Despair's Last Journey Part 14

'No,' he answered with a strong shudder. She saw that clearly, and her colour changed. The swift distortion showed itself about her lips again.

It pa.s.sed away in an instant, but it left the mouth trembling. 'I want you to be away somewhere where n.o.body can say a word against you. I want to see you and talk to you sometimes, and know that you are going on prosperously.'

'I'm mightily obliged to ye,' she said again. 'Ye're a good little fool, but a fool you are.'

'I am not a fool for this, Norah. n.o.body is a fool who tries to do G.o.d's work.'

'Anybody's a fool that tries to do G.o.d's work that way,' she answered.

'You say you are going to h.e.l.l, Norah.'

'And so I am, but not for ruinin' a child that's got hysterics. I can face the divvle without havin' that on my conscience. And I'll tell ye somethin' that'll maybe turn out useful when ye grow older. Ye think because I folly a callin' that no decent woman can think of and because ye know that I drink, that I've no pride of me own. Ye're mistaken, Paul Armstrong. If ye were ten years older, and I me own woman, I'd set these in your face. D'ye mind me now?' She shook her hands before her for an instant, and withdrew them under her shawl again. 'Ye mean well, I think, but ye're just in-sultin' past bearin', an' so you are! Would I live on the 'arnin's of a child? Oh, Mary, Mary, Mother o' G.o.d!' 'she burst out, 'look down an' see how I'm trodden in the mud. Go away, go away; go away, I tell ye! I know what I am. Right well I know what I am.

But d'ye think I'm that?

Black misery on your---- No. Ill not curse ye, for I believe ye meant well. But if ye're not gone, I've a scissors here, an' I'll do meself a mischief.'

The outburst overwhelmed him. The man of the world who could have stood unmoved against it would have needs been brave and cool. The torrent of her pa.s.sion swept him like a straw.

'I beg your pardon,' he stammered; 'I beg your pardon with all my heart and soul.'

'Go!' she said.

He obeyed her, and the episode of Norah MacMulty came to a close.

'Paul,' said the Solitary, waking for a moment from the dream in which these old things acted themselves again before him, 'you were always a fool, but the folly of that time was better than to-day's.'

CHAPTER VI

Ralston was on the scene--Ralston in ripe middle age, ma.s.sive and short of stature, with a square head and a billowy, sable-silvered head of hair; full lips, richly shadowed by his beard; an eye which twinkled like some bland star of humour at one minute and pierced like a gimlet at the next; a manner suavely dogged, jovially wilful, calmly hectoring, winning as the wiles of a child; a voice of husky sweetness, like a fog-bound clarion at times; a learning which, if it embraced nothing wholly, had squeezed some spot of vital juice out of well-nigh everything; wise, loquacious, masterful, _bon-vivant_; the most perfect talker of his day in England; half parson and half journalist; loyal to the bone; courageous to the bone; not an originating man, but original; a receiver, and, through his own personality, a transmitter of great thoughts to the ma.s.ses; a fighting theologian; a fighting politician; a howling scoff to orthodoxy; a flying flag and peal of trumpet and tuck of drum to freedom everywhere. This was Ralston.

What should bring Paul from the inky ap.r.o.n, and the dusty type-cases, and the battered old founts of metal, and the worm-eaten old founts of wood, and the slattern bankrupt office into the society of such a man as this?

The Exile dreamed his dream, and a year was gone in a breath.

The Armstrong household was asleep. It was one o'clock--noon of the slumberous hours. Paul slipped downstairs in his stocking-feet, struck a match, lit the kitchen gas, and drew on his boots. Then back came the creaking bolts of the door which led to the garden. Out went the gas, and Paul, matchbox in hand, sped stealthily to the office, the summer dews falling and the weeds smelling sweet. The battered padlock on the staple of the door had been a pure pretence for years past. It locked and opened as well without the aid of a key as with it Paul lifted the outer edge of the door in both hands and swung it back cautiously, to avoid the shriek it gave when merely thrust open, and then lifted it to its former place. He mounted the stairs--there was not a nail in his boots which did not know each shred of fraying timber in them--thridded an unerring way through the outspread lumber on the floor to the stand at which he commonly worked, set the gas-bracket blazing there, and began to stack type as if for dear life, but without a copy. The clock at Trinity struck the hours half a mile away. The clock at Christ's followed a second or two later, nearer and clearer. Then a mile off, soft and mellow, but unheard unless the ear waited for them, the bells of the Old Church chimed. Three o'clock was sounding, and the summer dark was at its deepest, when Paul secured a first proof of the work on which he had been engaged, and hid away the forme in a hollow beneath the stairs.

