"O ye whacking great stones, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever!"
Knee-high he built his pedestal, working furiously though striving to conceal his haste. Now he stood in water as he strengthened the pile. Now the water had swelled past it and swelled to Mr. Wriford's outstretched feet. Now Mr. Puddlebox climbed upon the mound of stones and brought his head above the narrow indentation above the cave. It showed itself to be a little ledge. He thrust an arm upon it and found it as broad as the length of his forearm, narrowing as it went back to end in a niche that ran a short way up the cliff. There was room for one to sit there, legs hanging down; perhaps for two—if two could gain it.
Mr. Puddlebox dropped back to the water and now dragged last stones that should make a step to his pile. Then he went to Mr. Wriford.
"Now, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox very cheerfully. "Now I've got the cosiest little seat for you, and now for you to get to it. You can't stand?"
"I can't," Mr. Wriford said.
"Try if I can prop you against the cliff."
He took Mr. Wriford beneath the arms and began to raise him. Mr. Wriford implored: "Don't hurt me!" and as he was raised from the ground screamed dreadfully. "Oh, God! Oh, God, don't, don't;" and when set down again lay feebly moaning: "Don't! Don't!"
There immediately began the most dreadful business.
"Boy," said Mr. Puddlebox, "I've got to hurt you. I'll be gentle as I can, my loony. Boy, you've got to bear it." He abandoned his pretence of their safety, and for his jolly humour that had supported it, permitted voice and speech that denied it and revealed the stress of their position. "Boy, the tide is making on us. It's to fill this cave, boy, before it turns. There's slow drowning waiting for us unless I lift you where I've found a place."
"Let me drown!" Mr. Wriford said. "Oh, let me drown."
The sea drove in and washed the cave on every side. Involuntarily Mr. Wriford cried out in fear and stretched his arms to Mr. Puddlebox, bending above him.
"Come, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox and took him again beneath the arms: again as he was moved he cried: "Don't! Don't!"
"Boy," cried Mr. Puddlebox fiercely, "will you watch me drown before your eyes?"
"Save yourself then. Save yourself."
"By God Almighty I will not. If you won't let me lift you you shall drown me."
Then determinedly he passed his hands beneath Mr. Wriford's arms; then resolutely shut his ears to dreadful cries of pain; then, then the dreadful business. "Boy, I've got to hurt you. I'll be gentle, my loony. Bear it, boy, oh, for Christ's sake bear it. Round my neck, boy. Hold tight. Bear it, boy; bear it."
He carried his arms round Mr. Wriford's back, downwards and beneath his thighs and locked them there. There were dreadful screams; but dreadfully the water swelled about them, and he held on; there were moans that rent him as they sounded; but he spoke: "Bear it, boy; bear it!" and with his burden waded forth.
He faced from the sea and towards the pedestal he had built.
"Loony!"
"Oh, for God's sake, set me down."
"Now I've to raise you."
He began to press upwards with his arms, raising his burden high on his chest.
"Wade out and drown me," Mr. Wriford cried. "If you've any mercy, for God's sake drown me!"
"You're to obey me, boy. By God, you shall obey me, or I'll hurt you worse. Catch in my hair. Hold yourself up by my hair. High as you can. Up, up!"
He staggered upon the steps he had constructed; he gained the pedestal he had made. He thought the strain had become insupportable to him and that he must fall with it. "Now when I lift you, boy, keep yourself up. I'll bring you to my head and then set you back." He called upon himself supremely—raised and failed, raised and failed again. "Now, boy, now!"
He got Mr. Wriford to the ledge and thrust him back; himself he clung to the ledge and almost senseless swayed between his hands and feet.
Presently he looked up. "You're safe now, boy."
Mr. Wriford watched him with eyes that scarcely seemed to see: he scarcely seemed to be conscious.
"I had to speak sharply to you, boy."
Mr. Wriford advanced a hand to him, and he took it and held it. "There was nothing in what I said, boy."
He felt the fingers move in his that covered them. "I had to cry out," Mr. Wriford said weakly. "I couldn't help it."
"You were brave, boy, brave. You're safe now. The water will come to you. But you're safe."
"Come up!" said Mr. Wriford. "Come up!"
"I've to rest a moment, boy," Mr. Puddlebox answered him.
He held that hand while he stood resting. He closed his fingers upon it when presently he spoke again. Now the sea had deepened all about, deep to his knees where he stood. As if the slipway before the cave while it stood dry had somehow abated its volume, it seemed to rise visibly and swiftly now that this last barrier was submerged. All about the walls of the inlet deeply and darkly it swelled, licking the walls and running up them in little wavelets, as beasts of prey, massed in a cage, massing and leaping against the bars.
"There's no great room for me beside you, boy," Mr. Puddlebox said and pressed the fingers that he held.
"Come up," said Mr. Wriford. "Quickly—quickly!"
Mr. Puddlebox looked at the narrow ledge and turned his head this way and that and looked again upon the sea.
Now, while he looked and while still he waited, the sea's appearance changed. A wind drove in from seaward and whipped its placid surface. Black it had been, save where the high moon silvered it; grey as it flickered and as it swelled about the cliff it seemed to go. It had welled and swelled; now, from either side the pulpit rock that guarded their inlet, it drove in in steeply heaving mass that flung within the cave and all along the cliff and that the cave and cliff flung back. It were as if one with a whip packed this full cage fuller yet, and as though those caged within it leapt here and there and snapped the air with flashing teeth.
"Now I'll try for it, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox. "These stones are shaking under me."
Mr. Wriford withdrew his hand and with his hands painfully raised himself a little to one side. The action removed his back from the crevice up the cliff face in which it had rested. A growth of hardy scrub clung here, and Mr. Puddlebox thrust forward his hand and pulled on it.
"Now I'll try for it, boy," he said again. He looked up into Mr. Wriford's face. "There's nothing to talk about twixt you and me, loony," he said. "We've had some rare days since you came down the road to me, boy. If this bush comes away in my hand and I slip and go, why there's an end to it, boy, and as well one way as another. Don't you be scared."
"I shall hold you," Mr. Wriford said. Intensity filled out and strengthened his weak voice. "I shall hold you. I'll never let you go."
There began some protest out of Mr. Puddlebox's mouth. It was not articulated when the rising sea mastered at last the stones beneath his feet; drove from him again his courage; returned him again his panic fear; and he cried out, and swiftly crouched and sprang. He achieved almost his waist to the level of the ledge. He swept up his other hand to the scrub in the crevice and fastened a double grip within it. It was hold or go, but the scrub held and his peril that he must hold or go gave him immense activity. He drew himself and forced himself. His knee nearer to Mr. Wriford came almost upon the ledge, and Mr. Wriford caught at the limb and gripped it as with claws. "Your other knee!" Mr. Wriford cried. "Higher! For God's sake a little higher!"
The further knee struck the ledge wide out where it no more than showed upon the cliff.
"Higher! Higher!"
Horribly from Mr. Puddlebox, as from one squeezed in the throat and in death straining a last word: "Hold me! Hold me, boy! Don't let me drown in that water!"
"Higher! Higher!"
