening, my friends!” he said, without lifting his hat.
There was no response.
He smiled sourly, and surveyed the assembled company with a curious air of mingled authority and contempt. He looked more like a petty officer of dragoons than a minister of the Christian religion, — one of those exacting small military martinets accustomed to brow-beating and bullying every subordinate without reason or justice.
“So you’re there, are you, Bush!” he continued, with a frowning glance levied in the direction of the always suspected but never proved poacher,— “I wonder you’re not in jail by this time!”
Bill Bush took up his pewter tankard, and affected to drain it to the last dregs, but made no reply.
“Is that Mr. Dubble!” pursued the clergyman, shading his eyes with one hand from the flickering light of the lamp, and feigning to be doubtful of the actual personality of the individual he questioned. “Surely not! I should be very much surprised and very sorry to see Mr. Dubble here at such a late hour!”
“Would ye now!” said Dubble. “Wal, I’m allus glad to give ye both a sorrer an’ a surprise together, Mr. Arbroath — darned if I aint!”
“You must be keeping your good wife and daughter up waiting for you,” proceeded Arbroath, his iron-grey eyebrows drawing together in an ugly line over the bridge of his nose. “Late hours are a mistake, Dubble!”
“So they be, so they be, Mr. Arbroath!” agreed Dubble. “Ef I was oop till midnight naggin’ away at my good wife an’ darter as they nags away at me, I’d say my keepin’ o’ late ‘ours was a dorned whoppin’ mistake an’ no doubt o’t. But seein’ as ‘taint arf-past ten yet, an’ I aint naggin’ nobody nor interferin’ with my neighbours nohow, I reckon I’m on the right side o’ the night so fur.”
A murmur of approving laughter from all the men about him ratified this speech. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath gave a gesture of disdain, and bent his lowering looks on Tom o’ the Gleam.
“Aren’t you wanted by the police?” he suggested sarcastically.
The handsome gypsy glanced him over indifferently.
“I shouldn’t wonder!” he retorted. “Perhaps the police want me as much as the devil wants you!”
Arbroath flushed a dark red, and his lips tightened over his teeth vindictively.
“There’s a zummat for tha thinkin’ on, Pazon Arbroath!” said “Feathery” Joltram, suddenly rising from his chair and showing himself in all his great height and burly build. “Zummat for a zermon on owd Nick, when tha’re wantin’ to scare the zhoolboys o’ Zundays!”
Mr. Arbroath’s countenance changed from red to pale.
“I was not aware of your presence, Mr. Joltram,” he said stiffly.
“Noa, noa, Pazon, m’appen not, but tha’s aweer on it now. Nowt o’ me’s zo zmall as can thraw to heaven through tha straight and narrer way. I’d ‘ave to squeeze for ‘t!”
He laughed, — a big, slow laugh, husky with good living and good humour. Arbroath shrugged his shoulders.
“I prefer not to speak to you at all, Mr. Joltram,” he said. “When people are bound to disagree, as we have disagreed for years, it is best to avoid conversation.”
“Zed like the Church all over, Pazon!” chuckled the imperturbable Joltram. “Zeems as if I ‘erd the ‘Glory be’! But if tha don’t want any talk, why does tha coom in ’ere wheer we’se all a-drinkin’ steady and talkin’ ‘arty, an’ no quarrellin’ nor backbitin’ of our neighbours? Tha wants us to go ‘ome, — why doezn’t tha go ‘ome thysen? Tha’s a wife a zettin’ oop there, an’ m’appen she’s waitin’ with as fine a zermon as iver was preached from a temperance cart in a wasterne field!”
He laughed again; Arbroath turned his back upon him in disgust, and strode up to the shadowed corner where Helmsley sat watching the little scene.
“Now, my man, who are you?” demanded the clergyman imperiously. “Where do you come from?”
Matt Peke would have spoken, but Helmsley silenced him by a look and rose to his feet, standing humbly with bent head before his arrogant interlocutor. There were the elements of comedy in the situation, and he was inclined to play his part thoroughly.
“From Bristol,” he replied.
“What are you doing here?”
“Getting rest, food, and a night’s lodging.”
“Why do you leave out drink in the list?” sneered Arbroath. “For, of course, it’s your special craving! Where are you going?”
“To Cornwall.”
“Tramping it?”
“Yes.”
“Begging, I suppose?”
“Sometimes.”
“Disgraceful!” And the reverend gentleman snorted offence like a walrus rising from deep waters. “Why don’t you work?”
“I’m too old.”
“Too old! Too lazy you mean! How old are you?”
“Seventy.”
Mr. Arbroath paused, slightly disconcerted. He had entered the “Trusty Man” in the hope of discovering some or even all of its customers in a state of drunkenness. To his disappointment he had found them perfectly sober. He had pounced on the stray man whom he saw was a stranger, in the expectation of proving him, at least, to be intoxicated. Here again he was mistaken. Helmsley’s simple straight answers left him no opening for attack.
“You’d better make for the nearest workhouse,” he said, at last. “Tramps are not encouraged on these roads.”
“Evidently not!” And Helmsley raised his calm eyes and fixed them on the clergyman’s lowering countenance with a faintly satiric smile.
