§ 5
Throughout the afternoon the tramp discoursed upon the rights and wrongs of property, in a way that Bealby found very novel and unsettling. The tramp seemed to have his ideas about owning and stealing arranged quite differently from those of Bealby. Never before had Bealby thought it possible to have them arranged in any other than the way he knew. But the tramp contrived to make most possession seem unrighteous and honesty a code devised by those who have for those who haven’t. “They’ve just got ’old of it,” he said. “They want to keep it to themselves.... Do I look as though I’d stole much of anybody’s? It isn’t me got ’old of this land and sticking up my notice boards to keep everybody off. It isn’t me spends my days and nights scheming ’ow I can get ’old of more and more of the stuff....
“I don’t envy it ’em,” said the tramp. “Some ’as one taste and some another. But when it comes to making all this fuss because a chap who isn’t a schemer ’elps ’imself to a mäthful,—well, it’s Rot....
“It’s them makes the rules of the game and nobody ever arst me to play it. I don’t blame ’em, mind you. Me and you might very well do the same. But brast me if I see where the sense of my keeping the rules comes in. This world ought to be a share out, Gawd meant it to be a share out. And me and you—we been done out of our share. That justifies us.”
“It isn’t right to steal,” said Bealby.
“It isn’t right to steal—certainly. It isn’t right—but it’s universal. Here’s a chap here over this fence, ask ’im where ’e got ’is land. Stealing! What you call stealing, matey, I call restitootion. You ain’t probably never even ’eard of socialism.”
“I’ve ’eard of socialists right enough. Don’t believe in Gawd and ’aven’t no morality.”
“Don’t you believe it. Why!—’Arf the socialists are parsons. What I’m saying is socialism—practically. I’m a socialist. I know all abart socialism. There isn’t nothing you can tell me abart socialism. Why!—for three weeks I was one of these here Anti-Socialist speakers. Paid for it. And I tell you there ain’t such a thing as property left; it’s all a blooming old pinch. Lords, commons, judges, all of them, they’re just a crew of brasted old fences and the lawyers getting in the stuff. Then you talk to me of stealing! Stealing!”
The tramp’s contempt and his intense way of saying ‘stealing’ were very unsettling to a sensitive mind.
They bought some tea and grease in a village shop and the tramp made tea in his old tin with great dexterity and then they gnawed bread on which two ounces of margarine had been generously distributed. “Live like fighting cocks, we do,” said the tramp wiping out his simple cuisine with the dragged-out end of his shirt sleeve. “And if I’m not very much mistaken we’ll sleep to-night on a nice bit of hay....”
But these anticipations were upset by a sudden temptation, and instead of a starry summer comfort the two were destined to spend a night of suffering and remorse.
A green lane lured them off the road, and after some windings led them past a field of wire-netted enclosures containing a number of perfect and conceited-looking hens close beside a little cottage, a vegetable garden and some new elaborate outhouses. It was manifestly a poultry farm, and something about it gave the tramp the conviction that it had been left, that nobody was at home.
These realizations are instinctive, they leap to the mind. He knew it, and an ambition to know further what was in the cottage came with the knowledge. But it seemed to him desirable that the work of exploration should be done by Bealby. He had thought of dogs, and it seemed to him that Bealby might be unembarrassed by that idea. So he put the thing to Bealby. “Let’s have a look round ere,” he said. “You go in and see what’s abart....”
There was some difference of opinion. “I don’t ask you to take anything,” said the tramp.... “Nobody won’t catch you.... I tell you nobody won’t catch you.... I tell you there ain’t nobody here to catch you.... Just for the fun of seeing in. I’ll go up by them outhouses. And I’ll see nobody comes.... Ain’t afraid to go up a garden path, are you?... I tell you, I don’t want you to steal.... You ain’t got much guts to funk a thing like that.... I’ll be abät too.... Thought you’d be the very chap for a bit of scarting.... Thought Boy Scarts was all the go nowadays.... Well, if you ain’t afraid you’d do it.... Well, why didn’t you say you’d do it at the beginning?...”
Bealby went through the hedge and up a grass track between poultry runs, made a cautious inspection of the outhouses and then approached the cottage. Everything was still. He thought it more plausible to go to the door than peep into the window. He rapped. Then after an interval of stillness he lifted the latch, opened the door and peered into the room. It was a pleasantly furnished room, and before the empty summer fireplace a very old white man was sitting in a chintz-covered arm-chair, lost it would seem in painful thought. He had a peculiar grey shrunken look, his eyes were closed, a bony hand with the shiny texture of alabaster gripped the chair arm.... There was something about him that held Bealby quite still for a moment.
And this old gentleman behaved very oddly.
His body seemed to crumple into his chair, his hands slipped down from the arms, his head nodded forwards and his mouth and eyes seemed to open together. And he made a snoring sound....
For a moment Bealby remained rigidly agape and then a violent desire to rejoin the tramp carried him back through the hen runs....
He tried to describe what he had seen.
“Asleep with his mouth open,” said the tramp. “Well, that ain’t anything so wonderful! You got anything? That’s what I want to know.... Did anyone ever see such a boy? ’Ere! I’ll go....
“You keep a look out here,” said the tramp.
But there was something about that old man in there, something so strange and alien to Bealby, that he could not remain alone in the falling twilight. He followed the cautious advances of the tramp towards the house. From the corner by the outhouses he saw the tramp go and peer in at the open door. He remained for some time peering, his head hidden from Bealby....
Then he went in....
Bealby had an extraordinary desire that somebody else would come. His soul cried out for help against some vaguely apprehended terror. And in the very moment of his wish came its fulfilment. He saw advancing up the garden path a tall woman in a blue serge dress, hatless and hurrying and carrying a little package—it was medicine—in her hand. And with her came a big black dog. At the sight of Bealby the dog came forward barking and Bealby after a moment’s hesitation turned and fled.
The dog was quick. But Bealby was quicker. He went up the netting of a hen run and gave the dog no more than an ineffectual snap at his heels. And then dashing from the cottage door came the tramp. Under one arm was a brass-bound workbox and in the other was a candlestick and some smaller articles. He did not instantly grasp the situation of his treed companion, he was too anxious to escape the tall woman, and then with a yelp of dismay he discovered himself between woman and dog. All too late he sought to emulate Bealby. The workbox slipped from under his arm, the rest of his plunder fell from him, for an uneasy moment he was clinging to the side of the swaying hen run and then it had caved in and the dog had got him.
The dog bit, desisted and then finding itself confronted by two men retreated. Bealby and the tramp rolled and scrambled over the other side of the collapsed netting into a parallel track and were halfway to the hedge before the dog,—but this time in a less vehement fashion,—resumed his attack.
He did not close with them again and at the hedge he halted altogether and remained hacking the gloaming with his rage.
The woman it seemed had gone into the house, leaving the tramp’s scattered loot upon the field of battle.
“This means mizzle,” said the tramp, leading the way at a trot.
Bealby saw no other course but to follow.
He had a feeling as though the world had turned against him. He did not dare to think what he was nevertheless thinking of the events of these crowded ten minutes. He felt he had touched something dreadful; that the twilight was full of accusations.... He feared and hated the tramp now, but he perceived something had linked them as they had not been linked before. Whatever it was they shared it.