She did not clip the tickets, but merely looked at them. She
looked, first at the ticket, then into the face of the passenger. The
glance of the blue eyes was the passport. Of course, he remembered
now--both guard and engine-driver were obliged to have blue eyes. Blue
eyes furnished the motor-power and scenery and everything. It was the
spell that managed the whole business--the Spell of the Big Blue eyes
--blue, the colour of youth and distance, of sky and summer flowers,
of
childhood.
He watched these last passengers come up one by one, and as they filed
past him he exchanged a word with each. How pleased they were to see
him! But how ashamed he felt for having been so long away. Not one,
however, reminded him of it, and--what touched him most of all--not
one suspected he had nearly gone for good. All knew he would come
back.
What looked like a rag-and-bone man blundered up first, his face a
perfect tangle of beard and hair, and the eyebrows like bits of tow
stuck on with sealing-wax. It was The Tramp--Traveller of the World,
the Eternal Wanderer, homeless as the wind; his vivid personality had
haunted all the lanes of childhood. And, as Rogers nodded kindly to
him, the figure waited for something more.
'Ain't forgot the rhyme, 'ave yer?' he asked in a husky voice that
seemed to issue from the ground beneath his broken boots.
Pages:
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61