VII
ACHIEVEMENT
THE milestone stood in the grass at the side of a Kentish road which ran across the saddle of an upland, and commanded over its low hedges a misty prospect of pasture and hop-fields, with a summer evening darkening over them. One side of the milestone stated that it was eight miles to somewhere; the other added that it was eleven miles to somewhere else. Miss Gregory, who had never heard of either place, sat on the top of the milestone and explored an empty pocket.
It should have contained her purse, a silver pencil-case, and a handkerchief; these had been its contents when she paid for the meal she had eaten at a little inn, where gypsy wagons were drawn up by the roadside, and the sly, sleek men and women were drinking within. They had evaded her attempts to enter into talk with them by begging of her; it was an old woman coloured like a meerschaum pipe who had done the begging, while the others stood about. They had been picturesque and striking, these nomads to whom all countries were foreign, with their bright neck-cloths and their faces like Egyptian paintings. While she stood in their midst, under the old woman's horrid fluency, one of them must have picked her pocket and let her go adrift, to lose her way in a mesh of by-roads and discover herself penniless.
She looked abroad at the darkling landscape, and was aware that she was footsore and weary of the road. But the chief of her apprehensions she put into words.
"Howard will laugh!" she said.
She had in mind her brother, Major-General Sir Howard Gregory, who dwelt at home in ease, while she, to heal a restless mood, set forth on foot to observe the county of Kent. He was ten years older than she, white-moustached, red-faced, primly groomed and debonair. Her travels were, for him, a rather juvenile extravagance, and he had been present at her setting out in the afternoon to prophesy her return in a wheelbarrow. There were times when Miss Gregory, whose palate was spoiled by the strong meat of her wanderings, found him a little insipid. Her journeyings were ended, her book written, her purpose fulfilled; and there was nothing in her brother and his decorous home to fill their place in her life. Long lonely walks by foot-paths and hedge-gaps and by-roads were the medicine she administered to her discontent, always in the hope that a turn in the way would bring her face to face with something brisk and poignant. So far, this was the most stirring thing that had befallen her—to be left stranded at nightfall on the top of a milestone, fifteen miles or so from home.
She looked back and forth thoughtfully. The night was empty of help. Only, far down the road, there were visible a couple of figures that came toward her slowly—a man and a woman who seemed to walk arm in arm. Even in tile distance and the dwindling light they made an effect of humility and poverty; in their gait, their attitude, was the quality that marks tramps and paupers and all those who inhabit the earth on sufferance. Miss Gregory, watching their approach, noted that the woman appeared to be lame; she was walking with difficulty, and leaned heavily upon her companion. The vast inhospitality of the night loomed about them; the barren road offered them no destination; they moved painfully in a hostile solitude. Their mere loneliness made them tragic.
They were nearly abreast of the milestone before the man, looking over his companion's head, was aware of Miss Gregory sitting upright and motionless by the hedge. He halted at once.
"Lady," he said, with hoarse suddenness, "can ye tell us where we 'll get a bit o' shelter for the night?"
I can't," answered Miss Gregory. "I 've lost my way; I don't know this neighbourhood at all."
The woman hung on the man's arm with her head drooped; she looked as if she would fall on her face if he withdrew it. When he stopped, she remained as she was without lifting her face.
"For Gord's sake!" said the man, and paused. "I ain't begging," he went on, with a kind of passion. "I don't want to ask yer for nothin'. Only—only, ain't there nowhere where a pore woman can have a roof over her?"
He was a tall fellow, big and bearded; his thin, fierce face was white in the gloom. It is a rich race that can afford to waste such flesh and blood.
"I'm afraid I have no money with me," said Miss Gregory, watching him.
"Money!" cried the tramp, and swore in a whisper. "It ain't money I asked for. A barn, a cow-house—anything with a roof! We 're not tramps, lady—not reg'lar tramps, we ain't. She was brought up respectable. I'm a smith by trade, lady, and I ain't had a job for five months. If you can 'elp us, I 'll work—I 'll work at anything. Only gimme a chance—you 'll see 'ow I 'll work! Lady! Lady! for Gord's sake—if yer can"
His tones had the ring of desperation, and while he spoke he stood carefully erect, still holding the woman who drooped at his side.