"Don't let me drown—don't let me drown in that water!"
"Higher! An inch—an inch higher."
The inch was gained. "Now! Now!"
The knee dug into the very rock upon its inch of hold, Mr. Puddlebox clutched higher in the scrub, drew up his other leg, drew in his knees and knelt against the cliff.
Unstrung, and breathing in spasmodic clutches of his chest, he remained a space in that position, and Mr. Wriford collapsed and in new pain leant back where he sat. Presently, and very precariously, Mr. Puddlebox began to twist about and lowered himself to sit upon the ledge. The crevice where the ledge was broadest was between them. Mr. Puddlebox with his left hand held himself in his seat by the scrub that filled this niche, and when Mr. Wriford smiled weakly at him and weakly murmured, "Safe now," he replied: "There's very little room, boy," and looked anxiously upon the sea that now in angry waves was mounting to them. He looked from there to the dark line on either hand that marked the height of the tide's run. The line was level with his waist as he sat. He looked at Mr. Wriford and saw how narrow his perch, and down to the sea again. He said to himself: "That's four times I've been a dirty coward." He said in excuse: "Takes your breath," and caught his breath and looked upon the sea.
Now was full evidence, and evidence increasing, of that "blowing up dirty" of which he had been informed, and which the stillness of the swelling water had seemed to falsify. "Why don't you break and roar?" Mr. Puddlebox had asked the sea. White and loud it broke along the cliff, snatching up to them, falling away as beasts that crouch to spring, then up and higher and snatching them again. The moon, as if her watch was up, withdrew in clouds and only sometimes peered. The wind, as if he now took charge, came strongly and strongly called the sea. The sea, as if the moon released it, broke from her stilly bonds and gave itself to vicious play. Strongly it rose. It reached their hanging feet. Stronger yet as night drew on, and now set towards the corner of the inlet nearer to Mr. Wriford's side and there, repulsed, washed up, and there, upspringing, washed in a widening motion towards their ledge.
They sat and waited, rarely with speech.
At long intervals Mr. Puddlebox would say: "Boy!"
No more than a moan would answer him.
"That's all right, boy."
Quite suddenly the water came. Without premonitory splash or leap of spray, quite suddenly, and strongly, deeply, that widening motion where the sea leapt in its corner came like a great hand sweeping high and washed the ledge from end to end—like a hand sweeping and, of its suddenness and volume, raised and swept and shook them where they sat.
At this its first coming, neither spoke of it. There was only a gasp from each as each was shaken. It did not seem to be returning.
After a space, "Boy!" said Mr. Puddlebox again.
"Well? ... well?"
"That's all right, boy."
He clung with his left hand to the scrub. He brought over his right and rested it upon Mr. Wriford's that held the ledge. "Is the pain bad, boy?"
"I'm past pain. I don't feel my legs at all."
"Cold, boy?"
"I don't feel anything. I keep dreaming. I think it's dreaming."
"That's all right, boy."
Again, and again suddenly, that sweeping movement swept them—stronger in force, greater in volume. It swept Mr. Wriford towards Mr. Puddlebox. It almost dislodged him. He was pressed back and down by Mr. Puddlebox's hand, and again the water came. They were scarcely recovered, and once again it struck and shook them.
Now they sat waiting for its onsets. Now the gasp and dreadful struggle while the motion swept and sucked was scarcely done when on and fierce and fiercer yet again it came and shook them.
Now what happened—long in the telling—happened very quickly.
"It's the end—it's the end," Mr. Wriford sobbed—his gasps no more than sobbing as each snatch came. "God, God, it's the end!"
"Hell to the end!" cried Mr. Puddlebox fiercely and fiercely holding him. "Loony, there's nothing here to end us! Boy, do you mind that coastguard we passed early back? He walks here soon after daybreak, he told us, when this bloody tide is down. He'll help me carry you down. Boy, with your back in this niche here you're safe though the sea washes ever so. I'm going to leave you to it. Wedge in, boy."
He began to sidle away.
Fiercely the sweeping movement struck them, stopping Mr. Wriford's protest, driving him to the ledge's centre, all but carrying Mr. Puddlebox whence he clung.
He thrust Mr. Wriford against the niche and roughly tore his hand from Mr. Wriford's grasp.
"What are you doing?" Mr. Wriford cried. "Giving me your place—no, no—!"
Fiercely was answered: "Hell to giving my place! Not me, curse me! I'm going for safety, boy." He indicated the pulpit rock whose surface dryly upstood before them. "Easy to get on there. I'm going to swim there."
"You can't swim! No—you shall not—no!"
Again the beat of rushing water. Scarcely seated where he had edged, Mr. Puddlebox was dragged away, clung, and was left upon the ledge's last extremity. As glad and radiant as ever it had been, the old jolly beam came to his face, to his mouth the old jolly words. "Swim! Why, boy, I'd swim that rotten far with my hands tied. Curse me, I'd never go if I couldn't. Swim! Why, curse me, I will swim you or any man, and I challenge any to the devil to best me at it. Wedge back, boy. Wedge back."
He turned away his jolly face, and to the waiting water turned a face drawn and horrible in fear.
Water that takes your breath!
He swung himself forward on his hands and dropped. He drowned instantly.
* * * * * * * *
There had been no pretence of swimming. There seemed to be no struggle. In one moment he had been balancing between his hands in seated posture on the ledge. In the next down and swallowed up and gone.
Eyes that looked to see him rise and swim stared, stared where he was gone and whence he came not: then saw his body rise—all lumped up, the back of its shoulders, not its head. Then watched it, all lumped up, slightly below the surface, bobbed tossing round the cliff within the inlet: out of sight in the further corner: now bumping along the further wall: now submerged and out of view. Now washed against the pulpit rock: now a long space bumping about it: now drawn beyond it: gone.
In the place where Mr. Wriford next found himself he first heard the reverberant thunder of the sea. He realised with sudden terror that he was not holding on; and as one starting out of bad dreams—but he had no dreams—in sudden terror he clutched with both his hands. That which his hands clutched folded soft and warm within their grasp, and then he heard a pleasant voice say:
"Why, there you are! You've kept us waiting a long time, you know!"
He found he was in a bed. A man, and two women who wore white aprons and caps and nice blue dresses, stood at its foot and were smiling at him. The sun was shining on their faces, and it was through windows behind him that the sound of the sea came. While, very puzzled, he watched these smiling strangers, the man stepped to him and slipped firm, reassuring fingers about his wrist where his hand lay clutching the blue quilt that covered him.
"No need to cling on like that, you know," said the man, disengaging his grasp. "You're all right now."
Mr. Wriford made one or two attempts at speech. "I don't—I don't think I—I don't think—"
He checked himself each time. His voice sounded so weak and strange that he thought each time to better it. He was not successful; and he let it go as it would with: "I don't think I ought to be here."
The women smiled at that, and the man said: "Well, I don't know where else you should be, I'm sure. You're very comfortable here."
"You're just in the middle of a nice sleep, you know," said one of the women, bending over the bed-rail towards him. "I think I should just finish it if I were you."
The other one said: "Would you like to hold my hand again?"
"There's an offer for you," said the man. "I'm sure I would."
