Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  First Tramp: “I’m tired of the whole thing.” Second Tramp: “I don’t like it myself. But there’s worse things. There’s work, for example. By my soul, there’s nothing disgusts me like these places where they tell you to go out and hoe potatoes, and your breakfast will be ready in an hour. I never could work with any more pleasure on an empty stomach than a full one. And the poor devils always think they’ve done something so fine when they say that, and the joke’s so stale! I can tell them I’m not to be got rid of so easy. I’m not the lazy, dirty vagabond I look, at all; I’m the inevitable result of the conflict between labor and capital; I’m the logical consequence of the prevailing corruption. I read it on the bit of newspaper they gave me round my dinner, yesterday; it was cold beef of a quality that you don’t often find in the country.”

  First Tramp, sullenly: “I’m sick of the whole thing. I’m going out of it.”

  Second Tramp: “And what’ll you do? Are ye going to work?”

  First Tramp: “To work? No! To steal.” Second Tramp: “Faith, I don’t call that going out of it, then. It’s quite in the line of business. You ‘re no bad dab at a hen-roost, now, as I know very well; and for any little thing that a gentleman can shove under his coat, while the lady of the house has her back turned buttering his lunch for him, I don’t know the man I’d call master.”

  First Tramp: “If I could get a man to tell me the time of day by a watch I liked, I’d as lief knock him over as look at him.”

  Second Tramp: “Oh, if it’s high-way robbery you mean, partner, I don’t follow you.”

  First Tramp: — What’s the difference?”

  Second Tramp: “Not much, if you take it one way, but a good deal if you take it another. It’s the difference between petty larceny and grand larceny; it’s the difference between three months in the House of Correction and ten years in the State’s Prison, if you ‘re caught, not to mention the risks of the profession.”

  First Tramp: “I’d take the risks if I saw my chance.” He lies down with his arms crossed under his head, and stares up into the pine. His comrade glances at him, and then moves stiffly out from the shelter of the trees, and, shading his eyes with one hand, peers down the road.

  Second Tramp: “I didn’t know but I might see your chance, partner. You wouldn’t like an old gentleman with a load of potatoes to begin on, would ye? There’s one just gone up the cross-road. And yonder goes an umbrella-mender. I’m afraid we shan’t take any purses to speak of, in this neighborhood. Whoosh! Wait a bit — here’s somebody coming this way.” The first tramp is sufficiently interested to sit up. “Faith, here’s your chance at last, then, if you ‘re in earnest, my friend; but it stands six feet in its stockings, and it carries a stick as well as a watch. I won’t ask a share of the plunder, partner; I’ve rags enough of my own without wanting to divide your property with the gentleman coming.” He goes back and lies down at the foot of one of the trees, while the other, who has risen from his pine-boughs, comes cautiously forward; after a glance at the approaching wayfarer he flings away his cudgel, and, taking a pipe from his pocket drops into a cringing attitude. The Irishman grins. In another moment Blake appears from under the cover of the woods and advances with long strides, striking with his stick at the stones in the road as he comes on, in an absent-minded fashion.

  II. BLAKE AND THE TRAMPS.

  First Tramp: “I say, mister!” Blake looks up, and his eye falls upon the squalid figure of the tramp; he stops. “Couldn’t you give a poor fellow a little tobacco for his pipe? A smoke comes good, if you don’t happen to know where you ‘re going to get your breakfast.”

  Second Tramp, coming forward, with his pipe in his hand: “True for you, partner. A little tobacco in the hand is worth a deal of breakfast in the bush.” Blake looks from one to the other, and then takes a paper of tobacco from his pocket and gives it to the first tramp, who helps himself and passes it to his comrade; the latter offers to return it after filling his pipe; Blake declines it with a wave of his hand, and walks on.

  Second Tramp, calling after him: “God bless you! May you never want it!”

  First Tramp: “Thank you, mister. You’re a gentleman!”

  Blake: “All right.” He goes out of sight under the trees down the road, and then suddenly reappears and walks up to the two tramps, who remain where he left them and are feeling in their pockets for a match. “Did one of you call me a gentleman?”

