Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps

Chapter 6

It was close upon sunset when the derelict walked into the first village which he had encountered for several miles, and he was as tired as he was hungry. On the outskirts he stopped, looked about him, and sat down on a heap of stones. The village lay beneath him; a typical English village, good to look upon in the summer eventide. There in the centre, embowered amongst tall elm-trees and fringed about with yew, rose the tower and roof of the old church, grey as the memories of the far-off age in which pious hands had built it. Farther away, also tree-embowered, rose the turrets and gables of the great house, manor and hall. Here and there, rising from thick orchards, stood the farmhouses, with their red roofs and drab walls; between them were tiny cottages, nests of comfort. There were pale blue wisps of smoke curling up from the chimneys of the houses and cottages**** made the weary man think of a home and a hearthstone. And from the green in the centre of the village came the sound of the voices of boys at play****, too, made him think of times when the world was something more than a desert.

He rose at last and went forward, walking after the fashion of a tired man. He was not such a very bad-looking derelict, after all; he had evidently made an attempt to keep his poor clothes patched, and had not forgotten to wash himself whenever he had an opportunity. But his eyes had the look of the not-wanted; there was a hopelessness in them which would have spoken volumes to an acute observer. And as he went clown the hill into the village he looked about him from one side to the other as if he scarcely dared to expect anything from men or their habitations.

He came to a large, prosperous-looking farmstead; a rosy-cheeked, well-fed, contented-faced man, massive of build, was leaning over the low wall of the garden smoking a cigar. He eyed the derelict with obvious dislike and distrust. His eyes grew slightly angry and he frowned. Human wreckage was not to his taste.

But the man on the road was hungry and tired; he was like a drowning thing that will clutch at any straw. He stepped up on the neatly-trimmed turf which lay beneath the garden wall, touching his cap.

"Have you a job of work that you could give a man, sir?" he asked.

The rosy-faced farmer scowled.

"No," he said.

The man in the road hesitated.

"I'm hard pressed, sir," he said. "I'd do a hard day's work to-morrow in return for a night's lodging and a bit of something to eat."

"Aye, I dare say you would," said the farmer, scornfully. "I've heard that tale before. Be off*** road's your place."

The derelict sighed, turned away, half-turned again. He looked at the well-fed countenance above him with a species of appealing sorrow.

"I haven't had a bite to eat since yesterday morning," he said, and turned again.

As he turned he heard a child's piping voice, and, looking round, saw the upper half of a small head, sunny and curly, pop up over the garden wall.

"Daddy, shall I give the poor man my money-box? 'Cause it isn't nice to be hungry. Shall I, daddy?"

But the farmer's face did not relax, and the derelict sighed again and turned away. He had got into the road, and was going off when the big, masterful voice arrested him.

"Here, you!"

The derelict looked round, with new hope springing in his heart. The man was beckoning him; the child, on tiptoe, was staring at him out of blue, inquisitive eyes.

"Come here," said the farmer.

The derelict went back, hoping. The man at the wall, however, looked sterner than ever. His keen eyes seemed to bore holes in the other's starved body.

"If I give you your supper, and a night's lodging in the barn, will you promise not to smoke?" he said. "I want no fire."

The derelict smiled in spite of his hunger and weariness.

"I've neither pipe nor tobacco, sir," he said. "I wish I had. But if I had I'd keep my word to you."

The farmer stared at him fixedly for a moment; then he pointed to the gate.

"Come through that," he said. He strode off across the garden when the derelict entered, and led the way round the house to the kitchen, where a stout maid was sewing at the open door. She looked up at the sound of their feet and stared.

"Give this man as much as he can eat, Rachel," said the farmer, "and draw him a pint of ale. Sit you down," he added, turning to the derelict. "And make a good supper."

Then he picked up the child, who had clung to his coat, and lifting her on to his shoulder, went back to the garden.

The derelict ate and drank and thanked God. A new sense of manhood came into him with the good meat and drink; he began to see possibilities. When at last he stood up he felt like a new man, and some of the weary stoop had gone out of his shoulders.

The farmer came in with a clay pipe filled with tobacco.

"Here," he said, "you can sit in the yard and smoke that. And then I'll show you where you can sleep."

