The Treasure of Heaven Part 10

The dealer saw nothing either remarkable or suspicious in this seemingly benevolent act of a kindly-looking well-dressed old gentleman, and sent him the articles he had purchased done up in a neat package and addressed to him at his hotel, by the name he had for the time a.s.sumed.

When he left the hotel for good, he did so with nothing more than this neat package, which he carried easily in one hand by a loop of string.

And so he began his journey, walking steadily for two or three hours,--then pausing to rest awhile,--and after rest, going on again.

Once out of Bristol he was glad, and at certain lonely places, when the shadows of night fell, he changed all his garments one by one till he stood transformed as now he was. The clothes he was compelled to discard he got rid of by leaving them in unlikely holes and corners on the road,--as for example, at one place he filled the pockets of his good broadcloth coat with stones and dropped it into the bottom of an old disused well. The curious sense of guilt he felt when he performed this innocent act surprised as well as amused him.

"It is exactly as if I had murdered somebody and had sunk a body into the well instead of a coat!" he said--"and--perhaps I have! Perhaps I am killing my Self,--getting rid of my Self,--which would be a good thing, if I could only find Some one or Some thing better than my Self in my Self's place!"

When he had finally disposed of every article that could suggest any possibility of his ever having been clothed as a gentleman, he unripped the lining of his rough "workman's" vest, and made a layer of the banknotes he had with him between it and the cloth, st.i.tching it securely over and over with coa.r.s.e needle and thread, being satisfied by this arrangement to carry all his immediate cash hidden upon his person, while for the daily needs of hunger and thirst he had a few loose s.h.i.+llings and coppers in his pocket. He had made up his mind not to touch a single one of the banknotes, unless suddenly overtaken by accident or illness. When his bit of silver and copper came to an end, he meant to beg alms along the road and prove for himself how far it was true that human beings were in the main kind and compa.s.sionate, and ready to a.s.sist one another in the battle of life. With these ideas and many others in his mind, he started on his "tramp"--and during the first two or three days of it suffered acutely. Many years had pa.s.sed since he had been accustomed to long sustained bodily exercise, and he was therefore easily fatigued. But by the time he reached the open country between the Quantocks and the Brendon Hills, he had got somewhat into training, and had begun to feel a greater lightness and ease as well as pleasure in walking. He had found it quite easy to live on very simple food,--in fact one of the princ.i.p.al charms of the strange "holiday" he had planned for his own entertainment was to prove for himself beyond all dispute that no very large amount of money is required to sustain a man's life and health. New milk and brown bread had kept him going bravely every day,--fruit was cheap and so was cheese, and all these articles of diet are highly nouris.h.i.+ng, so that he had wanted for nothing. At night, the weather keeping steadily fine and warm, he had slept in the open, choosing some quiet nook in the woodland under a tree, or else near a haystack in the fields, and he had benefited greatly by thus breathing the pure air during slumber, and getting for nothing the "cure" prescribed by certain Artful Dodgers of the medical profession who take handfuls of guineas from credulous patients for what Mother Nature willingly gives gratis. And he was beginning to understand the joys of "loafing,"--so much so indeed that he felt a certain sympathy with the lazy varlet who prefers to stroll aimlessly about the country begging his bread rather than do a stroke of honest work. The freedom of such a life is self-evident,--and freedom is the broadest and best way of breathing on earth. To "tramp the road" seems to the well-dressed, conventional human being a sorry life; but it may be questioned whether, after all, he with his social trammels and household cares, is not leading a sorrier one. Never in all his brilliant, successful career till now had David Helmsley, that king of modern finance, realised so intensely the beauty and peace of being alone with Nature,--the joy of feeling the steady pulse of the Spirit of the Universe throbbing through one's own veins and arteries,--the quiet yet exultant sense of knowing instinctively beyond all formulated theory or dogma, that one is a vital part of the immortal Ent.i.ty, as indestructible as Itself. And a great calm was gradually taking possession of his soul,--a smoothing of all the waves of his emotional and nervous temperament. Under this mystic touch of unseen and uncomprehended heavenly tenderness, all sorrows, all disappointments, all disillusions sank out of sight as though they had never been. It seemed to him that he had put away his former life for ever, and that another life had just begun,--and his brain was ready and eager to rid itself of old impressions in order to prepare for new. Nothing of much moment had occurred to him as yet. A few persons had said "good-day " or "good-night" to him in pa.s.sing,--a farmer had asked him to hold his horse for a quarter of an hour, which he had done, and had thereby earned threepence,--but he had met with no interesting or exciting incidents which could come under the head of "adventures." Nevertheless he was gathering fresh experiences,--experiences which all tended to show him how the best and brightest part of life is foolishly wasted and squandered by the modern world in a mad rush for gain.

"So very little money really suffices for health, contentment, and harmless pleasure!" he thought. "The secret of our growing social mischief does not lie with the natural order of created things, but solely with ourselves. We will not set any reasonable limit to our desires. If we would, we might live longer and be far happier!"

