d his shoulders.

"I prefer not to speak to you at all, Mr. Joltram," he said. "When
people are bound to disagree, as we have disagreed for years, it is best
to avoid conversation."

"Zed like the Church all over, Pazon!" chuckled the imperturbable
Joltram. "Zeems as if I 'erd the 'Glory be'! But if tha don't want any
talk, why does tha coom in 'ere wheer we'se all a-drinkin' steady and
talkin' 'arty, an' no quarrellin' nor backbitin' of our neighbours? Tha
wants us to go 'ome,--why doezn't tha go 'ome thysen? Tha's a wife a
zettin' oop there, an' m'appen she's waitin' with as fine a zermon as
iver was preached from a temperance cart in a wasterne field!"

He laughed again; Arbroath turned his back upon him in disgust, and
strode up to the shadowed corner where Helmsley sat watching the little
scene.

"Now, my man, who are _you_?" demanded the clergyman imperiously. "Where
do you come from?"

Matt Peke would have spoken, but Helmsley silenced him by a look and
rose to his feet, standing humbly with bent head before his arrogant
interlocutor. There were the elements of comedy in the situation, and he
was inclined to play his part thoroughly.

"From Bristol," he replied.

"What are you doing here?"

"Getting rest, food, and a night's lodging."

"Why do you leave out drink in the list?" sneered Arbroath. "For, of
course, it's your special craving! Where are you going?"

"To Cornwall."

"Tramping it?"

"Yes."

"Begging, I suppose?"

"Sometimes."

"Disgraceful!" And the reverend gentleman snorted offence like a walrus
rising from deep waters. "Why don't you work?"

"I'm too old."

"Too old! Too lazy you mean! How old are you?"

"Seventy."

Mr. Arbroath paused, slightly disconcerted. He had entered the "Trusty
Man" in the hope of discovering some or even all of its customers in a
state of drunkenness. To his disappointment he had found them perfectly
sober. He had pounced on the stray man whom he saw was a stranger, in
the expectation of proving him, at least, to be intoxicated. Here again
he was mistaken. Helmsley's simple straight answers left him no opening
for attack.

"You'd better make for the nearest workhouse," he said, at last. "Tramps
are not encouraged on these roads."

"Evidently not!" And Helmsley raised his calm eyes and fixed them on the
clergyman's lowering countenance with a faintly satiric smile.

"You're not too old to be impudent, I see!" retorted Arbroath, with an
unpleasan