Grit Lawless Part 42

Lawless fell to on his breakfast when it made its appearance with a zest that astonished his companion.

"What a good thing it is to have a healthy appet.i.te," he observed.

"Early rising and a drive before breakfast suit you, my friend."

Lawless laughed grimly.

"For the first time I experience a sneaking sympathy with the cannibal... I could almost eat you."

Even a much neglected appet.i.te reaches its limit in time. The quant.i.ty of food that Lawless managed to dispose of was a revelation to the schoolmaster; he had never in all his life been equal to making such a meal.

"You have a good digestion," he remarked. "It is a fine thing."

"No doubt," Lawless answered. "But it becomes a.s.sertive when a man neglects to give it work. And now, Mr Burton, I won't keep you waiting any longer. Your patience has stood a test this morning that mine would not bear so well."

"Indeed, I have been well entertained," the other a.s.sured him.

"In watching the exhibition of a man's eating prowess! You are more easily amused than I am."

"I imagine that to be so. I belong to a generation that enjoyed simpler pleasures than you men of the present day. But I fancy we who took pleasure in simple things got more joy out of life... I may be wrong."

"Joy! There's precious little joy in life that I can see," Lawless replied, and rose, sc.r.a.ping his chair noisily upon the carpetless floor.

The little man looked at him earnestly.

"I am not a philosopher," he said, "nor have I over much learning--just enough for the exercise of my profession, and no more. But I can tell you the reason you find no joy in life; it is because you don't know where to look for it. Joy lies in ourselves."

Lawless laughed shortly.

"I'm not a likely sort of subject to harbour joy," he returned.

"Why not?" the other said quite simply... "You shut the door in her face, my friend, or she would find her way in fast enough. Give her a chance."

He took up his hat, and lighted his old meerschaum pipe before going out.

"On a day like this," he said, "it makes a man joyful merely to feel he is alive."

It was a great pleasure to the schoolmaster to walk along beside his tall companion and point out to him the many beauties of the place, beauties which alone Lawless would a.s.suredly have overlooked. A lizard, peeping with bright eyes between the stones of a piece of broken wall, caught the little man's attention. As they approached it darted into a crack and disappeared. The schoolmaster pointed to it like an eager boy who discovers something rare. Despite his boredom at such trifles, Lawless was faintly amused. A wild flower, a humming-bird, a large green b.u.t.terfly, each in turn excited interest, and called forth admiration and comment.

The man was a botanist, and spoke learnedly of the flora of the neighbourhood. The wild flowers of the Cape have yet to be properly cla.s.sified; many of them are unnamed; they are simply "bloemetjes." The schoolmaster had named many of them to please himself. He picked a beautiful pure white bloom from the veld, and gave it to Lawless to admire.

"It is so flawless, so pure," he said. "I call that my Flower of Innocence. The veld is full of them. But they are scentless. One day someone will take it, perhaps, and cultivate it and give it a scent.

But I like it best as nature has made it. To me it is perfect."

Lawless placed it in his b.u.t.tonhole, not that he cared for wearing flowers, but because--why he did not know--it pleased him to give pleasure to this simple-minded man.

The schoolmaster introduced his friend to his pupils, a proceeding that was fraught with embarra.s.sment to both sides. Never in his life before had Lawless felt so great a fool. He was glad to make his escape.

Mr Burton parted from him reluctantly. He went a little way with him on his backward journey, and stood for quite ten minutes looking after the tall figure as it strode away over the veld. Afterwards he was heard to a.s.sert that Providence had without doubt moved him to act as he acted that morning. No man was ever more conscientious in the performance of his duties than this man, yet here was he lingering in the sunshine, gazing after a departing acquaintance while his pupils idled their time away waiting for him in vain.

Mr Burton held no cla.s.s that morning.

As he was about to turn back to his work he saw a strange sight. The figure he was watching suddenly threw up its arms and fell and lay upon the veld quite motionless, so that had he not seen the falling of it he would not have known that it was there. And galloping away from the spot where the man had fallen was another man seated on a raw-boned white horse.

The schoolmaster was no athlete, but he put foot to ground and ran for all he was worth.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

Colonel Grey lay in bed smoking his customary before-breakfast cigar.

He was not an early riser--or, as he expressed it, he had had so much early rising during his life that he was justified in taking his leisure.

He was unaccountably thinking of Lawless and the letters. He still half-trusted and half-doubted his man. That is to say, at times his belief in him was unbounded, and again at other moments, according to his mood, he mistrusted the man's honesty of purpose. Reckless, impecunious, an admitted adventurer, were not the chances even that if he got hold of the letters he would turn them to his own purposes? With such a source of profit in his possession, would he be likely to give it up for the sum originally agreed upon between them? Colonel Grey could not altogether conquer his suspicions; the man's past life had prejudiced him.

While he lay thinking, sending clouds of blue smoke-rings up from the pillow like smoke from a sacrificial altar, the bell of his front door was rung loudly and imperatively. As it was not answered with the prompt.i.tude that could only have been possible had a doorkeeper been stationed in readiness, the bell pealed again. Colonel Grey got out of bed and went to the window. He had already paddled out of bed once to admit his boy, for no servant slept in the house; and he paddled across the room a second time, jerked open the window, and looked out. It was with an involuntary exclamation of surprise that he recognised Tom Hayhurst.

"Good Lord!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

And then, in accents of anger:

"What the devil are you pulling that bell down for?"

Hayhurst came forward, saluted the irate speaker, and followed him into the bedroom.

"I thought I paid you to clear out," the Colonel observed sharply, eyeing with no great favour the spruce, confident young man he had last seen--or so he imagined--with a bandaged head, taking his pa.s.sage to Durban.

"You did, sir."

Hayhurst controlled his countenance with difficulty. In dealing with the Colonel he made it a practice to allow him to let off steam first.

It gave a man a chance of second place, he used to say.

"Then, why in h.e.l.l are you back here? ... I've no further use for you."

"I'm not asking you to use me," Hayhurst answered coolly. "I came by Lawless' orders, to give into your own hands the packet of letters which I've just received from the Bank."

He put his hand inside his coat as he spoke, and withdrew a sealed packet from an inner pocket, which, in a matter-of-fact manner, he tendered the Colonel. The Colonel nearly collapsed at sight of it. The cigar dropped from his lips, his mouth fell helplessly open.

"The--letters!" he gasped.

He stretched forth an eager hand that shook with his excitement, and almost tore the packet from Hayhurst's grasp.

"Sit down, my boy," he said... "Sit down." He turned the packet lovingly. "Good G.o.d! the letters--at last!"

Breaking the seal with fingers that in their feverish eagerness could scarce perform their office, he glanced through the contents, counted the letters, and finally, going to a drawer and unlocking it, he took out a notebook to which he referred continually while he went through the packet again.

"It's all right," he said... "They're all here."

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a box of matches, and carrying the letters to the grate, thrust them between the bars and set light to them. Hayhurst watched with him while they burnt, dividing his attention between the flaming papers and the intent set face of the man who crouched before the hearth, watching, watching, while the letters that had cost much money and a man's life were swiftly reduced to ashes. When only the charred and blackened paper remained, Colonel Grey took the ashes up in his hands and crumbled them to powder. He drew a long breath of relief.

"They've cost dear," he muttered,--"too dear... But they'll do no more harm."

He rose and, turning, stared into the young man's eyes.