The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1899-05-19
A VAGABOND
BY Mark Lennox
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E WAS as fine specimen of tramp
III humanity as ever I had come
across, and I almost became reconciled
to the storm that had driven me into
the ramshackle wayside inn. He bore
his rags with inimitable grace, and
there was good-temepered, independ-
ent, whimsical something behind his
devil-may-care appearance that was
simply irresistible-a strong dash of
poetry and romance, moreover, so often
found in your lord of the lane and high
way.
His first words disappointed me, I
confess, for he spoke with the unmis-
taxable tone and accent of a gentleman,
and was growing trifle tired of peo-
pie who had "come down" in life.
When he had finished the second pot of
ale that he permitted me to pay for I
limited, somewhat rudely perhaps, that
no doubt he had seen better days.
"Seen better days? I should hope I
have-and worse ones, too; many of
them. Better days? Did you ever
come across man on his beam ends
that hadn't seen better days? Talking
of lies, it'll have struck you by this
time, no doubt, that man is lying ami
NAL. No? Oh, we'll, that's because
you're thinking of one kind of liars
only. They're not all of one kind, 1
grant you. There's the man who de-
ceives others. He's a meterialist, if
ever there was one. But then there's
the man that deceivcs himself-and
that's your idealist. See?"
I did see, and tried to draw him out
further, but he did not really wax elo-
quent until he was deep in his post
prandial glass of toddy and his huge
frame doomed dim from out smoke
cloud. 1t was then asked my man to
spin me yarn.
He raised himself from his lolling
posture, and, planting both elbows on
the table, looked at me with those half
quizzical, half-pathetic eyes of his.
What queer fish you steady-going,
respectable people are!" he said, at
last. you're keen as ferrets on tales
of wild life-and low life, too, for that
matter. But that's neither here nor
there. Do you believe in a regular
tramp and vagabond repenting and
turning round-for good, I mean?'
Don't you?" parried, laughing at
the suddenness of the question and
wondering what he was driving at.
''I've got to- he answered, dryly, "for
I've seen 'em do it-actually seen them
do it, and could no more keep them
back than baby could have DONE"
He stopped, and, signing, yelled him
self in melancholy smoke.
GLOW heart-breaking!" I murmured,
sympathetically.
When he emerged again from the
cloud the melancholy had departed.
Nov, did you ever. hear of a respec-
table and law-abiding citizen suddenly
taking a headlong plunge into tramp
dom and rowing on in happy lawless-
ness for the rest of his natural life?'
I gravely shook my head.
He pulled away in deep meditative-
ness.
'Why shouldn't that be possible as
we'll as the other?" he said. IT never
did see why it shouldn't, and-I'm bit
of mental and moral philosopher, you
must know; I never heard of a man
worth the name who didn't pick up
that trick on the tramp-and I thought
I'd try and settle the question by an ex-
pertinent in flesh and blood.'
."You actually tried to turn "a"
"A decent man into vagabond. Ex-
actly. Hark at the wind screaming up
the hillside. It was just such night
as this when I first began But I'll
let you have it in regular order.
"After I once determined on my ex-
pertinent tried to get hold of a decent
subject. I was in London at the time
trying to get the hang of the place, and
I didn't know a respectable soul there
except little Tom Allen, a poor city
clerk, who lived in the same house as
did. And he was respectable-an nervous
lily-livered sort of fellow, who went
to chapel regularly, and had never
tasted anything stronger than water
in his life. He drudged at his desk all
day, and came home at night to tea and
Pollok's Course of Time,' or some other
equally entertaining work, and he'6
been living this monotonous little life
of his for close on rs years when came
across him. And fixed on him at once
for I saw the untamable little tell-tale
devil in the corner of his meek and quiet
eye, and I knew he'd do. Strange
though, how a bit of the devil turks il
the 1nildest of creatures, and bit O;
the brute, too, for that matter. But lei
that pass except that it brings me-
back to what said just now about yor
straight folk being mad on wild tales
1 had found that out long ago, and uset
it as the thin end of the wedge will
Tom Allen. I'd sit up in his bedroom
with him by the hour, on his paten
medicine chest, ranting away about. tn,
glory OF a wanderers life, the excite
ment and the whirl and the freedom
and the joy of it. babe him listen tx
the wind on stormy night such "a.
this--to the roar and the shout of it
and thepassionate snap Of the branches
till the wild wind music got into hi.
heart and brain and he held his hand.
to his ears and bid me STOP" +,
cuts!as the storm ragged as it can rage