Tommy Wideawake Part 27

"I'm not a bit keen on making money, somehow," he said. "I'd just like to knock around, and have a dog, and--a jolly good time, you know."

"What--always?"

Tommy sat up.

"Yes--why not?"

The pale boy shrugged his shoulders, and laughed.

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "But it seems funny, and don't you think you'd find it rather slow?"

Tommy stared at him, with open eyes.

"Rather not," he said. "Why, think how ripping it would be to go just where you liked, and come back when you liked, an' not to have any beastly meal-times to worry about, an' no terms, an' a horse or two to ride, an' wear the oldest clothes you had; by Jove, it would be like--something like Heaven, I should think."

The pale boy laughed as he rose to his feet.

"It's beginning to rain," he said.

"Never mind," said Tommy, "I like the rain. It doesn't hurt, either, and I like talking to you; you make me think of things."

The pale boy turned up his collar, and shivered a little.

"Let's find a shelter, somewhere," he said, looking round anxiously.

"We'd better walk home over the common," said Tommy. "Besides, it's ripping walking in the rain, don't you think, an' it makes you feel so good, an' fit, when you're having grub afterwards, in front of the fire."

But the pale boy shook his head.

"I hate it," he said, "and I'm going up to the farm there, till it stops."

Tommy cast an accustomed eye round the horizon.

"It won't stop for a jolly long while," he said. "However, do as you like. We don't seem to agree about things much, do we? So long."

"Good-bye. It's all the way a fellow's brought up, you know."

And as Tommy shouldered st.u.r.dily through the rain, the pale boy lit another cigarette and turned back towards the farm door.

XV

IN WHICH SOME PEOPLE MEET IN A WHEAT-FIELD

Never was such a harvest--such crops--such long splendid days--such great yellow moons. Even now the folk tell of it when harvest-time comes round.

"Ah," say they, and shake their heads, "that were a harvest an' no mistake, an' long, an' long will it be afore us sees another such a one."

Through the great white fields of wheat the binders sang from dew-dry to dew-fall, and over the hills rang the call of the reapers.

All hands were called to the gathering, the gipsies from the hedge and the shepherd from his early fold, and the stooks were built over the stubble and drawn away into stacks, and still the skies shone cloudless and the great moons rose over the dusk. Never was such a harvest. And little we at home saw of Tommy in these days, save when, late at night, he would wander back from one and another field, lean and sunburnt and glad of sleep. One day the poet tracked him to the harvesting on the down-side fields, and found him in his shirt-sleeves, stooking with the best.

For a little while the poet, under considerable pressure from Tommy, a.s.sisted also, but the unaccustomed toil soon became distasteful, and he retired to the shade of a stook for purposes of rest and meditation.

And here, as he sat, he was joined by the same genial shepherd whom they had met on the day they trod the downs to the Roman ruins.

"Deserted the flocks, then?" asked the poet.

The shepherd grinned.

"'Ess, sir. Folded 'em early, do 'ee see, sir, an' come down to make some money at the harvest, sir."

He paused to fill his mouth with bread, taking at the same time a long pull of cold tea.

"Hungry work, sir, it be, this harvest work."

"It must undoubtedly stimulate the appet.i.te, as you say."

"'Ess, sir, that it do. But it's good work fer the likes o' I, sir, it be, means more money, doan't 'ee see, sir; not as I bees in want o'

money, sir, but it's always welcome, sir. No, sir, I needn't do no work fer a year an' more, sir, an' live like a gen'lman arl the time, too, sir."

"You have saved, then?"

"'Ess, that I have, an' there's a many as knows it, sir, an' asked I to marry 'em, sir, too, they 'as, but not I, sir. I sticks to what I makes, sir. An' look 'ee 'ere, sir, money's easy spent along o' they gals, sir, ben't it, onst they gets their 'ands on it?"

The poet looked at him reflectively.

"They ask you then, do they?"

"'Ess, sir, fower or five on 'em, sir. But I wants none on 'em, sir, an'

I tells 'em straight, sir."

The poet sighed.

"It must save a lot of trouble to--when the suggestion comes from the fairer side."

The shepherd wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Fower or five on 'em," he observed, meditatively.

"Dear, dear, what a--what a conqueror of hearts you must be!"

The shepherd looked at him a little dubiously.

"Fower or five on 'em," he repeated. "An' one on 'em earnin' eighteen shillin' a week an' forty pound laid by. An' I walked out wi' 'er a bit, I did, sir, but I warn't 'avin' none on 'er when she asked I to marry 'er, an' I told 'er, an' my parents, they was main angry, too, wi' me, they was, sir.