In this wise he stole two hours from sleep nightly for a month; and at the end of that time, lo! a printed poem, molten and cast, and re-molten and re-cast, chiselled and fined and polished, and all in Paul's brain-factory, without a guiding touch of pen or pencil--the work of a year.

The night after the completion of this task Ralston lectured for the Young Men's Christian Inst.i.tute, and Paul was there. He was there right early, and secured a seat in the front row. The theme was 'In Memoriam.'

Ralston talked and Paul listened. In five minutes Ralston was talking to Paul. Even now, in this strange review of the things that had helped or daunted him in all his days, the self-exiled Solitary, perched alone in his eyrie in the Rocky Mountains, encompa.s.sed by amorphous smoke-cloud, whilst the unseen river gnashed on its rocky teeth and howled--even now he felt the controlling magic of the voice and manner, even now he felt the triumph which sprang from the knowledge that this man chose him from the throng, played on him with splendid improvisations, made him the receptive and distributive instrument for his thoughts.

'I know,' said the living Paul Armstrong, looking back on the dead aspiring creature he had been. 'Not a self-accusing thought! Pure worship in the eyes. And the visage! not this battered mask, but the face of eighteen! Not an ounce of alcohol ever fired his blood from his cradle till now. A meagre table all his life through--enough and barely enough. Clean hands and a pure heart, and burning ardour in the eyes.

_I_ could talk to a lad like that. Eh, me!'

The lecture was over; the audience had drained away; the great man and the Secretary were closeted for a minute; there was a c.h.i.n.king sound of gold. Ralston came out with a cheery 'Good-night,' and Paul was waiting at the head of the stairs.

'Mr. Ralston,' said Paul.

'Oho!' said Ralston in his sounding ba.s.s, hoa.r.s.e like the deeper notes of a reed. 'My audience!'

'Will you read this, sir?'

Paul offered a paper-roll. The orator made a sideway skip out of the range of the tube, as if it had held an explosive. Paul's face fell woefully, and the great man laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

'Walk to the station,' he said, and rolled downstairs, Paul after him, and in seventh heaven. 'What have you there?' asked Ralston, as they reached the street. 'Prose? verse? print? ma.n.u.script?--what?'

'It's in type,' said Paul. 'It is a poem, sir.'

'What will you bet on that?' asked Ralston.

'I'll take odds, sir,' said Paul 'It's never even betting.'

'Ha!' The orator turned and stopped and looked at him. 'You are in my debt, young gentleman.'

'For years past, sir.'

'What? Eh?'

'For years past.'

'I never saw your face before to-night'

'No, sir. I walk in on Sunday nights to hear you, but I go to the back of the gallery.'

'You tramp twelve miles of a Sunday night to hear me?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Summer-time, eh?'

'Any weather.'

'Present the deadly tube. I'll stand the charge.' He thrust Paul's poem into the pocket of a loose alpaca overcoat 'I was saying that you were in my debt. You made me talk ten minutes longer than I ought to have done, and I've lost my train. There's not another for forty minutes.

Come and march the platform.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'What's your name?'

'Paul Armstrong, sir.'

'Armstrong? Armstrong? Father's house here in the High Street? Printer and stationer? Ah! Old Bill Armstrong. Ayrshire Scotch. Anti-Corn Law.

Villiers' Committee. I know him. How do you get on together--eh?'

'My father, sir? He's the dearest friend I have in the world.'

'That's as it should be. Tell me about yourself. What are you?'