began, angrily; but his companion silenced him with a nudge and a
finger tapped significantly on the crown of his hat. He moderated his
tone:
"We're after a girl in a brown suit and hat--undersized girl. She was
asking the way to Arden. Seen any one of that description?"
"What do you want with her?"
"Never mind," growled the first man.
But the second volunteered meager information, "She's a suspect.
Stayed last night in the Inn and this morning a couple of thousand
dollars' worth of diamonds is missin'; that's what we want her for."
The tinker brightened perceptibly. "Guess she went by in a wagon half
an hour ago--that way. I think I saw her," and as the men turned
southward down the road marked Arden he called after them, "Better
hurry, if you want to catch her; the wagon was going at a right smart
pace."
He waited for their backs to be turned and for the crack of the whip
that lifted the heels of the sorrel above the dashboard before she
plunged, then, with amazing speed, of mind as well as of body, he
wrenched every sign from the post and pitched them out of sight
behind a neighboring stone wall.
The dust from departing wheels still filled the air when Patsy
stepped out of the cross-roads church, peacefully radiant, and found
the tinker sitting quietly with his back against the post.
"So ye are still here. I thought ye might have grown tired of my
company, after all, and gone on." Patsy laughed happily. "Now do ye
know which road goes to Arden?"
"Sure," and the tinker joined in her laugh, while he pointed to the
straight road ahead, the road that ran west, at right angles to the
one the runabout had taken.
"Come on, then," said Patsy; "we ought to be there by sundown." She
stopped and looked him over for the space of a second. "Ye are
improving wonderfully. Mind! ye mustn't be getting too keen-witted or
we'll have to be parting company."
"Why?"
"That's the why!" And with this satisfactory explanation she led the
way down the road the tinker had pointed.
VI
AT DAY'S END
Their road went the way of the setting sun, and Patsy and the tinker
traveled it leisurely--after the fashion of those born to the road,
who find their joy in the wandering, not in the making of a distance
or the reaching of a destination. Since they had left the cross-roads
church behind Patsy had marked the tinker casting furtive glances
along the way they had come; and each time she marked, as well, the
flash of a smile that lightened his face for an instant when he saw
that the road still remained empty of aught but themselves.
"It's odd," she mused; "he hasn't the look of a knave who might fear
a trailing of constables at his heels; and yet--and yet his wits have
him pestered about something that lies back of him."
Once it was otherwise. There was a rising of dust showing on one of
the hills they had climbed a good half-hour before. When the tinker
saw it he reached of a sudden for Patsy's hand while he pointed
excitedly beyond pasture bars ahead to a brownish field that lay some
distance from the road.
"See, lass, that's sorrel. If you'll break the road along with me
I'll show you where wild strawberries grow, lots of 'em!"
Her answer was to take the pasture bars at a run as easily as any
country-bred urchin. The tinker swung himself after her, an odd wisp
of a smile twisting the corners of his mouth, just such a smile as
the fool might wear on the road to Arden. The two raced for the
sorrel-tops--the tinker winning.
When Patsy caught up he was on his knees, his head bare, his eyes
sparkling riotously, running his fingers exultantly through the green
leaves that carpeted the ground. "See," he chuckled, "the tinker
knows somethin' more 'n solder and pots."
Patsy's eyes danced. There they were--millions of the tiny red
berries, as thick and luscious as if they had been planted in Elysian
fields for Arcadian folk to gather. "The wee, bonnie things!" she
laughed. "Now, how were ye afther knowing they were here?"
The tinker cocked his head wisely. "I know more 'n that; I know where
to find yellow lady's-slippers 'n' the yewberries 'n' hummin'-bird
nests."
She looked at him joyfully; he was turning out more and more to her
liking. "Could ye be showing them to me, lad?" she asked.
The tinker eyed her bashfully. "Would you--care, then?"
"Sure, and I would;" and with that she was flat on the ground beside
him, her fingers flying in search of strawberries.
So close they lay to the earth, so hidden by the waving sorrel and
neighboring timothy, that had a whole county full of constables been
abroad they could have passed within earshot and never seen them
there.
With silence between them they ate until their lips were red and the
cloud of dust on the hill back of them had whirled past, attendant on
a sorrel mare and runabout. They ate until the road was quite empty
once more; and then the tinker pulled Patsy to her feet by way of
reminding her that Arden still lay beyond them.
