CHAPTER V

ONE IS MET

This was a somewhat tattered gentleman, very tall, seated comfortably against the hedge, long legs stretched before him, one terminating in a brown boot of good shape, the other in a black, through which a toe protruded. This gentleman was shaped from the waist upwards like a pear, in that his girth was considerable, his shoulders very narrow, and his head and face like a little round ball. He ate, as he reclined there, from a large piece of bread in one hand and a portion of cold sausage in the other; and he appeared to be no little incommoded as he did so, and as Mr. Wriford watched him, by a distressing affliction of the hiccoughs which, as they rent him, he pronounced _hup!_

"_Hup!_" said this gentleman with his mouth full; and then again "_hup!_" He then cleared his mouth, and regarding Mr. Wriford with a jolly smile, upraised the sausage in greeting and trolled forth in a very deep voice and in the familiar chant:

"'O all ye tired strangers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever'--_hup!_

"But you can't do that," continued the pear-shaped gentleman, "when the famine has you in the vitals and the soreness in the legs, as it has you, unless you've practised it as much as I have. Then it is both food and rest. In this wise--

"_Hup!_--O all ye hungry of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and _hup_-nify Him for ever.

"Hunger, I assure you," said the pear-shaped gentleman, "flee-eth before that shout as the wild goat before the hunter. Hunger or any ill. I have known every ill and defeated them all. Selah!"

There was about this unusual gentleman that which doubly attracted Mr. Wriford. The Mr. Wriford of a very few days ago, who avoided eyes, who shrank from strangers, would hurriedly and self-consciously have passed him by. The Mr. Wriford with whom Figure of Wriford walked was attracted by the pear-shaped gentleman's careless happiness and attracted much more by his last words. He came a slow step nearer the pear-shaped gentleman, looked at Figure of Wriford, and from him with eyes that signalled secrecy to the pear-shaped gentleman, and in a low voice demanded: "You have known every ill? Have you ever been followed?"

The pear-shaped gentleman stared curiously at Mr. Wriford for a moment. Then he said: "Not so much followed, which implies interest or curiosity, as chased--which betokens vengeance or heat. With me that is a common lot. By dogs often and frequently bitten of them. By farmers a score time and twice assaulted. By--"

"Have you ever been followed by yourself?" Mr. Wriford interrupted him.

The pear-shaped gentleman inclined his head to one side and examined Mr. Wriford more curiously than before. "Have you come far?" he inquired.

"From Barnet," said Mr. Wriford.

"Spare us!" said the pear-shaped gentleman with much piety. "Long on the road?"

Mr. Wriford looked at Figure of Wriford, and for the first time since the event on the Embankment cast his mind back along their companionship. It seemed immensely long ago; and at the thought of it, there overcame Mr. Wriford a full and a sudden sense of his misery that somehow unmanned him the more by virtue of this, the first sympathetic soul he had met since he had fled--since, as somehow it seemed to him, very long before his flight. He said, with a break in his voice and his voice very weak: "I don't know how long we've been. We've been a long time."

The pear-shaped gentleman inclined his head with a jerk to the opposite side and took a long gaze at Mr. Wriford from that position. He then said: "How many of you?"

Mr. Wriford, a little surprise in his tone: "Why, just we two."

"Hup!" said the pear-shaped gentleman, said it with the violence of one caught unawares and considerably startled, and then, recovering himself, directed upon Mr. Wriford the same jolly smile with which he had first greeted him, and again upraising the sausage, trolled forth very deeply:

"O all ye loonies of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever."

The pear-shaped gentleman then jumped to his feet with an agility very conspicuous in one of his girth, and of considerable purpose, in that he had no sooner obtained his balance on his feet than Mr. Wriford lost his balance upon his feet, swayed towards the arms outstretched to him, was assisted to the hedgeside, and there collapsed with a groan of very great fatigue.

The pear-shaped gentleman on his knees, busying himself with a long bottle and a tin can taken from the grass, with a clasp knife, the cold sausage, and the portion of bread: "I will have that groan into a shout of praise before I am an hour nearer the grave or I am no man. Furthermore," continued the pear-shaped gentleman, filling the can very generously and assisting it very gently to Mr. Wriford's lips, "furthermore, I will have no man groan other than myself, who groaneth often and with full cause. Your groan and your countenance betokeneth much misery, and I will not be bested by any man either in misery or in any other thing. I will run you, jump you, wrestle you, drink you, eat you, whistle you, sing you, dance you--I will take you or any man at any challenge; and this I will do with you or any man for--win or lose--three fingers of whisky, the which, _hup!_ is at once my curse and my sole delight. Selah!"