  First Tramp: “Yes, I did, mister. No offense in that, I hope?”

  Blake: “No, but why did you do it?”

  First Tramp: “Well, you didn’t ask us why we didn’t go to work; and you didn’t say that men who hadn’t any money to buy breakfast had better not smoke; and you gave us this tobacco. I’ll call any man a gentleman that’ll do that.”

  Blake: “Oh, that’s a gentleman, is it? All right.” He turns to go away, when the second tramp detains him.

  Second Tramp: “Does your honor happen to have ever a match about you?” Blake takes out his match-case and strikes a light. “God bless your honor. You ‘re a real gentleman.”

  Blake: “Then this makes me a gentleman past a doubt?”

  Second Tramp: “Sure, it does that.”

  Make: “I’m glad to have the matter settled.” He walks on absently as before, and the tramps stand staring a moment in the direction in which he has gone.

  Second Tramp, who goes back to the tree where he has been sitting and stretches himself out with his head on one arm for a quiet smoke: “That’s a queer genius. By my soul, I’d like to take the road in his company. Sure, I think there isn’t the woman alive would be out of cold victuals and old clothes when he put that handsome face of his in at the kitchen window.”

  First Tramp, looking down the road: “I wonder if that fellow could have a drop of spirits about him! I say, mister!” calling after Blake. “Hello, there, I say!”

  Second Tramp: “It’s too late, my worthy friend. He’ll never hear you; and it’s pot likely he’d come back to fill your flask for you, if he did. A gentleman of his character’d think twice before he gave a tramp whiskey. Tobacco’s another thing.” He takes out the half-paper of tobacco, and looks at the label on it. “What an extravagant dog! It’s the real cut-cavendish; and it smells as nice as it smokes. This luxury is what’s destroying the country. ‘With the present reckless expenditure in all classes of the population, and the prodigious influx of ignorant and degraded foreigners, there must he a constant increase of tramps.’ True for you, Mr. Newspaper. ‘T would have been an act of benevolence to take his watch from him, partner, and he never could tell how fast he was going to ruin. But you can’t always befriend a man six feet high and wiry as a cat.”

  He offers to put the tobacco into his pocket again, when his comrade slouches up, and makes a clutch at it.

  First Tramp: “I want that.”

  Second Tramp: “Why, so ye do!”

  First Tramp: “It’s mine.”

  Second Tramp: “I’m keeping it for ye.”

  First Tramp: “I tell you the man gave it to me.”

  Second Tramp: “And he would n t take it back from me. Ah, will you, ye brute?” The other seizes the wrist of the hand with which the Irishman holds the tobacco; they wrestle together, when women’s voices are heard at some distance down the road. “Whoosh! Ladies coming.” The first tramp listens, kneeling. The Irishman springs to his feet and thrusts the paper of tobacco into his pocket, and, coming quickly forward, looks down the road. “Fortune favors the brave, partner! Here comes another opportunity — three of them, faith, and pretty ones at that! Business before pleasure; I’ll put off that beating again; it’s all the better for keeping. Besides, it’s not the thing,’ quarreling before ladies.” He is about to crouch down again at the foot of the tree as before, when his comrade hastily gathers up his bundle, and seizing him by the arm drags him back into the thicket behind the pine-trees. After a moment or two, three young ladies come sauntering slowly along the road.

 
; III. LESLIE, MAGGIE, AND LILLY; THEN LESLIE ALONE.

  Lilly, delicately sniffing the air: “Fee, fi, fo, fum; I smell the pipe of an Irishman.”

  Leslie: “Never! I know the flavor of refined tobacco, thanks to a smoking brother. Oh, what a lonely road!”

  Lilly: “This loneliness is one of the charms of the Ponkwasset neighborhood. When you ‘re once out of sight of the hotel and the picnic-grounds you’d think you were a thousand miles away from civilization. Not an empty sardine-box or a torn paper collar anywhere! This scent of tobacco is an unheard-of intrusion.”

  Maggie, archly: “Perhaps Mr. Blake went this way. Does he smoke, Leslie?”