"Do ye know," said Patsy, after another silence and they were once
more afoot, "I'm a bit doubtful if the banished duke's daughter ever
tasted anything half as sweet as those berries on her road to Arden;
or, for that matter, if she found her fool half as wise. I'm mortial
glad ye didn't fall off that stump this morning afore I came by to
fetch ye off."
The tinker doffed his battered cap unexpectedly and swept her an
astounding bow.
"Holy Saint Christopher!" ejaculated Patsy. "Ye'll be telling me ye
know Willie Shakespeare next."
But the tinker answered with a blank stare, while the far-away,
bewildered look of fear came back to his eyes. "Who's he? Does he
live 'round here?" he asked, dully.
Patsy wrinkled a perplexed forehead. "Lad, lad, ye have me bursting
with wonderment! Ye are a rare combination, even for an Irish tinker;
but if ye are a fair sample of what they are over here, sure the
States have the Old Country beaten entirely."
And the tinker laughed as he had laughed once before that day--the
free, untrammeled laugh of youth, while he saucily mimicked her Irish
brogue. "Sure, 'tis the road to Arden, ye were sayin', and anythin'
at all can happen on the way."
The girl laughed with him. "And ye'll be telling me next that this is
three hundred years ago, and romance and Willie Shakespeare are still
alive." Her mind went racing back to the "once-upon-a-time days," the
days when chivalry walked abroad--before it took up its permanent
residence between the covers of story-books--when poets and saints,
kings' sons and--tinkers journeyed afar to prove their manhood in
deeds instead of inheritances; when it was no shame to live by one's
wits or ask hospitality at any strange door. Ah--those were the days!
And yet--and yet--could not those days be given back to the world
again? And would not the world be made a merrier, sweeter place
because of them? If Patsy could have had her way she would have gone
forth at the ring of each new day like the angel in the folk tale,
and with her shears cut the nets that bound humanity down to petty
differences in creed or birth or tongue.
"Faith, it makes one sick," she thought. "We tell our children the
tales of the Red Branch Knights--of King Arthur and the Knights of
the Grail--and rejoice afresh over the beauty and wonder of them; we
stand by the hour worshiping at the pictures of the saints--simple
men and women who just went about doing kindness; and we read the
Holy Book--the tales of Christ with his fishermen, wandering about,
looking for some good deed to do, some helpfulness to give, some word
of good cheer to speak; and we pray, 'Father, make us good--even as
Thou wert.' And what does it all mean? We hurry through the streets
afeared to stop on the corner and succor a stranger, or ashamed to
speak a friendly word to a troubled soul in a tram-car; and we go
home at night and lock our doors so that the beggar who asked for a
bit of bread at noon can't come round after dark and steal the
silver." Patsy sighed regretfully--if only this were olden times she
would not be dreading to find Arden now and the man she was seeking
there.
The tinker caught the sigh and looked over at her with a puzzled
frown. "Tired?" he asked, laconically.
"Aye, a bit heart-tired," she agreed, "and I'm wishing Arden was
still a good seven miles away."
Whereupon the tinker turned his head and grinned sheepishly toward
the south.
* * * * *
The far-away hills had gathered in the last of the sun unto
themselves when the two turned down the main street of a village. It
was unquestionably a self-respecting village. The well-tarred
sidewalks, the freshly painted meeting-house neighboring the
engine-house "No. 1," the homes with their well-mowed lawns in front
and the tidily kept yards behind--all spoke of a decency and
lawfulness that might easily have set the hearts of the most
righteous of vagabonds a-quaking.
Patsy looked it carefully over. "Sure, Arden's no name for it at all.
They'd better have called it Gospel Center--or New Canaan. 'Twould be
a grand place, though, to shut in all the Wilfred Peterson-Joneses,
to keep them off the county's nerves--and the rich men's sons, to
keep them off the public sympathy. But 'tis no place for us, lad."
The tinker shifted his kit from one shoulder to the other and held
his tongue.
Their entrance was what Patsy might have termed "fit." The dogs of
the village were on hand; that self-appointed escort of all doubtful
characters barked them down the street with a lusty chorus of growls
and snarls and sharp, staccato yaps. There were the children, too, of
course; the older ones followed hot-foot after the dogs; the smaller
ones came, a stumbling vanguard, sucking speculative thumbs or
forefingers, as the choice might be. The hurly-burly brought the
grown-ups to windows and doors.
