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_Title:_ Philpotts Finds Himself
_Date of first publication:_ 1928
_Author:_ Beatrice Redpath (1886-1937)
_Illustrator:_ E. J. Dinsmore (1885-1936)
_Date first posted:_ November 13, 2026
_Date last updated:_ November 13, 2026
Faded Page eBook #20261123

This eBook was produced by: John Routh & the online Distributed
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                          [Cover Illustration]

                       _Philpotts finds Himself_

                  _After a Day at the Beach this Man_
                    _Returns Home a Hero, Wondering_
                         _How It All Happened_

                          By BEATRICE REDPATH

                   _Illustrations by E. J. Dinsmore_

Evelyn as usual was sitting at the piano, making little runs and trills,
her fingers fluttering like white butterflies over the keys. Adele had
thrown herself negligently down on the broad couch, her long neck
dropping gracefully as she rested her small pointed chin in one hand.
Charlotte was sitting at the writing-table, making out a list of the
guests who were to be invited. Her head was very erect beneath her
pyramid of gray curls, the inevitable black ribbon around her throat.

“And you think that Friday will be quite the best day to invite them?”

A little rush of light notes, and then Evelyn’s slightly drawling tones.

“Yes, of course it is. A holiday is always so dreadful unless there is
something very special to do.”

“I don’t see any sense in holidays at all,” remarked Adele languidly.

Mr. Philpotts stirred uneasily in his chair beside the window. He was a
small man with a round face and a naïve expression. His hair was thin,
and he made an effort to brush it so as to give no appearance of
baldness. He had an instinctive feeling that Charlotte and the girls did
not like bald-headed men.

He fluttered the pages of the book, gave a nervous cough and laid the
book on his knee, abandoning the pretence of reading. The movement
seemed to recall the fact of his existence to Charlotte. She swept him
with a cool indifferent glance.

“I suppose you won’t be taking a holiday on Friday, Norman?”

“Well, I was thinking of it,” he faltered. “I rather thought I’d paint
the window frames. I’ve been wanting to do it for some time, and Friday
seemed to be a good day.”

[Illustration: _Mr. Philpotts laid the book on his knee. “I rather
thought I’d paint the window frames. I’ve been wanting to do it for some
time, and Friday seemed to be a good day.”_]

“Oh, well, of course you couldn’t possibly do that when the girls are
having a party. We couldn’t have the smell of paint in the house. I
shouldn’t think it was very necessary for you to take a holiday with
Saturday and Sunday coming directly afterwards.”

“The office will be closed,” he said, fingering the leaves of his book;
“but of course I could do something else.”

“Yes, of course,” put in Adele, “Why don’t you take a day in the
country? That would be nice for you.”

Her tone sounded as though she were giving him a large and beautiful
present.

There was a pause. Mr. Philpotts felt as though Adele were waiting for
him to thank her for her generosity. Charlotte tapped her list with the
point of her pencil. It was quite apparent that she was impatient that
the question of how he should be disposed of for the day should be
decided instantly.

“I believe that there’s to be a regatta at Port Burleigh on Friday,”
Evelyn said from the piano, “that would be just the thing for father.”

“Why, yes, you’d enjoy that, I’m sure,” Charlotte said with quick
relief. “You could leave here early in the morning and spend the whole
day on the sands. Just the very thing,” she repeated, her narrow lips
closing with a snap.

So that was settled. Mr. Philpotts gave a faint sigh and picked up his
book again. But instead of the print on the page he saw hot yellow
sands, little sail-boats dotted meaninglessly about on the glazed blue
water, crowds eating popcorn, chewing gum, drinking ginger ale out of
bottles, people throwing orange peel and banana skins everywhere, greasy
meals in second-rate hotels, trains loaded with sweating humanity,
screaming children and tired women—everyone thrusting and pushing him
about.

He sighed again. He had looked forward to quite a different sort of
holiday, but of course if the girls were giving a party he would have to
be out of the way.

“I’m sorry about the window frames,” he said with a note of regret in
his voice. “It would have been such a good chance to paint them. I could
have given them a second coat on Saturday.”

He saw their look of disdain and retired hastily into his book. He felt
a shade embarrassed that he should have spoken about anything so
commonplace as window frames. An apologetic expression came over his
round face, and he looked from one to the other a little wistfully. He
wanted so much to please them. He was so proud of them all. Evelyn, who
could play such delicious notes on the piano, fantastic arias, and light
tripping mazurkas, with such ease and deftness; Adele, who had such a
concise way of speaking, clipping her words as though they were bright
bits of silk snipped off with a pair of sharp scissors; Charlotte, whose
frosty manner and erect carriage he felt sure had been handed down to
her as a heritage through successive generations. He was tremendously
proud of them. Charlotte and the girls always seemed to him like
beautiful white swans, floating so leisurely down the smooth clear
stream of their lives. He quite recognized that it was a privilege to
belong to them. But he often wished that he didn’t feel so hopelessly
inferior.

