Despair's Last Journey Part 13

It was a Sunday afternoon, and he was off for his customary lonely ramble. Armstrong always went upstairs for a nap after Sunday's dinner, and Paul was left without companions.h.i.+p.

The woman was a mile away from her home, and was sitting on the lower steps of a stile by the side of the highway. She was tidily attired, and sober. Her recent illness had left a pensive look upon her face.

'You're better?' said Paul, stopping in front of her.

She looked up in some surprise.

'Oh,' she answered. ''Tis you? I'm better, thank ye kindly. There's not many cares to ask.'

'Do you remember,' Paul demanded, with a face whiter than her own, 'what you said at the doctor's the night you were hurt?'

'No,' she replied. 'What was it?'

'The doctor asked you what your trade was,' said Paul.

'Yes,' she said; 'I mind it now.'

'Did you mean it?' Paul asked.

'Ye're a trifle over-young to turn parson,' she responded. 'Go your ways, child, and don't be bothering.'

'Don't ask me to go yet,' said Paul 'I've something I want to say to you.' His voice stuck in his throat, and she turned her glance towards him in a new surprise. 'You said,' he went on with difficulty, 'that you were sure to go to h.e.l.l.'

'I'm that,' she answered dryly, drawing her shawl about her shoulders.

'Well,' said Paul, 'you shan't. I'm not going to let you.' She laughed oddly with a mere e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and stared along the road. 'Do you ever think what h.e.l.l is like?' he asked.

'Would I drink if I didn't?' she answered without looking at him.

'You can't put it away by drinking.'

'I know that,' she answered, with a sudden sullen fierceness. Then, 'Ye mean well, I dare say, but ye're wastin' time. Go your ways.'

'It's no use asking,' said Paul; 'I can't do it.' She looked up at him again, and he hurried on, with a dry husk in his throat: 'I can't rest for thinking of it I can't eat I can't sleep. I can't think of anything else.'

A slight spasm contorted her lips for a mere instant, but she looked down the road again, and answered drearily:

'That's a pity.'

There was a tone of tired scorn in her words, but this, as it were, was only on the surface. There was something else below, and the sense of it urged him on.

'You have a good face,' he said. 'You were not meant----'

He checked himself.

'Me poor boy,' she answered, with another motion to arrange her shawl, 'ye can't tell me anything I don't know.'

'I can tell you something you've forgotten,' said Paul. 'I don't care what you've done; you're G.o.d's child, and while there's life there's hope.'

'Ye're not a man yet,' said Norah MacMulty; 'but if ever ye mean to be one, hould your tongue an' go.'

'I don't mind hurting you if I can do you any good by it.' 'Ye can do me no good, nor yourself neither. Here's people coming along the road, and it's ten to one they'll know ye. Ye've no right to be seen talkin' to the likes of me at your age.'

'I don't care for the people,' he answered. 'I don't care for anything but what I've got to say.'

'Well,' she said, 'if you don't care, I'm sure I don't. 'Tis no odds to me what anybody thinks.'

The people who approached were strangers, two men and two women of the working cla.s.s. They pa.s.sed the pair without notice, talking of their own affairs.

'I'm only two days from the hospital,' said the girl when they were out of hearing, 'and me legs gives way underneath me. If 'twas not for that, I'd not stay here. Go now; I'm tired of ye.'

'Look here,' said Paul, with the dry husk in his throat again, 'you don't like your life.'

'Faith, then,' she answered, 'I do not.'

'Then why not leave it?'

'Ye're talking like a child. How the divvle _can_ I leave it?'

'Leave it with me,' said Paul.

That was what he had meant to say from the first, and now that he had spoken his word his difficulties seemed to fall away.

'I can't earn full wages yet, but I can get two-thirds anywhere. I can make eighteen s.h.i.+llings a week, and I can live on half of it. You can have the other half, and there will be no need, then---- You will find something to do in time--sewing, or ironing, or something--and then it will be easier for us both.'

'Ye're mad!' said Norah MacMulty.

'No,' said Paul, 'I'm not mad. I'm going to save your soul, Norah.'

She looked at him fixedly.

'Ye mean it?' she asked.

'I mean it,' he answered. 'I mean it in G.o.d's hearing.'

'Well,' she said, 'I'm mightily obliged to ye.'

'You're coming, Norah?'

'What's your name?'

'Armstrong--Paul Armstrong.'

'I'll remember that,' she said. 'Good-bye to ye, Paul Armstrong.'

'No,' said Paul, 'you will come to me. I shall go to look for work to-morrow, and as soon as I have found it I shall send for you, and you will come.'

'D'ye want me to live with ye?' she asked.