"'Hark! hark! the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town,'"
quoted Patsy, with a grim little smile, and glanced across at the
tinker. He was blushing fiercely. "Never mind, lad. 'Tis better being
barked into a town than bitten out of it."
For answer the tinker stopped and folded his arms sullenly. "I'm not
such a fool I can't feel somethin'. Don't you reckon I know the shame
it is to be keepin' a decent woman company with these rags--and no
wits?"
"If I've not misplaced my memory, 'twas myself that chose the
company, and 'twas largely on account of those very things, I'm
thinking. Do ye guess for a minute that if ye had been a rich man's
son in grand clothes--and manners to match--I'd ever have tramped a
millimeter with ye?" She smiled coaxingly. "Faith! there's naught the
matter with those rags; a king's son might be proud o' them. As for
foolishness, I've known worse faults in a man."
The tinker winced imperceptibly, and all unconsciously Patsy went on:
"'Tis the heart of a man that measures him, after all, and not the
wits that crowd his brain or the gold that lines his pockets. Oh,
what do the folks who sit snug by their warm hearthsides, knitting
their lives into comfortables to wrap around their real feelings and
human impulses, ever know about their neighbors who come in to drink
tea with them? And what do the neighbors in turn know about them? If
I had my way, I'd tumble the whole sit-by-the-fire-and-gossip world
out of doors and set them tramping the road to somewhere; 'tis the
surest way of getting them acquainted with themselves and the
neighbors. For that matter, all of us need it--just once in so often.
And so--to the road, say I, with a fair greeting to all alike, be
they king's son or beggar, for the road may prove the one's the other
afore the journey's done."
"Amen!" said the tinker, devoutly, and Patsy laughed.
They had stopped in the middle of the street, midway between the
church and the engine-house, Patsy so absorbed in her theories, the
tinker so absorbed in Patsy, that neither was aware of the changed
disposition of their circling escort until a cold, inquisitive nose
and a warm, friendly tongue brought them to themselves. Greetings
were returned in kind; heads were patted, backs stroked, ears
scratched--only the children stood aloof and unconvinced. That is
ever the way of it; it is the dogs who can better tell glorious
vagabondage from inglorious rascality.
"Sure, ye can't fool dogs; I'd be taking the word of a dog before a
man's anywhere when it comes to judging human beings." Patsy looked
over her shoulder at the children. "Ye have the creatures won over
entirely; 'tis myself might try what I could do with the wee ones. If
we had the dogs and the childther to say a good word for us--faith!
the grown-ups might forget how terribly respectable they were and
make us welcome for one night." A sudden thought caught her memory.
"I was almost forgetting why I had come. Hunt up a shop for me, lad,
will ye? There must be one down the street a bit; and if ye'll loan
me some of that half-crown the good man paid for your tinkering, I'd
like to be having a New York News--if they have one--along with the
fixings for a letter I have to be writing. While ye are gone I'll
bewitch the childther."
And she did.
When the tinker returned she was sitting on the church steps, the
children huddled so close about her that she was barely
distinguishable in the encircling mass of shingled heads, bobby
curls, pigtails and hair-ribbons. Deaf little ears were being turned
to parental calls for supper--a state of affairs unprecedented and
unbelievable; while Patsy was bringing to an end the tale of Jack,
the Irish hero of a thousand and one adventures.
"And he married the king's daughter--and they lived happier than ye
can tell me--and twice as happy as I can tell ye--in a castle that
had a window for every day in the year."
"That would make a fine endin' for any lad's story," said the tinker,
soberly. "'A window for every day in the year' would mean a whole lot
of cheerfulness and sunshine, wouldn't it?"
Patsy nodded. "But don't those who take to the road fetch that castle
along with them? Sure, there it is"--and her hand swept toward the
skyline an encompassing circle about them--"with the sun flooding it
from dawn to day's end." She turned to the eager faces about her,
waiting for more. "Are ye still there? Faith! what have I been
hearing this half-hour but hungry childther being called for tea.
'Twas 'Joseph' from the house across the way, and 'Rebecca' from off
yonder, and 'Susie May' from somewhere else. Away with yez all to
your mothers!" And Patsy scattered them as if they had been a flock
of young sheep, scampering helter-skelter in all directions.
But one there was who lagged behind, a little boy with an old, old
face, who watched the others go and then crept closer, held by the
spell of the tale. He pulled at Patsy's sleeve to gain attention.
