Where twin oaks rustle in the wind,There waits a lad for Rosalind.If still she be so wond’rous kind,Perchance she’ll ease the fretted mindThat naught can cure—but Rosalind.
With a glad little cry she crumpled the paper in her hand and fled, straight as a throstle to itsmate, to the giant twin oaks which were landmarks in the forest. Her eyes were a-search for a vagabond figure in rags; it was small wonder, therefore, that they refused to acknowledge the man in his well-cut suit of gray who was leaning partly against the hole of a tree and partly on a pilgrim staff. She stood and stared and gave no sign of greeting.
“Well, so the Duke’s daughter found her rhyme?”
“I’m not knowing whether I’ll own ye or not. Sure, ye’ve no longer the look of an honest tinker; and maybe we’d best part company now—before we meet at all.”
But the tinker had her firmly by both hands. “That’s too late now. I would have come in rags if there’d been anything left of them, but they are the only things I intend to part company with. And do you know”—he gripped her hands tighter—“I met an acquaintance as I came this way who told me, with eyes nearly popping out of his head, that the wonderful little person who had played herself straight into hundreds of hearts had actually been his cook for three days. Oh, lass! lass! how could you do it!”
“Troth! God made me a better cook than actress. Ye wouldn’t want me to be slighting His handiwork entirely, would ye?”
The tinker shook his head at her. “Do you know what I wanted to say to every one of those people who had been watching you? I wanted to say: ‘You think she is a wonderful actress; she is more than that. She is a rare, sweet, true woman, better and finer than any play she may act in or any part she may play in it. I, the tinker, have discovered this; and I know her better than does any one else in the whole world.’”
“Is that so?” A teasing touch of irony crept into Patsy’s voice. “’Tis a pity, now, the manager couldn’t be hearing ye; he might give ye a chance to understudy Orlando.”
“And you think I’d be content to understudy any one! Why, I’m going to pitch Orlando straight out of the Forest of Arden; I’m going to pull Willie Shakespeare out of his grave and make him rewrite the whole play—putting a tinker in the leading role.”
“And is it a tragedy ye would have him make it?”
“Would it be a tragedy to take a tinker ‘for better—for worse’?”
“Faith! that would depend on the tinker.”
“Oh-ho, so it’s up to the tinker, is it? Well, the tinker will prove it otherwise; he will guarantee to keep the play running pure comedy to the end. So that settles it, Miss Patricia O’Connell—aliasRosalind, alias the cook—alias Patsy—the best little comrade a lonely man ever found. I am going to marry you the day after to-morrow, right here in Arden.”
Patsy looked at him long and thoughtfully from under the beguiling shadow of the white chiffon, corn-flower sunbonnet. “’Tis a shame, just, to discourage anything so brave as a self-made—tinker. But I’ll not be here the day after to-morrow. And what’s more, a man is a fool to marry any woman because he’s lonely and she can cook.”
The tinker’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t know. A man might marry for worse reasons.” Then he grew suddenly sober and his eyes looked deep into hers. “But you know and I know that that is not my reason for wanting you, or yours for taking me.”
“I didn’t say I would take ye.” This time it was Patsy’s eyes that twinkled. “Do ye think it would be so easy to give up my career—the big success I’ve hoped and worked and waited for—just—just for a tinker? I’d be a fool to think of it.” She was smiling inwardly at her own power of speech, which made what she held as naught sound of such immeasurable consequence.
But the tinker smiled outwardly. “Where did you say you were going to be the day after to-morrow?”
“That’s another thing I did not say. If ye are going to marry me ’tis your business to find me.” She freed her hands and started off without a backward glance at him.
“Patsy, Patsy!” he called after her, “wouldn’t you like to know the name of the man you’re going to marry?”
She turned and faced him. Framed in the soft, green fringe of the trees, she seemed to him the very embodiment of young summer—the free, untrammeled spirit of Arden. Ever since the first he had been growing more and more conscious of what she was: a nature vital, beautiful, tender, untouched by the searing things of life—trusting and worthy of trust; but it was not until this moment that he realized the future promise of her. And the realization swept all his smoldering love aflame into his eyes and lips. His arms went out to her in a sudden, passionate appeal.
“Patsy—Patsy! Would the name make any difference?”