So that night the derelict went to rest full of food and contented, and slept a dreamless sleep amongst the hay. Next morning the farmer, according to his custom, was up early, but his guest had been up a good two hours when he came down to the big kitchen.

"He's no idler, yon man, master," said Rachel. "He's chopped enough firewood to last me for a week, and drawn all the water, and he's fetched the cows up, and now he's sweeping up the yard."

"Give him a good breakfast, then," said the farmer.

When his own breakfast was over he went to look for the derelict, and found him chopping wood again. He saluted his host respectfully, but with a certain anxiety.

"Now if you want a job for a day or so," said the farmer, with the curtness which was characteristic of him, "I'll give you one. Get a bucket out of the out-house there, and come with me."

He led the way to a small field at the rear of the farmstead, the surface of which appeared to be very liberally ornamented with stones.

"I want this field clearing," said the farmer. "Make the stones into piles about twenty yards apart. When you hear the church clock strike twelve, stop work, and go to the house for your dinner. Start again at one, and knock off again at six."

Whatever might have been his occupation before the derelict worked that day like a n****r. It was back-aching work, that gathering and piling of stones, and the July sun was hot and burning, but he kept manfully at his task, strengthened by the hearty meal set before him at noon. And just before six o'clock the farmer, with the child on his shoulder, came into the field and looked around him and stared.

"You're no idler!" he said, repeating the maid's words. "I'll give you a better job than that to-morrow."

And that night he gave the derelict some clothes and boots, and next morning set him to a pleasanter job, and promised him work for the harvest, and the derelict felt that however curt and gruff the farmer might seem his bark was much worse than his bite. And he never forgot that he had saved him from starvation. But the derelict's times were not all good. Country folk have an inborn dislike of strangers, and the regular workers on the farm resented the intrusion of this man, who came from nowhere in particular and had certainly been a tramp. They kept themselves apart from him in the harvest fields, and made open allusion to his antecedents. And the derelict, now promoted to a small room in the house, and earning wages as well as board, heard and said nothing.

Nor did the farmer go free of gibe and jest.

"So ye've taken to hiring tramp-labour, I hear," said his great rival in the village. "Get it dirt cheap, I expect?"

"You can expect what you like," said the derelict's employer. "The man you mean is as good a worker as any you've got, or I've got, either. Do you think I care for you and your opinion?"

In fact, the farmer cared little for anything except his child. He had lost his wife when the child was born, and the child was all he had except his land. Wherever he went the child was with him; they were inseparable. He had never left it once during the six years of its life, and it was with great misgivings that in the autumn following the arrival of the derelict he was obliged to leave it for a day and a night. Before he went he called the derelict to him.

"I've come to trust you fully," he said. "Look after the child till to-morrow."

If the farmer had wanted a proof of the derelict's gratitude he would have found it in the sudden flush of pride which flamed into the man's face. But he was in a hurry to be gone, and was troubled because of leaving the child; nevertheless, he felt sure that he was leaving the child in good hands.

"It's queer how I've taken to that fellow," he said to himself as he drove off to the station six miles away. "I wouldn't have trusted the child to anybody but him."

The man left in charge did nothing that day but look after the child. He developed amazing powers, which astonished Rachel as much as they interested the young mind and eyes. He could sing songs, he could tell tales, he could do tricks, he could play at bears and lions, and imitate every animal and bird under the sun.

"Lawk-a-massy!" said Rachel. "Why, you must ha' had bairns of your own!"

"A long time ago," answered the man. "A very long time ago."

He never left his charge until the charge was fast asleep**** to sleep by himself. Then he went off to his little room in the far-away wing of the house. And in an hour or two he wished devoutly that he had stretched himself at the charge's door. For the farmstead was on fire, and when he woke to realize it there was a raging sea of flame between him and the child, and folk in the yard and garden were shrieking and moaning** their helplessness.

But the man got there in time** time for the child, but not for himself. They talk in all that countryside to this day of how he fought his way through the flames, how he dropped the child into outstretched arms beneath, safe, and then fell back to death.

Upon what they found left of him the farmer gazed with eyes which were wet for the first time since he had last shed tears for his dead wife. And he said something to the poor body which doubtless the soul heard far off.

"You were a Man!" he said. "You were a real Man!"

And then he suddenly remembered that he had never known the Man's name.