CHAPTER II

CROSS WORK

Ever for onward, Mr. Wriford--onward, onward, on!

Where, in the bright days, Mr. Puddlebox had taken the lead and suggested their road and programme, now, in the sombre days, chill in the air, and in the wind a bluster, Mr. Wriford led. He chose the roughest paths. He most preferred the cliff tracks where wind and rain drove strongest, or down upon the shingle where walking was mostly climbing the great boulders that ran from cliff to sea. He walked with head up as though to show the weather how he scorned it. He walked very fast as though there was something he pursued.

Mr. Puddlebox did not like it at all. Much of Mr. Puddlebox's jolly humour was shaken out of him in these rough and arduous scrambles, and he grumbled loud and frequent. But very fond of his loony, Mr. Puddlebox, and increasingly anxious for him in this fiercer mood of his.

There are limits, though: and these came on an afternoon wild and wet when Mr. Wriford exchanged the cliff road for the shore and pressed his way at his relentless pace along a desolate stretch cut into frequent inlets by rocky barriers that must be toilsomely climbed, a dun sea roaring at them.

"Why, what to the devil is it you're chasing, boy?" Mr. Puddlebox's grumblings at last broke out, when yet another barrier surmounted revealed another and a steeper little beyond. "Here's a warm town we've left," cried Mr. Puddlebox, sinking upon a great stone, "and here's as wet, cold, and infernal a climbing as I challenge you or any man ever to have seen. Here's you been dragging and trailing and ripe for anything these three months and more, and now rushing and stopping for nothing so I challenge the devil himself to keep up with you."

"Well, don't keep up!" said Mr. Wriford fiercely. "Who wants you to?"

Mr. Puddlebox blinked at that; but he answered stoutly: "Well, curse me if I do, for one."

"Nor me for another," said Mr. Wriford and turned where he stood and pressed on across the shingle towards the next rocky arm.

Mr. Puddlebox sucked in his cheeks, felt at the hard lump in his pocket, then followed at a little run, and caught Mr. Wriford as Mr. Wriford climbed the further barrier of rocks.

"Hey, give us a hand, boy," cried Mr. Puddlebox cheerfully. "This is a steep one."

Mr. Wriford looked down. "What, are you coming on? I thought you'd stopped."

"You're unkind, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox.

Mr. Wriford, looking down, this time saw the blink that went with the words. He jumped back lower, coming with reckless bounds. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. Look here, coming across this bit"--he pointed back to their earlier stopping-place--"I felt--I felt _rotten_ to think you'd gone."

"Why, that's my loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox, highly pleased. "Come down here, boy. Let's talk of this business."

"But I wouldn't look back," said Mr. Wriford, "or come back. I've done with that sort of thing."

"Why, so you have," said Mr. Puddlebox, rightly guessing to what Mr. Wriford referred. "You can come down now, though, for I'm asking you to, so there's no weakness in that. There's shelter here."

"I don't want shelter," said Mr. Wriford, and went a step higher and stood with head and back erect where gale and rain caught him more full.

Mr. Puddlebox summoned much impressiveness into his voice. "Boy," said Mr. Puddlebox, "this is a fool's game, and I never saw such even with you. Bring sense to it, boy. Tramping is well enough for fine days: winters for towns. There's money to be found in towns, boy; and if no money, workhouse is none so bad, and when we've tried it you've liked it and called it something new, which is what you want. Well, there's nothing new this way, boy. There's no work and there's no bed in the fields winter-time. Nothing new this way, boy."

A fiercer drive of wind spun Mr. Wriford where he stood exposed. He caught at a rock with his hands and laughed grimly, then stood erect again, and pressed himself against the rising gale.

"Ah, isn't there, though?" he cried. "Man, there's cold and rain and wind, and there's tramping on and on against it and feeling you don't care a damn for it."

"Well, curse me, but I do," returned Mr. Puddlebox. "It's just what I do mind, and there's no sense to it, boy. There's no sense to it."

"There is for me," Mr. Wriford cried. "It's what I want!" He turned from fronting the gale. Mr. Puddlebox saw him measuring with his eye the height where he stood from the ground, and called in swift alarm: "Don't jump! You'll break your legs. Don't--"

Mr. Wriford laughed aloud, jumped and came crashing to his hands and knees, got up and laughed again. "That's all right!" said he.

"Boy, that's all wrong," said Mr. Puddlebox very seriously. "That's all of a part with your rushing along as if it was the devil himself you chased; and what to the devil else it can be I challenge you to say or any man."

Mr. Wriford took up the words he had cried down from the top of the barrier. "It's what I want," he told Mr. Puddlebox. "Cold and not minding it, and fighting against the wind and not minding it, and getting wet and going on full speed however rough the road and not minding that. Cold and wind and rain and sticking to it and fighting it and beating it and liking it--ah!" and he threw up his arms, extending them, and filled his chest with a great breath, as though he embraced and drunk deep of the elements that he stuck to and fought and beat.