"What's the matter with her?" asked Miss Gregory.
The white face of the tramp regarded her with a fixity that accused her. For a space of moments he did not reply.
"Can't yer see for yerself?" he said then.
"Eh?" exclaimed Miss Gregory.
The tramp bent over the woman and spoke to her softly.
"Look up at the lady, dearie," he urged. "Let 'er see you. She won't leave you 'ere when she sees. Just look up a moment, dearie—there's a good girl."
His hoarse and angry voice had tender tones in it. The woman sighed heavily, and then, as if with a racking effort, raised herself upright and looked at Miss Gregory. When she spoke, it was in a voice thin and exalted, like that of one who speaks through a delirium.
"You 're a woman!" she cried to Miss Gregory, swaying as she stood. "You 're a woman too!"
The man caught her and held her to him, and busied himself in composing her. Miss Gregory rose from her seat. She settled her skirt about her with a little shake, and moved her shoulders in the jacket she wore. It was her way of clearing for action. She had seen what ailed the woman.
"Listen to me," she said, and at the sound of her voice the man looked up in an agony of hope. "Listen to me! I 've been out for a long walk; I'm about fifteen miles from my own home, and I 've had my pocket picked. But if you can find the way to any farm or house near here, your wife shall have shelter. Do you understand?"
"Gord bless yer!" said the tramp.
"D'you know of any place?" demanded Miss Gregory.
"Yes," said the tramp. "There's Gruden's farm over along 'ere. We could get 'er there, but"
"But what?"
"Well, mum," said the tramp, "Gruden, he don't allow no tramps on his farm. A terrible old man, Gruden is—'ard as flints. 'E sets 'is dogs on people that beg."
"Does he?" said Miss Gregory. "We 'll teach him better, then. We 'll go to Gruden's."
"If you say so, mum!"
"I 'll take her other arm," said Miss Gregory. "Yes, like this. Don't be afraid to lean on me. I 've helped heavier people than you. Now, slowly—that's capital!"
There was none to observe that progress by painful steps between the level hedges, when Miss Gregory bent her not inconsiderable strength to aid the homeless woman. The night deepened around them, absorbing the land into its shadow and leaving only the far-seen lights of houses in the valley below. The three of them moved in an earnest companionship, but there was little talk. The woman had no breath for speech, and the man was content to be respectfully silent, now that this wayside lady had stepped down to take charge of him and his. To be dependent was to be secure; his safety lay in submission.
Miss Gregory, with her left arm under the woman's right, gave little thought to how she would deal with the hard-hearted Gruden. The moment could be trusted to prompt the expedient. While she walked, she was tasting with an undiminished relish the old flavour that had spiced her travels in the byways of the world—the flavour of emergency, the sense of war with circumstances. Penniless, far from her home and local prestige, with no credentials but her bold pink face and her manner of one accustomed to be deferred to, she felt herself equal to making her effect. Tame, respectful England had contrived to make an arena for her, after all.
The hedge stopped and gave place to a low whitewashed stone wall, beyond which dark farm buildings were visible, with a house to one side of them which still showed a lighted window. But it was an upstairs window. In that land of early hours, the thrifty Gruden was no doubt going to bed. In the yard, a dog moved at the sound of their footsteps; they heard the rattle of his chain.
"Is this the place?" inquired Miss Gregory.
"Yes'm," said the man, "this is the place. But Gruden—'e's not like ord'nary people. I s'pose, now—you don't know 'im yourself, mum?"
"I shall know him in a couple of minutes," said Miss Gregory cheerfully. "Hold your wife up while I find the latch of this gate!"
The chained dog broke into furious barking as they crossed the yard, and from within the house another dog answered it. A hand raised the edge of the blind at the single lighted window.
The tramp cleared his throat nervously as Miss Gregory found the knocker on the door and beat a firm summons upon it, which was answered by a renewed fury on the part of the dogs.
"Don't look up," she ordered, aware that they were being reconnoitred under the blind, "and if a dog rushes out when the door is opened, kick it."
"Yes'm," replied the tramp.
