The Treasure of Heaven Part 17

"Tramping it?"

"Yes."

"Begging, I suppose?"

"Sometimes."

"Disgraceful!" And the reverend gentleman snorted offence like a walrus rising from deep waters. "Why don't you work?"

"I'm too old."

"Too old! Too lazy you mean! How old are you?"

"Seventy."

Mr. Arbroath paused, slightly disconcerted. He had entered the "Trusty Man" in the hope of discovering some or even all of its customers in a state of drunkenness. To his disappointment he had found them perfectly sober. He had pounced on the stray man whom he saw was a stranger, in the expectation of proving him, at least, to be intoxicated. Here again he was mistaken. Helmsley's simple straight answers left him no opening for attack.

"You'd better make for the nearest workhouse," he said, at last. "Tramps are not encouraged on these roads."

"Evidently not!" And Helmsley raised his calm eyes and fixed them on the clergyman's lowering countenance with a faintly satiric smile.

"You're not too old to be impudent, I see!" retorted Arbroath, with an unpleasant contortion of his features. "I warn you not to come cadging about anywhere in this neighbourhood, for if you do I shall give you in charge. I have four parishes under my control, and I make it a rule to hand all beggars over to the police."

"That's not very good Christianity, is it?" asked Helmsley quietly.

Matt Peke chuckled. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath started indignantly, and stared so hard that his rat-brown eyes visibly projected from his head.

"Not very good Christianity!" he echoed. "What--what do you mean? How dare you speak to me about Christianity!"

"Ay, 'tis a bit aff!" drawled "Feathery" Joltram, thrusting his great hands deep into his capacious trouser-pockets. "'Tis a bit aff to taalk to Christian parzon 'bout Christianity, zeein' 'tis the one thing i'

this warld 'e knaws nawt on!"

Arbroath grew livid, but his inward rage held him speechless.

"That's true!" cried Tom o' the Gleam excitedly--"That's as true as there's a G.o.d in heaven! I've read all about the Man that was born a carpenter in Galilee, and so far as I can understand it, He never had a rough word for the worst creatures that crawled, and the worse they were, and the more despised and down-trodden, the gentler He was with them. That's not the way of the men that call themselves His ministers!"

"I 'eerd once," said Mr. Dubble, rising slowly and laying down his pipe, "of a little chap what was makin' a posy for 'is mother's birthday, an'

pa.s.sin' the garden o' the rector o' the parish, 'e spied a bunch o' pink chestnut bloom 'angin' careless over the 'edge, ready to blow to bits wi' the next puff o' wind. The little raskill pulled it down an' put it wi' the rest o' the flowers 'e'd got for 'is mother, but the good an'

lovin' rector seed 'im at it, an' 'ad 'im nabbed as a common thief an'

sent to prison. 'E wornt but a ten-year-old lad, an' that prison spoilt 'im for life. 'E wor a fust-cla.s.s Lord's man as did that for a babby boy, an' the hull neighbourhood's powerful obleeged to 'im. So don't ye,"--and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,--"don't ye, for all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a comprehensive smile round at the company,--then taking up his hat, he put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm goin'.

Good-den, Tom! Good-den, all!"

And out he strode, whistling as he went. With his departure every one began to move,--the more quickly as the clock in the bar had struck ten a minute or two since. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood irresolute for a moment, wis.h.i.+ng his chief enemy, "Feathery" Joltram, would go. But Joltram remained where he was, standing erect, and surveying the scene like a heavily caparisoned charger scenting battle.

"Tha's heerd Mizter Dubble's tale afore now, Pazon, hazn't tha?" he inquired. "M'appen tha knaw'd the little chap as Christ's man zent to prizon thysen?"

Arbroath lifted his head haughtily.

"A theft is a theft," he said, "whether it is committed by a young person or an old one, and whether it is for a penny or a hundred pounds makes no difference. Thieves of all cla.s.ses and all ages should be punished as such. Those are my opinions."

"They were nowt o' the Lord's opinions," said Joltram, "for He told the thief as 'ung beside Him, 'This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,'

but He didn't say nowt o' the man as got the thief punished!"

"You twist the Bible to suit your own ends, Mr. Joltram," retorted Arbroath contemptuously. "It is the common habit of atheists and blasphemers generally."

