old fellow went all to pieces and told a pretty tough story. You see,
he'd been Burgeman's secretary for almost twenty years, given him the
best years of his life--slaved for him--lied for him--made money for
him. Billy said his father regarded him as an excellent piece of
office machinery, and treated him as if he were nothing more. The
poor chap had always had hard luck; a delicate wife, three or four
children who were eternally having or needing something, and poor
relations demanding help he couldn't refuse. Between doctors' bills
and clothing--and the relatives--he had no chance to save. At last he
broke down, and the doctor told him it was an outdoor life, with
absolute freedom from the strain of serving a man like Burgeman--or
the undertaker for him. So he went to Burgeman, asked him to loan him
the money to invest in a fruit-farm, and let him pay it off as fast
as he could."
"Well?" Patsy was interested at last.
"Well, the old man turned him down--shouted his 'no sentiment' slogan
at him, and shrugged his shoulders at what the doctor said. He told
him, flat, that a man who hadn't saved a cent in twenty years
couldn't in twenty years more; and he only put money into investments
that paid. The poor chap went away, frantic, worked himself into
thinking he was entitled to that last chance; and when Billy heard
the story he thought so, too. In the end, Billy cashed the check,
gave the secretary the money, and they both cleared out. He knew, if
his father ever suspected the truth, he would have the poor chap
followed and dragged back to pay the full penalty of the law--he and
all his family with him."
Patsy smiled whimsically. "It sounds so simple and believable when
you have it explained; but it would have been rather nice, now, if
Billy Burgeman could have known that one person believed in him from
the beginning without an explanation."
"Who did?"
"Faith! how should I know? I was supposing, just."
But as Patsy climbed onto the train she muttered under her breath:
"We come out even, I'm thinking. If he's missed knowing that, I've
missed knowing a fine lad."
XVI
THE ROAD BEGINS ALL OVER AGAIN
On the second day following Patsy played Juliet at Brambleside, and
more than satisfied George Travis. While his mind was racing ahead,
planning her particular stardom on Broadway, and her mind was
pestering her with its fears and uncertainties into a state of
"private prostration," the manager of the Brambleside Inn was
telephoning the Green County sheriff to come at once--he had found
the girl.
So it came about at the final dropping of the curtain, as Patsy was
climbing down from her bier, that four eagerly determined men
confronted her, each plainly wishful to be the first to gain her
attention.
"Well," said the tinker, pointedly, "are you ready?"
"It's all settled." Travis was jubilant. "You'll play Broadway for
six months next winter--or I'm no manager."
It was the manager of the Brambleside Inn and the Green County
sheriff, however, who gave the greatest dramatic effect. They placed
themselves adroitly on either side of Patsy and announced together:
"You're under arrest!"
"Holy Saint Patrick!" Patsy hardly knew whether to be amused or
angry. With the actual coming of the tinker, and the laying of her
fears, her mind seemed strangely limp and inadequate. Her lips
quivered even as they smiled. "Maybe I had best go back to my bier;
you couldn't arrest a dead Capulet."
But George Travis swept her aside; he saw nothing amusing in the
situation. "What do you mean by insulting Miss O'Connell and myself
by such a performance? Why should she be under arrest--for being one
of the best Shakespearean actresses we've had in this country for
many a long, barren year?"
"No! For stealing two thousand dollars' worth of diamonds from a
guest in this hotel the night she palmed herself off as Miss St.
Regis!" The manager of the Inn bit off his words as if he thoroughly
enjoyed their flavor.
"But she never was here," shouted Travis.
"Yes, I was," contradicted Patsy.
"And she sneaked off in the morning with the jewels," growled the
manager.
"And I trailed over the country for four days, trying to find the
girl in a brown suit that he'd described--said she was on her way to
Arden. I'd give a doggoned big cigar to know where you was all that
time." And there was something akin to admiration in the sheriff's
expression.
But Patsy did not see. She was looking hard at the tinker, with an
odd little smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.
The tinker smiled back, while he reached deep into his trousers
pocket and brought out a small package which he presented to the
sheriff. "Are those what you are looking for?"
They were five unset diamonds.
"Well, I'll be hanged! Did she give them to you?" The manager of the
Inn looked suspiciously from the tinker to Patsy.
"No; she didn't know I had them--didn't even know they existed and
that she was being trailed as a suspected thief. Why, what's the
matter?" For Patsy had suddenly grown white and her lips were
trembling past control.
"Naught--naught they could understand. But I'm finding out there was
more than one quest on the road to Arden, more than one soul who
fared forth to help another in trouble. And my heart is breaking,
just, with the memory of it." And Patsy sank back on the bier and
covered her face.
"What is it, dear?" whispered a distressed tinker.
"Don't ask--now--here. Sometime I'll be telling ye."
"Well"--the sheriff thumbed the armholes of his vest in a
business-like manner--"I cal'ate we've waited about long enough,
young man; supposin' you explain how you come to have those stones in
your possession; and why you lied to me about her and sent me hiking
off to that country club--when you knew durned well where she was."
