II.—A CORRECTED CONTEMPT.
The whistles had sounded, and we were already moving slowly out of St. David's Station, Exeter, to continue our journey westward, when the door was pulled open and a brown bag, followed by a whiff of Millefleurs and an over-dressed young man, came flying into the compartment where I sat alone and smoked.
The youth scrambled to a seat as the door slammed behind him; remarked that it was "a near shave"; and laughed nervously as if to assure me that he found it a joke. His face was pink with running, and the colour contrasted unpleasantly with his pale sandy hair and moustache. He wore a light check suit, a light-blue tie knotted through a "Mizpah" ring, a white straw hat with a blue ribbon, and two finger-rings set with sham diamonds—altogether the sort of outfit that its owner would probably have described as "rather nobby." Feeling that just now it needed a few repairs, he opened the bag, pulled out a duster and flicked away for half-a-minute at his brown boots. Next with a handkerchief he mopped his face and wiped round the inner edge first of his straw hat, and then of his collar and cuffs. After this he stood up, shook his trousers till they hung with a satisfying gracefulness, produced a cigar-case—covered with forget-me-nots in crewel work—and a copy of the Sporting Times, sat down again, and asked me if I could oblige him with a light.
I think the train had neared Dawlish before the cigar was fairly started, and his pink face hidden behind the pink newspaper. But even so between the red sandstone cliffs and the wholesome sea this pink thing would not sit still. His diamond rings kept flirting round the edge of the Sporting Times, his brown boots shifting their position on the cushion in front of him, his legs crossing, uncrossing, recrossing, his cigar-smoke rising in quick, uneasy puffs.
Between Teignmouth and Newton Abbot this restlessness increased. He dropped some cigar-ash on his waistcoat and arose to shake it off. Twice or thrice he picked up the paper and set it down again. As we ran into Newton Abbot Station, he came over to my side of the carriage and scanned the small crowd upon the platform. Suddenly his pink cheeks flushed to crimson. The train was slowing to a standstill, and while he hesitated with a hand on the door, a little old man came trotting down the platform—a tremulous little man, in greenish black broadcloth, eloquent of continued depression in some village retail trade. His watery eyes shone brimful of pride and gladness.
"Whai, Charley, lad, there you be, to be shure; an' lookin' as peart as a gladdy! Shaäke your old vather's vist, lad—ees fay, you be lookin' well!"
The youth, scorched with a miserable shame, stepped out, put his hand in his father's, and tried to withdraw him a little up the platform and out of my hearing.
"Noa, noa; us'll bide where us be, zoa's to be 'andy vur the train when her starts off. Her doan't stay no while. I vound Zam Emmet zarving here as porter—you mind Zam? Danged if I knawed 'en, vurst along, the vace of 'en's that altered: grawed a beard, her hev. But her zays to me, 'How be gettin' 'long, Isaac?' an' then I zaw who 'twas—an' us fell to talkin', and her zaid the train staps vaive minnits, no more nor less."
His son interrupted him with mincing haughtiness.
"'Ow's mothaw?"
"Weist an' ailin', poor crittur—weist an' ailin'. Dree times her've a-been through the galvanic battery, an' might zo well whistle. Turble lot o' zickness about. An' old Miss Ruby's resaigned, an' a new postmistress come in her plaäce—a tongue-tight pore crittur, an' talks London. If you'll b'lieve me, Miss Ruby's been to Plymouth 'pon her zavings an' come back wi' vifteen pound' worth of valse teeth in her jaws, which, as I zaid, 'You must excoose my plain speakin', but they've a-broadened your mouth, Miss Ruby, an' I laiked 'ee better as you was bevore.' 'Never mind,' her zays, 'I can chow.' There now, Charley—zimme I've been doing arl the tarlk, an' thy mother'll be waitin' wi' dree-score o' questions, zoon as I gets whome. Her'd ha' corned to gie thee a kiss, if her'd a-been 'n a vit staäte; but her's zent thee zummat—"
He foraged in the skirt pockets of his threadbare coat and brought out a paper of sandwiches and a long-nosed apple. I saw the young man wince.