There was a sound of quiet laughter, and the woman who had last spoken came to a chair by Mr. Wriford's side and sat down and took his hand. He somehow felt that that was what he had wanted, and he closed his eyes.
Thereafter he often—for moments as brief as this first meeting—saw the three again; and learnt to smile when he saw them, responsive to the smiles they always had for him, and became accustomed to their names of "Doctor" and "Sister" and "Nurse." It was "Nurse" who sat beside him and held his hand. When he awoke—or whatever these brief glimpses of these kind strangers were—he always awoke with that same startled clutching as when he had first seen them. If it was only the warm folding stuff that his hands felt he would cling on a moment, vacantly terrified. When Nurse's hand was there he felt all right at once and learnt to smile a kind of apology.
Once—or one day, he had no consciousness of time—when he thus clutched and felt her hand and smiled, she said: "You shouldn't start like that. You needn't now, you know."
"I don't know why I do," he told her.
She said: "I expect you're thinking of—"
But Mr. Wriford wasn't thinking at all. He was only rather vacantly puzzled when he saw his three kind friends. Beyond that his mind held neither thoughts nor dreams.
Thought came suddenly in a very roundabout way. Nurse had a very childish face. Her skin was very pink and white, and her eyes very blue, and there was something very childish, almost babyish, about her soft brows and about her rosy mouth. Her face began to have a place with Mr. Wriford, not only when he looked at it, but when he was sleeping. When he was sleeping, though, it had a different body, a different dress. It thus, in that different guise, was with him when one day he awoke and saw her bending close over him, smiling at him. He said at once, the word coming to him without any searching for it, without conscious intention of pronouncing it: "Brida!"
She said "What?" Now thoughts were visibly struggling in his eyes. Nurse could see them changing all the aspect of his face, as though his eyes were a pool up into which, stirred by that word, thoughts came streaming as stilly depths are stirred from their clearness by some fish that darts along their floor and upward clouds their bed. She turned her head and whispered sharply: "Sister!" then back to him and asked him: "What a pretty name! Brida, did you say?"
His mind was rushed long past the word that had awakened it. First, with that awakening, had come the moment when first he had spoken it—"I'm going to call you Brida!" St. James's Park; dusk falling; the rustle of October leaves about their feet; her flower face redly suffused.... More than that called him. More! In this sudden tumult of his brain, these beating pulses, all these noises, more, more than these demanded recognition; fiercely some clamour called him on to emotions that wrapped up these, submerged, enveloped them. There had been one in these emotions that claimed him more than she; there had been fears, pains, perils in them—ah, here with a sudden, overwhelming rush they came! "Wedge in, boy! Wedge in!" He that had called those words was swinging on his hands—hands that had held him!—was swinging on his hands above the swirling water—was down, was gone!
Mr. Wriford screamed out shockingly: "You couldn't swim! You couldn't swim!"
Sister was saying: "There, there! Don't, don't! You're all right now! You're all right now! Look, Nurse will hold your hand."
He stared at her. He said brokenly: "Let me alone! Let me alone!"
"Shan't Nurse hold your hand?"
"Please let me alone."
He only wanted to be alone—alone with his thoughts that now were full and clear returned to him—alone with that grotesque figure with that grotesque name who had come to him through the water and for him had gone into the water—and could not swim, could not swim!
He slept and awoke now and lay awake in normal periods. He smiled at Nurse and Sister and Doctor but did not talk. He only wanted to be alone. He would lie through the day for hours together with wide, staring eyes, submitting passively when some one came to attend him or to feed him, but never speaking. He only wanted to be alone.
Strangers came sometimes—ladies with flowers, mostly. He came to recognize them. They smiled at him, and he smiled responsively at them. But never spoke. He only wanted to be alone. When they were quite strangers—visitors he had not seen before—he always heard Sister bringing them with the same words: "This is our very interesting patient. Yes, this is the private ward. It is rather nice, isn't it? Our interesting patient. Poor fellow, he—" and then whispering, and then Sister at the foot of the bed with some one who smiled and nodded and said: "Good morning. I hope you are better."
He never turned his head as the voices announced approach from somewhere on his left. He never gave direct thought either to Sister's familiar words that brought them or to the whispering that followed. Voices and persons passed as it were at a very, very long distance before him. He only wanted to be alone; to lie there; to think, to think.
A morning notable in its early hours for much uncommon bustle on the part of Sister and Nurse aroused him at last to consciousness that something was expected of him and that he must give attention to where he was and what was going on about him. Sister and Nurse, who always wore their cheerful blue cotton dresses until the afternoon, appeared this morning in their serge gowns. Doctor, who was generally in a tweed suit with cyclist trouser clips at his ankles, came in a frock-coat and wriggling his hands with the action of a man unaccustomed to having stiff cuffs about his wrists. The blue quilt was exchanged for a white one with roses down the centre associated with the days when a harmonium was played somewhere in the building and when the sound of hymns floated across Mr. Wriford's thoughts.
"Visiting Committee Day to-day," Sister told Mr. Wriford, "and Doctor's going to have a talk with you when he comes. I should try and talk, you know. Isn't there a lot you want to hear about?"
This was a question Sister often asked him, but to which he never responded with more than: "I'd just like to be alone, Sister." To-day the unusual bustle and stir had already shaken the steady vigil of his thoughts, and he said: "Yes—yes, thank you, I think I would."
Then Doctor in the frock-coat and with the wriggling hands—
"Well, we'll just have a talk," said Doctor, speaking to Sister but looking at Mr. Wriford, after the usual examination and questions. And when Sister had left them he sat on the side of the bed and began. "You've had a rough passage, you know," said Doctor. "But you're going on fine now. I've just let you be, but I think you ought to begin to talk a bit now. You're feeling pretty fit?"
"I'm very strong really," said Mr. Wriford. "I'm weak now, but I'm very strong really. I feel all right. I'm sorry I've not said much. I've been thinking."
"That's all right," said Doctor. "You've been mending, too, while you've been quiet. Do you remember everything?"
"Yes, I remember."
"Remember the coastguards finding you?"
"No, I don't remember that."
Doctor laughed. "I expect you're further behind-hand than you think, then. How long do you think you've been here?—nearly two months!"
Mr. Wriford said without emotion: "Two months. Will you tell me the date, please?"
"December—nearly Christmas. It's Christmas next week. Now look here, what about your friends? We must send them a happy Christmas from you, what?"
"I've no friends," said Mr. Wriford.
"No friends! None at all? Come, you must have, you know."
"I've not," said Mr. Wriford. "Look here, as soon as I'm well, I'll go away. That's all I want."
Doctor looked puzzled. "Got a name, I suppose?"
"Wriford."
"Wriford—that's funny. I've just finished reading again—you're no relation to the author, I suppose? Philip Wriford?"
Mr. Wriford smiled and shook his head.
"Jove, he can write!" said Doctor with inconsequent enthusiasm. "Read any of—? You're an educated man, aren't you?"
"I'm a working man," said Mr. Wriford. "No, I don't read much."
Doctor seemed to be thinking for a moment more of the Wriford who wrote than of the Wriford who lay here. Recollecting himself he went on: "How did you get there—where the coastguards found you?"
