The Tale of Triona

by William John Locke

He could scarcely eat. The night had shaken him. He gulped down some food and coffee, lit a pipe and wandered restlessly about the room, looking at these tokens of the lands far away which he had never seen. The coral fascinated him. In the hospital he had read Typee and Oomoo of Herman Melville in Dent’s cheap collection of classics. The sight of the coral quickened dormant longings. He took the great conch-shell in his hand wondering at its beauty of curve and colour. And as he did so his mind went back to early childhood—to an old aunt whom he occasionally was taken to visit in torturing Sunday clothes sacrosanct from the defilement of jam under dreadful penalties, and who possessed such a shell. He remembered that the shell was the glory that compensated the frigid horror of that house. He would hold it to his ear and listen to the boom of far-off surfs and then go home and mingle the message with the pointing finger of Salvation Yeo. And now, grown man, inured to adventure, he put the shell to his ear, and the message was the same, vibrating the call of oceans thundering on distant beaches through the fibres of his being.

He went out into the garden and stood in the sun and looked almost unseeingly at the rolling downs. Suddenly he became aware of the ribbon of road that lost itself not far away, behind a bluff. It was the Great High Road that led eventually to a great western port, where great ships sailed to the South Seas. The Power seemed to impel him, as it had impelled him as a boy to run away from home. By following that road, he would reach the port. At the port he could ship before the mast. On board his limp would not matter. For the rest, he was strong, as strong as a lion, in spite of all pronouncements by the doctors. It was the one adventure life left open to him. Nay more, the one chance of maintaining his reason. He stood with hands clenched staring at the road, the sweat beading on his forehead.

To pack up belongings and arrive with genteel suit-case and kit-bag at the dock-side and expect to be taken on as an ordinary hand would be the act of an embecile. He passed his hand mildly through his hair in his instinctive gesture. Why not go as he was, a cap on his head, and his money, all he had in the world, in a belt (bought for Poland) round his waist? It was escape from prison. Escape from Myra. The final disappearance from the orbit of Olivia.

Perhaps it was the maddest thing he had done in his life. But what did it matter? If he crocked up, he crocked up. At least he could try. He went indoors and in the parlour found an old railway timetable. There were only two trains a day from Fanstead to the main-line junction, and the morning train had already gone. Why should he not tramp to the Junction, as in the old days, getting a lift here and there on a cart, and know again the freedom of the vagabond road?

He went up to his room, put on his belt of money and good thick boots, and made up a bundle of necessaries. On his dressing-table he left a letter addressed to Mrs. Pettiland, enclosing a month’s rent. He looked round the room for the last time, as he had looked round so many in his life, and laughed. No books on this journey. As he had not left the Tyneside with books years ago, so would he start now afresh, with the same equipment. He went downstairs with a light heart, and called out to Mrs. Pettiland busy in her post-office.

“I’m going off on a jaunt—so don’t expect me till you see me.”

And the answer came: “Don’t overdo yourself with your lame leg.”

He laughed at the idea. His leg could bear his whole weight to-day without a twinge. Retracing his steps down the passage, he entered the garden and left the place by the wicket-gate and struck up the winding lanes and across fields to the high road, his stick and bundle over his shoulder. By doing so, instead of taking the road at the end of the village, he could cut off a mile. It was a morning of freshness and inspiration. A cool breeze sent the clouds scurrying across the sky and rustled the leaves of the elms and rippled the surface of the half-grown corn. His spirits rose as he walked, somewhat of a jog-trot walk, it is true, but that would last for the rest of his life; so long as the pain had gone for ever, all was well. He reached the high road and settled down to his tramp, gladdened by the sight of cart and car and cottage gardens flaming with roses and hollyhocks or restful with screens of sweet-peas. In the soft-mannered West-country fashion, folks gave him “good day” as he passed. The road undulated pleasantly, now and then sweeping round the full bosom of a hill, with a steeply sloping drop of thirty feet to the valley. Such spots were grimly sign-posted for motorists; for at one of them, so Mrs. Pettiland had told him, a motor-lorry during the war had slipped over at night and all the occupants had been killed. He regarded it with a chauffeur’s eye and smiled contemptuously at the inefficiency of the driver. He could race along it at sixty miles an hour. But still, if you did go over—there was an end of you.

By noon he was hungry and ate cold meat and bread at a wayside inn, and smoked contentedly afterwards on the bench outside and talked of crops and licensing laws with the landlord. When he started again he felt stiff from the unaccustomed exercise. Walking would relax his muscles. Yet he began to tire. A while later he came upon a furniture removing van which had broken down. Two men drew their heads from below the bonnet and looked at each other ruefully, and their speech was profane. He asked what was wrong. They didn’t know. He threw off his coat, glad to get to an engine again, and in a quarter of an hour had set it going merrily. For two or three miles he sat on the tailboard between the two canvas-aproned packers, enjoying the respite. When they turned off eventually from the main road, and he had to descend, he felt strangely disinclined to walk. The Junction was still a long way off. It would have been better, after all, to wait for the evening train from Fanstead. He was always starting on crazy ventures without counting the cost. But he limped on.

The road went through a desolate land of abandoned quarry and ragged pine woods. The ascent was steep. Suddenly, as though someone had pierced his leg with hot iron, flamed the unmistakable pain. He stood aghast at the pronouncement of doom. At that moment, while he hung there in agony, a rough figure of a man in old khaki slacks rose from a near hollow in the quarry and, approaching him, asked what time it was. Triona took out his watch, a gold one, the gift of Olivia. It was four o’clock. The man thanked him gruffly and returned to his stony Bethel. Triona hobbled on a few more steps. But the torture was too great. He must rest. The pine-wood’s cool quiet invited him. He dragged himself thither wearily, and sat down, his back against the trunk of a tree. He tried to think. Of course the simplest method of extrication was to hail any passing car and beg for a lift, either to the Junction or back to Pendish. Walking was out of the question. But which of those ways should he take? The weight of physical tiredness overwhelmed him and dulled the deciding brain. He had set out at nine in the morning and it was now four o’clock in the afternoon. He had not realized how slow his progress had been. Yes, he was exhausted and sleepy. Nothing mattered. He rolled on his side, stuck his arm under his head and fell into a dead sleep. Thirty yards away, at varying intervals, motor vehicles flashed by.