Seven Miles to Arden

by Ruth Sawyer

  VII

  THE TINKER PLAYS A PART

  There is little of the day's happenings that escapes the ears of acountry boy. Every small item of local interest is so much grist forhis mill; and there is no more reliable method for a stranger tocollect news than a sociable game of "peg" interspersed with a fewcasual but diplomatic questions. The tinker played "peg" the nightafter he and Patsy reached Lebanon--on the barn floor by the light ofa bleary-eyed lantern with Joseph and his brethren, and therebylearned of the visit of the sheriff.

  Afterward he sawed and split the apportioned wood which was to payfor Patsy's lodging, and went to sleep on the hay in a state ofcomplete exhaustion. But, for all that, Patsy was wakened an hourbefore sun-up by a shower of pebbles on the tin roof of the porch,just under her window. Looking out, she spied him below, a silencingfinger against his lips, while he waved a beckoning arm toward theroad. Patsy dressed and slipped out without a sound.

  "What has happened ye?" she whispered, anxiously, looking him wellover for some symptoms of sickness or trouble.

  His only reply was a mysterious shake of the head as he led the waydown the village street, his rags flapping grotesquely in the dawnwind.

  There was nothing for Patsy to do except to follow as fast as shecould after his long, swinging strides. Lebanon still slept,close-wrapped in its peaceful respectability; even the dogs failed togive them a speeding bark. They stole away as silently as shadows,and as shadows went forth upon the open road to meet the coming day.

  A mile beyond the township stone the tinker stopped to let Patsycatch up with him; it was a very breathless, disgruntled Patsy.

  "Now, by Saint Brendan, what ails ye, lad, to be waking a body up atthis time of day? Do ye think it's good morals or good manners to betrailing us off on a bare stomach like this--as if a county full ofconstables was at our heels? What's the meaning of it? And what willthe good folk who cared for us the night think to find us gone withnever a word of thanks or explanation?"

  The tinker scratched his chin meditatively; it was marked by a day'smore growth than on the previous morning, which did not enhance hiscomeliness or lessen his state of vagabondage. There was somethingabout his appearance that made him out less a fool and more anuncouth rascal; one might easily have trusted him as well as pitiedhim yesterday--but to-day--Patsy's gaze was critical and notover-flattering.

  He saw her look and met it, eye for eye, only he still fumbled hischin ineffectually. "Have you forgot?" he asked, a bit sheepishly."There were the lady's-slippers; you said as how you cared aboutfindin' 'em; and they're not near so pretty an' bright if they'releft standin' too long after the dew dries."

  Patsy pulled a wry little smile. "Is that so? And ye've been aftermaking me trade a feather-bed and a good breakfast for--for the bestcolor of lady's-slippers. Well, if I was Dan instead of myself,standing here, I'd be likely to tell ye to go to the devil--aye, an'help ye there with my two fists." Her cheeks were flushed and all thecomradeship faded quickly from her eyes.

  The tinker said never a word, only his lips parted in a coaxing smilewhich seemed to say, "Please go on believing in me," and his eyesstill held hers unwaveringly.

  And the tinker's smile won. Bit by bit Patsy's rigid attitude ofcondemnation relaxed; the comradeship crept back in her eyes, thesmile to her lips. "Heigho! 'Tis a bad bargain ye can't make the bestof. But mind one thing, Master Touchstone! Ye'll find the right roadto Arden this time or ye and the duke's daughter will partcompany--for all Willie Shakespeare wrote it otherwise."

  He nodded. "We can ask the way 's we go. But first we'll be gettin'the lady's-slippers and some breakfast. You'll see--I'll find themboth for you, lass"; and he set off with his swinging stride straightacross country, wagging his head wisely. Patsy fell in behind him,and the road was soon out of sight and earshot.

  * * * * *

  It was just about this time that the storekeeper at Lebanon got theGreen County sheriff on the 'phone, and squared his conscience. "Ical'ate she's the guilty party," were his closing remarks. "She'dnever ha' lighted out o' this 'ere town afore Christian folks wereout o' bed ef she hadn't had somethin' takin' her. And what's more,she's keepin' bad company."

  And so it came about that all the time the sorrel mare was beingharnessed into the runabout the tinker was leading Patsy fartherafield. And so it came to pass that when the mare's heels wereraising the dust on the road between Lebanon and Arden, they werefollowing a forest brook, deeper and deeper, into the woods.

