Seven Miles to Arden Part 9

"Brown!" chorused the quorum.

"Wall, boys"--the storekeeper wagged an accusing thumb in the direction of the recently vacated stool--"she was small, warn't she?

An' she's got brown clothes, hain't she? An' she acts queer, doan't she?"

The quorum nodded in solemn agreement.

"But she doan't look like no thief," interceded the youngest of the "boys." He couldn't have been a day over seventy, and it was more than likely that he was still susceptible to youth and beauty!

The rest glowered at him with plain disapproval, while the storekeeper shifted the course of his thumb and wagged it at him instead. "Si Perkins, that's not for you to say--nor me, neither.

That's up to Green County; an' I cal'ate I'll 'phone over to the sheriff, come mornin', an' tell him our suspicions. By Jack-a-diamonds! I've got to square my conscience."

The quorum invested their thumbs again and cleared their throats.

VII

THE TINKER PLAYS A PART

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

Afterward he sawed and split the apportioned wood which was to pay for Patsy's lodging, and went to sleep on the hay in a state of complete exhaustion. But, for all that, Patsy was wakened an hour before 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 silencing finger against his lips, while he waved a beckoning arm toward the road. Patsy dressed and slipped out without a sound.

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

His only reply was a mysterious shake of the head as he led the way down the village street, his rags flapping grotesquely in the dawn wind.

There was nothing for Patsy to do except to follow as fast as she could after his long, swinging strides. Lebanon still slept, close-wrapped in its peaceful respectability; even the dogs failed to give 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 Patsy catch up with him; it was a very breathless, disgruntled Patsy.

"Now, by Saint Brendan, what ails ye, lad, to be waking a body up at this time of day? Do ye think it's good morals or good manners to be trailing us off on a bare stomach like this--as if a county full of constables was at our heels? What's the meaning of it? And what will the good folk who cared for us the night think to find us gone with never a word of thanks or explanation?"

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

He saw her look and met it, eye for eye, only he still fumbled his chin ineffectually. "Have you forgot?" he asked, a bit sheepishly.

"There were the lady's-slippers; you said as how you cared about findin' 'em; and they're not near so pretty an' bright if they're left standin' too long after the dew dries."

Patsy pulled a wry little smile. "Is that so? And ye've been after making me trade a feather-bed and a good breakfast for--for the best color 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 the comradeship faded quickly from her eyes.

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

And the tinker's smile won. Bit by bit Patsy's rigid att.i.tude of condemnation relaxed; the comradeship crept back in her eyes, the smile to her lips. "Heigho! 'Tis a bad bargain ye can't make the best of. But mind one thing, Master Touchstone! Ye'll find the right road to Arden this time or ye and the duke's daughter will part company--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 them both for you, la.s.s"; and he set off with his swinging stride straight across 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 the Green County sheriff on the 'phone, and squared his conscience. "I cal'ate she's the guilty party," were his closing remarks. "She'd never ha' lighted out o' this 'ere town afore Christian folks were out 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 being harnessed into the runabout the tinker was leading Patsy farther afield. And so it came to pa.s.s that when the mare's heels were raising the dust on the road between Lebanon and Arden, they were following a forest brook, deeper and deeper, into the woods.

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

The tinker knew them all, calling to them in friendly fashion, at which they always answered back. Patsy listened silently, wrapped in the delight and beauty of it. On went the brook--dancing here in a broken patch of sunshine--quieting there between the banks of rock-fern and columbine, to better paint their prettiness; and all the while singing one farther and farther into the woods. She was just wondering if there could be anything lovelier than this when the tinker stopped, still and tense as a pointer. She craned her head and looked beyond him--looked to where the woods broke, leaving for a few feet a thinly shaded growth of beech and maple. The sunlight sifted through in great, unbroken patches of gold, falling on the beds of fern and moss and--yes, there they were, the promised lady's-slippers.

A little, indrawn sigh of ecstasy from Patsy caused the tinker to turn 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 grand if nature could be gathering it all up from everywhere and spinning it 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 to anything so beautiful as what's yonder they'd ever have gone so daffy over daffodils?"

"They never would," agreed the tinker.

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

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

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

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

"It might be the souls o' the dead ones." The tinker considered thoughtfully a moment. "Maybe the souls o' flowers become birds, same as ours becomes angels--wouldn't be such a deal o' difference--both takin' to wings and singin'." He chuckled again. "Anyhow, that's the bellbird; 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, he had vanished as quickly and completely as if magic had had a hand in it.

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

"'Tis surprising how wearisome the same clothes can grow when on the back of a human being--yet a flower can wear them for a thousand years 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 intense longing; then the glory of the woods claimed her again and she gave herself over completely to the wonder and enjoyment of them. Her eyes roamed about her unceasingly for every bit of prettiness, her ears caught the symphony of bird and brook and soughing wind. So still did she sit that the tinker, returning, thought for a moment that she had gone, and stood, knee-deep in the brakes, laden to the chin and covered with the misery of poignant disappointment. For him all the music of the place had turned to laughing discord--until he spied her.

"I thought"--his tongue stumbled--"I was thinkin' you had gone--sudden-like--same as you came--down the road yesterday." He paused a moment. "You wouldn't go off by yourself and leave a lad without 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 wish ye 'G.o.d-speed' along your way before I go."

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