Up the Hill and Over - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
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UP THE HILL
AND OVER
BY
ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY
Author of "The House of Windows," etc.
_The road runs back and the road runs on,
But the air has a scent of clover_.
_And another day brings another dawn,
When we're up the hill and over_.
TO MY MOTHER
WHO MIGHT HAVE LIKED THIS BOOK HAD SHE LIVED TO READ IT
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 grass. 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 hoarsely 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 grass, 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 grass.
"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 nobody 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 brass 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?"
Apparently he did, for there was no answer. Logic, he concluded, had
achieved its usual triumph. The avenging angel had withdrawn. Blissfully
he stooped again, closing his eyes to the cool drip of the water, but
scarcely had they felt its chill relief when a sharp bark caused them to
fly open with disconcerting suddenness--the avenging angel had returned,
and with her was an avenging dog! Seen through the mist, the dog
appeared to be a bull pup of ferocious aspect.
"I am sorry," the cool voice had no ruth in it, "but it is my duty not
to allow tramps upon these grounds. If you will not go, I must ask
the dog--"
"ASK the dog!" In spite of his aching head the tramp (now no longer
pedestrian) laughed weakly.
"Oh, please don't ask him!" he entreated. "He looks too awfully willing!
Besides, I begin to perceive that my presence is not desired. Naturally
I scorn to remain."
Very slowly he raised himself from the damp pump platform by means of
the red pump-handle. In this manner he achieved an upright position
without much difficulty and all might have gone well had he behaved like
a proper tramp. But forgetting himself, under the tyranny of training
and instinct, he attempted, in deference to the sex of the angel, to
raise his hat (which was not on his head anyway). In so doing he
released the red pump-handle, lost his balance, struggled wildly to
regain it, and then collapsed with a terrible sense of failure and
ignominy, right into the open jaws, as it were, of the avenging dog!
CHAPTER II
He had a fancy that something cool and kind was licking his hand....
It felt like the tongue of a friendly dog. He seemed to have been
dreaming about dogs. Something soft and cold lay on his head. It felt
like a wet handkerchief ... the pain had dulled to a slow throbbing ...
if he opened his eyes he would know who licked his hand and what it was
that lay upon his head ... on the other hand, opening his eyes might
bring back the pain. It seemed hardly worth the risk ... still, he would
very much like to know--
Without being able to decide the question, he fell asleep.
When he awoke, his head was clear and the pain was gone. He felt no
longer unbearably tired, but only comfortably weary, deliciously drowsy.
Had he been at home in his own bed he would have turned over and gone
cheerfully to sleep again. As it was, he opened his eyes with a zestful
sense of curiosity.
He was lying, very easily, upon soft grass. Above him spread the thick
greenery of a giant maple; his head rested upon a cushion and close
beside him, with comforting nose thrust into his open palm, lay a
ferocious-looking bull pup. The pup grinned with delight at his
tentative pat; barked fiercely, and then grinned again as if to say,
"Don't mind me, it's only my fun!"
There was a noise somewhere, a loud, cheerful noise--the noise of
children playing. Not one child, nor two, but children--lots of them!
This was perplexing; and another perplexing thing was the nearness of a
white stoop which led up to the door of a white building; neither stoop
nor building had he ever seen before. Again the dog barked, loudly, and
as if in answer to the bark, the door above the stoop opened and a young
girl came out. She cast a casual glance at him as he lay under the tree,
and, settling herself daintily upon the white steps, opened a small
basket and took from it a serviceable square of white damask and a
lettuce sandwich. He could see the lettuce, crisp and green, peeping out
at the edges.
At the sight, he was conscious of a strange sensation; an almost
forgotten feeling to which, for the moment, he could put no name.
And then, as the girl bit into the sandwich, illumination came. He was
_hungry_! But what an unkind, inconsiderate girl!--Another bite and the
sandwich would be gone--
"I am awake," he suggested meekly.
"So Buster said." The girl smiled approvingly at the dog. "Good Buster!
You may come off guard, sir. Run away and get your lunch."
With a delighted bark for thanks the bull pup trotted away. Callandar's
sense of injury deepened. The girl had begun upon a second sandwich.
Perhaps there were only two!
"Are you hungry, Mr. Tramp?" asked the girl innocently.
"I think," he said, pausing in order to give his words full weight, "I
am starving!" Then, as the blissful meaning of this first feeling of
healthy hunger dawned upon him, he added solemnly: "Thank the Lord!"
"Yes?" There was a cool edge of surprise in the girl's voice. She
proceeded thoughtfully with the second sandwich.
"Yes. Hunger is a beautiful thing, a priceless possession. Money cannot
buy it, skill cannot command it. The price of hunger is far
above rubies."