"Her reckoned you'd veel a wamblin' in the stommick, travellin' arl the waäy from Hexeter to Plymouth. There, stow it awaäy. Not veelin' peckish? Never maind: there's a plenty o' taime betwix' this an' Plymouth."
"No, thanks."
"Tut-tut, now—" He insisted, and the packet, on the white paper wrapper of which spots of grease were spreading, changed hands. The little man peered wistfully up into his son's face: his own eyes were full of love, but seemed to search for something.
"How dost laike it, up to Hexeter: an' how't get along?"
"Kepital—kepital. Give mothaw my love."
"E'es be shure. Fainely plaized her'll be to hear thee'rt zo naicely adrest. Her'd maäde up her maind, pore zowl, that arl your buttons ud be out, wi' nobody to zee arter 'en. But I declare thee'rt drest laike a topsawyer."
And with this a dead silence fell between the two. The old man shifted his weight from one foot to another, and twice cleared his throat. The young counter-jumper averted his eyes from his father's quivering lip to stare up the platform. The minutes ran on.
At last the old man found his voice—
"Thic' there's a stubbard apple you've got in your hand."
"Take your seats, please!"
The guard held the door while they shook hands again. "Charley" leaned out at the window as our train began to move.
"Her comes from the zeccond 'spalier past the inyon-bed; al'ays the vurst to raipen, thic' there tree."
The old fellow broke into something resembling a run as he followed our carriage to shout—
"Turble bad zayson vur zaider!"
With that he halted at the end of the platform, and watched us out of sight. His son flung himself on the seat with—I could have kicked him for it—a deprecatory titter. Then he drew a long breath; but it was twenty minutes before his blush faded, and he regained confidence to ask me for another light.
Just eighteen months after I was travelling up to London in the Zulu express. A large Fair Trade meeting had been held at Plymouth the night before, and three farmers in the compartment with me were discussing that morning's leader in the Western Daily Mercury. One of them had already been goaded into violent speech when we halted at Newton Abbot and another passenger stepped in—a little old man in a suit of black.
I recognised him at once. And yet he was changed woefully. He had fallen away in flesh; the lines had deepened beside his upper lip; and in spite of a glossier suit he had an appearance of hopelessness which he had not worn when I saw him for the first time.
He took his seat, looked about him vacantly and caught the eye of the angry farmer, who nodded, broke off his speech in the middle of a sentence, and asked in a curiously gentle voice—
"Travellin' up to Exeter?"
The old man bent his head for "yes," and I saw the tears well up in his weak eyes.
"There's no need vur to ax your arrand." The farmer here dropped his tone almost to a whisper.
"Naw, naw. I be goin' up to berry 'en. Ees, vriends," he went on, looking around and asking, with that glance, the sympathy of all present, "to berry my zon, my clever zon, my only zon."
Nobody spoke for a few seconds. Then the kindly farmer observed—
"Aye, I've heerd zay a' was very clever to his traäde. 'Uxtable an' Co., his employers, spoke very handsome of 'en, they tell me. I can't call to maind, tho', that I've a-zet eyes 'pon the young man since he was a little tacker."
The old man began to fumble in his breastpocket, and drawing out a photograph, handed it across.
"That's the last that was took of 'en."
"Pore young chap," said the farmer, holding the likeness level with his eyes and studying it; "Pore young chap! Zuch a respectable lad to look at! They tell me a' made ye a gude zon, too."
"Gude?" The tears ran down the father's face and splashed on his hands, trembling as they folded over the knob of his stout stick. "Gude? I b'lieve, vriends, ye'll call it gude when a young man zends the third o' his earnin's week by week to help his parents. That's what my zon did, vrum the taime he left whome. An' presunts—never a month went by, but zome little gift ud come by the postman; an' little 'twas he'd got to live 'pon, at the best, the dear lad—"
The farmer was passing back the photograph. "May I see it?" I asked: and the old man nodded.
It was the same face—the same suit, even—that had roused my contempt eighteen months before.