peter was sitting under a hedge, playing on a penny whistle. behind him was a bush, snowy with the white flowers of the hawthorn. in front of him was a field, warm with the gold of buttercups. away in a distant valley were the roofs of cottages and a farmhouse. the smoke from one of its chimneys rose thin and blue in the still air. it was all very peaceful, ideally english.
peter was an artist. it seemed almost incredible that a tin instrument which could be purchased for a penny could be made to produce such sounds.
he was playing a joyous lilt. you could hear the song of birds and feel the soft west wind blowing from distant places; and through it was a measured beat as of feet walking along the open road. yet under all the gaiety and light-heartedness lay a strange minor note, a note that somehow found reflection in peter’s blue eyes.
peter finished his tune and put the whistle-pipe in his pocket. from a wallet beside him he pulled out a hunch of bread and cheese and a very red and shiny apple. he opened a large clasp-knife, cut the hunch of bread in two, and fell to eating slowly. his hands were long-fingered, flexible, and very brown. there was a lean, muscular look about peter altogether. his clothes were distinctly shabby. they consisted of a pair of grey trousers, very frayed at the edges, and with a patch of some darker material on one knee; a soft white shirt, spotlessly clean; and a loose jacket, grey flannel like the trousers. a felt hat lay on the ground near him. in it was fantastically stuck a peacock feather. beside the hat was a small bundle rolled up in a bit of sacking.
peter finished the bread and cheese and the apple, and put the clasp-knife back into his pocket. from another pocket he pulled out a small book, the cover rather limp and worn. he tucked the bundle behind his back and opened the book. its contents did not long engross him. [pg 10]the warm may sun and the fact that he had tramped a considerable number of miles since sunrise had a soporific effect on peter. his fingers gradually relaxed their hold, the book fell to the ground, and peter slept.
his slumber was so deep that he did not hear the footfall of a man on the soft grass, nor did he stir when the man came near and stood looking down upon him. he was a man of medium height and build, with brown hair, small moustache, and rather light eyes. there was about him an air of finish, yet he quite escaped the epithet of dapper.
for a moment or so he stood looking down upon the recumbent figure. he took in every detail, from the frayed trousers and the spotless shirt to the fantastic feather in the hat. he saw that the sleeper’s face was clean-shaven, bronzed, and with rather high cheek-bones. the hair was dark. there was in the sleeping face a look of quiet weariness. to the man watching him it was the face of one who was lonely.
then his eye fell upon the book. he stooped down and gently picked it up. the book was open at the following lines:
“sin i fro love escaped am so fat,
i never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
sin i am free, i counte him not a bene.
he may answere, and say this or that;
i do no fors, i speke right as i mene.
sin i fro love escaped am so fat,
i never thenk to ben in his prison lene.
“love hath my name y-strike out of his sclat,
and he is strike out of my bokes clene
for ever-mo; ther is non other mene.
sin i fro love escaped am so fat,
i never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
sin i am free, i counte him not a bene.”
ten minutes later peter stirred and yawned. he sat up and began to stretch himself. but in the very act thereof he stopped, and a gleam of humorous amazement shot into his blue eyes, for on the grass beside him a man was sitting, calmly reading from his own rather shabby book.
the man looked up.
“don’t let me interrupt you,” said peter, with a brilliant smile.
the man laughed. “i ought to apologize,” he said. “the fact is, when i first saw you lying there asleep i took you for a tramp. then i [pg 12]came nearer and saw my mistake. i also saw the book. the temptation to talk to a man who obviously loved the open air and read chaucer was too much for me. i sat down to wait till you should awake.”
“very good of you,” replied peter. “but you didn’t make a mistake, i am a tramp.”
“so am i,” responded the other, “on a walking tour.”
peter sat up very deliberately now. he broke off a piece of grass, which he began to nibble. through the nibbling he spoke:
“but i presume that your walking tour is of fairly brief duration; mine has lasted rather more than two years.”
the other man looked at him curiously. “you love the open as much as that?”
“oh, i love the open well enough,” replied peter airily; “but that’s not the whole reason. i can’t afford a roof.”
now, the very obvious reply to this would have been that peter, a young man and, moreover, clearly one of education, might very well work for a roof. but it being so extremely obvious that this was what peter might do, it was also obvious that [pg 13]there was some excellent reason why he did not do it.
the man was silent. peter appreciated his silence.
“the fact is,” said peter deliberately, “that prior to my starting this ‘walking tour,’ as you so kindly term it, i had spent three years in prison for forgery and embezzling a considerable sum of money.”
“ah!” said the man quietly, watching him.
“there are always the colonies,” went on peter carelessly. “but somehow i’ve a predilection for england. of course, in england there is the disadvantage that you’re bound to produce references if you want work—i mean the kind of work that would appeal to me. i dare say i might get taken on as a day labourer on a farm, but even there my speech is against me; it makes people suspicious.”
“but how do you manage?” asked the other curiously.
peter laughed. he pulled his whistle-pipe from his pocket.
“i pipe for my bread,” he said. “they call me peter the piper.”
the other man nodded. “good,” he said; “i like that. there’s a flavour of romance about it that appeals to me. my name’s neil macdonald.”
peter looked at him. “then you don’t mind introducing yourself to a jail-bird?” he asked jauntily; but there was an underhint of wistfulness in the words.
