THE STRANGER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3338, 6 March 1918, Page 58

THE STRANGER.

By E. M. Stoky. (All Rights Reserved.) The carriage was full and the train a fast one, on its way from London to Norwich. As there was little to attract in the nature of the scenery through which we were passing, we gave ourselves up to conversation. We discussed many things—the day's news and the personal incidents of the morning. The talk was unflagging. "Less than an hour ago," said someone "most of us were unknown to each other, but we are now quite old friends." "And why not?" replied he to whom the remark was more particularly addressed. "It is as it should be; life is too short for churlishness."

The aphorism was applauded, and the encouragement elicited from the last speaker a story. "J knew a man, he began, "who was not of our opinion." His air and tone, as he said this, convincing us that he had something worth telling, we composed ourselves to listen. "This man," he resumed, "at the time of which I speak was about thirty-five years of age; he was well built, fair; had prominent blue eyes,, and an immobile face. He was in a good position, and dressed accordingly. His wife and children were always well dressed, and the family occupied one of the best houses on Peckham Rye. It was a morning in late April, the hour was nine,-and the bus from the King's Arms to Eye Lane Station was just starting as I stepped on the footboard. There were only three passengers inside. . Of these one .was Mr Hare, already introduced, and another, whom the story concerns, was a little old man who sat opposite. The old fellow was unmistakably shabby, but neat. His worn boots shone; his coat and trousers, originally black, but now a green-grey hue, were carefully brushed; and his hat,-a lowcrowned 'bowler,' was tidy. The hollows in his furrowed cheeks were conspicuous, and added to the impression of age; and the colour of his skin suggested very poor and irregular food. His face .was small and his whole appearance painfully meagre. He felt in his waistcoat pockets for the conductor's penny, and, fading to find it, his hand trembled. The conductor was waiting, and the passenger recommenced his search, his excitement growing, for it was his last coin. The conductor, becoming impatient, went upstairs to collect the fares, and the old fellow continued his search. He stood up, and the missing penny rolled on the floor; it had slid through a hole in his worn pocket. "His form was bent and old age humped his back; he looked even shabbier and meaner when standing than when seated. He picked up the coin and reseated himself. Then, catching the eye of the fair man opposite, and wishing to divert hi 3 attention from the distracting incident, he leaned forward and said, 'They do say there's some talk of lighting the place with 'lectric light, and that'll put work in theway of a gsod many.' Had a pistol ■ been fired in the bus Hare could not have been more surprised than he was at the stranger's simple remark. Arrested in the act of turning his paper, he said with hauteur in look and tone, 'I don't know you!' " 'Beg pardon, sir,' answered the unknown, 'l'm ' " 'I don't know you,' emphatically repeated the fair man ; 'lt's not my habit to talk to everyone with whom I come in contact'; and he resumed the folding of his paper, pride and indignation at what he thought an unwarrantable impertinence expressing themselves in his naturally immobile face. " 'I understand, sir,' said he who had given the offence; 'I understand.' "Then he added quickly, as though unable to control himself, 'A man's a man for a' that.' "The bus drew up at the station; the passengers got out, all but"the offender, who, having no business to call him.to the city, kept "his seat to the High street, where he alighted. "Around the lamp-post at the junction of Rye lane with the High street stood a group of men of the trouser-pocket brigade. They were chaffing the drivers and conductors standing about waiting for change of Jiorses, and the old man recognised amongst them his ne'er-do-weel and only son. The sight saddened him; but he kept his sorrow to himself, and, turning to the left, made for the Public Library, where he would get a look at the papers. It was his custom to scan the advertisements. He was a tailor by trade, and always on the lookout for a job. He had no money wherewith to buy stamps and stationery, nor to pay his fare to and from likely work, so that his chances of finding employment were limited to places within walking distance. Nobody in the news-