  They found it the most cheery, neighborly, and comfortable kind of abrook, the quiet and well-contained sort that one could step at willfrom bank to bank, and see with half an eye what a prime favorite itwas among its neighbors. Patsy and the tinker marked how close thingshuddled to it, even creeping on to cover stones and gravel stretches;there were moss and ferns and little, clinging things, likebaby's-breath and linnea. The major part of the bird population wasbathing in the sunnier pools, soberly or with wild hilarity,according to disposition.

  The tinker knew them all, calling to them in friendly fashion, atwhich they always answered back. Patsy listened silently, wrapped inthe delight and beauty of it. On went the brook--dancing here in abroken patch of sunshine--quieting there between the banks ofrock-fern and columbine, to better paint their prettiness; and allthe while singing one farther and farther into the woods. She wasjust wondering if there could be anything lovelier than this when thetinker stopped, still and tense as a pointer. She craned her head andlooked beyond him--looked to where the woods broke, leaving for a fewfeet a thinly shaded growth of beech and maple. The sunlight siftedthrough in great, unbroken patches of gold, falling on the bedsof fern and moss and--yes, there they were, the promisedlady's-slippers.

  A little, indrawn sigh of ecstasy from Patsy caused the tinker toturn about. "Then you're not hatin' gold when you find it growin'green that-a-way?" he chuckled.

  Patsy shook her head with vehemence. "Never! And wouldn't it be grandif nature could be gathering it all up from everywhere and spinningit over again into the likes of those! In the name o' Saint Francis,do ye suppose if the English poets had laid their two eyes toanything so beautiful as what's yonder they'd ever have gone so daffyover daffodils?"

  "They never would," agreed the tinker.

  Patsy studied him with a sharp little look. "And what do ye knowabout English poets, pray?"

  His lower jaw dropped in a dull, foolish fashion. "Nothin'; but Iknow daff'dils," he explained at last.

  And at that moment the call of a thrush came to them from just acrossthe glade. Patsy listened spellbound while he sang his bubbling songof gladness through half a score of times.

  "Is it the flowers singing?" she asked at last, her eyes dancingmischievously.

  "It might be the souls o' the dead ones." The tinker consideredthoughtfully a moment. "Maybe the souls o' flowers become birds, sameas ours becomes angels--wouldn't be such a deal o' difference--bothtakin' to wings and singin'." He chuckled again. "Anyhow, that's thebellbird; and I sent him word yesterday by one o' them tattlin'finches to be on hand just about this time."

  "Ye didn't order a breakfast the same way, did ye?"

  The tinker threw back his head and laughed. "I did, then," and,before Patsy could strip her tongue of its next teasing remark, hehad vanished as quickly and completely as if magic had had a hand init.

  A crescendo of snapping twigs and rustling leaves marked his going,however; and Patsy leaped the brook and settled herself, tailorfashion, in the midst of the sunshine and the lady's-slippers. Sheunpinned the rakish beaver and tossed it from her; off came theNorfolk jacket, and followed the beaver. She eyed the rest of hercostume askance; she would have sorely liked to part with that, too,had she but the Lord's assurance that He would do as well by her ashe had by the lilies of the field or the lady's-slippers.

  "'Tis surprising how wearisome the same clothes can grow when on theback of a human being--yet a flower can wear them for a thousandyears or more and ye never
go tired of them. I'm not knowing why,but--somehow--I'd like to be looking gladsome--to-day."

  She stretched her arms wide for a minute, in a gesture of intenselonging; then the glory of the woods claimed her again and she gaveherself over completely to the wonder and enjoyment of them. Her eyesroamed about her unceasingly for every bit of prettiness, her earscaught the symphony of bird and brook and soughing wind. So still didshe sit that the tinker, returning, thought for a moment that she hadgone, and stood, knee-deep in the brakes, laden to the chin andcovered with the misery of poignant disappointment. For him all themusic of the place had turned to laughing discord--until he spiedher.

  "I thought"--his tongue stumbled--"I was thinkin' you hadgone--sudden-like--same as you came--down the road yesterday." Hepaused a moment. "You wouldn't go off by yourself and leave a ladwithout you said somethin' about it first, would you?"

  "I'll not leave ye till we get to Arden."

  "An'--an' what then?"

  "The road must end for me there, lad. What I came to do will be done,and there'll be no excuse for lingering. But I'll not forget to wishye 'God-speed' along your way before I go."

  A sly look came into the tinker's eyes. Patsy never saw it, for hewas bending close over the huge basket he had brought; she onlycaught a tinge of exultation in his voice as he said, "Then that'sa'right, if you'll promise your comp'ny till we fetch up in Arden."