Mr. Puddlebox looked at him closely. "Sure you're liking it?" he asked, his tone the same as when he often inquired: "Sure you're happy, boy?"

"Sure! Why, of course I'm sure. Why, all the time I'm thrashing along, do you know what I'm saying? I'm saying: 'Beating you! Beating you! Beating you!' and at night I lie awake and think of it all waiting outside for me and how I shall beat it, beat it, beat it again when morning comes."

"Sit down," said Mr. Puddlebox. "I've something to say to you."

"No, I'll stand," said Mr. Wriford.

"Aren't you tired?"

"I'm fit to drop," said Mr. Wriford; and then with a hard face: "But sitting down is giving way to it. I'll not do that. No, by God, I'll beat it all the time."

Then Mr. Puddlebox broke out in exasperation and struck his stick upon the shingle to mark it. "Why, curse me if I ever heard such a thing or knew such a thing!" cried Mr. Puddlebox. "Beating it! I've told you a score time, and this time I give it to you hot, that when you go so, you're spooked, spooked to hell and never will be unspooked! 'Beating it, beating it, beating it!' you cry as you rush along! Why, it's then that it is beating you all the time, for it is of yourself that you are thinking. And that's what's wrong with you, thinking of yourself, and has always been. And there's no being happy that way and never will be. Think of some one else, boy. For God Almighty's sake think of some one else or you're beat and mad for sure!"

Mr. Wriford gave him back his fierceness. "Think of some one else! That's what I've done all my life. That's what locked me up and did for me. I've done with all that now, and I'm happy. Think of some one else! God!" cried he and snapped his fingers. "I don't care that for anybody. Whom should I think of?"

"Well, try a thought for me," cried Mr. Puddlebox, relenting nothing of his own heat. "I've watched you these four months. I've got you out of trouble. Curse me, I've fed you and handled you like a baby. But for me you'd like be lying dead somewhere."

"Well, who cares?" cried Mr. Wriford. "Not me, I don't."

"Ah, and you'd liker still be clapped in an asylum and locked there all your days; you'd mind that. But for me that's where you'd be and where you'll go, if I left you to-morrow."

Mr. Wriford cried with a black and angry face: "Well, if it's true, who asked you to hang on to me? Why have you done it? If it's true, mind you! For I've done my share. You've admitted that yourself. In the rows we've got into I've done my share, and in the work we've done I've done more than my share, once I've learnt the hang of it. Now then! That's true, isn't it? If you've done so jolly much, why have you? There's one for you. Why?"

His violent storming put a new mood to Mr. Puddlebox's face. Not the exasperation with which he had burst out and continued till now. That left him. Not the jolly grin with which commonly he regarded life in general and Mr. Wriford in particular. None of these. A new mood. The mood and hue Mr. Wriford had glimpsed when, looking down from the barrier as Mr. Puddlebox overtook him, and crying down to him: "I thought you'd stopped," he had seen Mr. Puddlebox blink and heard him say: "You're unkind, boy." Now he saw it again--and was again to see it before approaching night gave way to following morn.

Mr. Puddlebox blinked and went redly cloudy in the face. "Why?" said he. "Well, I'll tell you why, boy. Because I like you. I liked you, boy, when you came wretched up the Barnet road and thought there was one with you, following you. I liked you then for you were glad of my food and my help and caught at my hand as night fell and held it while you slept. Curse me, I liked you then, for, curse me, you were the first come my way in many years of sin that thought me stronger than himself and that I could be stronger to and could help. I liked you then, boy, and I've liked you more each sun and moon since. I've lost a precious lot in life through being what, curse me, I am. None ever to welcome me, none ever to be glad of me, none ever that minded if I rode by on my legs or went legs first in a coffin cart. Then came you that was loony, that was glad of me here and glad of me there, that asked me this and asked me that, that laughed with me and ate with me and slept with me, that because you was loony was weaker than me. So I liked you, boy; curse me, I loved you, boy. There's why for you."

This long speech, delivered with much blinking and redness of the face, was listened to by Mr. Wriford with the fierceness gone out of his eyes but with his face twisting and working as though what he heard put him in difficulty. In difficulty and with difficulty he then broke out. "God knows I'm grateful," Mr. Wriford said, his voice strained as his face. "But look at this--I don't want to be grateful. I don't want that kind of thing. I've been through all that. 'Thank you' for this; and 'Thank you' for that; and 'I beg your pardon;' and 'Oh, how kind of you.' Man, man!" cried Mr. Wriford, striking his hands to his face and tearing them away again as though scenes were before his eyes that he would wrench away. "Man, I've done that thirty years and been killed of it. I don't want ever to think that kind of stuff again. I want just to keep going on and having nothing touch me except what hurts me here in my body and not care a damn for it--which I don't. You're always asking me if I'm happy, and I know you think I'm not. But I am. Look how hard my hands are: that makes me happy just to think of that. And how I don't mind getting wet or cold: that makes me happy, so happy that I shout out with the gladness of it and get myself wetter. It's being a man. It's getting the better of myself. You're going to say it's not. But you don't understand. One man has to get the better of himself one way and one another. With me it's getting the better of being afraid of things. Well, I'm beating it. I'm beating it when I'm out here, tramping along. But when I'm sheltering it's beating me. When you tell me--" He stopped, and stooping to Mr. Puddlebox took his hands and squeezed them so that the water was squeezed to Mr. Puddlebox's eyes. "There!" cried Mr. Wriford. "Grateful! I'm more grateful to you. I'm fonder of you than any man I've ever met. But don't tell me you're fond of me. I don't want that from anybody. When you tell me that it puts me back to what I used to be. I'm grateful. Believe that; but don't make me talk about it."