As he delivered himself of these remarkable sentiments, the pear-shaped gentleman cut from the sausage and the bread the portions to which his teeth had attended, conveyed these to his own mouth, which again became as full as when Mr. Wriford had first seen it, and pressed the remainders upon Mr. Wriford with a cordiality much aided by his jolly speech and by the tin can of whisky which now ran very warmly through Mr. Wriford's veins. These combinations, indeed, and the sight and then the taste of food awakened very ferociously in Mr. Wriford the hunger which had now for two days been gathering within him. He ate hungrily, and, in proportion as his faintness became satisfied, something of an irresponsible light-headedness came to him; he began to give little spurts of laughter at the whimsicality of the pear-shaped gentleman and for the first time to forget the presence of Figure of Wriford; he accepted with no more reluctance than the same nervous humour a final absurdity which, as night closed about them, and as his meal was finished, the pear-shaped gentleman pressed upon him.

"I can hardly keep awake," said Mr. Wriford and lay back against the hedge.

The pear-shaped gentleman answered him from the darkness: "Well, this is where we sleep--a softer couch than any of your beds, and I have experienced every sort. The painful eructations which, to my great though lawful punishment, my proneness for the whisky puts upon me, are now, _hup!_ almost abated, and I, too, incline to slumber."

Mr. Wriford said sleepily: "You've been awfully kind."

"I have conceived a fancy for you," said the pear-shaped gentleman. "I like your face, boy. I call you boy because you are youthful, and I am older than you: in sin, curse me, as old as any man. I also call you loony, which it appears to me you are, and for which I like you none the worse. As an offset to the liberty, you shall call me by any term you please."

Mr. Wriford scarcely heard him. "Well, I'd like to know your name," said he.

"Puddlebox," said the pear-shaped gentleman; and to Mr. Wriford's little spurt of sleepy laughter replied: "A name that I claim to be all my own, for I will not be beat at a name, nor at any thing, as I have told you, by any man."

To this there was but a dreamy sigh from Mr. Wriford, and Mr. Puddlebox inquired of him: "Sleepy?"

"Dog-tired," said Mr. Wriford.

"Happy?"

"I'm all right," said Mr. Wriford.

"Well, then, you are much better, loony," said Mr. Puddlebox. He then put out a hand in the darkness, and touching Mr. Wriford's ribs, obtained his fuller attention. "You are much better," repeated Mr. Puddlebox, "and if you will give me your interest for a last moment, we will continue in praise the cure which we have begun very satisfactorily in good whisky, cold sausage, and new bread. A nightly custom of mine which I suit according to the circumstances and in which, being suited to you, you shall now accompany me."

"Well?" said Mr. Wriford, aroused, and laughed again in light-hearted content. "Well?"

"Well," said Mr. Puddlebox, "thusly," and trolled forth very deeply into the darkness:

"O all ye loonies of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever."

"Now you," said Mr. Puddlebox.

Mr. Wriford protested with nervous laughter: "It's too ridiculous!"

"It's wonderfully comforting," said Mr. Puddlebox; and Mr. Wriford laughed again and in a voice that contrasted very thinly with the volume of Mr. Puddlebox's gave forth as requested:

"O all ye loonies of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever."

"Scarcely body enough," adjudged Mr. Puddlebox, "but that will come with appreciation of its value. Now one other, and this time touching that friend of yours whom I name Spook. We have starved him to his great undoing, for you have fed while he has hungered, and his bowels are already weakened upon you. We will now further discomfort him with praise. This time together--O all ye Spooks. Now, then."

"It's absurd," said Mr. Wriford. "It's too ridiculous"; but in the midst of his laughter at it had a sudden return to Figure of Wriford who was the subject of it and cried out: "Oh, what shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?"

"Why, there you go!" cried Mr. Puddlebox. "There's the necessity of it. Fight against him, boy. Let him not beat you, nor any such. Quick now--O all ye--"

And Mr. Wriford groaned, then laughed in a nervous little spurt, then groaned again, then weakly quavered while Mr. Puddlebox strongly belled:

"O all ye spooks of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever."

"Feel better?" questioned Mr. Puddlebox.

In the darkness only some stifled sounds answered him.

"Crying, loony?"

Only those sounds.

Mr. Puddlebox put out a large hand, felt for Mr. Wriford's hands and clasped it upon them. "Hold my hand, boy."

Sleep came to them.