mend my road.

Two tramps come and fling themselves by me as I eat my noonday
meal. The one, red-eyed, furtive, lies on his side with restless,
clutching hands that tear and twist and torture the living grass,
while his lips mutter incoherently. The other sits stooped, bare-
footed, legs wide apart, his face grey, almost as grey as his
stubbly beard; and it is not long since Death looked him in the
eyes. He tells me querulously of a two hundred miles tramp since
early spring, of search for work, casual jobs with more kicks than
halfpence, and a brief but blissful sojourn in a hospital bed, from
which he was dismissed with sentence passed upon him. For himself,
he is determined to die on the road under a hedge, where a man can
see and breathe. His anxiety is all for his fellow; HE has said he
will "do for a man"; he wants to "swing," to get out of his "dog's
life." I watch him as he lies, this Ishmael and would-be Lamech.
Ignorance, hunger, terror, the exhaustion of past generations, have
done their work. The man is mad, and would kill his fellowman.

Presently we part, and the two go, dogged and footsore, down the
road which is to lead them into the great silence.



CHAPTER III



Yesterday was a day of encounters.