"I never did want you to," said Mr. Puddlebox. "Look here, boy. Look how we begun on this talk. I told you to think of some one else, care for some one else, and you broke out 'whom were you to care for?' and I gave you, being cold and wet and mortal tired, I gave you 'For God Almighty's sake care for me' and then told you why you should. Well, let's get back to that. Care for me. Look here, boy. We were ten mile to the next village along this devil of a place when we left the town. I reckon we've come four, and here's evening upon us and six to go. Well, I can't go them, and that's the end and the beginning of it. I'm for going back where there's a bed to be had and while yet it is to be had, for they sleep early these parts. Wherefore when I say 'for God Almighty's sake care for me,' I mean stop this chasing this way and let's chase back the way we come. We'll forget what's gone between us," concluded Mr. Puddlebox, reverting to his jolly smiles and getting to his feet, "and I'll hate you and you'll hate me, since that pleases you most, and back we'll get and have a dish of potatoes inside of us and a warm bed outside. Wherefore I say:

"O ye food and warmth, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever."

Mr. Wriford laughed, and Mr. Puddlebox guessed him persuaded once again. But he set his face then and shook his head sharply, and Mr. Puddlebox saw him determined. "No," said Mr. Wriford. "No, I'm not going back. I'm never going back. If you want to know what I'm going to do, I'm going to stay the night out here."

Mr. Puddlebox cried: "Out here! Now what to the devil--"

"I'd settled it," Mr. Wriford interrupted him. "I'd settled it when I thought you'd gone back. There're little caves all along here--I saw one the other side of these rocks. I'm going to sleep in one. I'd made up my mind when you caught up with me. I'm going to do it."

Mr. Puddlebox stared at him, incapable of speech. Then cried: "Wet as you are?"

"Wet as I am," said Mr. Wriford and laughed.

"Cold as it is and going to be colder?"

"Cold as it is and the colder the better."

"You'll stay alone," cried Mr. Puddlebox. "Curse me if I'll stay with you."

"You needn't," said Mr. Wriford. "I'm not asking you to."

"But you think I'm going to," cried Mr. Puddlebox. "And you're wrong, for I'm not. I'm going straight back, and I'm going at once, the quicker to fetch you to your senses. I'm going, boy;" and in advertisement of his intention Mr. Puddlebox began resolutely to move away.

Mr. Wriford as resolutely turned to the barrier of rocks and began to climb.

"Come on, boy," called Mr. Puddlebox.

Mr. Wriford called back: "No. No, I'm going to stay. I'm going to see the night through."

"You'll know where to find me," cried Mr. Puddlebox. "I'll be where we lay last night."

Mr. Wriford's laugh came to him through the gathering gloom, and through the gloom he saw Mr. Wriford's form midway up the rocks. "And you'll know where to find me," Mr. Wriford called.

Mr. Puddlebox paused irresolutely and cursed roundly where he paused. Then turned and stamped away across the shingle. When he reached the rocky arm where first they had quarrelled he stopped again and again looked back. Mr. Wriford was not to be seen.

"That'll go near to kill him if he stays," said Mr. Puddlebox. "And, curse me, if I go back to him he will stay. I'll push on, and he'll follow me. That's the only way to it."

They had spent the previous night in an eating-house where "Beds for Single Men--4d." attracted wanderers. It was seven o'clock when Mr. Puddlebox's slow progression--halting at every few yards and looking back--at length returned him to it. He dried and warmed himself before the fire in the kitchen that was free to inmates of the house.

"Where's your mate?" asked the proprietor. "Thought you was making Port Rannock?"

"Too far," said Mr. Puddlebox; and to the earlier question: "He's behind me. I'll wait my supper till he comes."

He waited, though very hungry. Every time the door of the kitchen opened he turned eagerly in expectation that was every time denied. Towards nine he gave up the comfortable seat he had secured before the blaze and sat himself where he could watch the door. It never admitted Mr. Wriford.

"What's the night?" he asked a seafaring newcomer.

"Blowing up," the man told him. "Blowing up dirty."

Mr. Puddlebox went from the room and from the house, shivered as the night air struck him, and then down the cobbled street. Ten o'clock, borne gustily upon the wind, came to him from the church tower as he turned along the shore.

None saw him go: and he was not to return.