He knew that you only had to fling a glance in his direction to see just
what he was. There were many dozens like him. They filled the street
cars, crowded into the trains, came tumbling out of offices—short men
with receding hair and a steadily increasing waistband.

He could scarcely expect Charlotte and the girls to look up to him, to
ask his opinion or take his advice. It would seem quite absurd if
Charlotte with her forceful character were ever to appeal to him. She
was so self-sufficient, so adamant. He could never imagine her asking
either for his love or his pity. All he could ever give her was his
admiration and respect. That was all she wanted from him.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Friday, and the sun beating down from the sky that was without fleck or
cloud. Mr. Philpotts thought of those white hot rays beating down on the
wide surface of water, and his flesh shrivelled.

“It’s a wonderful day for a holiday,” Evelyn cried as they left the
breakfast table: “You’ll have a perfectly splendid time.”

“Splendid,” echoed Adele.

“You really should start at once, Norman,” Charlotte’s tone was
flurried. “You don’t want to miss your train.”

Mr. Philpotts glanced at the clock, which was ticking away so
industriously, as though it were in league with them to dispatch him on
his way with the greatest possible speed.

“I’m just starting,” he said in a flat dull tone.

It was a pity, he thought, as he passed the front room, which was
already filled with little tables, that he should be so fond of his own
home. So many men were only too glad to escape from their homes and
families. But he liked nothing better than to potter around the house
with a paint brush or a hammer.

Charlotte followed him to the door to see that he got off, brushing his
cheek lightly with her lips.

“Have a good time,” she said absently, “but don’t do anything foolish.”

“Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, but don’t go near the water,” ran
absurdly through his mind at the intonation of her voice. But he
immediately made a mental apology to Charlotte. She hadn’t intended her
tone to sound like that. It was just that she was anxious to see him
started so that she could attend to her preparations for the party.

His new tan shoes squeaked abominably as he walked down the street,
which added to his feeling of discomfort as he thought of the day that
was before him. It was going to be one of those blistering days on the
sands. The air was already heavy and thick. He ran his finger around the
edge of his collar where it pressed moist and tight against his neck,
and thought of the cool fragrance of the house, with its large dim rooms
filled with vases of flowers, its awnings over every window to shut out
the cruel glare.

The trains were crowded, as he had expected. So many people leaving
their cool houses to swelter in this heat! He wondered if, like himself,
they were forced to go. He couldn’t imagine any one crowding into these
suffocating trains otherwise. He managed to find a seat beside a woman
with a wailing baby in her arms. He felt so sorry for the red-faced
scrap of humanity that he forgot for a time his own physical discomfort.

He couldn’t escape from the crowds. The sands swarmed with human beings.
No one seemed to object to the scorching rays of the sun beating down on
the water; no one except himself.

He stood watching the crowds with a sensation of helplessness. Half a
mile from the shore small sail-boats were staggering about in a sluggish
wind. He started to walk along the shore, determined, if he could, to
escape from all these people.

He spent the entire morning walking about the sands.

“I guess you’re having a fine holiday,” a weary looking woman remarked
to him as he sat wedged in between her and a fat man in a long crowded
dining-room.

He assented weakly.

“There are a great number of people here today.”

“Yes. Ain’t it grand?”

In the afternoon he managed to find a secluded corner beneath a sheer
cliff. Sharp rocks rose out of the sand, affording small spots of shade.
He took out his pipe and leaned against the rock, the bright blaze of
the water, and the blue shine of the sky forcing him to close his eyes.
A gradual drowsiness stole over him.

He was awakened by the sound of shrill voices near him. People were
running past him along the sands. He could hear shouts from a short
distance away. He raised himself on his elbow and listened. Something
had happened. Perhaps someone was drowning out there on that clear blue
water.

He got up and slipped his pipe into his pocket, starting towards where
he could see a large crowd gathered. They were all staring up at the
cliffs, and as he came nearer he could make out a small white object
hanging a short distance from the top.

“It’s a little girl,” screamed a woman beside him, “it’s a dear little
girl.”

“Why don’t they get ropes?”

“They can’t get around to the top. It’s a mile to the road.”

“I saw her tumble over the edge.”

“She’s caught by her frock.”

“Oh, she’ll be killed—she’ll be killed.”