He stretched out his limbs easefully, and dropped into a reclining posture. The tree he had chosen to rest under was a mighty elm, whose broad branches, thick with leaves, formed a deep green canopy through which the sunbeams filtered in flecks and darts of gold. A constant twittering of birds resounded within this dome of foliage, and a thrush whistled melodious phrases from one of the highest boughs. At his feet was spread a carpet of long soft moss, interspersed with wild thyme and groups of delicate harebells, and the rippling of a tiny stream into a hollow cavity of stones made pleasant and soothing music. Charmed with the tranquillity and loveliness of his surroundings, he determined to stay here for a couple of hours, reading, and perhaps sleeping, before resuming his journey. He had in his pocket a s.h.i.+lling edition of Keats's poems which he had bought in Bristol by way of a silent companion to his thoughts, and he took it out and opened it now, reading and re-reading some of the lines most dear and familiar to him, when, as a boy, he had elected this poet, so wickedly done to death ere his prime by commonplace critics, as one of his chief favourites among the highest Singers. And his lips, half-murmuring, followed the verse which tells of that

"untrodden region of the mind, Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind; Far, far around shall these dark cl.u.s.tered trees, Fledge the wild ridged mountains steep by steep, And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness, A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreathed trellis of a working brain, With buds and bells and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign, Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same; And there shall be for thee all soft delight, That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch and a cas.e.m.e.nt ope at night, To let the warm Love in!"

A slight sigh escaped him.

"How perfect is that stanza!" he said. "How I used to believe in all it suggested! And how, when I was a young man, my heart was like that 'cas.e.m.e.nt ope at night, to let the warm Love in!' But Love never came,--only a spurious will-o'-the-wisp imitation of Love. I wonder if many people in this world are not equally deceived with myself in their conceptions of this divine pa.s.sion? All the poets and romancists may be wrong,--and Lucy Sorrel, with her hard materialism encasing her youth like a suit of steel armour, may be right. Boys and girls 'love,' so they say,--men and women 'love' and marry--and with marriage, the wondrous light that led them on and dazzled them, seems, in nine cases out of ten, to suddenly expire! Taking myself as an example, I cannot say that actual marriage made me happy. It was a great disillusion; a keen disappointment. The birth of my sons certainly gave me some pleasure as well as latent hope, for as little children they were lovable and lovely; but as boys--as men--what bitterness they brought me! Were they the heirs of Love? Nay!--surely Love never generated such callous hearts! They were the double reflex of their mother's nature, grasping all and giving nothing. Is there no such virtue on earth as pure unselfish Love?--love that gives itself freely, unasked, without hope of advantage or reward--and without any personal motive lurking behind its offered tenderness?"

He turned over the pages of the book he held, with a vague idea that some consoling answer to his thoughts would flash out in a stray line or stanza, like a beacon lighting up the darkness of a troubled sea. But no such cheering word met his eyes. Keats is essentially the poet of the young, and for the old he has no comfort. Sensuous, pa.s.sionate, and almost cloying in the excessive sweetness of his amorous muse, he offers no support to the wearied spirit,--no sense of strength or renewal to the f.a.gged brain. He does not grapple with the hard problems of life; and his mellifluous murmurings of delicious fantasies have no place in the poignant griefs and keen regrets of those who have pa.s.sed the meridian of earthly hopes, and who see the shadows of the long night closing in. And David Helmsley realised this all suddenly, with something of a pang.

"I am too old for Keats," he said in a half-whisper to the leafy branches that bowed their weight of soft green shelteringly over him.

"Too old! Too old for a poet in whose imaginative work I vised to take such deep delight. There is something strange in this, for I cherished a belief that fine poetry would fit every time and every age, and that no matter how heavy the burden of years might be, I should always be able to forget myself and my sorrows in a poet's immortal creations. But I have left Keats behind me. He was with me in the suns.h.i.+ne,--he does not follow me into the shade."

A cloud of melancholy darkened his worn features, and he slowly closed the book. He felt that it was from henceforth a sealed letter. For him the half-sad, half-scornful musings of Omar Khayyam were more fitting, such as the lines that run thus:--

"Fair wheel of heaven, silvered with many a star, Whose sickly arrows strike us from afar, Never a purpose to my soul was dear, But heaven crashed down my little dream to mar.

Never a bird within my sad heart sings But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings; O valiant wheel! O most courageous heaven, To leave me lonely with the broken wings!"

tinging pain, as of tears that rose but would not fall, troubled his eyes. He pa.s.sed his hand across them, and leaned back against the st.u.r.dy trunk of the elm which served him for the moment as a protecting haven of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the clover, the soft subdued twittering of the birds, and the laughing ripple of the little stream hard by, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound which lulled his senses to a drowsiness that gradually deepened into slumber.

