"I'm told that when Lord ——, up at the Hall, heard on it, he nearly killed hisself wi' laughin'. There's some folks"—here Johnny lowered his voice—"there's some folks as thinks that his lordship 'ad a 'and in it hisself. Some says it was one of them wild chaps as 'e's allus got staying with him. That's more likely, in my opinion. But it wouldn't surprise me, just between you and me, to hear some day that his lordship was going to give us a bit o' new ground."
HOW I TRIED TO ACT THE GOOD SAMARITAN
One of the chief actors in the incident about to be related was a machine, and it is important that the reader should have this machine in his mind's eye. It was a motor-bicycle, furnished in the midst with a sputtering little engine, said to contain in its entrails the power of three horses and a half. To the side thereof was attached a small vehicle like a bath-chair, in which favoured friends of the writer are from time to time either permitted or invited to ride.
On this occasion the bath-chair was empty, and a long journey was drawing to a close. It is true that at various periods of the day I had enjoyed the company of a passenger in this humble but lively little carriage. The first had been a clergyman, who, I believe, had invented a distant engagement for the sole purpose of inducing me to give him a ride in my car. To him there had succeeded a series of small boys, picked up in various villages, each of whom, at the conclusion of a brief but mad career through space, was duly dismissed with a penny and a strict injunction to be a good lad to his mother. The last lift had been given to an aged wayfarer whose weary and travel-stained appearance had excited my compassion. No sooner, however, was the machine under weigh than I discovered, in spite of my will to believe otherwise, that my passenger was suffering not from fatigue, but from intoxication. To get rid of him was no easy matter, and the employment of stratagem became necessary. What the stratagem was, I shall pass over; I will only say that it was not in accordance with any recognised form of the categorical imperative. However, the ruse succeeded, and now, as I have said, the car was empty. Thus were concluded the prolegomena to that great act of altruism which was to crown the day.
It was in a part of the country consecrated by the genius of a great novelist (as what part of England is not?) that these things took place. I found myself in the narrow streets of an ancient town—and it was market-day. The roadway was thronged with red-faced men and women; and flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and pigs, provided the motor-cyclist with a severe probation to the nerves. With much risk to myself, and not a little to other people, I emerged from this place of danger and joyfully swept over the bridge into the broad highway beyond the town.
Turning a corner, I became suddenly aware that the road a hundred yards ahead was again blocked. Two carriers' carts, a brewer's waggon, and some other miscellaneous vehicles were drawn up anyhow in the road, and the drivers of these, having descended from their various perches, were gathered around a figure lying prostrate on the ground. I, too, alighted and forced my way into the group. In the midst was an old man, his countenance pallid as death, save where a broad stream of blood pouring from a gash two inches long, crimsoned his cheek from eye to chin. There was a great bruise on his temple, and again on the back of his head—for he had spun round in falling—was a lump the size of a pullet's first egg.
"'Oss ran away and pitched him on the curb," said one whom I questioned. "He's dying," said another, "if not already dead." For myself, I turned sick at the sight; nevertheless, I could not help being struck by the vigorous actions and attitude of an old woman, who, armed with a bucket of water and a roller towel, seemed to be not merely bathing his wounds, but giving the whole man a bath. I also noted the figure of a clergyman, of whom all that I distinctly recall is that he had a tassel round his hat.
"We must take him to the hospital," said I. "No," said an elderly man; "he'll be dead before you get him there. He's nearly gone already. Better fetch a doctor."
"Has anybody got a bicycle?" said the clergyman in the slightly imperious accents of Keble College. "Yes," I replied, "I've got one, and just the sort of bicycle for this business, too." "You'd better fetch Ross," said the same voice, speaking once more in the tones which indicate conscious possession of the Last Word on Everything Whatsoever. "No," said the old woman, with enough defiance in her manner to frighten a Pope, "No, Ross's no good. Fetch Conklin." "All right," I said; "if one of you will show me where Conklin lives, I'll fetch him in a brace of shakes."