The tinker laughed in spite of himself. "Certainly; it's very simple.
I found these, in a suit of rags which I saw on a tramp the morning
you lost the diamonds--and Miss O'Connell. I liked the rags so well
that I paid the tramp to change clothes with me; he took mine and
gave me his, along with a knockout blow for good measure."
The manager of the Inn interrupted with an exclamation of surprise:
"So! You were the young fellow they picked up senseless by the
stables that morning. When the grooms saw the other man running, they
made out it was you who had struck him first."
"Wish I had. But I squared it off with him a few days later," the
tinker chuckled. "At the time I couldn't make out why he struck me
except to get the rest of the money I had; but of course he wanted
to get the stones he'd sewed up in these rags and forgotten. I began
to suspect something when I found you trailing Miss O'Connell."
"See here, young man, and wasn't you the feller that put me on the
wrong road twice?" The sheriff laid a hand of the law suggestively
against his chest.
The tinker chuckled again. "I certainly was. It would have been
pretty discouraging for Miss O'Connell if you'd found her before we
had the defense ready; and it would have been awkward for you--to
have to take a lady in custody."
"I cal'ate that's about right." And the sheriff relaxed into a grin.
Suddenly he turned to the manager of the Inn and pounded his palm
with his fist. "By Jupiter! I betcher that there tramp is the feller
that's been cleanin' up these parts for the past two years. Hangs
round as a tramp at back doors and stables, and picks up what
information he needs to break into the house easy. Never hitched him
up in my mind to the thefts afore--but I cal'ate it's the one
man--and he's it."
"Guess you're right," the tinker agreed. "Last Saturday, when I came
upon him again--in an automobile--still in my clothes, we had a final
fight for the possession of the rags, which I still wore, and the--"
But he never finished.
Patsy had sprung to her feet and was looking at him, bewilderment,
accusation, almost fright, showing through her tears. "Your
clothes--your clothes! You wore a--Then you are--"
"Hush!" said the tinker. He turned to the others. "I think that is
all, gentlemen. I searched the rags after I had finished my score
with the thief and found the stones. I brought them over this
afternoon to return to their rightful owner. I might have returned
them that day after the play--but I forgot until the sheriff had
gone. You are entirely welcome. Good afternoon!" He dismissed them
promptly, but courteously, as if the stage had been his own
drawing-room and the two had suddenly expressed a desire to take
their leave.
At the wings he left them and came back direct to George Travis.
"There is more thieving to be done this afternoon, and I am going to
do it. I am going to steal your future star, right from under your
nose; and I shall never return her."
"What do you mean?" Travis stared at him blankly.
"Just what I say; Miss O'Connell and I are to be married this
afternoon in Arden."
"That's simply out of the--"
Patsy, who had found her tongue at last, laid a coaxing hand on
Travis's arm. "No, it isn't. I wired Miriam yesterday--to see if she
was really as sick as you thought. She was sick; but she's ever so
much better and her nerves are not going to be nearly as troublesome
as she feared. She's quite willing to come back and take her old
place, and she'll be well enough next week." Patsy's voice had become
vibrant with feeling. "Now don't ye be hard-hearted and think I'm
ungrateful. We've all been playing in a bigger comedy than Willie
Shakespeare ever wrote; and, sure, we've got to be playing it out to
the end as it was meant to be."
"And you mean to give up your career, your big chance of success?"
Travis still looked incredulous. "Don't you realize you'll be
famous--famous and rich!" he emphasized the last word unduly.
It set Patsy's eyes to blazing. "Aye, I'd no longer be like Granny
Donoghue's lean pig, hungry for scrapings. Well, I'd rather be hungry
for scrapings than starving for love. I knew one woman who threw away
love to be famous and rich, and I watched her die. Thank God she's
kept my feet from that road! Sure, I wouldn't be rich--" She choked
suddenly and looked helplessly at the tinker.
"Neither would I." And he spoke with a solemn conviction.
In the end Travis gave in. He took his disappointment and his loss
like the true gentleman he was, and sent them away with his blessing,
mixed with an honest twinge of self-pity. It was not, however, until
Patsy turned to wave him a last farewell and smile a last grateful
smile from under the white chiffon, corn-flower sunbonnet that he
remembered that convention had been slighted.
"Wait a minute," he said, running after them. "If I am not mistaken I
have not had the pleasure of meeting your--future husband; perhaps
you'll introduce us--"
For once in her life Patsy looked fairly aghast, and Travis repeated,
patiently, "His name, Irish Patsy--I want to know his name."
The tinker might have helped her out, but he chose otherwise. He kept
silent, his eyes on Patsy's as if he would read her answer there
before she spoke it to Travis.
"Well," she said at last, slowly, "maybe I'm not sure of it
myself--except--I'm knowing it must be a good tinker name." And then
laughter danced all over her face. "I'll tell ye; ye can be reading
it to-morrow--in the papers." Whereupon she slipped her arm through
the tinker's, and he led her away.
And so it came to pass that once more Patsy and the tinker found
themselves tramping the road to Arden; only this time it was down the
straight road marked, "Seven Miles," and it was early evening instead
of morning.
