The Happy WarriorHutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
General
The Happy Warrior
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Fiction
Come to her in the month of January. Bridge those long weeks wherein
she lived from mail day to mail day--as one not strong that has a weary
mile to cover and walks from seat to seat--and come to her there.
She was at this time not in good health, suffered much from headaches
and was oppressed with a constant fatigue. In this condition fresh air
without exertion had become very desirable to her, and she formed the
daily habit of long rides outside the leisurely horsed tramcars of
those days. Study of a guide acquainted her with their routes. She
had a particular one for each day of the week, counting from Saturday
to Friday, and arranged on a little plan by which (as she made believe)
each journey was part of a long journey whose end was Friday's ride,
whence she returned home to find the Indian mail. Not only fresh air
was obtained by this means, but a sense of actively advancing towards
the day that brought the letters, round which she lived.
On an afternoon of this January her ride was from Holborn, through
Islington and Holloway, to Highgate Archway. On the near side of the
Holloway road, half a mile perhaps below the stopping place, there is a
group of houses approached by shallow steps that have resisted the
overpowering inclination of the district to become shops and instead
support their tenants by providing apartments. The car that carried
her had stopped here. She had learnt to eke out the amusement of these
rides by attention to all manner of little incidents, and--employed
with one such--was wondering if her car would restart before it was
reached by a newsboy who ran towards them from the distance, his pink
contents-bill fluttering apronwise before him. Some one was a terribly
long time over the business of alighting or entering. The newsboy won.
A few yards from where she sat above him he stopped to sell a paper and
to fumble for change. The halt caused his fluttering pink apron to
come to rest.
PEER
KILLED IN
FRONTIER
FIGHTING
Had something actually struck her throat? Was a hand actually
strangling there? Could they see she was fighting for breath? Was the
car really rocking--right up so she could not see the street, right
down and all the street circling? Could others hear that shrill and
enormous din that threatened to split her brain?
Through the tremendous hubbub and the dizzy rocking she got down. If
this strangle at her throat did not relax, if this dizzy whirling did
not cease, this immense din silence....
A curious voice, leagues away, said: "Yer've got ter pye fer it,
y'know."
She put her fingers in her purse and held out what she could gather. A
figure that had been going up and down in front of her seemed to take a
tremendous sidelong sweep and vanished. She was left with a paper in
her hands and knew what she must do. But if this din, this giddy
circling....
It suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. There was not a sound, there
was not a movement.
II
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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