"Then, by the Lord!" exclaimed the irrepressible "Feathery," "All th'

atheists an' blasphemers must be a-gathered in the fold o' the Church, for if the pazons doan't twist the Bible to suit their own ends, I'm blest if I knaw whaat else they does for a decent livin'!"

Just then a puff of fine odour from the Havana cigar which Helmsley was enjoying floated under the nostrils of Mr. Arbroath, and added a fresh touch of irritation to his temper. He turned at once upon the offending smoker.

"So! You pretend to be poor!" he snarled, "And yet you can smoke a cigar that must have cost a s.h.i.+lling!"

"It was given to me," replied Helmsley gently.

"Given to you! Bah! Who would give an old tramp a cigar like that?"

"I would!" And Tom o' the Gleam sprang lightly up from his chair, his black eyes sparkling with mingled defiance and laughter--"And I did!

Here!--will you take another?" And he drew out and opened a handsome case full of the cigars in question.

"Thank you!" and Arbroath's pallid lips trembled with rage. "I decline to share in stolen plunder!"

"Ha--ha--ha! Ha--ha!" laughed Tom hilariously. "Stolen plunder! That's good! D'ye think I'd steal when I can buy! Reverend sir, Tom o' the Gleam is particular as to what he smokes, and he hasn't travelled all over the world for nothing:

'Qu'en dictes-vous? Faut-il a ce musier, _Il n'est tresor que de vivre a son aise_!'"

Helmsley listened in wonderment. Here was a vagrant of the highroads and woods, quoting the refrain of Villon's _Contreditz de Franc-Gontier_, and p.r.o.nouncing the French language with as soft and pure an accent as ever came out of Provence. Meanwhile, Mr. Arbroath, paying no attention whatever to Tom's outburst, looked at his watch.

"It is now a quarter-past ten," he announced dictatorially; "I should advise you all to be going."

"By the law we needn't go till eleven, though Miss Tranter _does_ halve it," said Bill Bush sulkily--"and perhaps we won't!"

Mr. Arbroath fixed him with a stern glance.

"Do you know that I am here in the cause of Temperance?" he said.

"Oh, are ye? Then why don't ye call on Squire Evans, as is the brewer wi' the big 'ouse yonder?" queried Bill defiantly. "'E's the man to go to! Arsk 'im to shut up 'is brewery an' sell no more ale wi' pizon in't to the poor! That'll do more for Temp'rance than the early closin' o'

the 'Trusty Man.'"

"Ye're right enough," said Matt Peke, who had refrained from taking any part in the conversation, save by now and then whispering a side comment to Helmsley. "There's stuff put i' the beer what the brewers brew, as is enough to knock the strongest man silly. I'm just fair tired o' hearin'

o' Temp'rance this an' Temp'rance that, while 'arf the men as goes to Parl'ment takes their livin' out o' the brewin' o' beer an' spiritus liquors. An' they bribes their poor silly voters wi' their drink till they'se like a flock o' sheep runnin' into wotever field o' politics their shepherds drives 'em. The best way to make the temp'rance cause pop'lar is to stop big brewin'. Let every ale'ouse 'ave its own pertikler brew, an' m'appen we'll git some o' the old-fas.h.i.+oned malt an' 'ops agin. That'll be good for the small trader, an' the big brewin'

companies can take to somethin' 'onester than the pizonin' bizness."

"You are a would-be wise man, and you talk too much, Matthew Peke!"

observed the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, smiling darkly, and still glancing askew at his watch. "I know you of old!"

"Ye knows me an' I knows you," responded Peke placidly. "Yer can't interfere wi' me nohow, an' I dessay it riles ye a bit, for ye loves interferin' with ivery sort o' folk, as all the parsons do. I b'longs to no parish, an' aint under you no more than Tom o' the Gleam be, an' we both thanks the Lord for't! An' I'm earnin' a livin' my own way an'

bein' a benefit to the sick an' sorry, which aint so far from proper Christianity. Lor', Parson Arbroath! I wonder ye aint more 'uman like, seein' as yer fav'rite gel in the village was arskin' me t'other day if I 'adn't any yerb for to make a love-charm. 'Love-charm!' sez I--'what does ye want that for, my gel?' An' she up an' she sez--'I'd like to make Parson Arbroath eat it!' Hor--er--hor--er--hor--er! 'I'd like to make Parson Arbroath eat it!' sez she. An' she's a foine strappin'

wench, too!--'Ullo, Parson! Goin'?"