The Landloper Part 8

Just then the alarm-clock purred a brief signal.

Up to that time the air of the man with the brown eyes had been that of banter, of impish desire to harry and confuse by stilted language the ignorant stranger who had come blundering upon him.

He stared at the clock, looked down upon the frock-coat, and then surveyed the other articles of clothing. He scowled as if he had suddenly begun to reflect. Seriousness smoldered in the brown eyes.

That tinkling touch of metal against metal seemed to change his mood in astonishing fashion.

"Ah, it may be morning again, O my soul!" he cried with such tense feeling in his voice that the tramp surveyed him with gaping mouth and bulging eyes, as one stares at a person suddenly become mad.

"I will talk to you though you will not understand! Once upon a time the world was ruled by men who were ruled by omens. Man was then not so wise in his own conceit. His own soul was nearer the soul of things. He was not a mere gob of b.u.mptiousness covered with the sh.e.l.l of c.o.c.ksureness.

He was willing to be informed. He sought the omens of true nature--he allowed Fate to guide him. He was not a pig running against the goad of circ.u.mstances, unheeding the upflung arms of Fortune, waving him toward the right path. He was simpler--he was truer. He felt that he was a part of nature instead of being boss of nature. Well, I have got nearer to true nature since I have been in the open. I am in contact with the soul of things. I am no longer insulated. I am not reformed, I am simply ready once again to grab Opportunity. So you think I am crazy, do you?"

"They had a gink in a padded cell in the jail where I was last winter and he didn't take on much worse'n you," stated the tramp.

"As a brainless observer you may be quite right. I may be a lunatic. I feel much like one just now. It is lunacy to go climbing back to a level in society from which I have been kicked. But as I knelt there by that little fire, before you came, yearning sprang up in me--and I had thought all that sort of yearning was dead in me. A moment later came habiliments of a gentleman, borne in the arms of a wretch who could not wear them. There came Opportunity. Then the jangle of that clock signaled Opportunity--and there was a throb in me as though my sleeping soul had rolled and blinked at the sunlight of hope and had murmured, 'It's morning again.' Such are omens, when one is ready to heed."

He set his teeth, clenched his fists, and by expression and att.i.tude showed that he had arrived at a decision of moment. He walked close to the tramp. "I will admit, Friend Belly-brains, that you came upon Opportunity before I did this day. But tell me again, are you to make no further use of said Opportunity than to run to an old-clothes shop and exchange for a few pennies that which will help to make a man?"

"They are mine and I'm going to sell 'em," retorted the sullen vagrant.

"I am sorry because you have no wit--no power to understand. Otherwise you would gladly lay these garments in my hands and bid me G.o.dspeed. You don't understand at all, do you?"

"Look here, are you trying to frisk me for these duds?"

"It's all a waste of breath to explain to you that Providence meant these things for me. You are not acute enough to understand close reasoning. I could not show you that, for the sake of a few coins, which would do you only that harm which would come from their value in cheap whisky or beer, you might be wrecking the future of a soul that is awake. I simply tell you that I shall keep the clothing for myself.

Perhaps you can understand that plain statement!" The brown eyes became resolute and piercing. "Even if I had money I would not pay you for these garments. Money does such as you no good; it may bring you trouble. My dear Boston Fat, I cannot afford to let you prejudice my future, which, so instinct tells me, is wrapped up in those poor things of wool and warp." He snapped a finger into his palm and extended his hand. "Give me that hat and then pa.s.s on about your business."

The tramp backed away. His little blinking eyes expressed both fear and rebelliousness. More than ever did he resemble a pig at bay. The black hat, set on top of his greasy cap and topping with its respectability his disreputable general outfit, added a bizarre touch to the scene between the two men.

"You think now that you are the injured party," calmly pursued the man of the brown eyes. "You haven't intelligence enough to take my own case into account. You are injured because you are losing a few coins--but I may be injured in all that gives life its flavor if I do not grasp this opportunity." Both raillery and earnestness dropped out of his tones. He became merely matter-of-fact. "I'll make it plain. Trot along about your business, fat one, or I shall proceed to pound the face off you and then kick you a few rods on your happy way. You deserve it as a thief--I worked two weeks as a stone-mason on your account. Do you get me?"

For answer the infuriated vagrant rushed at him and kicked.

With one hand the stranger plucked the hat from the tramp's head and sailed it to a place of safety. With the other hand he grabbed the attacker's ankle before the foot hit him and with a jerk he laid the tramp on his back.

The victim fell so helplessly that the concussion knocked the breath and a groan out of him.