The girl looked down upon him and smiled. It was such a dear little
smile that for a moment its recipient forgot about the disappearing
sandwich.
"I am so glad," she said warmly, "that you feel like that!"
There was a slight pause. "Because," she went on, finishing the last
bite of the second sandwich, "until now I had always thought that hunger
wasn't a bit nice. Unless, of course, one has the power to gratify it."
"Fortunately," said Callandar a little stiffly, "I have that power."
The girl raised her eyebrows. They were long and straight and black, and
she raised them charmingly. But she was a most unkind and heartless
girl, for all that. Never while he lived would he ask her for a
sandwich. With a comfortable feeling of security his hand felt for his
well-filled pocketbook. It was gone!
"By Jove!"
Stronger ejaculation seemed forbidden by the Presence on the steps. He
tapped all his pockets carefully. The pocketbook was in none of
them--and he had used the last cent of loose change for a glass of milk
for breakfast.
"I suppose," the girl had apparently not noticed his sudden
discomfiture, "that you mean you have money? But the nearest place where
money would be of use is Coombe, and Coombe is a full mile away. It is
a pity that my principles, and the principles of the school-board,
should be all against the feeding of tramps. Otherwise I might offer you
a sandwich."
"You might," bitterly, "but I doubt it!"
"Even now, putting the school-board aside, I might offer you one if you
were to ask prettily and to apologise to me for making rather a fool of
me this morning over there by the pump!"
The pump! Why, of course, the pump! It all came back to him now--the
pump, the avenging angel! (Had this been the avenging angel?) The
avenging dog!--Oh, heaven, was _that_ the avenging dog?
He burst into a boyish shout of laughter.
"There are only two sandwiches left," she warned him. The doctor stopped
laughing.
"Oh, please!" he said.
There was something very pleasant about him when he used that tone; a
persuasive charm, a trace of command. The girl liked it--and passed
a sandwich.
"Anyway it was you who took for granted that I was a tramp," he smiled
at her. "If I remember rightly I was hardly in a condition to contradict
you. Not but that it was a natural conclusion. I am curious to know why
you changed your mind."
"Oh! as soon as you fainted I knew. Tramps don't faint!"
"Not ever?"
"Well--hardly ever! And besides--look at your hands!"
The doctor looked, and blushed.
"Dirty?" he ventured.
"Not half dirty enough! And it wasn't only your hands. I noticed--oh!
lots of things!" For no perceptible reason a tiny blush fluttered
across the whiteness of her face like a roseleaf chased by the wind. The
pleasure of watching it made the doctor forget to answer, and the
girl went on:
"I know lots more about you than that you aren't a tramp. I know what
you are. You are a doctor!" triumphantly.
"A Daniel come to judgment!"
"Yes, a Daniel! Only I wouldn't have been quite so sure if you hadn't
dropped this out of your pocket." With a gleeful laugh she held up a
clinical thermometer.
The doctor laughed also. "Men have been hanged on less evidence than
that," he admitted. "All the same I don't know where it came from. Some
one must have judged me capable of wanting to take my own temperature.
Anything else?"
"Only general deductions. You are a doctor, you are going to
Coombe--deduction, you are the doctor who is going to buy out Dr.
Simmonds's practice."
Callandar scrambled up from his pillow with a look of delighted surprise
on his face.
"Why--so I am!" he exclaimed.
"You say that as if you had just found it out."
"Well, er--you see I had forgotten it--temporarily. My head, you know."
The suspicion in the girl's eyes melted into sympathy. "I suppose you
know," she said with quite a motherly air, "that old Doc. Simmonds
hasn't really any practice to sell?"
"No? That's bad. Hasn't he even a little one? You see" (the sympathy had
been so pleasant that he felt he could do with a little more of it), "I
could hardly manage a big one just now. As you may have noticed, my
health is rather rocky. Got to lay up and all that--so it's just as
well that old Simpkins' practice is on the ragged edge."
"The name is Simmonds, not Simpkins," coldly.
"Well, I didn't buy the name with the practice. My own name is
Callandar. Much nicer, don't you think?"
"I don't know. A well-known name is rather a handicap."
This time the doctor was genuinely surprised.
"A handicap? What do you mean?"
"People will be sure to compare you with your famous namesake, Dr.
Callandar, of Montreal. Everyone you meet," with a mischievous smile,
"will say, 'Callandar--ah! no relation to Dr. Henry Callandar of
Montreal, I suppose?' And then they will look sympathetic and you will
want to slap them."
"Dear me! I never thought of that! I had no idea that the Montreal man
would be known up here. In the cities, perhaps, but not here."
The girl raised her straight black brows in a way which expressed
displeasure at his slighting tone.
"You are mistaken," she said briefly. "I must go now. It is time to ring
the bell. The children are running wild."