Mr. Philpotts stared up the cliffs at that small scrap of white, while a
sick shudder went through him. Any moment she might fall the rest of the
way. Apparently no one from the top of the cliffs had noticed what had
happened. The child had probably wandered from one of the farmhouses on
the road that skirted the cliffs. He looked at the sharp pointed rocks
around him and his hands clenched until the nails bit into his flesh.
Charlotte had always told him that he was sentimentally foolish where
children were concerned. Their little hands had a way of squeezing his
heart.

The crowd stood and gaped. Some of the men were running around calling
distractedly for ropes.

“What will they do with their silly old ropes? Oh, she’ll fall, she’ll
fall,” the woman beside Mr. Philpotts screamed shrilly. “Let them go
’round—let them go ’round to the top—”

“She’ll fall before they could get there, auntie,” said the girl with
her.

“Oh, why don’t they do something!” the woman cried in anguish.

Mr. Philpotts stopped and unlaced his new tan shoes, laying them
methodically side by side on the sand. He slipped off his coat and
dropped it over them. Then he made a run at the low bank of sand at the
foot of the cliff. A shout went up from the crowd. He fell back, his
hands and feet slipping over the loose sand. He made another attempt,
grasped a jutting rock, and slowly drew himself, up out of the sliding
sand.

He stared up the straight wall of rock above, and something hardened in
him. He had lived by the sea as a boy and had climbed many a cliff
looking for sea-birds’ eggs. In those days he would not have considered
this such an impossible climb. But he had been young then and agile. Now
it would be a fight against the years of easy living. He was breathing
heavily even after the run up the sand bank. And that was nothing at
all.

He looked with a practised eye at the sheer wall and noted tiny
crevices, small ledges where he could place his fingers and toes. There
were tufts of grass where he could pause to rest, if they could afford
him a foothold.

A sharp rock cut through his sock, burning the skin from his foot. The
sickening pain almost made him cry out. Sweat poured down his face. He
found a crevice and closed his eyes for an instant, resting motionless.

At the thought of failures, agony twisted his insides. He knew that in
all his life he never wanted to do anything as much as to reach that
child. For the first time in all the years he could remember, someone
depended on him, and on him alone. If he failed there would be no time
for anyone else to make a second effort. If he failed——

He glanced up at the little speck of white, like a cloud against the
sky, determination hardening his muscles. As long as that spur of rock
held, she was safe. Fortunately she wasn’t struggling. Probably she had
been stunned by the fall. He must reach her before she regained
consciousness.

He saw the way that he must take as he went slowly ziz-zagging tip the
face of the cliff. The child was not far from the top, and from there he
remembered the cliff receded. That would be their salvation. If the
cliff had been sheer to the top he knew that he could never have hoped
to rescue her.

At moments the rock crumbled under him. He could hear the broken
fragments falling—falling—and then silence. Just as he would fall if
his foot slipped, if his hands let go! He trembled with exhaustion. A
gull rose screaming from its nest among the rocks, then mounted steadily
in the clear air, mocking him with its easy, swinging flight.

A low murmur rose from the crowds as they saw him cling for an instant
by one hand, and then pull himself up to a higher spur of rock. The
little boats in the bay had crept close to the shore, drifting with
flapping sails, while the men watched the progress of that mannikin
climbing the cliffs.

Mr. Philpotts had forgotten everything but the child. He was conscious
of a great stillness, as though all sound had stopped, as though nature
stood by breathless.

And as he climbed the beating of his heart sounded in his ears like
great strong chords struck from an instrument by infinite hands. He
forgot the pain that was his feet, the agony that was his hands, the
sweat that poured down his face like rain. A sob rose in his throat, and
a great fullness swelled in him, giving courage to his bleeding feet,
strength and power to his tortured arms. He was climbing now,
fearlessly, from crumbling ledge to slipping boulder, with a wild clear
joy within him.

At length he reached the child. As he drew her into his arms, the
silence around him lifted. It was as if all the wheels of the world now
began slowly to revolve again after being stopped for a time. There was
no longer that tenseness in the air. Everything in nature had relaxed.
He could hear the soft, slow lapping of the water on the sands, the buzz
of an insect’s wings, the clear note of a bird overhead. The sound of
the breeze in his ears was like a long-drawn sigh.

The child weighed heavily in his wearied arms. With a gasp of relief he
realized that between them and the top was merely a sloping bank. He
looked down and saw the curve of a baby check, the soft silken, yellow
of her hair as she lay limply against his breast.

[Illustration: _He was intolerably weary, and it seemed to him an age
before he grasped at an overhanging root._]

He was intolerably weary, and it seemed to him an age before he grasped
at an overhanging root. With a last desperate effort, he lifted the
child and thrust her to safety.