"I was tramping—looking for work. I got cut off. Will you tell me, please? Where is this place?"
Doctor told him. This was Port Rannock—the cottage hospital. The coastguards had found him wedged up on the cliff and brought him in. Touch and go for a very long time while he lay unconscious—unconscious nearly a month. They had mended his legs—one broken, the knee of the other sprained—fever—"all sorts of things," said Doctor, smiling. "But we've fixed you up now," he ended. "You're on the road now all right," and he went on to explain the real business of this talk and of the Visiting Committee's intentions when they came. Mr. Wriford was to be moved. "Only a Cottage Hospital, you see," and the bed was wanted. There had been a landslip where some local men were working—five cases—the main ward simply crowded out. Mr. Wriford must go to the town infirmary over at Pendra—unless—
"Sure you haven't any friends?" said Doctor, looking at Mr. Wriford closely. "Quite sure? Committee here? All right, Sister, I'm coming. Quite sure?"
Mr. Wriford said: "Quite. I had one. He was with me. He was drowned. Did they find—?"
"Why, the coastguards who found you found a body on the shore the same day. Was that your friend? A big man—stout?"
"That was my friend," said Mr. Wriford; and asked: "Is he buried here?"
"In the churchyard. We knew nothing who he was, of course. There's just a wooden cross. You'd like to see it when you're better. They've kept his things, or at least a list of them. You could identify by them. Had he any friends?"
"Only me. I think only me. We met on the road."
"Poor chap," said Doctor. "Washed off, I suppose?"
"No, he jumped off. He couldn't swim."
Doctor, who was going obedient to Sister's call, turned and exclaimed: "Jumped off? Why?"
But Mr. Wriford was lying back as he had lain these many days, thinking.
Visiting Committee. Visiting Committee tramped and shuffled into the room and grouped about his bed and stared at him—one clergyman addressed as Vicar, one very red gentleman addressed as Major, two other men and two ladies; all rather fat and not very smartly groomed as though one rather ran to seed at Port Rannock and didn't bother much about brushing one's coat-collar or pressing one's trousers or—for the ladies—keeping abreast of the fashions. All meaning to be kind, but all, after a while, rather inclined to be huffy with this patient whose story Doctor had reported, whom Doctor considered fit to be moved, but who displayed no gratitude for all that had been done for him, nor any sort of emotion when told that he would be sent to Pendra Infirmary at the end of the week.
Visiting Committee opened with a cheery joke on the part of Major at which everybody smiled towards the patient, but to which the patient made no sort of response. Visiting Committee in the persons of Major and Vicar fired a few questions based upon Doctor's information, at first kindly and then rather abrupt. Patient just lay with wide eyes that never turned towards the speaker and either answered: "Yes, thank you," or "No, thank you," or did not answer at all. Visiting Committee thought patient ungracious and said so to itself as it moved away.
"You ought to have spoken to them," said Nurse a little reproachfully, coming to him afterwards. "You ought just to have said a little, Wriford—that's your name, isn't it? I think they'd have let you stay over Christmas if you had. Wouldn't you have liked to stay with us for Christmas?"
"I just want to be alone," said Mr. Wriford.
"I told him," said Nurse, reporting this conversation to Sister later in the day, "I told him that of course he'd had a terrible time, but that he ought really to try not to think so much about himself. You know, when I said that he turned his head right round to me, a thing he never does, and stared at me in the oddest way."
If that was so it remained the only thing that aroused him all the time he was at the Cottage Hospital. Even when the ambulance came over from Pendra Infirmary, and Nurse and Sister tucked him up in it and commended him to the care of the Infirmary nurse who came in the carriage, even then, beyond thanking them quietly, he neither turned his head for a last look nor seemed in any degree distracted from his steady thoughts. He just lay as before, gazing straight before him and thinking, and continued so to lie and think when they got him to bed in the large convalescent ward at the Infirmary.
"Matey," said a husky voice from the bed beside him, "Matey, I've got me portograph in the Daily Mirror paper. I'm the oldest sea-captain living, and I've got all me faculties except only me left eye. Can't you move, Matey? I've got me portograph in the Daily Mirror paper. I'll show you, Matey."
A sharp call down the ward. "Father! Get back into bed this minute, Father! I never did! What are you thinking about? Get back this minute, Father!"
The oldest sea-captain living objected querulously:
"I've got me portograph in the Daily Mirror paper."
"Yes, and I'll take it away from you if you don't lie still."
"Matey," said the oldest sea-captain living, "Matey, I've got me portograph in the Daily Mirror paper."
He lay gazing before him, just thinking, thinking.
These occupied Mr. Wriford's thoughts. First of that sacrifice made for him when, without hint of it, without so much as good-bye, Mr. Puddlebox had swung off his hands from the ledge and gone down into the sea. Why made for him? How?
Doctor had asked it over at the Cottage Hospital:
"Jumped off? Why?"
Ah, why? Search it through the long days, ask it of the night. Follow, ah, follow it in dreaming; awake to question it anew! Sacrifice made for him! What must have been suffered in the determination to make it? What in its dreadful act? And why, why? Well, if no answer to that, set it aside—set Why aside and seek to find How? How done? Its courage wherein found, where?
Why? How? How? Why? Ah, questions unanswerable; ah, solutions never to be found! Doctor's questions over at the Cottage Hospital; wholly and sanely Mr. Wriford's questions, there as he lay gazing before him in the little room at Port Rannock, here as he lay in the convalescent ward at Pendra Infirmary. Why? How? How? Why? Wholly and sanely his by day and day succeeding day, by night and night succeeding night. Wholly and sanely his—coldly his.
Coldly: in time, and in the ceaseless effort to answer them as strength returned and as he was encouraged to get up and walk the ward, he found himself thinking, nay, forced himself to think, of Mr. Puddlebox without emotion: without emotion watching that very scene upon the ledge, that drop into the water, that lumped-up body bobbing round the cliff. For him! Was he worth it? No, not worthy it in any degree. Had he done anything to deserve it? He had done nothing. Narrowly, coldly, he searched every moment of his days in Mr. Puddlebox's company. There was not one revealed a single action, even a single thought, that might give claim to such a sacrifice. Far from it! Consciously and actively and intentionally he had lived in all that period for himself alone. Till then he had devoted all his life to others. Through all the time thereafter it had been his aim to live for himself—to care for no one's feelings, himself to have no feelings: simply to do things, simply to inflict upon his body whatsoever recklessness his mind conceived: through his body experience it, in his mind never to be touched by it. Whatever suffering it had caused him, gleefully he had relished. But Mr. Puddlebox also it had caused suffering and discomfort, and Mr. Puddlebox had not relished it at all: very much the reverse. What claim then had he on Mr. Puddlebox's affections?