  With that he went busily about preparations for breakfast, Patsywatching him, plainly astonished. He gathered bark and brush andkindled a fire on a large flat rock which he had moved against anear-by boulder. About it he fastened a tripod of green saplings,from which he hung a coffee-pot, filled from the brook.

  "I'm praying there's more nor water in it," murmured Patsy. And amoment later, as the tinker shook out a small white table-cloth fromthe basket and spread it at her feet, she clasped her hands andrepeated with perfect faith, "'Little goat bleat, table get set'; Ismell the coffee."

  Out of the basket came little green dishes, a pat of butter, a jug ofcream, a bowl of berries, a plate of biscuits. "Riz," was thetinker's comment as he put down the last named; and then followedwhat appeared to Patsy to be round, brown, sugared buns with holes inthem. These he passed twice under her nose with a triumphantflourish.

  "And what might they be?" Her curiosity was reaching thebreaking-point. "If ye bring out another thing from that basket I'llbelieve ye're in league with Bodh Dearg himself, or ye've stolen thefaeries' trencher of plenty."

  For reply the tinker dived once more beneath the cover and broughtout a frying-pan full of bacon, and four white eggs. "Think whateveryou're mind to, I'm going to fry these." But after he had raked overthe embers to his complete satisfaction and placed the pan on them,he came back and, picking up one of the "brown buns," slipped it overPatsy's forefinger. "This is a wishin'-ring," he announced, soberly,"though most folks calls 'em somethin' different. Now if you wish awish--and eat it--all but the hole, you'll have what you've beenwishin' for all your life."

  "How soon will ye be having it?"

  "In as many days as there are bites."

  So Patsy bit while the tinker checked them off on his fingers. "One,two, three, four, five, six. You'll get your wish by the seventh day,sure, or I'm no tinker."

  "If you wish a wish and eat it--all but the hole,you'll have what you've been wishin' for all your life."]

  "But are ye?" Patsy shook the de-ringed finger at him accusingly."I'm beginning to have my doubts as to whether ye're a tinker at all.Ye are foolish one minute, and ye've more wits than I have thenext; I've caught ye looking too lonesome and helpless to be allowedbeyond reach of our mother's kerchief-end, and yet last night and theday ye've taken care of me as if ye'd been hired out to tend babiessince ye were one yourself. As for your language, ye never speaktwice the same."

  The tinker grinned. "That bacon's burnin'; I--cal'ate I'd better turnit, hadn't I?"

  "I--cal'ate you had," and Patsy grinned back at him derisively.

  The tinker was master of ceremonies, and he served her as anycourtier might have served his liege lady. He shook out thediminutive serviette he had brought for her and spread it across herlap; he poured her coffee and sweetened it according to direction; heeven buttered her "riz" biscuits and poured the cream on her berries.

  "Are ye laboring under the delusion that the duke's daughter washelpless, entirely?" she asked, at length.

  The tinker shook an emphatic negative. "I was just thinkin' she mightlike things a mite decent--onct in a while."

  "Lad--lad--who in the wide world are ye!" Patsy checked her outburstwith a warning hand: "No--don't ye be telling me. Ye couldn't turnout anything better nor a tinker--and I'd rather keep ye as I foundye. So if ye have a secret--mind it well; and don't ye be letting itloose to scare the two of us into over-wise, conventional folk. We'llplay Willie Shakespeare comedy to the end of the road--please God!"

  "Amen!" agreed the tinker, devoutly, as he threw her portion of friedeggs neatly out of the pan into her plate.

  It was not until she was served that he looked after his own wants;then they ate in silence, both too hungry and too full of their ownthoughts to loosen their tongues.

  Once the tinker broke the silence. "Your wish--what was it?" heasked.

  "That's telling," said Patsy. "But if ye'll confess to where ye cameby this heavenly meal, I might confess to the wish."

  He rubbed his chin solemnly for an instant; then he beamed. "I'lltell ye. I picked it off o' the fern-tops and brambles as I camealong."

  "Of course ye did," agreed Patsy, with fine sarcasm, "and for mywish--I was after thinking I'd marry the king's son."

  They looked at each other with the teasing, saucy stare of twochildren; then they laughed as care-free and as merrily.

  "Maybe you'll get your wish," he suggested, soberly.

  "Maybe I will," agreed Patsy, with mock solemnity.

  A look of shrewdness sprang into the tinker's face. "But you said youhated gold. You couldn't marry a king's son 'thout havin' gold--lotsof it."