The air around him split with a long, ringing sound. It was as though
all the seas of the world had burst their silver boundaries and escaped,
foaming over the earth. It was like nothing he had ever heard before, a
long loud roar, increasing and increasing in volume. The earth shivered
beneath him.

He was dazed, puzzled at first, while he still clung to the overhanging
root. Then, slowly, he dragged himself up and crawled over the edge, to
lie exhausted on the grass beside the child.

Still the loud roar increased. He began to realize that it was the sound
of cheering—crowds shouting as he had never heard them shout before.
The shout of a people whose hearts had been wrung with a great emotion.

He peered over the edge and saw the lifted faces of the crowd. At the
sight of him the cheers broke out louder than before. Men frantically
waved their hats. Women fluttered handkerchiefs and sobbed in hysterical
relief.

Why, he had done nothing to merit this. He had only done what anyone
else would have done if he had thought of it in time. It wasn’t possible
to do anything and leave that little child to fall on those hideous
rocks. It had been his idea to see that she didn’t—so little and weak
and soft as she was.

The cheering was dying down. He was thankful that he wouldn’t have to
face that excited crowd. He would take the little frightened child home,
and when the beach was deserted he could recover his clothes. He was
thankful, too, when he got home, that Charlotte and the girls were
asleep, and he was able to slip quietly off to bed.

                     *      *      *      *      *

“Whatever have you done to your hands?” Evelyn exclaimed, as Mr.
Philpotts helped himself to a slice of toast at breakfast next morning.

Mr. Philpotts flushed.

“I hurt them yesterday,” he said quietly.

“I should think you did,” Adele remarked crisply, “they look simply too
awful.”

“Listen to this,” Evelyn broke in as she pored over the morning paper
between sips of coffee. “Here’s something about a man at the Regatta
yesterday who climbed one of those terrible cliffs to save a child’s
life. It says it was the most wonderful exhibition of courage. And this
is funny—they can’t find out who he was. When they looked for him he
had disappeared.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about it?” Adele inquired.

“Didn’t you see it? Weren’t you there?”

“Yes, oh, yes.”

“Here’s some more about him on this page. Well, I must say I call it
rather splendid. He must have been a brave man to climb those cliffs. It
says that the crowd expected to see him fall and be killed every
instant. And all for a child he had never seen before. It’s wonderful to
think of a man doing a thing like that.”

“Yes, indeed it is,” put in Charlotte, “most men are so selfish.”

“They are trying to find out his name. They want to give him a medal for
life-saving.”

“Tell us all about it,” demanded Adele, “didn’t you see him? What was he
like? Young and good-looking?”

A slow painful color burned in his face. He felt as though his voice had
died in him. So they really thought him brave? Thought that he had done
something splendid? But he knew it wasn’t so. He was glad, though, that
they thought he had done something worth while.

The room grew blurred before him and the pattern on his plate became
just blobs of color. He was so glad they were pleased with what he had
done.

“Well, you see,” he said breathing with difficulty, “it was—why, it
was, myself.”

There was a breathless pause. He lifted his eyes from his plate And
could see them all looking from one to the other, with queer startled
expressions. He looked across the table at Charlotte and gave a faint
smile, hoping that he wasn’t appearing self conscious and silly.
Charlotte’s eyes were fixed on him with an expression he couldn’t make
out. He was puzzled and at a loss to understand it.

“You mean, Norman, that you actually climbed those dreadful cliffs at
your age to save that child?”

Her voice cut through the stillness of the room.

He nodded, and looked back at his plate. His hands twisted with
nervousness.

“Well, I never heard of such a thing in my life. Of all the dreadful
selfishness——.”

“Do you mean to say, father, that you never thought of us?”

“Don’t you know that if you had been killed we would only have had your
wretched insurance to live on?”

“Imagine!” Charlotte’s voice was like ice. “We would have been simply
paupers.”

Reproach was in every word, in every tone of their voices. He sat back,
crushed, while they stared at him with cold angry eyes.

Selfish! Why, of course he had been selfish. He had never thought of
that while climbing the cliffs. Instead he had been full of a curious
exhilaration. He had completely forgotten them; he had forgotten
himself; he had forgotten the smooth clear streams down which their
lives must flow. A man had no right to risk his life when he had a
family to support. They were quite right. He should have remembered
them. He had been wantonly selfish.

But as he sat in silence, his eyes fixed on his plate, he felt suddenly,
to his absolute bewilderment, for some reason that he could not
altogether fathom, so sorry for Charlotte, for Adele and Evelyn—so
bitterly sorry for them all.




                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.

A cover which is placed in the public domain was created for this ebook.

First published in the May 1926 issue of Canadian Magazine.

       [The end of _Philpotts Finds Himself_ by Beatrice Redpath]