For the first time the doctor began to take an intelligent interest in
his surroundings, and saw that the tree, the white stoop and the small
white building were situated in a little, quiet oasis separated by a low
fence from the desert of a large yard containing the red pump. On the
other side of the fence was pandemonium!
"Why, it's a school!" he exclaimed.
The school-mistress arose, daintily flicking the crumbs from her white
pique skirt.
"District No. 15. The largest attendance of any in the county. I really
must ring the bell." She flicked another invisible crumb. "I hope," she
added slowly, "that I haven't discouraged you."
"Oh, no! not at all. Quite the contrary. It seems unfortunate about the
name, but perhaps I can live it down. It isn't as if I were just out of
college, you know.--In fact," as if the thought had just come to him,
"do I not seem to you to be a little old for--to be making a
fresh start?"
The girl's eyes looked at him very kindly. It was quite evident that she
thought she understood the situation perfectly. "I shouldn't worry about
that, if I were you," she said. "Young doctors are often no use at all.
A great many people _prefer_ doctors to be older! I know, you see, for
my father was a doctor. He was Dr. Coombe; for many years he was the
only doctor here, the only doctor that counted," with a pretty air of
pride. "The town was named after his father-I am Esther Coombe."
The doctor acknowledged the introduction with a bow and a quick smile of
gratitude.
"You are really very kind, Miss Coombe," he said. "If--if I should take
Dr. Spifkin's practice, I hope I may see you sometimes. It is not far
from here, is it, to the town--pump?"
Esther laughed. "No, but I do not live out here. I only teach here. We
live in town, or almost in. You will pass the house on the way to the
hotel. But before you go--" with a gleeful smile she handed him his lost
pocketbook--"this fell out of your coat when I pull--helped you under
the tree. I should have given it to you before, but I wanted you to
understand just how far the blessing of hunger depends upon one's power
to gratify it."
They laughed together with a splendid sense of comradeship; then with a
startled "I really must ring the bell!" she turned and ran up the steps.
Smilingly he watched her disappear, waiting musingly until a sudden
furious ringing told him that school was called.
CHAPTER III
Two sandwiches, an apple, and a glass of water may save a man from
starvation, but they do not go far towards satisfying the reviving
appetite of a convalescent. Walking with brisk step down the road,
Callandar began to imagine the kind of meal he would order--a clear
soup, broiled steak, crisp potatoes--a few little simple things like
that! He fingered his pocketbook lovingly, glad that, for the first time
in some months, he actually wanted something that money could buy.
Now that noon was past, the intense heat of the morning was tempered by
a breeze. It was still hot and his footsteps raised little cyclones of
dust which flew along the road before him, but the oppression in the air
was gone, and walking had ceased to be a weariness. The mile which
separated him from Coombe appeared no longer endless, yet so insistent
were the demands of his inner man that when a town-going farmer hailed
him with the usual offer of a "lift," he accepted the invitation
with alacrity.
"Better," he murmured to himself, "the delights of rustic conversation
with a good meal at the end thereof than lordly solitude and
emptiness withal."
But contrary to expectation the rustic declined to converse. He was a
melancholy-looking man with a long jaw and eyes so deep-set that the
observer took them on faith, and a nose which alone would have been
sufficient to identify him. Beyond the first request to "step up," he
vouchsafed no word and, save for an inarticulate gurgle to his horse,
seemed lost in an ageless calm. His gaze was fixed upon some indefinite
portion of the horse's back and he drove leaning forward in an attitude
of complete bodily and mental relaxation. If his guest wished
conversation it was apparent that he must set it going himself.
"Very warm day!" said Callandar tentatively.
"So-so." The farmer slapped the reins over the horse's flank, jerked
them abruptly and murmured a hoarse "Giddap!" It was his method of
encouraging the onward motion of the animal.
"Is it always as warm as this hereabouts?"
"No. Sometimes we get it a little cooler 'bout Christmas."
The doctor flushed with annoyance and then laughed.
"You see," he explained, "I'm new to this part of the country. But I
always thought you had it cooler up here."
The manner of the rustic grew more genial.
"Mostly we do," he admitted; "but this here is a hot spell." Another
long pause and then he volunteered suddenly: "You can mostly tell by
Alviry. When she gets a sunstroke it's purty hot. I'm going for the
doctor now."
"Going for the doctor?" Callandar's gaze swept the peaceful figure with
incredulous amusement. "Great Scott, man! Why don't you hurry? Can't the
horse go any faster?"
"Maybe," resignedly, "but he won't."
"Make him, then! A sunstroke may be a very serious business. Your wife
may be dead before you get back."
The deep-set eyes turned to him slowly. There seemed something like a
distant sparkle in their depths.