“Why should it?” she cried, with saucy coquetry. “I’m marrying the man and not his name. If I can stand the one, I can put up with the other, I’m thinking. Anyhow, ’twill be on the marriage license the day after to-morrow, and that’s time enough.”
“Do you really mean you would marry a man,not knowing his name or anything about his family—or his income—or—”
“That’s the civilized way, isn’t it?—to find out about those things first; and afterward it’s time enough when you’re married to get acquainted with your man. But that’s not the way that leads off the road to Arden—and it’s not my way. I know my man now—God bless him.” And away she ran through the trees and out of sight.
The tinker watched the trees and underbrush swing into place, covering her exit. So tense and motionless he stood, one might have suspected him of trying to conjure her back again by the simple magic of heart and will. It turned out a disappointing piece of conjuring, however; the green parted again, but not to redisclose Patsy. A man, instead, walked into the open, toward the giant oaks, and one glimpse of him swept the tinker’s memory back to a certain afternoon and a cross-roads. He could see himself sitting propped up by the sign-post, watching the door of a little white church, while down the road clattered a sorrel mare and a runabout. And the man that drove—the man who was trailing Patsy—was the man that came toward him now, looking for—some one.
“You haven’t seen—” he began, but the tinker interrupted him:
“Guess not. I’ve been watching the company break up. Rather interesting to any one not used to that sort of thing—don’t you think?”
The man eyed him narrowly; then cautiously he dropped into an attitude of exaggerated indifference. “It sure is—young feller. Now you hain’t been watchin’ that there leadin’ lady more particularly, have you? I sort o’ cal’ate she might have a takin’ way with the fellers,” and he prodded the tinker with a jocular thumb.
The tinker responded promptly with a foolish grin. “Maybe I have; but the luck was dead against me. Guess she had a lot of friends with her. I saw them carry her off in triumph in a big touring-car—probably they’ll dine her at the country club.”
The man did not wait for further exchange of pleasantries. He took the direction the tinker indicated, and the tinker watched him go with a suppressed chuckle.
“History positively stutters sometimes. Now if that property-man knew what he was talking about the company will be safe out of Arden before a runabout could make the country club and back.” But the tinker’s mirth was of short duration. With a shout of derision, he slapped the pocket of his trousers viciously.
“What a confounded fool I am! Why in thename of reason didn’t I give them to him and stop this sleuth business before it really gets her into trouble? Of all the idiotic—senseless—” and, leaning on the pilgrim staff, he slowly hobbled in the same direction he had given the man.
One last piece of news concerning Billy Burgeman came to Patsy before she left Arden that afternoon. Gregory Jessup was at the station to see her off, and he took her aside for the few minutes before the train arrived.
“I tried to get Billy to join me—knew it would do him good to meet you; but he wouldn’t budge. I rather think he’s still a trifle sore on girls. Nothing personal, you understand?”
Patsy certainly did—far better than his friend knew. In her heart she was trying her best to be interested and grateful to the Rich Man’s Son for his unconscious part in her happiness. Had it not been for him there would have been no quest, no road; and without the road there would have been no tinker; and without the tinker, no happiness. It was none the less hard to be interested, however, now that her mind had given over the lonely occupation of contemplating memories for that most magical of all mental crafts—future-building. She jerked up her attention sharply as Gregory Jessup began speaking again.
“Billy told me just before I came down why he had gone away; and I wanted to tell you. I don’t know how much you know about the old man’s reputation, but he was credited with being the hardest master with his men that you could find either side of the water. In the beginning he made his money by screwing down the wages and unscrewing the labor—and no sentiment. That was his slogan. Whether he kept it up from habit or pure cussedness I can’t tell, but that’s the real reason Billy would never go into his father’s business—he couldn’t stand his meanness. The old man’s secretary forged a check for ten thousand; Billy caught him and cashed it himself—to save the man. He shouldered the guilt so his father wouldn’t suspect the man and hound him.”
“I know,” said Patsy, forgetting that she was supposed to know nothing. “But why in the name of all the saints did the secretary want to forge a check?”
“Why does any one forge? He needs money. When Billy caught him the 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 werenothing 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.”
Onthe 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 exceptto 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 finalfight 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 withthe 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, andhis 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!—promiseme 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 youacross 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.
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.