ds,--the rope which
supported it was tied across his chest, and he clasped this rope with
both hands crossed in the middle, after the fashion of a praying monk.
Smoking a short black pipe, he trudged along, keeping his eyes fixed on
the ground with steady and almost surly persistence, till arriving at
the tree where Helmsley lay, he paused, and lifting his head stared long
and curiously at the sleeping man. Then, unclasping his hands, he
lowered his basket to the ground and set it down. Stealthily creeping
close up to Helmsley's side, he examined the prone figure from head to
foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on
the grass where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he
took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and
finger.

"Portry!" he ejaculated. "Glory be good to me! 'E's a reg'ler noddy
none-such! An' measly old enuff to know better!"

He threw the book on the grass again with a sniff of contempt. At that
moment Helmsley stirred, and opening his eyes fixed them full and
inquiringly on the lowering face above him.

"'Ullo, gaffer! Woke up, 'ave yer?" said the man gruffly. "Off yer lay?"

Helmsley raised himself on one elbow, looking a trifle dazed.

"Off my what?" he murmured. "I didn't quite hear you----?"

"Oh come, stow that!" said the man. "You dunno what I'm talkin' about;
that's plain as a pike. _You_ aint used to the road! Where d'ye come
from?"

"I've walked from Bristol," he answered--"And you're quite right,--I'm
not used to the road."

The man looked at him and his hard face softened. Pushing back his
tattered cap from his brows he showed his features more openly, and a
smile, half shrewd, half kindly, made them suddenly pleasant.

"Av coorse you're not!" he declared. "Glory be good to me! I've tramped
this bit o' road for years, an' never come across such a poor old
chuckle-headed gammer as you sleepin' under a tree afore! Readin' portry
an' droppin' to by-by over it! The larst man as iver I saw a' readin'
portry was what they called a 'Serious Sunday' man, an' 'e's doin' time
now in Portland."

Helmsley smiled. He was amused;--his "adventures," he thought, were
beginning. To be called "a poor old chuckle-headed gammer" was a new and
almost delightful experience.

"Portland's an oncommon friendly place," went on his uninvited
companion. "Once they gits ye, they likes ye to stop. 'Taint like the
fash'nable quality what says to t