Yet before they went, and as they went, they did their best to spread the tidings. Mr. Treadman had done his best to spread them too. He had sent messages to heads of the Salvation and Church Armies, and of the various great religious societies, to ministers of all degrees and denominations, and, indeed, to everyone of whom, in his haste, he could think as being, in a religious or philanthropic, or, in short, in any sense, in that curious place--the public eye.
And presently various specimens of these persons were on their way to the Ripley road--some journeying by train, some on foot, some on horseback; a large number, both men and women, upon bicycles, and others in as heterogeneous a collection of vehicles as one might wish to see. Sundry battalions of the Salvation Army confided themselves to vans such as are used for beanfeasts and Sunday-School treats. They shouted hymns; their bands made music by the way.
He whom all these people were coming out to see had gone with the lame man across a field-path to a little wood, which lay not far from the road. In the centre of the wood they found a clearing, where the charcoal-burners had built their huts and plied their trade. An old man watched the smouldering heap. He sat on some billets of wood, one of which he was carving with a clumsy knife. The Stranger found a seat upon another heap, and the lame man placed himself, cobbler fashion, upon the turf at His side. For some moments nothing was said. Then the old man broke the silence.
'Strangers hereabouts?'
He replied:
'My abiding-place is not here.'
'So I thought. I fancied I hadn't seen you round about these parts; yet there's something about you I seem to know. Come in here to rest?'
'It is good to rest.'
'That's so; there's nothing like it when you're tired. You look as if you was tired, and you look as if you'd known trouble. There's a comfortable look upon your face which never comes upon a man or woman's face unless they have known trouble. I always says that no one's any good until it shines out of their eyes.'
'Sorrow and joy walk hand in hand.'