"And cheer up; your wife shall be indoors in a few minutes," she added.
"Yes'm," he said. "If it was only the barn, it 'u'd do, mum."
"Perhaps it will be the barn," said Miss Gregory. "They 're very slow in answering the door here."
She reached for the knocker again, and the dark yard echoed her insistence. The tramp was uneasy; the silence of the place made their intrusion portentous; but he uttered no comment. The woman was silent throughout, upheld by his arm; the beating of the knocker and the clamour of the dogs failed to stir her.
The window rattled as it was pushed up, and a man's head appeared in the opening black, against the light within.
"What's all this 'ere?" it demanded, in the Kentish drawl.
Miss Gregory stepped back to where the light from the window might fall upon her and let her be seen by the householder.
"Are you Gruden?" she inquired clearly.
She would have been better equipped for the contest which had now begun if she could have seen him distinctly. He showed merely as a mass, vaguely shaggy, in the window.
Her sharp question made him pause before replying.
"Well," he said, with the faintest accent of doubt, "well, an' supposin' I am?"
"Come down, then," said Miss Gregory; "I can't shout up to a window like this. Hurry up, please!"
The big head seemed to stare motionless. Miss Gregory moved with deliberate steps from the circle of light, and took a seat on the bench beside the farm-house door. It was the first critical point in the struggle. If the man at the window should now grunt profanely and refuse, she was as good as defeated. If, on the other hand, he yielded and came down to the door, he might go on obeying through mere habit.
The window above her closed, and Miss Gregory signalled the tramp to bring his wife to a seat beside her.
"Keep quiet now," she whispered. "Don't speak at all unless I tell you to."
The dogs yapped and raved, and in some shed near at hand a stabled horse stamped on a cobbled floor. The night had grown very dark, and, for the three still people who waited on the bench, the house at their backs was gravid with fate. A rustle of wind in the hedges came and died away again; and then there was the noise of footsteps on a stone floor within, and a hand rattled on the bolts of the door. The light of a lantern spilled out upon the ground as it opened. Miss Gregory rose.
Gruden held the lantern high and peered past it at his visitor. He showed now as a thick, elderly man with a flannel night-shirt tucked into a pair of trousers, and a wildly tumbled grey beard. Small, angry eyes stared from a malicious monkey face; he looked tyrannical and mischievous.
"An' now," he said, "let's hear what's doin'—wakin' people this time o' night."
"I'm Miss Gregory," said that lady briskly. "You must have heard of my brother, Sir Howard Gregory, at Addington."
Her excuse was that the woman needed aid swiftly, and there was no time to spare for manœuvring.
"Sir Howard, is it? And what about him?" demanded Gruden.
"Nothing about him," said Miss Gregory. "I have a woman here, very ill, who must have a bed, or somewhere to lie down, at any rate—at once, till a doctor can be fetched. As this house was the nearest, I brought her here."
"Ill, is she?" said Gruden, with noticeable mildness.
He came out from the doorway and brought the light of the lantern to bear on the woman, where she sat with her head leaning on her husband's shoulder. He bit his thin lips in as he inspected them in all their miserable poverty and loneliness. The tramp turned slavish eyes up to him, those hopeless but still imploring eyes with which lost men endeavour to placate their masters.
"H'm!" snorted Gruden, and turned again to Miss Gregory.
"It's from Addington you come, eh? Fifteen mile! Then your carriage 'll be waiting for you somewheres?"
"I came out for a walk," explained Miss Gregory. "I walked rather farther than I meant to, and lost my way. I found these people on the road, and there's no time to be lost. Let us get the woman to bed, and the man can go for a doctor."
While she spoke he was searching her with fierce, contemptuous eyes which made her uneasily aware that the dust of the roads was thick on her clothes.
"What doctor?" he asked abruptly.
"Who lives nearest?" she demanded in return.
"Don't ye know that?" said Gruden. "An' who 'll pay him when he comes? Sir Howard, I s'pose? Or p'r'aps you 've money in yer pocket yourself?"