paper reading room spoke to him; none knew him, nor did he attempt to speak to any, the words of bis late fellow-passenger still ringing discordantly in his cars. All the stands were occupied; there was nothing for it but to wait. This he did meekly enough; he was singularly patient. At last one of the readers stepped aside; the old man saw his chance, but the paper was The Times, and useless to him. Seeking out the Daily Chronicle, he stood near its reader, but not too near; he would not obtrude his presence. "Half an hour passed before he had the opportunity he sought. He bad scarcely put oil) his spectacles and taken his stand when an old woman entered the room and eagerly asked in his hearing whether anyor.s was looking at the Chronicle. "In a moment he had relinquished his post and was again waiting. It was 12 o'clock by the time he was engrossed in the advertisements. It was not easy for him to read at all; so many of them were beyond his reach, for he was scarcely five feet, and his eyes were dim. Added to this, he was but a 'poor scholard' at the best. His eager finger traced the printed lines, but all "fn vain; he could find nobody wanting an old tailor. "Dinner time arrived, and cleared the room of all but himself. And he? Well, he had no dinner, only an appetite, so he stayed on. "He searched the Daily News and the South London Press; then he remembered the local paper, the Camberwell and Peckham Times, and that once it had helped him. Line after line he slowly followed, each ending in disappointment. 'For late advertisements see page 5,' he read. It was a forlorn hope, but easier to turn to than the parish. "At the last advertisement but one, on the page indicated, ho lingered, and his hand shook a little. He spelled it out slowly : 'To Jobbing Tailors. —Wanted, at once, an elderly, capable man for odd work. Apply personally-between 12 and 1 o'clock on Wednesday at the "Never Too Late to Mend" Depot, Catford, S.E.' '' Three times he conned it over, and the third time its full meaning reached him. For a moment in his elation he felt as though the advertiser had mentioned him by name, and a tinge of pale pink suffused his leaden skin and warmed his flesh. Then it faded away, and he became faint. He crept out into the air, and the breeze revived him. As he walked on he passed the high wall of the great gloomy lunatic asylum, and a feeling of pity sprang up in his mind for the prisoner-patients within the building, deprived, as they were, of liberty and reason. The bakers' shops were full of newly-baked bread, and the smell sharpened pis appetite. He met gangs of workmen returning from -dinner, many of them smoking; his pipe was in his pocket, but empty. He turned into Rye lane and trudged on till he came to the King's Arms. There he saw the bus of his morning's journey, which recalled the painful effects of his attempted civility. On he went, up the East Dulwich road, into the Crystal Palace road, and so into Lordship lane, for he rented a room in one of the narrow turnings off that thoroughfare. The door stood open, and he climbed the stairs to his attic home. Neither kindly face nor voice welcomed him. His wife had been dead ten years, and his only surviving child was his idle, loafing son. The room, like its occupant, was very poor and shabby, but neat. On the bed was spread a quilt made of scraps of cloth. It was a work he had done twelve yeara before to please his wife. Such furniture as the room contained was his landlady's. In the cupboard stood a pair of shears and a hatchet. The shears belonged to the days when he renteoS a small house and cultivated his little garden, and the hatchet was his son's. He had parted with his old home piece by piece ; the shears alone remained. " Presently he heard the landlady calling him. 'Mr Neal, Mr Neal, here's your loaf. I knew you was out of bread, so I told Mag to bring it in when she brought ours.' " ' That was kind,' he replied as he took the loaf from her dripping hands. " 'lf you should be making a cup o' tea my kettle's a-bilin'/ she said as she left him, adding, ' I'll send Mag up for the t*a.' ' "And so, in spite of all, Philip Neal ate his dinner that day. His tea was without milk or sugar and his bread butterless; but hunger and thirst are easily pleased. As he laid him down.to sleep he thought of the morrow, of the walk to Catford, and of mended fortunes. "The morrow dawned as fair a day as any April had been. The golden morning sunlight gladdened the hill-tops and touched up the dales of Surrey, and opened the eyes of the two little sons of Mr Hare as it streamed in at the bedroom windows. The sunbeams danced into the poor little garret in which Philip Neal lay sleeping, and played on his drowsy lids. He. roused himself, and remembered that the morrow had come. At half-past nine o'clock he would set out on his four-mile walk. He rose, washed and dressed himself as carefully as though summoned into the Royal presence, stripped his bed, opened his casement window, and sat down before it to spell out the psalms for the day. Then he knelt down to pray, stringing together several collects; he seldom used words of his own. By this time his landlady was stirring, and he heard Mag's tap at his door. 'Would you like a cupful of boiling water?' she asked. Dropping a pinch of tea into a small jug, he gave it to her, and reached from the cupboard' the remainder of yesterday's loaf and a plate. J " Breakfast over, he swept and tidied his room, made his bed, and polished his boots with an old shining-brush. A cheap glass hung on the wall, and, looking at himself in this for the last time to see that he appeared' to the best advantage, he set out to seek the ' Never-too-late-to-mend' manager who had advertised for him.