Affections! What had affections to do with such a case? Admit affections—God alone knew why, but admit that the companionship of their many days together, their many adventures, experiences, had aroused common affection in Mr. Puddlebox. Admit that you scarcely could live with a man day by day, night by night, hour by hour, without of two results one: hating him and leaving him, or becoming accustomed to him and accepting him. That might arouse affections, just as affections might be aroused by any inanimate thing always carried: a stick, a penknife, a comfortable old coat. Admit affections then: what had affection to do with accepting that dreadful death—or any death? That was more than affection. That was as much more than affection as a mountain a hill, an ocean a stream. That was love: nay, that was love's very apotheosis. Ridiculous, outrageous to imagine for himself in Mr. Puddlebox any love: how much more preposterous love in that degree! Preposterous, ridiculous—then why? Leave it—ah, leave it, leave it, and come to How. Think of it coldly. Divorce emotion from its searching and coldly examine How. How had Mr. Puddlebox gone to such a death? What found within himself, what quality possessed, to swing him off his hands and go, and drown, and die? Courage? Be cold, be cruel, be sane! Courage? Puddlebox had no courage. Carelessness of life? He was very fond of life. Look at the man! Remember him, not as he died, but in his grotesque personality as he lived. Consider his idle, slothful habit of mind and of body. Recall his dislike of work, of any hardship. Look at his ideal of comfort—to shuffle about the countryside doing nothing; to have food to eat; to get comfortably drunk. How in such character the courage to die so suddenly, so horribly? How? Lo, How was more impossible than Why. Nay, How was Why. What but supremest love could have invested him with strength to go to such a death? What but divinest love to conceive of such a sacrifice? And love was out of consideration. Useless to try to delude these questions with: "He must have loved me." Clear that he could not have. Then why? Then done by possession of what attribute? Was there some quality in life unknown to Mr. Wriford?
Ah, was there? That same question, a barrier insurmountable, a void dark, boundless, unfathomable, similar to that which ended his questioning of Mr. Puddlebox's sacrifice, ended also his searching along another train of thought which, as he grew stronger, more and more closely occupied him—inquiry relative to his own condition. He had had a shot at life. He had cast aside every bond, every scruple, every fear, every habit, which formerly—as he had thought—had tied him up in misery. That phase was over. It attracted no more. He had longed to do it; he had done it. What profit? He was very weak. He found that there had passed out of him with the vigour of his body the violent desire to make his body do and feel and suffer. Vigour would return. He would grow stronger. Daily already he was regaining strength. But that desire never would return. It had been exorcised. It had been fulfilled. When he was in London, when he was in all the tumult of that London life, he had thought—God! if only he could break away from it all! break away and rest his mind and bring the labour of living from his head to his hands, from his brain to his body! He had imagined his hands hard, his body sweating, his mind free, and he had thought: "God, God, there, there, could I but get at it, lies, not the labour of living, but the joy of living!" Well, he had got at it. He had done it. Horny and hard he had made his hands; sore and asweat he had wearied his body. What profit? He had wanted to do things—things arduous, reckless, violent. He had done them. What benefit? He had wanted to care for nobody and nothing, to mind nobody's feelings, to have none himself. He had done it. He had wantonly insulted, he had wilfully outraged; he had mastered fear, he had stifled moral consciousness. What virtue? Look back upon it! That which he had desired to do he had done. He had seized the course where labour of living should be made joy of living. He had run it to the uttermost. Mad dog—he had lived, as he had wished to live, a mad dog life, impervious to all sensation, moral or physical. No qualm, no scruple, no thought, no fear had checked him. He had drunk of it full and drunk of it deep. What profit? Soul, soul, look back with me and see where we have come! In the old life never free. In the new life utterly free. In the old responsible. Utterly irresponsible in the new. In the old tied up—tied up, that had been his cry. In the new released. What profit? In the old assured that happiness lay in the new. Now the new tried, and happiness still to seek—nay, happiness more lost, more deeply hidden than ever before. Then it had seemed to lie in freedom; now freedom had been searched and it was not. Where then? Was there some secret of happiness that he had missed?
Suppose he were strong again. Imagine the few weeks passed that would return him his strength and let him leave this place. Would he go back to the wild things, the reckless things, the schooling of his body by exposure to pain, to hunger, to fatigue? No, for it had been tried. No, for he had tasted it and was nothing attracted to taste of it again. Was he afraid of its hurts? No, impervious to them, minding them not at all. But he had exulted in them, he had been exalted by them. He had believed they were leading somewhere. Ah, here he was looking back upon them, and he knew that they led nowhere. He had come through them, and he found himself come through empty. They might fall about him again when he was strong and went out to them—they might fall about him, but they would arouse nothing in him. He might once again challenge them and cause them furiously to assail him. He would know while he did so and while they scourged him that they were barren of virtue, empty, dry as ashes, profitless, containing nothing, concealing nothing.
Where stood he? Where? Look, in the old days he had been slave of his mind, hounded by his brain. He had cast that away. He had escaped from it. Look, in the new he had turned for joy of living to his body and had mastered his body and all his fears and all his thoughts. He had lived through two lives—life that was not his own but given to others; life that was all his own and to none but himself belonged. Fruitless both. Was there some secret of happiness that he had missed?
Ah, was there? This, as the new year broke its bonds, displaced all other thoughts, became Mr. Wriford's sole obsession. Was there something in life that he had missed? He was able now to take exercise daily in the Infirmary grounds. He would go on these occasions to its furthest recesses. His desire was to escape the other inmates of the convalescent ward; to be alone; to get away where in solitude he could pursue the question that ceaselessly he revolved: Was there some secret of happiness that he had missed? He brought, he could bring, no train of sequent reasoning to its investigation. He merely brooded upon it. He merely reviewed life as he had known it, saw how it had crumbled at every step, and how it crumbled anew at every re-examination of it, and wondered vaguely was there some quality might have been brought into it to cement it into a stable bridge that would have borne him cheerily upraised upon it, something that might yet be found—something that he had missed? And often, as his review carried him searching along the period of Mr. Puddlebox, wondered vaguely whether the final question of that sacrifice was related to this final question of himself. Had Mr. Puddlebox some quality unknown to him? Was there something in life that he himself had missed? Were the two questions one question? Was there one answer that should supply both answers?
Daily, walking in the grounds or watching from the windows, he watched the new year struggling from her bonds. He came to greet her in all her different moods as a sentient creature—to envisage her as one in like situation to his own. She was struggling for freedom—nay, not for freedom, but for her own possession. The old year had her. In winter's guise he held her. Sometimes she escaped him, sometimes she was laughing all about and everywhere, a young thing, a wild thing, a timid thing. For three days together she would so reign, smiling, fluttering, free. Then winter snatched her back, overlaid her, jealously crushed her in his iron bonds. Sometimes she wept. Sometimes here and there she ran and laid her pretty trinkets on branch and bough and hedge. Winter would out and catch her, drag her away, despoil all her little traces. Sometimes she fought him. Sometimes as she smiled, as she danced, as she bedecked herself, winter would come shouting, blustering, threatening. A bonny sight to see her hold her own! Bolder she grew, weaker he. He had his moments. She sulked, she cried, she pouted, then laughingly she tricked him. Here he would catch her. Look, there she was away! Here tear up her handiwork: look, there her fingers ran! His legions sank exhausted: she laughed and called her own. Warmly, timidly, fragrantly her breezes moved about her; greenly, freshly, radiantly she smiled to their caress. They piped, she danced. She was out, she was free. She was high upon the hillside, she was deep within the valley, she was painting in the hedgerows, she was piping in the trees.
