Starlight by Stella Gibbons Page B

work.’
    ‘The ’Eath covers six hundred acres. They can’t possibly collect all the litter scattered by all these ignorant people; there aren’t enough of ’em,’ was the retort.
    ‘Well, neither can you, if it comes to that … and at your time of life you ought to be at home, not out here – miles from anywhere and … getting colder every minute.’
    Charley here made a noise meant to playfully convey arctic chill, and stamped his feet on the path, which rang in satisfactory confirmation beneath their impact. ‘Now how about you getting along home?’
    ‘I’m not cold. I don’t want to go, not yet. I haven’t finished my work. You can leave me, officer. I shan’t come to no ’arm.’
    Charley looked at him, in growing irritation and helplessness. He was doing nothing wrong. But he was very old, he was plainly eccentric, and he ought to be somewhere safe, where people could keep an eye on him.
    ‘Suppose you came over bad suddenly and fell down – you might freeze,’ he almost pleaded, ‘you go home, be reasonable, don’t be like that,’ he ended youthfully.
    The old man, slowly stooping, showed signs of beginning to return to his task.
    ‘I’ve had enough of this – you’re loitering, that’s what you’re doing – what’s your name?’ Charley demanded with sudden official sternness. ‘Come on now.’
    ‘Lancelot Fisher,’ was the answer, given instantly, while the small figure seemed to freeze into the stillness of a bird surprised by a hawk. The voice had suddenly become almost inaudible.
    ‘Address?’ Charley made as if to take out his notebook, with fingers in the edge of a pocket, while wondering what on earth to do next.
    ‘Rose Cottage, Rose Walk, N.W.5.’
    Even as he caught the nearly-whispered words, there sounded the shrill note of a bell and down upon them coasted a figure in a clerical hat, which stopped just short of Charley’s machine and dismounted from a bicycle.
    ‘Hullo, Mr Fisher – in trouble with the Law? I’m sure he can’t have done anything very serious, he’s an old friend of mine, I’m the Vicar of Saint James’s, Highgate,’ said the new arrival. ‘I’ve been over seeing someone in Hampstead … what’s he done?’
    Charley was relieved to see that Mr Fisher had a respectable friend. Wild thoughts of having to carry the old man off to the station on the back of the bike had been passing through his mind.
    ‘Nothing really, sir. Collecting litter or something. But I thought it was time he went home – on such a cold night. And I still do,’ he ended severely. ‘At his age.’
    ‘Yes, yes, quite right. It is cold. I’ll see him home – I’m going his way. You’ll give me the pleasure of your company, won’t you, Mr Fisher?’
    This was received with a silent downward bend of the head. Mr Geddes’s unusually keen sight had enabled him to recognize the old man at a distance of some hundred yards, and it now told him that Mr Fisher was trembling so violently that he seemed about to fall.
    ‘I’ll take him into the Vicarage and give him something hot to drink,’ he said. ‘I’ll look after him – it’s all right. (He’s quite sane – just – lives in a world of his own, that’s all),’ he added, in an undertone.
    ‘All right, sir. We have to keep an eye on them, you know. I’ll be off, then. Thank you. Good-night.’
    Charley kept his face and voice rather stern to the last: he could not quite put his finger on the point where the Law had been deflected and cheated of doing its job, but he felt that it had. However, presumably the Church could be trusted to take over. With a gesture of farewell, which pointedly excluded Mr Fisher, he mounted his machine and rode off.
    ‘There!’ exclaimed Mr Geddes, ‘he’s gone. Now let’s walk up this way and you can tell me all about it.’
    Mr Fisher made an inarticulate sound, which Mr Geddes’s patient and practised ear interpreted rightly.
    ‘No, leave it for tonight. You’ve made