  Leslie, coldly: “How should I know, Maggie? A. gentleman would hardly smoke in ladies’ company — strange ladies.” She sinks down upon a log at the wayside, and gazes slowly about with an air of fastidious criticism that gradually changes to a rapture of admiration. “Well, I certainly think that, take it all in all, I never saw anything more fascinating. It’s wonderful! This little nook itself, with that brown carpet of needles under the pines, and that heavy fringe of ferns there, behind those trunks; and then those ghostly birches stretching up and away, yonder — thousands of them! How tall and slim and stylish they are. And how they do march into the distance! I never saw such multitudes; and their lovely paleness makes them look as if one saw them by moonlight. Oh, oh! How perfectly divine! If one could only have their phantom-like procession painted! But Corot himself couldn’t paint them. Oh, I must make some sort of memorandum — I won’t have the presumption to call it a sketch.” She takes a sketch-book from under her arm, and lays it on her knees, and then with her pencil nervously traces on the air the lines of the distant birches. “Yes; I must. I never shall see them so beautiful again! Just jot down a few lines, and wash in the background when I get to the hotel. But girls; you mustn’t stay! Go on and get the flowers, and I’ll be done by the time you ‘re back. I couldn’t bear to have you overlooking me; I’ve all the sensitiveness of a great artist. Do go! But don’t be gone long.” She begins to work at her sketch, without looking at them.

  Maggie: “ I’m so glad, Leslie. I knew you’d be perfectly fascinated with this spot, and so I didn’t tell you about it. I wanted it to burst upon you.”

  Leslie, with a little impatient surprise, as if she had thought they were gone: “Yes, yes; never mind. You did quite right. Don’t stay long.” She continues to sketch, looking up now and then at the scene before her; but not glancing at her companions, who walk away from her some paces, when Miss Wallace comes back.

  Maggie: “ What time is it, Leslie? Leslie!”

  Leslie, nervously: “ Oh! What a start you gave me.” Glancing at her watch: “ It’s nine minutes past ten — I mean ten minutes past nine.” Still without looking at her: “ Be back soon.”

  Maggie: “Oh, it isn’t far. Again she turns away with Miss Roberts, but before they are quite out of sight Leslie springs to her feet and runs after them.

  Leslie: “Oh, girls — girls!”

  Maggie, anxiously, starting back toward her: “What? What?”

  Leslie, dreamily, as she returns to her place and sits down: “Oh, nothing. I just happened to think.” She closes her eyes to a narrow line, and looks up at the birches. “There are so many horrid stories in the papers. But of course there can’t be any in this out-of-the-way place, so far from the cities.”

  Maggie: “Any what, Leslie?”

  Leslie, remotely: “Tramps.”

  Maggie, scornfully: “There never was such a thing heard of in the whole region.”

  Leslie: “I thought not.” She is again absorbed in study of the birches; and, after a moment of hesitation, the other two retreat down the road once more, lingering a little to look back in admiration of her picturesque devotion to art, and then vanishing under the flickering light and shadow. Leslie works diligently on, humming softly to herself, and pausing now and then to look at the birches, for which object she rises at times, and, gracefully bending from side to side, or stooping forward to make sure of some effect that she has too slightly glimpsed, resumes her seat and begins anew. “No, that won’t do!” — vigorously plying her india-rubber on certain lines of the sketch. “How stupid!” Then beginning to draw again, and throwing back her head for the desired distance on her sketch: “Ah, that’s more like. Still, nobody could accuse it of slavish fidelity. Well!” She sings: —

  “Through starry palm-roofs on Old Nile

  The full-orbed moon looked clear;

  The bulbul sang to the crocodile,

  ‘Ah, why that bitter tear?’

  “‘With thy tender breast against the thorn,

  Why that society-smile?’

  The bird was mute. In silent scorn

  Slow winked the crocodile.” —

  How perfectly ridiculous! Slow winked” —

  Miss Bellingham alternately applies pencil and rubber— “slow winked the croco — I never shall get that right; it’s too bad! — dile.” While she continues to sketch, and sing da capo, the tramps creep stealthily from their covert. Apparently in accordance with some preconcerted plan, the surlier and huger ruffian goes down the road in the direction taken by Leslie’s friends, and the Irishman stations himself unobserved at her side and supports himself with both hands resting upon the top of his stick, in an attitude of deferential patience and insinuating gallantry. She ceases singing and looks up.