"I'm--I'm Joseph. Was it true--most of it?"
She nodded a reply as solemn as his question, "Aye, as true as youth
and the world itself."
"And would it come true for another boy--any boy--who went a-tramping
off like that? Would he find--whatever he was wishin' for?" And even
as he spoke his eyes left hers and went searching for the far-away
hills--and what might lie beyond.
"Come here, little lad." Patsy drew him to her and put two steadying
hands on his shoulders. She knew that he, too, had heard the call of
the road and the longing to be gone--to be one with it, journeying to
meet the mysterious unknown--was upon him. "Hearken to me: 'Tis only
safe for a little lad to be going when he has three things to fetch
with him--the wish to find something worth the bringing home, the
knowledge of what makes good company along the way, and trust in
himself. When ye are sure of these, go; but ye'll no longer be a
little lad, I'm thinking. And remember first to get the mother's
blessing and 'God-speed,' same as Jack; a lad's journey ends nowhere
that begins without that."
He went without a word, but content; and his eyes brimmed with
visions.
Patsy watched him tenderly. "Who knows--he may find greatness on his
road. Who knows?"
The tinker dropped the bundle he had brought back from the store into
her lap, but she scarcely heeded him. Her eyes were looking out into
the gathering dusk while her voice sank almost to a whisper.
"_Ochone!_ but I've always envied that piper fellow from Hamelin
town. Think of being able to gather up all the childther hereabouts,
eager, hungry-hearted childther with mothers too busy or deaf to heed
them, and leading them away to find their fortunes! Wouldn't that be
wonderful, just?"
"What kind of fortunes?" asked the tinker.
"What but the best kind!" Patsy thought for a moment, and smiled
whimsically while her eyes grew strangely starry in that early
twilight. "Wouldn't I like to be choosing those fortunes, and
wouldn't they be an odd lot, entirely! There'd be singing hearts that
had learned to sing above trouble; there'd be true fellowship--the
kind that finds brotherhood in beggars as well as--as prime
ministers; there'd be peace of soul--not the kind that naps by the
fire, content that the wind doesn't be blowing down his chimney, but
the kind that fights above fighting and keeps neighbor from harrying
neighbor. Troth, the world is in mortial need of fortunes like the
last."
"And wouldn't you be choosin' gold for a fortune?" asked the tinker.
Patsy shook her head vehemently.
"Why not?"
"That's the why!" Suddenly Patsy clenched her hands and shook two
menacing fists against the gathering dark. "I hate gold, along with
the meanness and the lying and the thieving and the false judgment it
brings into the world."
"But the world can't get along without it," reminded the tinker,
shrewdly.
"Aye, but it can. It can get along without the hoarded gold, the
inherited gold, the cheating, bribing, starving gold--that's the kind
I mean, the kind that gets into a man's heart and veins until his
fingers itch to gild everything he touches, like the rich man in the
city yonder."
"What rich man? I thought the--I thought the city was full o' rich
men."
"Maybe; but there's just one I'm thinking of now; and God pity
him--and his son."
The tinker eyed her stupidly. "How d'you know he has a son?"
Patsy laughed. "I guessed--maybe." Then she looked down in her lap.
"And here's the news--with no light left to read it by; and I'm as
hungry as an alley cat--and as tired as two. Ye'd never dream, to
hear me talking, that I'd never had much more than a crooked sixpence
to my name since I was born; and here I am, with that gone and not a
slither to buy me bed or board for the night."
The tinker looked down at her with an altogether strange expression,
very different from anything Patsy had seen on his face all day. Had
she chanced to catch it before it flickered out, it might have
puzzled even her O'Connell wits to fathom the meaning of it. For it
was as if the two had unexpectedly changed places, and the tender
pity and protectiveness that had belonged to her had suddenly become
his.
"Never mind, lass; there's board in the kit for to-night--what the
farm wife put up; and there's this left, and I'll--I'll--" He did not
finish; instead he dropped a few coins in her hand, the change from
the half-dollar. Then he set about sweeping the dust from the step
with his battered cap and spreading their meager meal before her.
They ate in silence, so deep in the business of dulling their
appetites that they never noticed a small figure crossing the street
with two goblets and a pitcher hugged tight in his arms. They never
looked up until the things were set down beside them and a voice
announced at their elbow, "Mother said I could bring it; it's better
'n eatin' dry."