  "Aye--but I could! Couldn't I be making him throw it away before everI'd marry him?" And Patsy clapped her hands triumphantly.

  "An' you'd marry him--poor?" The tinker's eyes kindled suddenly, ashe asked it--for all the world as if her answer might have a meaningfor him.

  Patsy never noticed. She was looking past him--into theindistinguishable wood-tangle beyond. "Sure, we wouldn't be poor.We'd be blessed with nothing--that's all!"

  For those golden moments of romancing Patsy's quest was forgotten;they might have reached Arden and despatched her errand, for all theworriment their loitering caused her. As for the tinker, if he hadeither a mission or a destination he gave no sign for her to reckonby.

  They dallied over the breakfast; they dallied over the aftermath ofpicking up and putting away and stamping out the charred twigs andembers; and then they dallied over the memory of it all. Patsy spun ahundred threads of fancy into tales about the forest, while thetinker called the thickets about them full of birds, and whistledtheir songs antiphonally with them.

  "Do ye know," said Patsy, with a deep sigh, "I'm happier than ye cantell me, and twice as happy as I can tell ye."

  "An' this, hereabouts, wouldn't make a bad castle," suggested thetinker, irrelevantly.

  What Patsy might have answered is not recorded, for they bothhappened to look up for the first time in a long space and saw thatthe sky above their heads had grown a dull, leaden color. They wereno longer sitting in the midst of sunlight; the lady's-slippers hadlost their golden radiance; the brook sounded plaintive andmelancholy, and from the woods fringing the open came the call of thebob-white.

  "He's singin' for rain. Won't hurt a mite if we make toward someshelter." The tinker pulled Patsy to her feet and gathered up thebasket and left-overs.

  "Hurry," said Patsy, with a strange, little, twisted smile on herlips. "Of course I was knowing, like all faery tales, it had to havean ending; but I want to remember it, just as we found itfi
rst--sprinkled with sunshine and not turning dull and gray likethis."

  She started plunging through the woods, and the tinker was obliged toturn her about and set her going right, with the final instructionto follow her nose and he would catch up with her before she hadcaught up with it. She had reached the road, however, and thunder wasgrumbling uncomfortably near when the tinker joined her.

  "It's goin' to be a soaker," he announced, cheerfully.

  "Then we'd better tramp fast as we can and ask the first person wepass, are we on the right road to Arden."

  They tramped, but they passed no one. The road was surprisinglybarren of shelters, and, strangely enough, of the two houses they sawone was temporarily deserted and the other unoccupied. The wind camewith the breaking of the storm--that cold, piercing wind that oftencomes in June as a reminder that winter has not passed by so verylong before. It whipped the rain across their faces and cut downtheir headway until it seemed to Patsy as if they barely crawled.They came to a tumble-down barn, but she was too cold and wet to stopwhere there was no fire.

  "Any place that's warm," she shouted across to the tinker; and heshouted back, as they rounded the bend of the road.

  "See, there it is at last!"

  The sight of a house ahead, whose active chimney gave good evidenceof a fire within, spurred Patsy's lagging steps. But in response totheir knocking, the door was opened just wide enough to frame thenarrow face of a timid-eyed, nervous woman who bade them be gone evenbefore they had gathered breath enough to ask for shelter.

  "Faith, 'tis a reminder that we are no longer living three hundredyears ago," Patsy murmured between tightening lips. "How long in, doye think, the fashion has been--to shut doors on poor wanderers?"

  At the next house, a half-mile beyond, they fared no better. Thewoman's voice was curter, and the uninviting muzzle of a bull-terrierwas thrust out between the door and the woman's skirts. As theyturned away Patsy's teeth were chattering; the chill and wet hadcrept into her bones and blood, turning her lips blue and her cheeksashen; even the cutting wind failed to color them.

  "Curse them!" muttered the tinker, fiercely. "If I only had a coat toput around you--anything to break the wind. Curse them warm and dryinside there!" and he shook his fist at the forbidden door.

  Patsy tried to smile, but failed. "Faith! I haven't the breath tocurse them; but God pity them, that's all."

  Before she had finished the tinker had a firm grip of her arm. "Hangit! If no one will take us in, we'll break in. Cheer up, lass; I'llhave you by a crackling good fire if I have to steal the wood."

  He hurried her along--somewhere. Weariness and bodily depressionclosed her eyes; and she let him lead her--whither she neitherwondered nor cared. Time and distance ceased to exist for her; shestumbled along, conscious of but two things--a fear that she would beill again with no one to tend her, and a gigantic craving forheat--heat!

