Lost trumpet

THE LOST TRUMPET
III
Robber uplifted his club and smote the Brother to
the ground, and slew him, and pounded the contents
of his purse into shining drift-motes of dust.
“And then—for so he had done to many travellers,
and he was a very old and unprincipled Robber—
he yawned.”
“Go on.”
“And, by the different routes and by-paths indeed,
yet straight to that same mountain-pass where his
Brother lay slain, went on the Second Brother. He
walked hastily, and with jerking shoulders, and
frequently—for he had developed the corns soft and
painful—he stopped and rubbed his feet and cursed,
glancing about him with a wary, jaundiced eye.
His garments were not so gay as those of the First
Brother, though yet serviceable and respectable.
Nor was his purse of so great a bulge ; and this was
to him continually an anxiety and a vexation.
“For this purse had become not his servant, but
he its. Its condition had grown a continual source
of anger and confusion and astonishment. His was
the continual fear of lurking footpads—or rather,
the apprehension, for I think he did not lack courage.
Continually he would hasten forward to the next
city to refill the purse with this or that necessity,
only to find himself forestalled by some traveller who
had journeyed ahead. Or he would find that the purse
had developed a leak and strewn much of honour
or strength or satisfaction by the way. And once
he stopped and looked at the purse—at the time well
and comfortably filled—and made inventory of its