“my dear fellow,” responded neil, “i have some intuition. it’s so absolutely apparent that you must have been shielding some one else, that——”
peter interrupted him. the pupils of his blue eyes had contracted till they looked like two pinpricks.
“i beg your pardon,” he said slowly; “i said that i spent three years in prison for forgery and embezzlement.” he looked neil full in the face.
neil held out his hand. “i apologize,” he said; “it was extremely clumsy of me.”
peter took his hand with a light laugh. “it was rather decent of you, all the same,” he said, “though, of course, utterly absurd. you’re the first man, though, that’s committed the absurdity. you happen, too, to be the first man with whom [pg 15]i’ve shaken hands since i freed myself from the clasp of a salvation army brother who met me outside the prison gates and talked about my soul. i hadn’t the smallest interest in my soul at the moment. i wanted a cigarette and a drink more than anything in heaven or earth. he was a good-meaning fellow, of course, but—well, just a little wanting in tact. of course, there were others ready to hold out the hand of pity if i’d asked for it. but there’d have been something slippery about the touch. the oil of charity doesn’t appeal to me.”
there was a pause. somewhere in the blueness a lark was singing, an exuberant feathered morsel, pouring forth his very soul in song.
neil broke the silence. “pipe to me,” he said.
peter laughed. he pulled the whistle from his pocket, and his fingers held it very lovingly. he put it to his lips.
first there came a couple of clear notes, like a bird-call; they repeated themselves in the distance and were answered. then the air became alive with the joyous warbling of feathered choristers, and through the warbling came the sound [pg 16]of little rills chasing each other over brown stones, where fish darted in the sunlight and dragonflies skimmed. next, across a meadow—one knew it was a meadow—came the sound of little feet and children’s laughter. and the sound of the laughter and the babbling of the water and the song of the birds were all mingled in one delicious bubbling melody drawn from the very heart of nature. it came to a pause. you felt the children, the birds, and the brooks hold their breath to listen. and then from the branches of some tree a hidden nightingale sang alone.
peter stopped, wiped the pipe on his sleeve, and put it back in his pocket.
“marvellous!” breathed neil softly.
again there was a pause, and again it was broken by neil.
“i say, will you come back and have lunch with me?” there was a frank spontaneity about the question.
again the wistful look crept into peter’s blue eyes. the suggestion coming suddenly was evidently somewhat of a temptation.
“i believe i’d like to,” he said lightly, “but——”
“well?” asked neil.
peter shook his head. “i think not,” he said. “there are quite nine hundred and ninety-nine reasons against it, and only one for it.”
“and isn’t the one reason good enough to counteract the others?”
peter laughed. “i fancy not. the high-road has claimed me, the hedge-side is my dining-place, the sky my roof. when it is too unkind to me, i seek shelter in a barn. i’ve struck up a kind of silent intimacy with cows, sheep, and horses. i’ve found them, indeed, quite pleased to welcome me.”
“it must be horribly lonely,” said neil impulsively.
peter looked away across the valley. “i wonder,” he said. “perhaps it only appears so. formerly i walked the earth in company, and when i got near enough to a fellow-creature to believe that i had the right to call him comrade, i suddenly realized that i was looking into the face of a complete stranger. somehow the loneliness struck deeper home at those moments. now—well, one just expects nothing.”
neil glanced down at the book he was still holding in his hand.
peter smiled.
“love hath my name y-strike out of his sclat,
and he is strike out of my bokes clene
for ever-mo ...
sin i am free i counte him not a bene,”
he quoted. “there’s a freedom about that, a kind of clean-washedness which is very wholesome; the fresh rain upon one’s face in high places after a room full of hot-house flowers.” he stopped. “heaven knows why i am talking to you like this,” he said whimsically.
“i don’t fancy,” said neil calmly, “that you’ve ever been really in love.”
“no?” smiled peter.
“of course, you think you have,” went on neil.
“indeed?” smiled peter again.
“oh, i’m not going to argue with you,” said the other good-humouredly, “only when the time comes that you do love, just do me the favour to remember what i’ve said.”
“‘he is strike out of my bokes clene,’”
quoted peter again, looking at neil lazily.
“there is,” said neil, “such a thing as invisible ink. there are certain words written with it on the pages of our lives. the pages look uncommonly blank, but should they chance to catch certain heat-rays, the words written upon them will stand out very black and clear.”
“humph!” said peter.
“wait and see,” said neil.
“all right,” said peter. and then he got to his feet. he picked up his wallet, bundle, and the hat with the peacock feather. he put it jauntily on his head.
“i must be moving on,” he said.
neil, too, had risen. he held out the limp book. peter took it and put it in his pocket.
“chaucer or you,” he said, “which am i to believe?”
“believe which you like,” retorted neil. “time will bring the proof. i’m glad i met you.” he held out his hand.
peter took it. “common politeness,” he said, “should make me echo that sentiment. truth obliges me to hesitate. yet frankly i like you. perhaps you have sufficient acumen to guess at the reason for my hesitation. well, good-bye.”
peter vaulted over a stile that led into the high-road. he turned and waved his hat in the direction of the man looking after him, then started off at a swinging pace. ten minutes took him into the valley, then he began to ascend. part way up the hill he turned and looked at the now distant field.
“oh, damn!” he said half ruefully. “why the devil did i meet him!”
