Up the Hill and Over.

by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay.

CHAPTER I

"From Wimbleton to Wombleton is fifteen miles, From Wombleton to Wimbleton is fifteen miles, From Wombleton to Wimbleton, From Wimbleton to Wombleton, From Wombleton--to Wimbleton--is fif--teen miles!"

The cheery singing ended abruptly with the collapse of the singer upon a particularly inviting slope of gra.s.s. He was very dusty. He was very hot. The way from Wimbleton to Wombleton seemed suddenly extraordinarily long and tiresome. The slope was green and cool. Just below it slept a cool, green pool, deep, delicious--a swimming pool such as dreams are made of.

If there were no one about--but there was some one about. Further down the slope, and stretched at full length upon it, lay a small boy. Near the small boy lay a packet of school books.

The wayfarer's lips relaxed in an appreciative smile.

"Little boy," he called, somewhat hoa.r.s.ely on account of the dust in his throat, "little boy, can you tell me how far it is from here to Wimbleton?"

Apparently the little boy was deaf.

The questioner raised his voice, "or if you can oblige me with the exact distance to Wombleton," he went on earnestly, "that will do quite as well."

No answer, civil or otherwise, from the youth by the pool. Only a convulsive wiggle intended to cover the undefended position of the school books.

The traveller's smile broadened but he made no further effort toward sociability. Neither did he go away. To the dismayed eyes, watching through the cover of some long gra.s.s, he was clearly a person devoid of all fine feeling. Or perhaps he had never been taught not to stay where he wasn't wanted. Mebby he didn't even know that he _wasn't_ wanted.

In order to remove all doubt as to the latter point, the small boy's head shot up suddenly out of the covering gra.s.s.

"What d'ye want?" he asked forbiddingly.

"Little boy," said the stranger, "I thank you. I want for nothing."

The head collapsed, but quickly came up again.

"Ain't yeh goin' anywhere?" asked a despairing voice.

"I was going, little boy, but I have stopped."

This was so true that the small boy sat up and scowled.

"I judge," went on the other, "that I am now midway between Arden, otherwise, Wimbleton, and Arcady, sometime known as Wombleton. The question is, which way and how? A simple sum in arithmetic will--little boy, do not frown like that! The wind may change. Smile nicely, and I'll tell you something."

Urged by necessity, the badgered one attempted to look pleasant.

"That's better! Now, my cheerful child, what I really want to know is 'how many miles to Babylon?'"

A reluctant grin showed that the small boy's early education had not been utterly neglected. "Aw, what yeh givin' us?" he protested sheepishly, "if it's Coombe you're lookin' for, it's 'bout a mile and a half down the next holler."

"Holler?" the stranger's tone was faintly questioning. "Oh, I see. You mean 'hollow,' which being interpreted means 'valley,' which means, I fear, another hill. Little boy, do you want to carry a knapsack?"

"Nope."

"No? Strange that n.o.body seems to want to carry a knapsack. I least of all. Well," lifting the object with disfavour, "good-day to you. I perceive that you grow impatient for those aquatic pleasures for which you have temporarily abjured the more severe delights of scholarship.

Little boy, I wish you a very good swim."

"Gee," muttered the small boy, "gee, ain't he the word-slinger!"

He returned to the pool but something of its charm was dissipated. Vague thoughts of school inspectors and retribution troubled its waters. Not that he was at all afraid of school inspectors, or that he really suspected the stranger of being one. Still, discretion is a wise thing and word-slinging is undoubtedly a form of art much used in high scholastic circles. Also there had been a remark about a simple sum in arithmetic which was, to say the least, disquieting. With a bursting sigh, the small sinner scrambled to his feet, reached for the hated books, and disappeared rapidly in the direction of the halls of learning.

Meanwhile the stranger, unconscious of the moral awakening behind him, plodded wearily up the steep and sunny hill. As he is our hero we shall not describe him. There is no hurry, and there will be other occasions upon which he will appear to better advantage. At present let us be content with knowing that there was no reason for the hat and suit he wore save a mistaken idea of artistic suitability. "If I am going to be a tramp," he had said, "I want to look like a tramp." He didn't, but his hat and coat did.