The man of the brown eyes had moved languidly and had talked languidly till then. When he grabbed the foot he moved with a sort of steel-trap efficiency and quickness. He promptly straddled his victim, seated himself on the protruding abdomen, and began to beat the man's face. He battered the flabby cheeks and punched his fists into the pulpy neck. He ground his knees against the fat flanks and redoubled his blows when the tramp struggled. After the squalling falsetto had implored for a long time, the a.s.sailant at last gave over the exercise.

"Are you licked?" he asked.

"Yes," whined the tramp.

"You have stolen--in most dirty style. I whipped you for that job. Now will you stay licked for some time?"

"Yes."

"You'll go on about your own business, will you, without any more foolish talk about those garments?"

"Yes."

"Are you sorry you stole from that good woman who fed you?"

"Yes."

The man of the brown eyes swung himself off his prostrate victim, as a rider dismounts from a horse, and the tramp sat up, moaning and patting his purple face.

"I never had no luck, never," he blubbered. "I was kicked out of jail before the weather got warmed up, I was thrown in last fall just when the Indian summer was beginning. When other fellows get hand-outs of pie I get cold potatoes and bannock bread. I have to walk when other fellows ride. I'm too fat for the trucks and they can always see me on the blind baggage. I'll keep on walking. I never had no luck in all my life."

He rolled upon his hands and knees and then stood up. He started away, wholly cowed, whining like a quill-pig, bewailing his luck.

"Luck!" the man of the brown eyes shouted after him in a tone which expressed anger and regret. "What do you know about luck, you animated lard-pail? A thing like you is in luck when he is in jail where there is no workshop. Better luck than that is too good for you. Hold on one minute! Turn around and look at me."

The tramp obeyed. The stranger pounded one of those hard fists on his own breast.

"I say look at me! No matter what I was once! But to-day you found me cooking bacon over three sticks and ready to fight for another man's cast-off clothes. And in between whiles I have hiked every path that the hobo knows between the oceans. Now jog on and think that over and keep your jaw shut on luck! I say jog on! Don't look back. Forget that you ever saw me."

He waved angry gesture and took two steps as though to enforce his command with his fists.

The tramp jogged on at a brisk pace. He hurried to the highway and set out on his shuffling pilgrimage, rubbing his aching face and muttering to himself.

V

THE GIRL WHO GUARDED HER LIPS

The brown eyes of the victor watched the tramp out of sight and for some moments surveyed the nick in the undergrowth where the fellow had disappeared.

There was no anger in the eyes. There had been none while their possessor had been pummeling the wretch. He had beaten the man up in a calm, methodical and perfectly business-like manner.

When at last he turned and looked at the clothing he smiled whimsically.

"The perambulating pork-barrel thinks I am crazy," he mused, looking at the frock-coat. He had stripped that garment from his shoulders and had tossed it on a bush when he had decided on combat. "If I should stop to argue the matter with myself just now I should find myself flattering his good judgment. I have robbed a poor devil for a whim. Thank G.o.d, I went at it brutally and frankly. There was no 'high finance'

sneak-thieving about that job. I sent him away with his face smarting.

They sent me away with my soul black-and-blue."

He gathered the garments, picked up the shoes, put the hat on top of the pile on his arm, and went farther into the woods, following the course of a tiny stream of water. This stream led him to a pool. It was tree-bordered, it was a center gem in a dim alcove in the forest, it was as secret as a private chamber. The pool was gla.s.sy, for the winds were still in the tree-tops.

The man laid down his burden. He stripped off his own well-worn coat and shirt, and secured a razor and stick of soap from the scattered articles he dumped from the coat pocket. He kneeled on the brink of the pool, leaned over and shaved himself carefully, using the gla.s.sy surface as a mirror. Then he put off his other clothing, the mean garments of a vagrant, and plunged into the pool.

When he came forth from the water and dried himself with his discarded shirt, he revealed himself to the birds whom his splashings had attracted to the branches above the pool. If the birds' twitterings were comments on his appearance, they must have been admiring comments. The man's skin was white and he was lithe and tense and muscular. Breeding showed in him as it shows in the muscles and conformation of a race-horse. When he was dried he threw down the makeshift towel and combed his shock of brown hair with his fingers. Now that the bristle of beard was off his face he looked younger.

From the pile of clothing he selected his outfit, garment by garment.

The jovial humor of the judge had provided complete equipment for a man.

In the breast pockets of the frock-coat there were a clean collar, a necktie, and a freshly laundered handkerchief.

By the time he had finished his dressing the pool was still and gla.s.sy once more. He flirted out the handkerchief, holding it by one corner, and swept the soft fabric around and around the crown of the black hat.