Miss Gregory felt herself reddening in the lantern-light. It was plain that she had failed to impress Gruden; he was merely playing with her, and believing her not at all. It would have been fine to produce a purse forthwith and flatten him with a show of unlimited gold for the mere satisfaction of seeing him grovel. But she gathered herself for a last effort.
"Look here," she said strongly; "you can spare yourself the trouble of trying to be impertinent. If you can't see that you 're not dealing with a tramp, you are a fool. If you drive that woman away, you 'll be doing murder, and, I promise you, shall be held responsible for it. Understand that! As for paying, I 'll attend to that."
The man had a wry and miserly strength of his own; he smiled.
"No money?" he queried softly. "Dashed if I did n't think so. You an' your Sir Howard! It was n't Sir Howard that set a light to my rick last month, was it? Now I 'll tell you what to do!"
He made a sharp step toward her, and flung out a hand that pointed to the gate.
"You take your sick woman out o' here before I turn a dog on the lot o' you!" he ordered in a sudden roar. "You tramps is gettin' too smart by miles. Out o' this with the lot of you, an' sharp about it! Are you goin' now?"
"It's murder!" cried Miss Gregory. "If you won't give her a bed, she can lie in your barn. She sha'n't go out to the road!"
"Eh?" shouted Gruden. "She sha'n't, you say? Us 'll see if she sha'n't in a moment."
He dived at the door of the house and vanished within.
"He's gone to fetch a dog," said Miss Gregory. "Here—lift your wife up and give her to me. I 'll take her to the barn there, and you come behind us and keep the dog off."
The tramp obeyed wordlessly. Miss Gregory and her burden were half way across the yard when the lantern issued again from the house.
"At 'em, lad!" cried Gruden in happy tones. "Where be the rick-burners? Find 'em, boy—find 'em, ye beast! Ah, there they be!"
His swinging lantern had discovered them. The dog had bounced straight to the gate, but now came after them. Miss Gregory had the woman's arm across her broad shoulders, and did not turn her head. The tramp, who served as rear guard, must be trusted to do his part. As it happened, he did it well. The dog, a big half-bred retriever, came racing up, and the man, stepping forward, met it with a smashing kick that bowled it along the ground to the feet of its master.
"You swine!" yelled Gruden, dancing. "I 'll see ye jailed for this!"
"Let the other dog loose," said the tramp, "and I 'll do the same to him, and then to you!"
"Come on!" ordered Miss Gregory.
"Yes'm," replied the tramp, and obeyed.
"Get the barn door open," directed Miss Gregory. "Leave Gruden alone unless he interferes; but, if he does, knock him down."
"Yes'm," said the tramp, while Gruden, hovering, cursed them feverishly.
"You think I 'll let you stop in my barn?" he roared, as they entered its vast, sweet-scented darkness. "You think I 'll 'ave pikies [tramps] an' rick-burners makin' free with me? I 'll show you thieves!"
"Show us a light," suggested Miss Gregory, "unless you'd prefer to have us striking matches among all this hay?"
He choked at that; his curses and threats strangled in his throat. But the threat stirred him, and he carried his lantern to the door of the barn, and stood, chewing his lip and working his heavy eyebrows like a frantic ape, while they laid the woman to rest on a pile of fragrant hay. She sank upon it with a slow sigh of surrender to her utter weakness, and closed her eyes.
"Now you must go for a doctor," said Miss Gregory to the tramp. "Do you know where to find one?"
"Yes'm," answered the tall tramp. "There's one three miles from 'ere. But—what about 'im?"
He indicated the malevolent figure of Gruden in the great door.
"Well, what about him?" demanded Miss Gregory.
"'E daren't touch you while I'm 'ere," explained the tramp. "'E knows I'm fit to murder 'im any minute. But when I'm gone——"
"Oh, that will be quite all right," said Miss Gregory cheerfully. "Mr. Gruden won't lay a finger on us, I'm sure."
Gruden gulped the feelings he had no language to express.
"Because," continued Miss Gregory, "I 've got some unpleasant surprises for him, if he tries to. And, by the way, you might reach me down that scythe before you go."
"Yes'm," said the tramp, and did so.