Where aimed she? Ah, this was but the budding! Soon, soon, supreme, content, mistress of all and of herself she'd reign through starry nights, through steadfast, silent days. Peace she pursued, serenity, content. Peace she would win. Mr. Wriford turned from her when thus far his thoughts had followed her. Daily before him, petulant she struggled. He had struggled. Soon she'd be free. He had been free. Then pressed she on to happiness. He?
Was there some secret of happiness he had missed?
Stronger now. He was left very much alone by the other inmates of the convalescent ward, and that was what he wished. Strange folk themselves, some with odd ways, some with ugly, they accepted strangeness in others as a proper qualification for those greater comforts which made this department of the workhouse a place highly desirable. The one common sympathy among them was to present their several ailments as obstinately and as alarmingly as possible, and they respected the endeavour in one another. Except when order of dismissal and return to the workhouse came among them. The victim upon whom the blow fell would then most shamelessly round upon his mates in a manner that filled the ward with indignant alarm and protestation.
"Me quite strong!" the unhappy victim would cry. "What about old George there? He's stronger than me. What about old Tom? What about Mr. Harris? What about Captain Peter? Shamming! They're all shamming! Ask old George what he told me yesterday. Never felt better in his life, he told me. Ask old Tom. Can't get enough to eat 'e's that 'arty, he says. Me! It's a public scandal. It's a public scandal this ward is. Taking out a dying man, that's what you're doing, and leaving a pack of shammers! Look at Mr. Graggs there! Look at him. Ever see a sick man look like that? Public scandal! Public—"
Outraged victim led protesting away. Horrified convalescents dividing their energies between smiling wanly, as though at the point of death and therefore charitable to victim's ravings, and protesting volubly at his infamous aspersions.
Mr. Wriford, only wishing to be left alone, escaped these bitter attacks from injured victims just as for a long time he escaped from matron and doctors the form of attention which aroused alarm in the ward. He mixed with his fellow-convalescents not at all, and this aloofness, in a community where garrulity on the subject of aches and pains and bad weather and discontent with food was the established order, earned him in full the solitude which alone he desired. Its interruption was most endangered in those hours of wet days, and in the evenings, when, out of bed and dressed, the convalescents were cooped up within the ward. At the least there was always then the risk of being caught by the oldest sea-captain living with his ceaseless: "Matey! Matey, I've got me portograph in the Daily Mirror paper!" and sometimes the descent upon him of some other infirm old gentleman who, worsted and enraged in some battle of ailments with cronies, would espy Mr. Wriford seated remote and alone and bear down upon him with his cargo of ills.
To escape these attentions Mr. Wriford learnt to simulate absorption in one of the out-of-date illustrated weekly papers with which for its intellectual benefit the ward was supplied. No thought that these papers were once a part of his daily life, himself a very active factor in theirs, ever stirred him as he turned the pages or gazed with unseeing eyes upon them. His fingers turned the pages: his mind, in search of Was there some secret of happiness he had missed? revolved the leaves of retrospection that might disclose it—but never did. His head would bend intensely above a picture or a column of letterpress: his eyes, not what was printed saw, but saw himself as he had been, somehow missing—what?
Seclusion by this means for his searching after his problem brought him one day to an occurrence that did actually concentrate his attention on the printed page before his eyes—a page of illustrated matter that concerned himself. A new batch of weekly periodicals had been placed in the ward—dated some two months back. He took one from the batch, opened it at random, and seated himself, with eyes fixed listlessly upon it, as far as might be from the gossiping groups gathered about the fires at each end of the ward. Absorbed more deeply than usual in his thoughts, he carelessly allowed it to be apparent that the journal was not holding his attention. It lay upon his knee. His eyes wandered from its direction.
"Matey," said the oldest sea-captain living, suddenly springing upon him, "Matey, I got me portograph in the Daily Mirror paper. You ain't never 'ad a fair look at it, Matey."
"Not now," said Mr. Wriford. "I'm reading."
He took up the paper that had rested on his knees; but the oldest sea-captain living placed upon it his cherished cutting from the Daily Mirror paper. "Well, read that, Matey," said the oldest sea-captain living. "That's better than any bit you've got there. Look, Matey. Look what it says." He indicated with a trembling finger the smudged and thumbed lettering beneath the smudged picture and read aloud: "'One of the most remarkable men to be found in our workusses—those re—those rep—those reposetteries of strange 'uman flotsam—-is Cap'n Henery Peters, the oldest sea-captain living.' That's me, Matey. See my face? 'Cap'n Henery—'"
"Yes," said Mr. Wriford. "Yes. That's fine," and took up the cutting and handed it back.
"You ain't finished reading of it," protested the oldest sea-captain living.
"I have. I read quicker than you. I'll read it again in a minute. I just want to finish this. I'm in the middle of it."
The oldest sea-captain living protested anew. "You wasn't reading when I come up to you. I saw you wasn't."
"I was thinking. I'd just stopped to think."
It was an unfortunate excuse, arousing a fellow sympathy in the oldest sea-captain living. "Why, they do make you think, some of the words they writes, don't they?" said he. "Look at my bit—re—rep—reposetteries—there's one for yer. What's a re—rep—reposettery?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I don't neither, Matey," said the oldest sea-captain living, "an' I don't suppose that young chap as wrote it did." He pointed to the page upon which Mr. Wriford seemed to be engaged. "It's a cracker, Matey. You got some crackers there too by the look of it." He put his finger on a word of title lettering that ran in bold type across the top. "W-r-i-f-o-r-d," he spelt. "That's a crackjaw name for yer. What's it spell, Matey?"
But Mr. Wriford, attracted by the crackjaw name thus indicated, was now giving a real attention to the paper. The oldest sea-captain living concentrated upon his own beloved features in the Daily Mirror paper, and, engrossed upon them, drifted away.
Mr. Wriford read the headline, boldly printed:
"THE WRIFORD BOOM: ANOTHER BRILLIANT NOVEL."
It was a review—a remarkable eulogy—of the novel he had finished and deposited with his agent shortly before that sudden impulse on the Thames embankment. It was embellished with photographs of himself, with reproductions of the covers of his two earlier novels, with inscriptions announcing the prodigious number of editions into which they seemed to have gone, and with extracts of "exquisite" or "thought-provoking" or "witty" passages set in frames. Beneath that flaming "The Wriford Boom: Another Brilliant Novel" was a long sub-title in small black type epitomizing all that lay beneath it. Mr. Wriford read it curiously. In part it dealt with what was described in inverted commas as his "disappearance." Evidently much on that head was general knowledge. The writer scamped details leading up to his main point, the Wriford Boom and the contribution thereto of a brilliant new novel, with many a plausible "Of course." The mystery of the disappearance which was "of course" no longer a mystery; Mr. Wriford had "of course" been seen by a friend leaving Charing Cross by the Continental train a few days after his disappearance; later he had "of course" been seen in Paris, and he was now "of course" living somewhere on the Continent in complete seclusion. The writer contrasted this modest escape from lionisation with the conduct of other authors who "of course" need not be named, and proceeded to tremendous figures of book-sales, and of advance orders for the present volume, making his point finally with "A boom which, if started by the sensational 'disappearance,' has served to make almost every section of the general public share in the rare literary quality enjoyed by—comparatively speaking—the few who recognized Mr. Wriford's genius at the outset."