  When she opened her eyes again they had stopped and were standingunder a shuttered window at what appeared to be the back of a summercottage; the tinker was prying a rock out of the mud at their feet.In a most business-like manner he used it to smash the fastening ofthe shutters, and, when these were removed, to break the small,leaded pane of glass nearest the window-fastening. It was only amatter of seconds then before the window was opened and Patsy boostedover the sill into the kitchen beyond.

  "Ye'd best stand me in the sink and wring me out, or I'll flood thehouse," Patsy managed to gasp. "I'd do it myself, but I know, if Ionce let go of my hands, I'll shake to death."

  The tinker followed her advice, working the water out of her drippinggarments in much the same fashion that he would have employed had shebeen a half-drowned cat. In spite of her numbness Patsy saw the grimhumor of it all and came perilously near to a hysterical laugh. Thetinker unconsciously forestalled it by shouldering her, as if she hadbeen a whole bag of water-soaked cats, and carrying her up thestairs. After looking into three rooms he deposited her on thethreshold of a fourth.

  "It has the look of women folks; you're sure to find some left-behindclothes o' theirs hanging up somewhere. Come down when you're dry an'I'll have that fire waiting for you."

  What followed was all a dream to Patsy's benumbed senses: the searchin drawers and closets for things to put on, and the finding of them;the insistent aching of fingers and arms in trying to adjust them,and the persistent refusal of brain to direct them with any degree ofintelligence. She came down the stairs a few minutes later, dragginga bundle of wet clothes after her, and found the tinker kneeling bythe hearth, still in his dripping rags, and heaping more logs on thealready blazing fire.

  He rose as she came toward him, took the clothes from her and droppedthem on the hearth. He seemed decidedly hazy and remote as hebrought a steamer rug from somewhere and wrapped it about her; hisvoice, as he coaxed her over to the couch, apparently came from milesaway. As Patsy sank down, too weary to speak, the figure above hertook upon itself once more that suggestion of unearthliness that ithad worn when she had discovered it at dawn--hanging to the stumpfencing. For an instant the glow of the fire threw the profile intothe same shadowy outlines that the rising sun had first marked forher; and the image lingered even after her eyes had closed.

  "Sure, he's fading away like Oisiu, Gearoidh Iarla, and all of themin the old tales," she thought, drowsily. "Like as not, when I openmy eyes again he'll be clear gone." This was where the dream endedand complete oblivion began.

  * * * * *

  How long it lasted she could not have told; she only knew she wasawake at last and acutely conscious of everything about her; and thatshe was warm--warm--warm! The room was dark except for the firelight;but whether it was evening or night or midnight, she could not haveguessed. She found herself speculating in a hazy fashion where shewas, whose house they had broken into, and what the tinker had donewith himself. She had a vague, far-away feeling that she ought to bedisturbed over something--her complete isolation with a strangecompanion on a night like this; but the physical contentment, thereaction from bodily torture, drugged her sensibilities. She closedher eyes lazily again and listened to the wind howling outside withthe never-ceasing accompaniment of beating rain. She was content torevel in that feeling of luxury that only the snugly housed can know.

  A sound in the room roused her. She opened her eyes as lazily as shehad closed them, expecting to find the tinker there replenishing thefire; instead--She sat up with a jerk, speechless, rubbing her eyeswith two excited fists, intent on proving the unreality of what shehad seen; but when she looked again there it was--the clean-cutfigure of a man immaculate in white summer flannels.

  The blood rushed to Patsy's face; mortification, dread, sank into hervery soul; the drug of physical contentment had lost its power. Forthe first time in her life she was dominated by the dictates ofconvention. She cursed her irresponsible love of vagabondage alongwith her freedom of speech and manner and her lack of conservativejudgment. These had played her false and shamed her womanhood.

  The Patsys of this world are not given to trading on their charm orpowers of attraction to win men to them--it is against their creed oftrue womanhood. Moreover, a man counts no more than a woman in theirsum total of daily pleasure, and when they choose a comrade it is forhuman qualities, not sexualities. And because of this, thisparticular Patsy felt the more intensely the humiliation andchallenge of the moment. She hated herself; she hated the man,whoever he might be; she hated the tinker for his share in it all.

  Anger loosened her tongue at last. "Who, in the name of SaintBridget, are ye?" she demanded.

  And the man in white flannels threw back his head and laughed.