It was Joseph; and the pitcher held milk, still foamy from a late
milking. He looked at Patsy a moment longingly, as if there was more
he wanted to ask; but, overcome with a sudden bashful confusion, he
took to his heels and disappeared around the corner of the
meeting-house before they had time even to give thanks.
The tinker poured the goblets full, handed Patsy's to her with
another grave bow, and, touching his to hers, said, soberly, "Here's
to a friendly lass--the first I ever knew, I reckon."
For an instant she watched him, puzzled and amused; then she raised
her glass slowly in reply. "And here's to tinkers--the world over!"
When everything but the crumbs were eaten she left him to scatter
these and return Joseph's pitcher while she went to get "the loan of
a light from the shopkeeper, and hunt up the news."
* * * * *
The store was store, post-office, and general news center combined.
The news was at that very moment in process of circulation among the
"boys"--a shirt-sleeved quorum from the patriarchs of the town
circling the molasses-keg--the storekeeper himself topped it. They
looked up as Patsy entered and acknowledged her "Good evening" with
that perfect indifference, the provincial cloak in habitual use for
concealing the most absolute curiosity. The storekeeper graciously
laid the hospitality of his stool and counter and kerosene-lamp at
her feet; in other words, he "cal'ated she was welcome to make
herself t' home." All of which Patsy accepted. She spread out the
newspaper on the counter in front of her; she unwrapped a series of
small bundles--ink, pen, stamped envelope, letter-pad, and
pen-holder, and eyed them with approval.
"The tinker's a wonder entirely," she said to herself; "but I would
like to be knowing, did he or did the shopkeeper do the choosing?"
Then she remembered the thing above all others that she needed to
know, and swung about on the stool to address the quorum. "I say--can
you tell me where I'd be likely to find a--person by the name of
Bil--William Burgeman?"
"That rich feller's boy?"
Patsy nodded. "Have you seen him?"
The quorum thumbed the armholes of their vests and shook an emphatic
negative. "Nope," volunteered the storekeeper; "too early for him or
his sort to be diggin' out o' winter quarters."
"Are you sure? Do you know him?"
"Wall, can't say exactly ef I know him; but I'd know ef he'd been
hangin' round, sartin. Hain't been nothin' like him loose in these
parts. Has there, boys?"
The quorum confirmed the statement.
Patsy wrinkled up a perplexed forehead. "That's odd. You see, he
should have been here last night, to-day at the latest. I had it from
somebody who knew, that he was coming to Arden."
"Mebby he was," drawled the storekeeper, while the quorum cackled in
appreciation; "but this here is a good seven miles from Arden."
Patsy's arms fell limp across the counter, her head followed, and she
sat there a crumpled-up, dejected little heap.
"By Jack-a-diamonds!" swore the storekeeper. "She 'ain't swoomed, has
she, boys?"
The quorum were on the verge of investigating when she denied the
fact--in person. "Where am I? In the name of Saint Peter, what place
is this?"
"This? Why, this is Lebanon."
She smiled weakly. "Lebanon! Sounds more like it, anyhow. Thank you."
She turned about and settled down to the paper while the "boys"
reverted to their original topic of discussion. There were two items
of news that interested her: Burgeman, senior, was critically ill; he
had been ill for some time, but there had been no cause for
apprehension until the last twenty-four hours; and Marjorie Schuyler
had left for San Francisco--on the way to China. She was to be gone
indefinitely.
"The heathen idols and the laundrymen are welcome to her," growled
Patsy, maliciously. "If they'd only fix her with the evil eye, or
wish such a homesickness and lovesickness on her that 'twould last
for a year and a day, I'd forgive her for what she's made me wish on
myself."
Having relieved her mind somewhat, she was able to attend to the
business of the letter with less inward discomfort. The letter was
written to George Travis, already known as the manager of Miss St.
Regis. He was the head of a well-known theatrical managerial firm in
New York, and an old friend and well-wisher of Patsy's. In it she
explained, partly, her continued sojourn in America, and frankly
confessed to her financial needs. If he had anything anywhere that
she could do until the fall bookings with her own company, she would
be most humbly grateful. He might address her at Arden; she had great
hopes of reaching there--some day. There was a postscript added in
good, pure Donegal:
And don't ye be afeared of hurting my pride by offering
anything too small. Just at present I'm like old Granny
Donoghue's lean pig--hungry for scrapings.