"Thanks," said Miss Gregory. "And have you any matches? I 'll take those too, then. Now I shall be quite all right. What you have to do is to go to the doctor as fast as you can and bring him back here. Tell him about your wife, and mention my name—Miss Gregory! And—yes!—mention Mr. Gruden's name, too."
"You dare!" roared Gruden.
"Don't forget," said Miss Gregory. "Now off you go!"
Gruden stood aside to give the tall man passage.
They heard his running feet ring upon the stones of the yard, and the slam of the gate; and then the two women were alone in the great barn that stood about them like an empty and echoing church. At the door, Gruden seemed to wait with his lantern till the tramp should be out of hearing.
"Now," he said with slow satisfaction, when all sounds of his departure had ceased.
"Yes," said Miss Gregory; "but don't forget this!"
It was the scythe, which she picked up and held like a mower. Many times she had watched the scythes at work under the beeches in her brother's park.
"You can swing it, can ye?" said Gruden.
"Oh, yes," replied Miss Gregory; "if you come any nearer, I'll show you."
"Yah!" snarled Gruden wrathfully. "And you'd call yourself a lady, would ye? But I 'll have my chaps here in a minute, and we 'll see what good the scythe 'll do ye then."
He did not wait for an answer, but went away at once, and the light of the lantern gave place to the velvet-soft gloom within the great barn.
Miss Gregory groped her way to the pile of hay on which the woman lay, and sat down beside her. She had a while of leisure in which to realize how weary she was. She had been tired enough when she sat down on the milestone; and since then she had expended much of physical strength and nervous energy. She would have been glad to stretch herself at the woman's side and rest utterly, but she knew Gruden would not suffer her to lie long. She sat upright in the hay, listening to the breathing of the woman at her side and thinking in snatches how strangely she had stepped from the dull decency and security of her life at Addington Hall. England is a wonderful land; its complacent bosom harbours all the varieties of men, and life and death jostle each other among them. One has merely to step aside from one's ordered path to find new worlds.
It was the raucous voice of Gruden returning across the yard that brought her to her feet again.
"A rough-lookin' old 'oman she is, too," he was telling some one, "an' if you haves to fetch her a clout with a bat, fetch 'er a good 'un. Ain't going to 'ave my rickses burned twice for want of a bit o' cloutin', I ain't! In here they be, a brace of 'em."
The barn door was swung back, and Gruden, with his lantern, was again visible. At his back, a pair of sleepy labourers peered with round, stagnant eyes at the apparition of Miss Gregory, her scythe in her hands, standing ready to shear the feet from the first comer.
"That's 'er," said Gruden.
The elder of his two companions pursed his lips doubtfully. He was a lean and hardy ancient, with a hayband of whiskers under his chin, and an aspect of wry, dry wisdom about his weather-rough, sun-bitten face.
"She ain't no tramp." he said slowly.
"Quite right," said Miss Gregory; "you 're not such a fool as your master. He wants you to run the risk of getting your legs cut off with this scythe now, and of going to jail to-morrow."
"Don't harken to her," growled Gruden. "She can talk the hind leg off a dog. You, Bill, you get a bat and twizzle that there scythe outen her hands."
Bill was the other labourer, a young and heavy peasant with large, vacant features. "Ay," he said, and went on his errand.
"She ain't no tramp," repeated the elder man, chewing his lips meditatively. "Better mind what you 're a-doin' of!"
"I 'll mind she don't burn no ricks," retorted Gruden fiercely. "Ah, here's Bill! Now, Bill, show us what ye can do."
Bill brushed the hair out of his eyes and stepped to the threshold of the barn, with a stout six-foot pole in his hand. He was a burly animal, with all an animal's singleness of purpose in his stare. He made ready for an advance. Miss Gregory swung the scythe back.
"Look out!" she cried warningly.
Bill grunted and shuffled forward a couple of steps. He hoped either to hit the heft of the scythe and knock it out of her grasp or mow her down with a vicious swing at her ankles.
"Stand back!" ordered Miss Gregory urgently. "I'm not going to swing it—I'm going to throw it!"
"Eh?" cried Bill.
"Yes," said Miss Gregory fiercely, and made a feint of hurling it. Bill jumped back, and the elder labourer and Gruden with his lantern, who had crowded at his back to see the show, retired in like haste.