“You’re not too old to be i
mpudent, I see!” retorted Arbroath, with an unpleasant contortion of his features. “I warn you not to come cadging about anywhere in this neighbourhood, for if you do I shall give you in charge. I have four parishes under my control, and I make it a rule to hand all beggars over to the police.”
“That’s not very good Christianity, is it?” asked Helmsley quietly.
Matt Peke chuckled. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath started indignantly, and stared so hard that his rat-brown eyes visibly projected from his head.
“Not very good Christianity!” he echoed. “What — what do you mean? How dare you speak to me about Christianity!”
“Ay, ’tis a bit aff!” drawled “Feathery” Joltram, thrusting his great hands deep into his capacious trouser-pockets. “’Tis a bit aff to taalk to Christian parzon ‘bout Christianity, zeein’ ’tis the one thing i’ this warld ’e knaws nawt on!”
Arbroath grew livid, but his inward rage held him speechless.
“That’s true!” cried Tom o’ the Gleam excitedly— “That’s as true as there’s a God in heaven! I’ve read all about the Man that was born a carpenter in Galilee, and so far as I can understand it, He never had a rough word for the worst creatures that crawled, and the worse they were, and the more despised and down-trodden, the gentler He was with them. That’s not the way of the men that call themselves His ministers!”
“I ‘eerd once,” said Mr. Dubble, rising slowly and laying down his pipe, “of a little chap what was makin’ a posy for ’is mother’s birthday, an’ passin’ the garden o’ the rector o’ the parish, ’e spied a bunch o’ pink chestnut bloom ‘angin’ careless over the ‘edge, ready to blow to bits wi’ the next puff o’ wind. The little raskill pulled it down an’ put it wi’ the rest o’ the flowers ‘e’d got for ’is mother, but the good an’ lovin’ rector seed ’im at it, an’ ‘ad ’im nabbed as a common thief an’ sent to prison. ’E wornt but a ten-year-old lad, an’ that prison spoilt ’im for life. ’E wor a fust-class Lord’s man as did that for a babby boy, an’ the hull neighbourhood’s powerful obleeged to ’im. So don’t ye,” — and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,— “don’t ye, for all that ye’re old, an’ poor, an’ ‘elpless, go cadgin’ round this ’ere reverend gemmen’s property, cos ‘e’s got a real pityin’ Christian ‘art o’s own, an’ ye’d be sent to bed wi’ the turnkey.” Here he paused with a comprehensive smile round at the company, — then taking up his hat, he put it on. “There’s one too many ’ere for pleasantness, an’ I’m goin’. Good-den, Tom! Good-den, all!”
And out he strode, whistling as he went. With his departure every one began to move, — the more quickly as the clock in the bar had struck ten a minute or two since. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood irresolute for a moment, wishing his chief enemy, “Feathery” Joltram, would go. But Joltram remained where he was, standing erect, and surveying the scene like a heavily caparisoned charger scenting battle.
“Tha’s heerd Mizter Dubble’s tale afore now, Pazon, hazn’t tha?” he inquired. “M’appen tha knaw’d the little chap as Christ’s man zent to prizon thysen?”
Arbroath lifted his head haughtily.
“A theft is a theft,” he said, “whether it is committed by a young person or an old one, and whether it is for a penny or a hundred pounds makes no difference. Thieves of all classes and all ages should be punished as such. Those are my opinions.”
“They were nowt o’ the Lord’s opinions,” said Joltram, “for He told the thief as ‘ung beside Him, ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,’ but He didn’t say nowt o’ the man as got the thief punished!”
“You twist the Bible to suit your own ends, Mr. Joltram,” retorted Arbroath contemptuously. “It is the common habit of atheists and blasphemers generally.”
“Then, by the Lord!” exclaimed the irrepressible “Feathery,” “All th’ atheists an’ blasphemers must be a-gathered in the fold o’ the Church, for if the pazons doan’t twist the Bible to suit their own ends, I’m blest if I knaw whaat else they does for a decent livin’!”
Just then a puff of fine odour from the Havana cigar which Helmsley was enjoying floated under the nostrils of Mr. Arbroath, and added a fresh touch of irritation to his temper. He turned at once upon the offending smoker.
“So! You pretend to be poor!” he snarled, “And yet you can smoke a cigar that must have cost a shilling!”
“It was given to me,” replied Helmsley gently.
“Given to you! Bah! Who would give an old tramp a cigar like that?”
“I would!” And Tom o’ the Gleam sprang lightly up from his chair, his black eyes sparkling with mingled defiance and laughter— “And I did! Here! — will you take another?” And he drew out and opened a handsome case full of the cigars in question.
“Thank you!” and Arbroath’s pallid lips trembled with rage. “I decline to share in stolen plunder!”
“Ha — ha — ha! Ha — ha!” laughed Tom hilariously. “Stolen plunder! That’s good! D’ye think I’d steal when I can buy! Reverend sir, Tom o’ the Gleam is particular as to what he smokes, and he hasn’t travelled all over the world for nothing:
‘Qu’en dictes-vous? Faut-il à ce musier,
Il n’est trésor que de vivre à son aise!’”