He felt like a tramp, though, if to feel like a tramp is to feel hot and sticky and hungry. Perhaps real tramps do not feel like this. Perhaps they enjoy walking. At any rate they do not carry knapsacks, but betray a touching faith in Providence in the matter of clean linen and tooth brushes.

Before the top of the hill was reached, Dr. Callandar wished devoutly that in this last respect he had behaved like the real thing. In setting out to lead the simple life the ultimate is to be recommended--and knapsacks are not the ultimate. They are heavy things with the property of growing heavier, and prove of little use save to sit upon in damp places. The doctor's feelings in regard to his were intensified by an utter lack of dampness anywhere. The top of the hill was a sun-crowned eminence, blazingly, blisteringly, suffocatingly hot. The valley, spread out beneath him, was soaked in sunshine, a haze of heat quivered visibly above the roofs of the pretty town it cradled. There was a river and there were woods, but the trees hung motionless, and the river wound like a snake of bra.s.s among them.

The doctor regarded both the knapsack and the prospect resentfully. He had hoped for a breeze upon the hill-top, and there was no breeze.

Raising his hand to remove his hat, he noticed that the hand was trembling, and swore softly. The hand continued to tremble, and holding it out before him he watched it, interestedly, until a powerful will brought the quivering nerves into subjection.

"Jove!" he muttered. "Not a moment too soon--this holiday!"

Then, hat in hand, he started down the hill.

It was a long hill, very long, much longer than it had any need or right to be. It had a twist in its nature which would not allow it to run straight. It meandered; it hesitated; it never knew its own mind, but twisted and turned and thought better of it a dozen times in half a mile. It was a hill with short cuts favourably known to small boys and to tramps with a distaste for highways; but this tramp, not being a real one, knew none of them, and was compelled to do exactly as the hill did.

The result was, that when at last it slipped into the cool shade of a row of beeches at its base, its victim was as exhausted as itself.

He was thirsty, too, and, worse still, he knew from a certain dizzy blindness that one of his bad headaches was coming on--and there still lay another mile between him and the town. Pressing his hand against his eyes to restore for the moment their normal clearness of vision, he saw, a short way down the road, a gate; and through the gate and behind some trees, the white gleam of a building. But better than all, he saw, between the gate and the building, a red pump! Then the blindness and pain descended again, and he stumbled on more by faith than by sight; blundering through the half-open gate, his precarious course directed wholly by the pump's exceeding redness, which shone like a beacon fire ahead.

Fortunately, it was a real pump with real water and a sucker in good standing, warranted to need no priming. At the stroke of the red handle the good, cool water gurgled and arose with a delightful "plop!" It splashed from the spout freely upon the face and hands of the victim of the long hill--delicious, life-giving! The delight it brought seemed compensation almost for heat and pain and weariness. Callandar felt that if he could only let its sweetness stream indefinitely over his closed eyes it would wash away the blindness and the ache. Perhaps--

"I am afraid I cannot allow you to use this pump!" said a crisp voice primly. "This is not," with capital letters, "a Public Pump!"

Callandar wiped the surplus water from his face and looked up. There, beside him in the yellow haze of his semi-blindness, stood the owner of the voice. She appeared to be clothed in white, tall and commanding.

Surrounded by the luminous mist, her appearance was not unlike that of a cool and capable avenging angel.

"This pump," went on the angel with nice precision, "is not for the use of pedestrians."

"Ah!" said the pedestrian.

"If you will continue down the road," the voice went on, "you will find, when you reach the town, a public pump. You may use that."

The pedestrian, feeling dizzier than ever, sat down upon the pump platform. It was wet and cool.

"The objection to that," he said wisely, "is simple. I cannot continue down the road."

"I should like you to go at once," patiently. "There is a pump--"

The pedestrian raised a deprecating hand.

"Let us admit the pump! Doubtless the pump is there, but there is a pump here also, and a pump in the hand is worth two pumps, an ice-box and a John Collins in town. You doubtless know the situation created by Mahomet and the mountain? This is the same, with a difference. In this case the pump will not come to me and I cannot go to the pump. Therefore we both remain _in statu quo_. Do I make myself plain?"