" It still wanted some minutes to twelve when he arrived at Catford; he would ask someone to direct him to the shop he

sought. He halted a moment to intercept a man approaching him, but the inquiry died on his tongue as memory cast at him the words, 'I don't know you; it's not my habit to talk with everyone with whom I come in contact,' and he walked on. There were many new shops in the town, and his attention was attracted to a group of men before one of them—sedate, elderly men for the most part, and all watching the side door of the shop. He' joined the group. No one noticed him. Each man was intent upon his own business. He looked inquiringly about him. What had attracted this respectable, quiet crowd? "All* at once the truth flashed upon him, and he raised his head dubiously, and read the words inscribed over the shop-front, 'Never-too-late-to-mend Depot.* There was a slight movement in the small crowd as the side door opened, and the nearest to it, a cripple, was admitted. The minutes passed slowly, and Neal found himself counting heads—twenty-five applicants, and the number growing every minute. What chance had he? " Suddenly a window was thrown up and a woman's head thrust out. ' Tailors under fifty and over sixty-five not wanted,' said the owner of the head, and fha window was slammed down. There was a buzz in the crowd, and men looked interrogatively at their fellows. Then one after another detached himself from the rest and stole away, until only ten men were left standing. But Philip Neal was not amongst them.

Ronald, look at these beauties/ and the speaker disentangled from his net four fine ' tiddlers/ shaking them into a small bait-tin. " 'Where d'ye find them?' shouted Ronald, who -was on the other side of the bank of the Ravensbourne as it flows on. through Catford to Bromley. ' liver so far down stream,' said his brother. ' There's shoals of 'em there." "' Gome We'll go for 'em/ called Ronald, and the two boys set off at a run. . " Their merry eager voices roused old Neal from his dull reverie and carried him back a spell to the days when, with a green glass bottle' slung round his neck, he, too, had gone fishing for ' tiddlers.' Then he recalled later days, when his own boys had come home with blackened eyes and swollen faces, having fought, often futilely, to retain the fish they had netted. He had been so proud or his sons; but one was dead now, and the other leading a reckless, loafing life. " The happy young voices of Ronald and his brother reached him from a dis-' tance, and the birds chattered and carolled over his head; the river, swollen by the March and early April rains, glided along its course swifter than usual; or was it that the old man was slower? "He was hungry; hunger with him was almost chronic. To-day he had eaten nothing since half-past eight in the morning. Now it was three in the afternoon. He could tell that by the sun. He rose slowly from his seat on a fallen trunk. He must get home, and he had a long walk before him. " He made a few paces, and then stood motionless, arrested by a cry, a call for help. For a moment he felt benumbed by indecision. Was the cry 'raised in. boyish fun, or was it in earnest, and what had it to do with ""him? Again it came, and his irresolution gave place to prompt action. .

" His slowness troubled. him; the life and energy about him seemed to mock his shuffling steps,'' and the flickering dance of the sunbeams between the leaves of spring jeered at the lethargy of age. He raised his voice, attempting a shout, but the attempt resulted in a piping quaver. In his eagerness to come up with those who called several times he stumbled over stones that lay in his path; but he never slackened his feeble sjjeed. " *-* minute's walk—it seemed to him in his anxiety an hour, —and he came face to face with what was required of him. Two boys were drowning before his eyes. Was it the spirit of cynicism that hissed in the old man's ears as, divesting himself of his coat, he stepped into the cold! current, 'I don't know you '? Or, was it suggested by- some likeness in the drowning boys' faces to the bus passenger of the Drevious morning? " That night the two sons of Mr Hare slept soundly in their home on Peckham Rye. In another room of the same house the proud man lost; his pride as he pulled aside the white sheet covering a lifeless form and gazed on the old stranger who had incurred his displeasure by venturing to speak to him on the previous morning." ________^„__