"Yes, a large number of tramps pass through here in the course of a year, for we are on the direct road between the two largest cities of the State. Many of them are, as you say, villainous looking, but I do not think they are half as bad as they look. In fact, in some cases, I have found them to be pretty good fellows once you had passed the rough exterior and reached the real man underneath."
"You must have had some very interesting experiences with these tramps of yours; have you not, Father?" asked the younger man curiously. "I wish you would tell me some of them."
Father Anthony shifted his chair so as to command a better view of the road. He watched in meditative silence until the tramp had become a mere blot upon the whiteness of the dusty road and had finally disappeared over the brow of a distant hill. Then he spoke in tones of reminiscence:
"It was on just such a May evening as this, clear and beautiful only much cooler, that I sat in this very chair and watched the road as I am doing now. But on that evening I watched anxiously, divided between hopes and fears, for the figure that was so long in coming; I was watching for Jim, the tramp. Jim had promised faithfully, but with some men promises are made only to be broken. I began to fear that Jim was one of these. Still I prayed fervently and continued to hope, though the twilight deepened and brought no sign of my vagrant.
"My meeting with Jim had come about in this way. For some time I had been playing a game of hide and seek with a certain backsliding member of my congregation. The hiding was all on his side, the seeking on mine. Try as I would I could not seem to obtain an interview with him. He was never at home when I called; so I decided that my only chance of coming to close quarters with the enemy was to surprise him at his work. That afternoon I had gone to the quarries and found my man superintending the gang in charge of the stone-crusher. He certainly was surprised and not very pleased to see me, and all I could obtain from him after more than an hour of argument and pleading was a promise that 'he would think about it.' The 'it' referred to the making of his Easter duty, the time for which had nearly expired. Bitterly disappointed, and with a feeling of utter defeat, I was turning away when my steps were arrested by a not unpleasant voice:
"'Why don't you try your hand on me, Father? I'm a black enough sheep to keep you busy for a few moments anyway.'
"I wheeled around and found myself confronted by a short, thick-set man of most unattractive appearance, a man whom you would scarce choose as a companion along a lonely road at night. At a glance I sized up my new acquaintance: a typical tramp who had taken a job at stoking the engine to vary the monotony of the road. He was no professional 'hobo,' but belonged to that class who take to tramping from necessity rather than from choice—a too great love for the bottle being the necessity. They find an odd job here and there, hold it until pay day, squander the month's earnings in the nearest saloon, then on again in search of a job somewhere else.
"I am well acquainted with these men, but there was something about the rough looking specimen before me, a certain something in his manner, in his speech, in the twinkle of his eyes, which set him apart from the rest of his class. A grizzled beard of iron grey concealed the lower half of his face, and the right temple and cheek were disfigured by a scar which gave the countenance a decidedly sinister appearance. In spite of that I felt that the man before me had at one time been accustomed to a very different life from the one he was leading now.
"'Why don't you try your hand on me, Father?' he repeated, and the smile accompanying the words made the ugly face almost pleasing.
"There was not time for a lengthy conversation, the engine requiring constant attention, but the tramp volunteered the information that he answered to the name of Jim, and promised to report at the rectory in the evening and give me a chance to try my hand on him.