A Knight on Wheels. Ian Hay

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СКАЧАТЬ was to James Nimmo, too, that Philip owed his first introduction to poetry. James was in the habit of referring constantly to a friend of his, apparently deceased, whose full name Philip never rightly ascertained, but whose invariable appellation was "Rabbie." "Rabbie," it appeared, was the only real poet who had ever existed. His soul was the soul of Scotland. Rabbie had never penned a line which did not get home to his countrymen: conversely, no Scot could ever be overtaken by a great thought, or conceive a moving sentiment, without finding that thought or sentiment already expressed, in perfection, in some work of Rabbie's.

      James Nimmo could quote whole stanzas of him, and kept a store of apposite tags and passages from his works upon the tip of his tongue. He was addicted to the recital of lengthy selections from an intensely respectable poem entitled, "The Cotter's Saturday Night"; and would throw off shorter masterpieces—"The Twa Dogs," "Scots Wha Hae," and "Auld Lang Syne"—in their entirety. Most of these performances Philip secretly considered rather dull, but he made an exception in favour of a curious little poem about a mouse, which James Nimmo used to recite with great tenderness and a certain pathetic effect. Our affections must have an outlet somewhere. Old maids cherish pug-dogs: perhaps it was the same instinct which softened the sere and yellow heart of James Nimmo towards the "wee sleekit, cowerin', timorous beastie," whose schemes had gone agley too, and whose efforts to found a home for itself had met with no better success than his own.

      The fact that Rabbie was subject to human weaknesses of any description, or had ever experienced any other passions than those arising from patriotic fervour or political animus, was concealed from Philip for many a year. Once only did James Nimmo lift a corner of the curtain.

      "He went tae his grave at seven-and-thirty," he mentioned one day.

      "Why?" enquired the ingenuous Philip.

      "Because they had drained the life oot o' him," replied James Nimmo, his face hardening. "I mind a vairse he yince wrote. It micht ha' been his ain epitaph:—

      "As father Adam firrst was fooled— A case that's still too common— Here lies a man that wumman ruled, The deevil ruled the wumman!"

      —A summary of the life and character of Scotland's national bard which his most ardent admirer will admit errs a little on the side of leniency towards Rabbie and ingratitude towards a sex which, all things considered, had no special cause to bless him.

      After luncheon Uncle Joseph disposed himself to slumber for half an hour, while Philip, who in common with his kind always felt particularly energetic when distended with food, practised high-jumping in the garden.

      At two the pair went out for a walk. If it happened to be a Thursday—as it was to-day—they repaired to a large bank in Finchley Road, where the notes and gold which had come out of the morning's envelopes were handed over to a polite cashier. Uncle Joseph was a well-known figure here. When he strode in on Thursday afternoons the cashier always sent a hurried message to the manager; and that financial Janus would emerge smiling from his temple behind the glass screens and come round to the front of the counter and shake hands with Uncle Joseph and engage him in agreeable conversation, while Philip watched the cashier licking his thumb and counting bank-notes with incredible rapidity. After entering the numbers of the notes in a big book the cashier would seize the bag containing the gold and silver—quite a number of Uncle Joseph's subscribers used to send actual coin in registered envelopes: they were of the type which does not understand postal orders and mistrusts cheques—and pour it in a jingling cascade upon the counter. Then, having counted it by playing lightning arpeggios upon it with his fingers, he would sweep it up in a brass coal-shovel and fling it contemptuously into a drawer already half-full, hopelessly mixing it with other people's money from the start. To Philip, like most of us, banking was a mystery.

      The manager and Uncle Joseph then shook hands, and the proceedings terminated with a vote of want of confidence in the weather. After that Uncle Joseph and Philip walked to Swiss Cottage Station, where Uncle Joseph departed alone by the Underground—to another bank, in the Edgeware Road this time. Here he deposited a bundle of cheques and crossed postal orders. The majority of these were drawn to the order of the Treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Kind Young Hearts, though a fair proportion bore the names of Master T. Smith and the Reverend Aubrey Buck.

      Out of consideration for the manager of the bank at Hampstead, who, had he been asked to place sums of money intended for such a diversity of people to the credit of a single individual, would undoubtedly have become greatly confused—and deeply interested—Uncle Joseph kept a separate account at the Edgeware Road Bank for all contributions to his benefactions which did not arrive in the form of notes or cash. These he invariably endorsed, "Everard James, Secretary." The same name was inscribed upon his pass-book. It was understood in the Edgeware Road Bank that Mr. James was general director of a large philanthropic institution, and the fact that he paid in so many cheques endorsed by other people was doubtless due to the circumstance that these were minor officials of the same organization—as, indeed, they were.

      Philip usually devoted his solitary walk home from Swiss Cottage Station to a minute inspection of the shop-windows in Finchley Road. On this particular Thursday afternoon, though, he began to run. The soundness of his physical condition may be gauged from the fact that he ran up Netherhall Gardens, a declivity much in favour with prospective purchasers of motor-cars, out on trial trips, and in corresponding unfavour with would-be vendors of the same—to say nothing of the inhabitants of the Gardens.

      He ran on past the newly built Tube Station, up Frognal, and presently reached the outskirts of Hampstead Heath. It was half-past three, and the red wintry sun was sinking low.

      Suddenly he paused, and then stopped dead. He was conscious, deep down within him, of a recurrence of the sensation which had stirred him on the previous Sunday, as he walked over this part of the Heath with Uncle Joseph. On that occasion he had noticed a little girl sitting on a gate. She had smiled at Philip as he passed—a wide and friendly smile. Philip had not returned it, for Uncle Joseph had noted the smile and improved the occasion at once.

      "You see, Philip?" he said. "The hunting instinct already! That child has never seen you before; she will never see you again; she would not care if you went to perdition to-morrow, though she would feel intensely gratified if she could be certain that you had gone there on her account. She is nothing to you, or you to her. But you are a man and she is a woman. So she smiles at you. It is the first and most primitive of the arts of attraction. There is nothing behind the smile—nothing but an undeveloped predatory instinct. And that is what Man has to struggle against all the days of his life, to the detriment of his own and the world's progress."

      Long before Uncle Joseph had concluded these timely observations the little girl was out of sight. "Predatory" was a new word to Philip. He made a mental note of it, and resolved to question Uncle Joseph as to its meaning on a more suitable occasion. Meanwhile he felt that he had had an escape—an escape and a warning.

      Still—here he was, four days later, back on the same dangerous spot. And there, sitting on the same gate, with the setting sun glinting on her long, honey-coloured pigtail, sat the little girl.

      "Hallo, boy!" she said, and smiled again.

      Philip gave her a severe look.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      SAMSON AND DELILAH

      I

      The little girl continued to sit upon the top rail СКАЧАТЬ