"The cunning vixen!" cried Gruden. "Go at her ag'in, Bill. Whop her over the head. Are we goin' to be beat by the likes of her? Keep your eye on the scy' and go in quick!"
Bill was an obedient beast. His not to make reply; at the word, he hoisted his pole once more and slouched to the attack.
The mere weirdness of the affair was the aspect of it which was most clearly visible to Miss Gregory. The lantern made heavy shadows about her. The prostrate woman, but for her harsh breathing, might have been a corpse; the three half-clad men were at once comical and terrible; and, beyond the little area of ground which they were converting into a battle-field she could see the mass of the house, with its upper window yet lighted, the white wall bordering the road, and. the trees. The scene dwarfed the drama and made it ridiculous.
Bill was yet in the doorway when she let the scythe drop. He halted, uncomprehending. To the so-called mind of Bill the incomprehensible was always uncanny.
"Well," demanded Gruden, "'ave you 'ad enough of it?"
Miss Gregory had taken something from her pocket, and was fumbling it between her hands.
"I'm not coming out, if that's what you mean," she answered briskly. "Look what I 've got here! These are matches, a bunch of them; and this is the box. If Bill, there, comes another step, I 'll strike them all and throw them into the hay. Do you understand?"
"Don't you dare!" shouted Gruden. "Hit her, Bill. No, don't hit her! Come back, you fool! Gosh, I 'll pay her for this!"
Miss Gregory smiled. It was plain that Mr. Gruden had a very real fear of fire—probably he had economized on insurance. The barn was of wood and full of combustibles; she could not have hit upon a better weapon with which to subdue him.
"You certainly will," she agreed now; "you 'll pay very heavily, Gruden. I don't know yet who your landlord is, but I soon shall know, and I hardly think he 'll care to have brutes of your stamp on his land. You 've been saved against your will from doing murder, but you 'll have to be punished."
"She ain't no tramp," rumbled the old man, with conviction, from the background.
"Even the tramps on the roads know your reputation," pursued Miss Gregory. "I don't wonder your ricks were burned. You earned it by meanness and cruelty; and after to-night you shall be paid in full. You 've driven helpless people from your doors for years. Well, if I can arrange it, you shall be driven out, too."
"You—!" Gruden swore.
Miss Gregory lifted a contemptuous hand. "You can go now," she said. "I 've had enough of you. The doctor will be here presently, and we sha'n't want you. Take yourself away."
Even the obtuse and loyal Bill was not unimpressed by her air of quiet authority; his goggle eyes travelled from her to his master and back again in torpid astonishment.
Farther up the yard she heard them in angry talk. The accents of wisdom were distinguishable.
"She ain't no tramp," floated back to her, as she sat down again on the hay.
The woman who slept beside her woke later and cried a little, and had to be comforted and hushed. Miss Gregory's soothing hand was seized by her and held tightly, and she was silent again, but with uneven breath and twitchings of her limbs. It seemed a long time since the man had been dispatched for the doctor—so long that any crisis of the woman's trouble might be imminent, with only Miss Gregory at hand to aid her. Miss Gregory, sitting in the dark, with the woman's hand clasped in hers, experienced a sudden sense of pettiness. After all, what were her adventures but little barren violences compared with that which this woman was about to undergo? She had lived her large and masterful life in a world of trifles; it was the tramp's wife who dared the greater peril for the truer profit.
It was these matters which occupied her in an unusual humility, when the doctor arrived in a dogcart and came striding across the yard with the carriage lamps in his hands, and the tall tramp carrying his bag at his side. He was a middle-aged, businesslike man, with the directness proper to men who work on the inside of facts.
"Then it is Miss Gregory?" he said, as if he had found the tramp's assertion incredible. "I 've had the pleasure of seeing you before, Miss Gregory. You 've had an exciting night, I hear. And now, let's have a look at the patient!"
The tramp, who had gone straight to his wife, made way for him, and he bent to his business.
