Up the Hill and Over. Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
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