XLV
Asthe bare-footed beggar passed away into the traffic, far from the circle of the curious, before they could impede him, he was able to discern that his thin hands had been lacerated by the reins during the struggle he had waged with the horse. The blood was flowing freely from his torn fingers, but at the sight of it a flush of gladness overspread his cheeks.
“I thank thee, Mighty One,” he said, “that thou hast given the strength to my right hand.”
It was with bruised and numbed feet that the returned wayfarer came at last to the threshold of the little room.
The aged man, his father, gave a cry of joy when he beheld the apparition that had entered, for, dim as his eyes were, he knew it for the form of one.
The old and the young man embraced one another.
“I have been desolate, Achilles,” said the old man with the plaintiveness of age; “I have been desolate. But I knew, O Achilles, that thou wouldst return.”
A brave fire was burning upon the hearth, the candles, also, were bright of lustre in the little room.
The young man stretched his wounded hands to the warmth, and then, with a kind of composed passion, he spread them out before his father.
“Dost thou see, my father?” he said. “Earth, my mother, has given the strength to my right hand. I think now, my father, I shall be among the English authors.”
As he spoke the secret and beautiful smile crept across his wan lips.
“Thou wilt write in the Book, O Achilles?” said the old man, pointing to the table where the mighty tome lay open.
“First, I must write my little treatise upon human life, my father,” said the returned wayfarer in the simple accents of his childhood. “And, perchance, my father, when that is written, if the strength is still given to my right hand, I may, or I may not, write in the Book.”
“I myself have not yet written in it, O Achilles,” said the aged man, his father, with a look of despair. “And I begin to fear that it may not be given to me to write therein. I am old, Achilles; I am old.”
The young man appeared hardly to heed the words of his aged father.
“I will eat,” he said, “and then until midnight is told upon the clocks I will repose, and then I will write my little treatise upon human life.”
Half-naked and unkempt and bare-footed as he was, the returned wayfarer ate and drank; and he then fell asleep in a chair at the side of the bright hearth with his feet stretched out before the embers.
While the returned wayfarer slept profoundly, the aged man, his father, heaped up the fire with coals. Then he went forth into the shop, and took from its recesses the materials for writing.
As the old man was conveying these articles, with every precaution that he might not disturb the sleeper, to the table of the little room, he heard a stealthy knocking, with which he had grown familiar, upon the outer shutters of the shop.
Therefore, as soon as the old man had discharged his burdens, he went to the door of the shop and opened it. Upon the outer threshold was a small, wizened man with a shrewd countenance and a short, bristling moustache.
“Has he come back?” asked the man with an eager whisper.
“Yes, he has returned,” said the old man; “but he now sleeps.”
“Let me see him,” said the other in a voice of anguish. “I will not disturb his sleep, and I will not try to cross the threshold of your little room.”
“You may follow,” said the old man, leading the way through the shop to the threshold of the little room, “but I would entreat you not to proceed beyond this.”
“Yes, I will bear it in mind,” said the other in a voice of curious excitement.
When the man from the street came to stand upon the threshold of the little room, and to peer within at him who lay there asleep, the cry of joy that he could not repress was mingled with an intense consternation.
“Why, where has he been?” he whispered in tones of horror. “See—see, he is all in rags! His feet are bruised and cut and quite bare. And his hair hangs down upon his shoulders like a mane. And his ragged shirt exposes his chest. And his fingers are all covered with dried blood. Tell me, why has he returned like this?”
“He is about to communicate the story of his wanderings,” said the old man, pointing to the materials for writing that were spread upon the table of the little room. “He is about to make them into a treatise; when the clocks tell the hour of midnight he will commence author. Therefore does it not behove us to be patient? When his task is accomplished, I doubt not that we shall be privileged to learn all that has befallen him.”
“Ah, yes, I remember,” said the man from the street. “I always suspected that one day he might set up on his own account as an author. He has a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge. He looks in a dreadful state to-night, and I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t write the better for it. He’s evidently been out and seen a bit of life; and you’ve got to see a bit of life to be an author. At least, Murtle says so; and Murtle ought to know.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man softly. “We shalldoubtless be informed of all that has befallen him when he comes to take the pen in his right hand.”
The man from the street bade good-night to the old man, and begged to be allowed to return the next evening to the threshold of the little room, that he might have speech with him who slept.