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My Friend, The Tramp
by
“Fire on him?” I echoed in alarm.
“Yes–BUT WITH POWDER ONLY! Of course HE doesn’t know that. But he doesn’t come back.”
It struck me for the first time that possibly many other of my friend’s arguments might be only blank cartridges, and used to frighten off other trespassing intellects.
“Of course, if the tramp still persisted, I would be justified in using shot. Last evening I had a visit from one. He was coming over the wall. My shot gun was efficacious; you should have seen him run!”
It was useless to argue with so positive a mind, and I dropped the subject. After breakfast I strolled over the downs, my friend promising to join me as soon as he arranged some household business.
It was a lovely, peaceful morning, not unlike the day when I first met my friend, the Tramp. The hush of a great benediction lay on land and sea. A few white sails twinkled afar, but sleepily; one or two large ships were creeping in lazily, like my friend, the Tramp. A voice behind me startled me.
My host had rejoined me. His face, however, looked a little troubled.
“I just now learned something of importance,” he began. “It appears that with all my precautions that Tramp has visited my kitchen, and the servants have entertained him. Yesterday morning, it appears, while I was absent, he had the audacity to borrow my gun to go duck-shooting. At the end of two or three hours he returned with two ducks and–the gun.”
“That was, at least, honest.”
“Yes–but! That fool of a girl says that, as he handed back the gun, he told her it was all right, and that he had loaded it up again to save the master trouble.”
I think I showed my concern in my face, for he added, hastily: “It was only duck-shot; a few wouldn’t hurt him!”
Nevertheless, we both walked on in silence for a moment. “I thought the gun kicked a little,” he said at last, musingly; “but the idea of– Hallo! what’s this?”
He stopped before the hollow where I had first seen my Tramp. It was deserted, but on the mosses there were spots of blood and fragments of an old gown, blood-stained, as if used for bandages. I looked at it closely: it was the gown intended for the consumptive wife of my friend, the Tramp.
But my host was already nervously tracking the bloodstains that on rock, moss, and boulder were steadily leading toward the sea. When I overtook him at last on the shore, he was standing before a flat rock, on which lay a bundle I recognized, tied up in a handkerchief, and a crooked grape-vine stick.
“He may have come here to wash his wounds–salt is a styptic,” said my host, who had recovered his correct precision of statement.
I said nothing, but looked toward the sea. Whatever secret lay hid in its breast, it kept it fast. Whatever its calm eyes had seen that summer night, it gave no reflection now. It lay there passive, imperturbable, and reticent. But my friend, the Tramp, was gone!