Tommy's lobs were easy enough, and once the doctor drove a hot return straight at his legs.

Tommy jumped out of the way, but the doctor called to him sharply:

"Field up," he said, and Tommy coloured.

Another return came straight and hard, but Tommy stooped and held it, and the doctor dropped his bat.

"Good," I heard him say. "Stand up to 'em like a man--hurts a bit at the time--but it saves heaps of trouble in the end, and--and the other fellow doesn't score."

They were looking straight into each other's eyes, as man to man, and after a pause the doctor spoke again, in a low voice. I could not hear what he said, but Tommy's face was grave as he listened.

I sauntered on down the lane, and a few minutes later felt a hand on my arm.

"Well, and what did you think of it?"

"Of what?"

"The boy's batting. I saw you watching."

"I am not an expert, but he'll do, won't he?"

"Yes--he'll do."

"I didn't know that you had kept up your cricket."

"I haven't. But I mean to revive it if I can. We--we must beat Borcombe next time, you know."

We walked on in silence for a little, then.

"Tommy's main desire appears to be a cricketer just now," observed the doctor.

"As it was to be a poacher, yesterday."

"Or a steam-roller driver, in the years gone by."

"And what, I wonder, to-morrow?"

The doctor was looking thoughtfully over the wide fields, red with sunset.

"To-morrow? Ah, who knows?" He pointed to a pile of c.u.mulus clouds, marching magnificently in the southern sky, bright as Heaven, and changeable as circ.u.mstance.

"A boy's dreams," he said. "A little while here and a little while there, always changing but always tinged with a certain fleeting magnificence."

"And never realised?"

"Oh, I don't know. I don't know. We most of us march and march to our cloud mountain-tops, and, maybe, some of us at the day's end find a little low-browed hill somewhere where our everlasting Alps had seemed to stand."

"Surely you are a pessimist."

"Not at all. If we had not marched for the clouds, maybe we should never have achieved the little hill."

"You would have Tommy march, then, for the clouds?"

The doctor laughed.

"He is an average boy. He will do that anyway. But I would have the true light on the clouds, to which he lifts his eyes."

"Ah--if his face were set upon them now," I said half to myself.

On the road to the downs was a small figure.

"See," said my companion, "He is on the upland road. Let us take it as an omen."

And we turned homeward.

Late into the night we talked, and I unfolded my fears for Tommy with a fulness that was foreign to me.

And our talk drifted, as such conversation will, into many and intimate matters, such as men rarely discuss between each other.

And in the end, as I rose to depart, the doctor held my hand.

"See, old friend," he said, "we are nearer to-night than ever for all our seeming fundamental differences, and you will not mind what I have to say.

"To you the idea of G.o.d is so great, so infinitely high, that the notion of personal friendship with such an One would seem to be an almost criminal impertinence, and the idea of His interference in our trivial hum-drum lives a gross profanity.

"To me, a plain man, and not greatly read, this personal G.o.d, this Friend Christ, is more than all else has to offer me.

"It is life's motive, and weapon, and solace, and joy. It is its light and colour and its very _raison d'etre_. And I believe that for the great majority of men this idea of the Divine, and this only, is powerful enough to a.s.sure them real victory and moral strength.

"I grant you all the beauty, and majesty, and truth, of your ideal, but I would no more dare to lay it before an average healthy, pa.s.sionate man alone than I would to send an army into battle--with a position to take--unarmed and leaderless."

The doctor paused. Then:

"Forgive me," he said, "I don't often talk like this, but, believe me, it is the knowledge of his G.o.d, as a strong, sympathetic, personal friend, that Tommy needs--that most of us need--to ensure life's truest success."

We shook hands again and parted.

"I am glad you have spoken," said I, "and thank you for your words."

"A tramp--merely a tramp," said the stranger, puffing contentedly at his pipe, on the winding road that led over the dim downs.

Tommy looked at him doubtfully.

He was very tall and broad, and clean, and his Norfolk suit was well made and of stout tweed.

"You don't look much like one," he said.