Helmsley listened in wonderment. Here was a vagrant of the highroads and woods, quoting the refrain of Villon’s Contreditz de Franc-Gontier, and pronouncing the French language with as soft and pure an accent as ever came out of Provence. Meanwhile, Mr. Arbroath, paying no attention whatever to Tom’s outburst, looked at his watch.
“It is now a quarter-past ten,” he announced dictatorially; “I should advise you all to be going.”
“By the law we needn’t go till eleven, though Miss Tranter does halve it,” said Bill Bush sulkily— “and perhaps we won’t!”
Mr. Arbroath fixed him with a stern glance.
“Do you know that I am here in the cause of Temperance?” he said.
“Oh, are ye? Then why don’t ye call on Squire Evans, as is the brewer wi’ the big ‘ouse yonder?” queried Bill defiantly. “‘E’s the man to go to! Arsk ’im to shut up ’is brewery an’ sell no more ale wi’ pizon in’t to the poor! That’ll do more for Temp’rance than the early closin’ o’ the ‘Trusty Man.’”
“Ye’re right enough,” said Matt Peke, who had refrained from taking any part in the conversation, save by now and then whispering a side comment to Helmsley. “There’s stuff put i’ the beer what the brewers brew, as is enough to knock the strongest man silly. I’m just fair tired o’ hearin’ o’ Temp’rance this an’ Temp’rance that, while ‘arf the men as goes to Parl’ment takes their livin’ out o’ the brewin’ o’ beer an’ spiritus liquors. An’ they bribes their poor silly voters wi’ their drink till they’se like a flock o’ sheep runnin’ into wotever field o’ politics their shepherds drives ’em. The best way to make the temp’rance cause pop’lar is to stop big brewin’. Let every ale’ouse ‘ave its own pertikler brew, an’ m’appen we’ll git some o’ the old-fashioned malt an’ ‘ops agin. That’ll be good for the small trader, an’ the big brewin’ companies can take to somethin’ ‘onester than the pizonin’ bizness.”
“You are a would-be wise man, and you talk too much, Matthew Peke!” observed the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, smiling darkly, and still glancing askew at his watch. “I know you of old!”
“Ye knows me an’ I knows you,” responded Peke placidly. “Yer can’t interfere wi’ me nohow, an’ I dessay it riles ye a bit, for ye loves interferin’ with ivery sort o’ folk, as all the parsons do. I b’longs to no parish, an’ aint under you no more than Tom o’ the Gleam be, an’ we both thanks the Lord for’t! An’ I’m earnin’ a livin’ my own way an’ bein’ a benefit to the sick an’ sorry, which aint so far from proper Christianity. Lor’, Parson Arbroath! I wonder ye aint more ‘uman like, seein’ as yer fav’rite gel in the village was arskin’ me t’other day if I ‘adn’t any yerb for to make a love-charm. ‘Love-charm!’ sez I— ‘
what does ye want that for, my gel?’ An’ she up an’ she sez— ‘I’d like to make Parson Arbroath eat it!’ Hor — er — hor — er — hor — er! ‘I’d like to make Parson Arbroath eat it!’ sez she. An’ she’s a foine strappin’ wench, too!— ‘Ullo, Parson! Goin’?”
The door slammed furiously, — Arbroath had suddenly lost his dignity and temper together. Peke’s raillery proved too much for him, and amid the loud guffaws of “Feathery” Joltram, Bill Bush and the rest, he beat a hasty retreat, and they heard his heavy footsteps go hurriedly across the passage of the “Trusty Man,” and pass out into the road beyond. Roars of laughter accompanied his departure, and Peke looked round with a smile of triumph.
“It’s just like a witch-spell!” he declared. “There’s nowt to do but whisper, ‘Parson’s fav’rite!’ — an’ Parson hisself melts away like a mist o’ the mornin’ or a weasel runnin’ into its ‘ole! Hor — er, hor — er, hor — er!”
And again the laughter pealed out long and loud, “Feathery” Joltram bending himself double with merriment, and slapping the sides of his huge legs in ecstasy. Miss Tranter hearing the continuous uproar, looked in warningly, but there was a glimmering smile on her face.
“We’se goin’, Miss Tranter!” announced Bill Bush, his wizened face all one broad grin. “We aint the sort to keep you up, never fear! Your worst customer’s just cleared out!”
“So I see!” replied Miss Tranter calmly, — then, nodding towards Helmsley, she said— “Your room’s ready.”
Helmsley took the hint. He rose from his chair, and held out his hand to Peke.
“Good-night!” he said. “You’ve been very kind to me, and I shan’t forget it!”
The herb-gatherer looked for a moment at the thin, refined white hand extended to him before grasping it in his own horny palm. Then —
“Good-night, old chap!” he responded heartily. “Ef I don’t see ye i’ the mornin’ I’ll leave ye a bottle o’ yerb wine to take along wi’ ye trampin’, for the more ye drinks o’t the soberer ye’ll be an’ the better ye’ll like it. But ye should give up the idee o’ footin’ it to Cornwall; ye’ll never git there without a liftin’.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 660