Miss Gregory remembers what followed as an interminable succession of hours while she sat between waking and sleeping in the doctor's dogcart, while the tramp walked to and fro in the road. The doctor was a man of power; he laid the farm waste between anger and urgency. In two minutes he had called Gruden apt coarse names that crumpled that economist like waste paper; he then roused the wife of the staunch Bill and pressed her into service; he invaded the farmhouse, and commandeered milk for Miss Gregory and whiskey for the tramp. Then he shut himself into the barn, the confidant and minister of the powers of life and death; and the place without him was empty and forlorn.
The tramp paused at the side of the dogcart in which Miss Gregory sat, and looked up at her uncertainly.
"It ought to be all right, with 'im in charge," he said miserably.
"All right?" said Miss Gregory. "Of course it 'll be all right. Everything will be all right."
He sighed. "'Er an' me," he said, "we 've walked a good many miles o' road together. It's been 'ard on 'er. 'Er mother was a cook in a gentleman's family—very respectable. This ain't what she's been used to."
"But it's all right now," urged Miss Gregory. "There's work for you over at Addington."
"Thank you, mum," said the man joylessly. "It's what I'm looking for. But—but—if anything 'appens—to 'er"
He broke away sharply and went again to his tormented walking to and fro, the prey of griefs and terrors which no promises could disarm.
Then came the dawn, and light spreading upon the earth to make it ready for a new stage of human life. On the heels of the sun came the doctor, coatless and shivering at the chill. He gave Miss Gregory a smile, but it was to the husband he spoke first.
"There's a man in there with your wife," he said. "Go in and see him."
The tramp did not understand. "Who is he?" he asked dully.
"Oh—a new friend of hers," replied the doctor. "In you go!"
The man stared at him, white-faced and trembling. The doctor put a hand on his shoulder and thrust him toward the gate. He went doubtfully for half a dozen steps, and then the meaning of it dawned on him.
"Is she quite all right?" asked Miss Gregory.
"Quite," said the doctor, "thanks to you, Miss Gregory. 'Joy cometh in the morning,' you know. Give them five minutes together, and then, if you like, you can see the new arrival."
"Thanks," said Miss Gregory. "Meanwhile, can we make any arrangement about looking after all three of them till the mother is well? I must go through with it, you know."
"I 'll attend to everything," said the doctor. "Leave it to me, Miss Gregory. And, when we 're finished here, I 'll give myself the pleasure of driving you home."
Mrs. Bill had so little in common with her husband that she greeted Miss Gregory with curtseys on her visit to the barn, where the tramp knelt beside his wife. The woman had been made comfortable, and smiled faintly up from under a coverlet upon her bed of hay. She was not pale; she was a little flushed, as if with a struggle in which she had been triumphant. She did not speak, but, as Miss Gregory bent over her, she moved slightly, so as to show the fruit of miracles which lay in the crotch of her arm. A round, devoted head, with down upon it like delicate shadow, lay upon her bosom; a crumpled new-minted face slept profoundly; a tiny shoulder, heart-breaking in its littleness, was humped against the world and the future. The tramp-woman smiled again, with a tenderness in which there was mingled the arrogance, the confidence, the exultation of motherhood.
Miss Gregory inspected the arrangement with an expression of critical interest. But she said nothing. There was nothing she could say—nothing which a novice is entitled to say to an initiate.
The drive home was a long one. She was tired, and conversation languished. For most of the way she sat back in her seat, gazing before her very thoughtfully, as if her mind were baffled with new doubts.
It was breakfast-time when they came along the winding drive to the door of Addington Hall, which the postman was just leaving.
"A parcel for you, Miss," he said, touching his official hat convulsively, and Miss Gregory paused in the hall to examine it. The doctor, who was staying to breakfast, heard an exclamation, and turned to see her tearing it open. She looked up at him across it.
He was, by virtue of his trade, a connoisseur in strong emotions, and he looked at Miss Gregory with quick interest. To himself he said: "Gad, she's looking like that mother in the barn at Gruden's!" Aloud he asked: "Anything the matter?"
"The matter!" said Miss Gregory. "No, But"
She tore away more of the wrapping-paper, and produced from its coverings a stout and handsome volume, bound in red and lettered in gold.
"It's—it's my book," she said. "My book!"
THE END