  IV. THE YOUNG GIRLS AND THE TRAMPS.

  Second Tramp: “Not to be interrupting you, miss,” — Leslie stares at his grinning face in dumb and motionless horror,—” would ye tell a poor traveler the time of day, so that he needn’t be eating his breakfast prematurely, if he happens to get any?”

  First Tramp, from his station down the road, in a hoarse undertone: “Snatch it out of her belt, you fool! Snatch it! He’s coming back. Quick!” Leslie starts to her feet.

  Second Tramp: “ Ye see, miss, my friend’s impatient.” Soothingly: “Just let me examine your watch. I give ye my honor I won’t hurt you; don’t lose your presence of mind, my dear; don’t be frightened.” As she shrinks back, he clutches at her watch-chain.

  Leslie, in terror-stricken simplicity: “Oh, oh, no! Don’t! Don’t take my watch. My father gave it to me — and he’s dead.”

  Second Tramp: “Then he’ll never miss it, my dear. Don’t oblige me to be rude to a lady. Give it here, at once, that’s a dear.”

  First Tramp: “Hurry, hurry! He’s coming!” As the Irishman seizes her by the wrist, Leslie utters one wild shriek after another, to which the other young girls respond, as they reappear under the trees down the road.

  Maggie: “Leslie, Leslie! What is it?”

  Lilly, at sight of Leslie struggling with the tramp: “Oh, help, help, help, somebody — do!” Maggie: “Murder!”

  First Tramp, rushing past them to the aid of his fellow: “Clap your hand over her mouth! Stop her noise, somehow! Choke her!” He springs forward, and while the Irishman stifles her cries with his hands, the other tears the watch-chain loose from its fastening. They suddenly release her, and as she reels gasping and swooning away, some one has the larger villain by the throat, who struggles with his assailant backward into the undergrowth, whence the crash of broken branches, with cries and curses, makes itself heard. Following this tumult comes the noise of a rush through the ferns, and then rapid footfalls, as of flight and pursuit on the hard road, that die away in the distance, while Maggie and Lilly hang over Leslie, striving to make out from her incoherent moans and laments what has happened.

  Maggie: “Oh, Leslie, Leslie, Leslie, what was it? Do try to think! Do try to tell! Oh, I shall go wild if you don’t tell what’s the matter.” Leslie: “Oh, it was — Oh, oh, I feel as if I should never be clean again! How can I endure it? — That filthy hand on my mouth! Their loathsome rags, their sickening faces! Ugh! Oh, I shall dream of it as long as I live! Why, why did I ever come to this horrid place?”

  Maggie: “Leslie, — dear, good L
eslie, — what was it all?”

  Leslie, panting and sobbing: “Oh, two horrid, disgusting men! Don’t ask me! And they told me to give them my watch, and I begged them not to take it. And one was a hideous little Irish wretch, and he kept running all round me, and oh, dear! the other was worse than he was; yes, worse! And he told him — oh, girls! — to choke me! And he came running up, and then the other put one of his hands over my mouth, and I couldn’t breathe; and I thought I should die; but I wasn’t going to let the wretches have my watch, if I could help it; and I kept struggling; and all at once they ran away, and” — putting her hand to her belt—” Oh, it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone! Oh, papa, papa! The watch you gave me is gone!” She crouches down upon the log, and leaning her head upon her hands against the trunk of a tree gives way to her tears and sobs, while the others kneel beside her in helpless distress. On this scene Blake emerges from the road down which the steps were heard. His face is pale, and he advances with his right arm held behind him, while the left clasps something which he extends as he speaks.

  V. BLAKE AND THE YOUNG GIRLS.

  Blake, after a pause in which he stands looking at Leslie unheeded by the others: “Here is your watch, Miss Bellingham.”

  Leslie, whirling swiftly round to her feet: “My watch? Oh, where did you find it?” She springs towards him and joyfully seizing it from his hand scans it eagerly, and then kisses it in a rapture.