Mr. Wriford read it all curiously, with a sense of complete detachment. He looked at the photographs of himself, recalling the circumstances in which each had been taken and feeling himself somehow as unrecognisably different from them as the convalescent ward was different from the surroundings shown by the camera. He read the review of the new book, especially the passages quoted from it, recalling the thoughts with which each had been written and feeling them somehow to have belonged, not to himself, but to some other person who had communicated them to him and now had committed them to print. He reckoned idly and roughly the royalties that were represented by the prodigious figures of sales, and realised that a very great deal of money must be awaiting him in his agent's hands. But the thought of the money—the positive wealth to which it amounted—stirred him no more than the glowing terms of his appreciation in critical and popular opinion. It aroused only this thought: the memory that, in the days represented by those photographs, money then also had given him no smallest satisfaction. He had had no use for it. He had had no time to use it. So with success—no interest in it, no time to enjoy it; always driven, always driving to do something else, to catch up. Curious to think that once he would have sparkled over it, rejoiced in the money, thrilled in the triumph. Young Wriford would have—Young Wriford, that personality now immeasurably remote, whom once he had been. Why would Young Wriford have delighted? Ah, Young Wriford was happy. Why? What knew he, what possessed he, in those far distant years, that somehow had been lost, that he had thought, by breaking away and not caring for anything or anybody, to recover, that, now the experiment was over, showed itself more deeply lost than ever before? Where and how had that attribute of happiness—whatever it was—been dropped? ...
Lo, he was back again where the oldest sea-captain living had found him and had interrupted him, the paper fallen on his knees, his eyes gazing blankly before him: was there some secret of happiness he had missed?
As he mused he was again disturbed—this time by the Matron. It was a Board day, she told him, and he was to go before the guardians at once. The guardians were sitting late and had reached his case; ordinarily it would not have come up till next fortnight; after receiving the Medical Officer's report they attended personally to all convalescent ward cases.
The Matron gave Mr. Wriford this information as she conducted him to the Board-room door. "It'll be good-bye," she said, smiling at him kindly as she left him—he was different from the generality of her patients. "It'll be good-bye. You're passed out of the C. W."
Guardians sat at a long, green-covered table. Large plates of sandwiches and large cups of coffee were supporting them against the strain of their labours in sitting late, and they regarded Mr. Wriford with eyes that stared from above busily engaged mouths. A different class of men from the members of the Cottage Hospital Committee and, like the Matron, accustomed to a class of pauper different from Mr. Wriford.
His difference was advertised in his youth—a quality very much abhorred by the honest guardians as speaking to shocking idleness—and in the refinement of his voice and speech—a peculiarity that lent itself to banter and was used for such.
One addressed as Mr. Chairman first spoke him.
"Well, you've had a good fat thing out of us," said Mr. Chairman, himself presenting the appearance of having made a moderately fat thing out of his duties, and speaking with one half of a large sandwich in his hand and the other half in his mouth. "Best part of three months' board and lodging in slap-up style. Number One. Diet and luxuries ad lib. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to pay for it?"
This was obviously a very humourous remark to make to a pauper, and it received at once the gratifying tribute of large sandwichy grins and chuckles all round the table.
"I call upon Mr. Chairman," said one grin, "to tell this gentleman exactly what he has cost the parish in pounds, shillings and pence sterling."
This, by its reception, was equally humourous, one Guardian being so overcome by the wit of "gentleman" and "sterling" as to choke over his coffee and rise and expectorate in the fire.
"Sixteen, fourteen, six," said Mr. Chairman, "and as a point of order I call Mr. Master's attention to the fact that another time a spittoon had better be provided for the gentleman as has just needed the use of one."
The Workhouse Master who stood beside Mr. Chairman having contributed obsequiously to the merriment and banter aroused by this sparkle of humour, Mr. Chairman loudly called the meeting to order and again taxed Mr. Wriford with his debt to the parish.
"Sixteen, fourteen, six," said Mr. Chairman. "Can you pay it? I lay you've never earned so much money in all your life, so now then?"
In the days of wild escapade with Mr. Puddlebox, Mr. Wriford's thoughts—all in some form of passion—worked very rapidly. Now, as though they had learnt their gait from his slow revolving of his ceaseless question, they worked very slowly; and when he spoke he spoke very slowly. His mind went slowly to the account he had been reading of himself in the illustrated paper. He thought of the large sum that awaited him in his agent's hands, and he thought, with an impulse of the furious Puddlebox days, of the glorious sensation he would arouse by bellowing at these uncouth creatures: "Earned so much! Well, I daresay I could buy up the lot of you, you ugly-looking lot of pigs, and have as much over again!" But he allowed the impulse to drift away. He had done that sort of thing: to what profit? He might do it. He might follow it up by stampeding about the room, hurling sandwiches at Guardians and shouting with laughter at the amazement and confusion while he did as much damage as he could before he was overpowered. What profit? The excitement would pass and be over. It would lead to nothing that would satisfy him. It would bring him nowhere that would rest him. He had done that sort of thing. It attracted him no more. Should he answer them seriously—explain who he was, request that a telegram should be sent to his agent, go back to his old life, take up the success that awaited him? What profit? That, too, he had tried. That, too, would lead him nowhere, bring him no nearer to his only desire. He imagined himself back in London, back in his own place once more, enjoying the comforts he had earned, travelling, amusing himself, settling to work again. What profit? Enjoyment! Amusement! He would find none. They and all that they meant lay hidden beneath some secret of life that must be found ere ever he could touch them—something for which always and always he would be searching, something he had missed. He had tried it. It had no attraction for him: rather it had a thousand explanations, worries, demands, at whose very thought he shuddered. Let him drift. Let him go wheresoever any chance tide might take him. Let him be alone to think, to think, and haply to discover.
"Well?" said Mr. Chairman.
"If you think I'm fit to go, I'll go at once," said Mr. Wriford. "I'm very grateful for all that has been done for me."
Mr. Chairman reckoned that he ought to be. "Where'll you go?" demanded Mr. Chairman.
"Anywhere."
"What'll you do?"
"I don't know."
Mr. Chairman thumped the table in expression of one of the many trials that Guardians had to bear. "What's the sense o' that talk?" demanded Mr. Chairman. "Anywhere! Don't know! That's the way with all you chaps. Get outside and pretend you're starving and pitch a fine tale about being turned out and get rate-payers jawing or magistrates preachin' us a lecture. We've been there before, my beauty."
Chorus of endorsement from fellow-Guardians who growl angrily at Mr. Wriford as though they had indeed been there before and saw in Mr. Wriford the visible embodiment of their misfortune.
"Well, what?" said Mr. Wriford helplessly.
Mr. Chairman with another thump, and as though he had never asked a question throughout the proceedings, announced that that was for him to say. Mr. Master would find a bed for him and let him take jolly good care that he earned it."