"Do ye think we'll reach it now?" inquired Patsy.
"We have reached it already; we're just going back."
"And what happened to the brown dress?"
"I burned it that night in the cottage--to fool the sheriff."
"And I thought that night it was me ye had tricked--just for the whim
of it. Did ye know who I was--by chance?"
"Of course I knew. I had seen you with the Irish Players many, many
times, and I knew you the very moment your voice came over the road
to me--wishing me 'a brave day.'" The tinker's eyes deepened with
tenderness. "Do you think for a moment if I hadn't known something
about you--and wasn't hungering to know more--that I would have
schemed and cheated to keep your comradeship?"
"Ye might tell me, then, how ye came to know about the cottage--and
how your picture ever climbed to the mantel-shelf?"
"You know--I meant to burn that along with the dress--and I forgot.
What did you think when you discovered it?"
"Faith! I thought it was the picture of the truest gentleman God had
ever made--and I fetched it along with me--for company."
The tinker threw back his head and laughed as of old. "What will poor
old Greg say when he finds it gone? Oh, I know how you almost stole
his faithful old heart by being so pitying of his friend--and how you
made the sign for him to follow--"
"Aye," agreed Patsy, "but what of the cottage?"
"That belongs to Greg's father; he and the girls are West this
summer, so the cottage was closed."
"And the breakfast with the throstles and the lady's-slippers?"
The tinker laid his finger over her lips. "Please, sweetheart--don't
try to steal away all the magic and the poetry from our road. You
will leave it very barren if you do--'I'm thinking.'"
Silence held their tongues until curiosity again loosened Patsy's.
"And what started ye on the road in rags? Ye have never really
answered that."
"I have never honestly wanted to; it is not a pleasant answer." He
drew Patsy closer, and his hands closed over hers. "Promise you will
never think of it again, that you and I will forget that part of the
road--after to-day?"
Patsy nodded.
"I borrowed the rags so that it would take a pretty smart coroner to
identify the person in it after the train had passed under the
suspension-bridge from which he fell--by accident. Don't shudder,
dear. Was it so terrible--that wish to get away from a world that
held nothing, not even some one to grieve? Remember, when I started
there wasn't a soul who believed in me, who would care much one way
or another--unless, perhaps, poor old Greg."
"Would ye mind letting me look at the marriage license? I'd like to
be seeing it written down."
The tinker produced it, and she read "William Burgeman." Then she
added, with a stubborn shake of the head, "Mind, though, I'll not be
rich."
"You will not have to be. Father has left me absolutely nothing for
ten years; after that I can inherit his money or not, as we choose.
It's a glorious arrangement. The money is all disposed of to good
civic purpose, if we refuse. I am very glad it's settled that way;
for I'm afraid I would never have had the heart to come to you, dear,
dragging all those millions after me."
"Then it is a free, open road for the both of us; and, please Heaven!
we'll never misuse it." She laughed joyously; some day she would tell
him of her meeting with his father; life was too full now for that.
The tinker fell into his old swinging stride that Patsy had found so
hard to keep pace with; and silence again held their tongues.
"Do you think we shall find the castle with a window for every day in
the year?" the tinker asked at last.
"Aye. Why not? And we'll be as happy as I can tell ye, and twice as
happy as ye can tell me. Doesn't every lad and lass find it anew for
themselves when they take to the long road with naught but love and
trust in their hearts--and their hands together? They may find it
when they're young--they may not find it till they're old--but it
will be there, ever beckoning them on--with the purple hills rising
toward it. And there's a miracle in the castle that I've never told
ye: no matter how old and how worn and how stooped the lad and his
lass may have grown, there he sees her only fresh and fair and she
sees him only brave and straight and strong."
She stopped and faced him, her hands slipping out of his and creeping
up to his shoulders and about his neck. "Dear lad--promise me one
thing!--promise me we shall never forget the road! No matter how
snugly we may be housed, or how close comfort and happiness sit at
our hearthside--we'll be faring forth just once in so often--to touch
earth again. And we'll help to keep faith in human nature--aye, and
simple-hearted kindness alive in the world; and we'll make our
friends by reason of that and not because of the gold we may or may
not be having."
"And do you still think kindness is the greatest thing in the world?"
"No. There is one thing better; but kindness tramps mortal close at
its heels." Patsy's hands slipped from his shoulders; she clasped
them together in sudden intensity. "Haven't ye any curiosity at all
to know what fetched me after ye?"
"Yes. But there is to-morrow--and all the days after--to tell me."
"No, there is just to-day. The telling of it is the only wedding-gift
I have for ye, dear lad. I was with Marjorie Schuyler in the den that
day you came to her and told her."
"You heard everything?"
"Aye."
"And you came, believing in me, after all?"
"I came to show you there was one person in the world who trusted
you, who would trust you across the world and back again. That's all
the wedding-gift I have for ye, dear, barring love."
And then and there--in the open road, still a good three miles from
the Arden church--the tinker gathered her close in the embrace he had
kept for her so long.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
intent.