Part 7 (1/2)
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 c.o.c.ked 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 pa.s.sed 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!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 wors.h.i.+ping 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 l.u.s.ty 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.