"I'll be very glad to work," said Mr. Wriford.
Mr. Chairman looked at him contemptuously. "Plucky lot you can do, I expect!" said Mr. Chairman.
"I can do clerical work," said Mr. Wriford. "Anything in the way of writing or figures. I'm accustomed to that. If there's anything like that until I'm fit to go—" A sudden faintness overcame him. The room was very hot, and the standing and the questioning, while all the time he was thinking of something else, possessed him, in his weak state, with a sudden giddiness. He smiled weakly and said "I'm sorry" and sat down abruptly on a chair that fortunately was close to him.
Mr. Master bent over Mr. Chairman and whispered obsequiously on a subject in which the words "our clurk" were frequently to be heard. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Chairman, "Mr. Master suggests that we might leave over the business of appointing a boy-clurk till our next meeting, while he sees if this man can give him any help. I want to get home to my supper, and I expect you do. Agreed, gentlemen?"
"Agreed," chorused the gentlemen, throwing down pens and taking up new sandwiches with the air of men who had performed enormous labours and were virtuously happy to be rid of them.
Mr. Chairman nodded at Mr. Master. "Keep his nose to it," said Mr. Chairman.
"This way," said Mr. Master to Mr. Wriford; and Mr. Wriford got slowly to his feet and followed him slowly through a door he held ajar.
Stronger now. Increasingly stronger as day succeeded day and the year came more strongly into her own. Only waiting a little more strength, so he believed, to betake himself from Pendra Workhouse and go—anywhere. Actually, as the event that did at last prompt him to go might have told him, it was a reason, a shaking-up, a stirring of his normal round, rather than sufficient strength that he awaited. In a numbed and listless and detached way he was not uncomfortable in the new circumstances to which he was introduced after the Board-room interview. The Master, removed from the obsequious habit that he wore when before the Guardians, showed himself not unkindly. He conceived rather a liking for Mr. Wriford. Mr. Wriford performed for him the duties of boy-"clurk" in a manner that was of the greatest assistance to him. He reported very favourably on the matter to the Guardians; and when Mr. Wriford spoke of taking his discharge put forward a proposition to which the Guardians found it convenient to consent. Why lose this inmate of such valuable clurkly accomplishments? Why not offer him his railway fare home, wherever in reason that might be, if he stayed, say a month, and continued to assist the Master? At the end of that time he might be offered a very few shillings a week to continue further—if wanted. Mr. Master carried the proposition to Mr. Wriford. Mr. Wriford in a numbed, listless and detached way said: "All right, yes." He was taken from the workhouse ward where till then he had slept and accommodated in a tiny box-room in the Master's quarters. His nose was kept at it, as Mr. Master had been desired. His duties were capable of extension in many directions. That he fulfilled them in a numbed, listless, and detached fashion was none to the worse in that he accepted them without complaint whatever they might be. "I call him: 'All right, yes,'" Mr. Master obsequiously told the Guardians. "That's about all ever he says. But he does it a heap. Look at the way the stores are entered up. I've had him checking them all this week."
The event that at last aroused Mr. Wriford and took him far from Pendra was supplied by the oldest sea-captain living on that distinguished personage's birthday. The oldest sea-captain living "went a bit in his legs" shortly after Mr. Wriford had entered upon the new phase of his duties. He was provided with a wheeled-chair, and Mr. Wriford found him seated in this in the grounds one day, abandoned by his cronies and weeping softly over his beloved portograph in the Daily Mirror paper. He wept, he told Mr. Wriford, because none of them blokes ever took any notice of him now. The finer weather kept the blokes largely out of doors, and they would go off and leave him. "I'm the oldest sea-captain living, Matey," said he in a culminating wail, "and I've got me portograph in the Daily Mirror paper. It's cruel on me. 'Ave a look at it, Matey."
Mr. Wriford pushed the wheeled-chair and the oldest sea-captain living about the grounds all that afternoon, and the task became thereafter a part of his daily occupation. It was not a duty. It merely became a habit. The face of the oldest sea-captain living would light up enormously when he saw Mr. Wriford approaching, and he would thank him affectionately when each voyage in the wheeled-chair was done, but Mr. Wriford was never actively conscious of finding pleasure in the old man's gratitude. He never conversed with him during their outings—and had no need to converse. The oldest sea-captain living did all the talking, chattering garrulously and with the wandering of a fading old mind of his ships, his voyages, and his adventures, and ecstatically happy so to chatter without response. He was born in Ipswich, he told Mr. Wriford, and he was married in Ipswich and had had a rare little house in Ipswich and had buried his wife in Ipswich. Whenever, in his chattering, he was not at sea he was at Ipswich, and the reiteration of the word gradually wormed a place into Mr. Wriford's mind, creeping in by persistent thrusts and digs through the web and mist of his own thoughts which, as he revolved them, enveloped him numbed, listless, detached from the oldest sea-captain living and his chattering as from all else that surrounded him in the workhouse.
Yet an event proved that not only the name Ipswich but some feeling for this its famous son, some sense of happiness in the hours devoted to the wheeled-chair, also had found place in his mind. A birthday of the oldest sea-captain living brought the event. In celebration of the occasion the oldest sea-captain living was permitted to give a little tea-party in the convalescent ward. Some dainties were provided and with them just the tiniest little drop of something in the oldest sea-captain's tea. Enormously exhilarated, the oldest sea-captain living obtained of the Matron permission to send a special request to Mr. Wriford to attend the festivities, and enormously exhilarated he showed himself when Mr. Wriford came. Flushed and excited he sat at the head of the table in full possession once more of the ear of his companions and making up for previous isolation by chattering tremendously of his exploits. Roused to immense heights by his sudden popularity and by virtue of the little drop of something in his tea, he gave at intervals, to the great delight of the assembly, an example of how he used to hail the maintop in foul weather when master of his own ship. With almost equal force of lungs he hailed Mr. Wriford when Mr. Wriford appeared.
"Hallo, Matey!" hailed the oldest sea-captain living. "Ahoy, Matey! Ahoy!"
No doubt about the affection and gratitude that Matey had aroused in him by perambulation of the wheeled-chair. Even Mr. Wriford himself was touched and aroused and caused to smile by the flushed and beaming countenance that called him to a seat beside him and by the pressure of the trembling hands that grasped his own and drew him to a chair. "Matey!" cried the oldest sea-captain living, "I'm ninety-nine, and I can hail the maintop fit to make the roof come down. Listen to me, Matey."
Gurgles of anticipation all round the table. "Now this is to be the last time, Father," said the Matron, coming to them. "There's too much noise here, and you'll do yourself an injury if you're not careful. The last time, now!"
It was the last time.
The oldest sea-captain living took an excited sip at his cup of tea with the little drop of something in it, then caught at Mr. Wriford's shoulder, and drew himself to his full height in his chair. His other hand he put trumpet shape to his lips.
"Maintop! ahoy, there!" trumpeted the oldest sea-captain living. He inspired a long, wheezing breath. Mr. Wriford could feel the hand clutching on his shoulder. "Ahoy! Maintop, ahoo! Ahoy! A—!"