He made a pathetic figure enough, lying fast asleep there among the wilderness of green,--a frail and apparently very poor old man, adrift and homeless, without a friend in the world. The sun sank, and a crimson after-glow spread across the horizon from west to east, the rich colours flung up from the centre of the golden orb merging by slow degrees into that pure pearl-grey which marks the long and lovely summer twilight of English skies. The air was very still, not so much as the rumble of a distant cart wheel disturbing the silence. Presently, however, the slow shuffle of hesitating footsteps sounded through the m.u.f.fling thickness of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a large basket on his back, seemingly full of weeds,--the rope which supported it was tied across his chest, and he clasped this rope with both hands crossed in the middle, after the fas.h.i.+on of a praying monk.

Smoking a short black pipe, he trudged along, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground with steady and almost surly persistence, till arriving at the tree where Helmsley lay, he paused, and lifting his head stared long and curiously at the sleeping man. Then, unclasping his hands, he lowered his basket to the ground and set it down. Stealthily creeping close up to Helmsley's side, he examined the p.r.o.ne figure from head to foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on the gra.s.s where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and finger.

"Portry!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Glory be good to me! 'E's a reg'ler noddy none-such! An' measly old enuff to know better!"

He threw the book on the gra.s.s again with a sniff of contempt. At that moment Helmsley stirred, and opening his eyes fixed them full and inquiringly on the lowering face above him.

"'Ullo, gaffer! Woke up, 'ave yer?" said the man gruffly. "Off yer lay?"

Helmsley raised himself on one elbow, looking a trifle dazed.

"Off my what?" he murmured. "I didn't quite hear you----?"

"Oh come, stow that!" said the man. "You dunno what I'm talkin' about; that's plain as a pike. _You_ aint used to the road! Where d'ye come from?"

"I've walked from Bristol," he answered--"And you're quite right,--I'm not used to the road."

The man looked at him and his hard face softened. Pus.h.i.+ng back his tattered cap from his brows he showed his features more openly, and a smile, half shrewd, half kindly, made them suddenly pleasant.

"Av coorse you're not!" he declared. "Glory be good to me! I've tramped this bit o' road for years, an' never come across such a poor old chuckle-headed gammer as you sleepin' under a tree afore! Readin' portry an' droppin' to by-by over it! The larst man as iver I saw a' readin'

portry was what they called a 'Serious Sunday' man, an' 'e's doin' time now in Portland."

Helmsley smiled. He was amused;--his "adventures," he thought, were beginning. To be called "a poor old chuckle-headed gammer" was a new and almost delightful experience.

"Portland's an oncommon friendly place," went on his uninvited companion. "Once they gits ye, they likes ye to stop. 'Taint like the fash'nable quality what says to their friends: 'Do-ee come an' stay wi'

me, loveys!' wis.h.i.+n' all the while as they wouldn't. Portland takes ye willin', whether ye likes it or not, an' keeps ye so fond that ye can't git away nohow. Oncommon 'ospitable Portland be!"

And he broke into a harsh laugh. Then he glanced at Helmsley again with a more confiding and favourable eye.

"Ye seems a 'spectable sort," he said. "What's wrong wi' ye? Out o'

work?"

Helmsley nodded.

"Turned off, eh? Too old?"

"That's about it!" he answered.

"Well, ye do look a bit of a s.h.i.+very-shake,--a kind o'

not-long-for-this-world," said the man. "Howsomiver, we'se be all 'elpless an' 'omeless soon, for the Lord hisself don't stop a man growin' old, an' under the new ways o' the world, it's a reg'lar crime to run past forty. I'm sixty, an' I gits my livin' my own way, axin'

n.o.body for the kind permission. _That's_ my fortin!"

And he pointed to the basket of weedy stuff which he had just set down.

Helmsley looked at it with some curiosity.

"What's in it?" he asked.

"What's in it? What's _not_ in it!" And the man gave a gesture of mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An'

minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an'

seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an'

beast, Matthew Peke's got 'em all in there. An' Matthew Peke wouldn't be the man he is, if he didn't know where to find 'em better'n any livin'

soul iver born! Ah!--an' there aint a toad in a hole hoppin' out between Quantocks an' Cornwall as hasn't seen Matthew Peke gatherin' the blessin' an' health o' the fields at rise o' sun an' set o' moon, spring, summer, autumn, ay, an' even winter, all the year through!"

Helmsley became interested.

"And you are the man!" he said questioningly--"You are Matthew Peke?"

"I am! An' proud so ter be! An' you--'ave yer got a name for the arskin'?"

"Why, certainly!" And Helmsley's pale face flushed. "My name is David."

"Chrisen name? Surname?"

"Both."

Matthew Peke shook his head.

"'Twon't fadge!" he declared. "It don't sound right. It's like th' owld Bible an' the Book o' Kings where there's nowt but Jews; an' Jews is the devil to pay wheriver you finds 'em!"