Seven Miles to Arden Read online

  XII

  A CHANGE OF NATIONALITY

  The railroad ran under the suspension-bridge. Patsy could see thestation not an eighth of a mile down the track, and she made for itas being the nearest possible point where water might be procured.The station-master gave her a tin can and filled it for her; and tenminutes later she set about scrubbing the tinker free of all thetelltale make-up of melodrama. It was accomplished--after a fashion,and with persistent rebelling on the tinker's part and scolding onPatsy's. And, finally, to prove his own supreme indifference tophysical disablement, he tore the can from her administering hands,threw it over the bridge, and started down the road at his old,swinging stride.

  "Is it after more lady's-slippers ye're dandering?" called Patsy.

  "More likely it's after a pair of those winged shoes of Perseus; I'llneed them." But his stride soon broke to a walk and then to alagging limp. "It's no use," he said at last; "I might keep on foranother half-mile, a mile at the most; but that's about all I'd begood for. You'll have to go on to Arden alone, and you can't miss itthis time."

  Patsy stopped abruptly. "Why don't ye curse me for the trouble I havebrought?" She considered both hands carefully for a minute, as if sheexpected to find in them the solution to the difficulty, then shelooked up and away toward the rising woodland that marked Arden.

  "Do ye know," she said, wistfully, "I took the road, thinking I couldmend trouble for that other lad; and instead it's trouble I've beenmaking for every one--ye, Joseph, and I don't know how many more. Andinstead of doling kindness--why, I'm begging it. Now what's themeaning of it all? What keeps me failing?"

  "'There's a divinity that shapes'--" began the tinker.

  But Patsy cut him short. "Ye do know Willie Shakespeare!"

  He smiled, guiltily. "I'm afraid I do--known him a good many years."

  "He's grand company; best I know, barring tinkers." She turnedimpulsively and, standing on tiptoe, her fingers reached to the topof his shoulders. "See here, lad, ye can just give over thinkingI'll go on alone. If I'm cast for melodrama, sure I'll play itaccording to the best rules; the villain has fled, the hero is hurt,and if I went now I'd be hissed by the gallery. I've got ye intotrouble and I'll not leave ye till I see ye out of it--someway. Oh,there's lots of ways; I'm thinking them fast. Like as not a passingteam or car would carry ye to Arden; or we might beg the loan of ahorse for a bit from some kind-hearted farmer, and I could drive yeover and bring the horse back; or we'll ask a corner for ye at afarm-house till ye are fit to walk--"

  "We are in the wrong part of the country for any of those things tohappen. Look about! Don't you see what a very different road it isfrom the one we took in the beginning?"

  Patsy looked and saw. So engrossed had she been in the incidents ofthe last hour or more that she had not observed the changing country.Here were no longer pastures, tilled fields, houses with neighboringbarn-yards, and unclaimed woodland; no longer was the road fringedwith stone walls or stump fencing. Well-rolled golf-links stretchedaway on either hand as far as they could see; and, beyond, throughthe trees, showed roofs of red tile and stained shingle; and trimmedhedges skirted everything.

  "'Tis the rich man's country," commented Patsy.

  "It is, and I'd crawl into a hole and starve before I'd take charityfrom one of them."

  "Sure and ye would. When a body's poor 'tis only the poor likehimself he'd be asking help of. Don't I know! What's yonder house?"She broke off with a jerk and pointed ahead to a small building,sitting well back from the road, partly hidden in the surroundingclumps of trees.

  "It's a stable; house burned down last year and it hasn't been usedby any one since."

  "And I'll wager it's as snug as a pocket inside--with fresh hay orstraw, plenty to make a lad comfortable. Isn't that grand good luckfor ye?"

  The tinker found it hard to echo Patsy's enthusiasm, but he did hisbest. "Of course; and it's just the place to leave a lad behind inwhen a lass has seven miles to tramp before she gets to the end ofher journey."

  "Is that so?" Patsy's tone sounded suspiciously sarcastic. "Well,talking's not walking; supposing ye take the staff in one hand andlean your other on me, and we'll see can we make it before this timeto-morrow."

  They made it in another hour, unobserved by the few stragglingplayers on the links.

  The stable proved all Patsy had anticipated. She watched the tinkersink, exhausted, on the bedded hay, while she pulled down a forgottenhorse-blanket from a near-by peg to throw over him; then she turnedin a business-like manner back to the door.

  "Are you going to Arden?" came the faint voice of the tinker afterher.

  "I might--and then again--I mightn't. Was there any word ye mightwant me to fetch ahead for ye?"

  "No; only--perhaps--would you think a chap too everlastinglyimpertinent to ask you to wait there for him--until he caught up withyou?"

  "I might--and then again--I mightn't." At the door she stopped, andfor the second time considered her hands speculatively. "It wouldn'tinconvenience your feelings any to take charity from me, would it,seeing I'm as poor as yourself and have dragged ye into this common,tuppenny brawl by my own foolishness?"

  "You didn't drag me in; I had one foot in already."

  "I thought so," Patsy nodded, approvingly; her conviction had beencorrect, then. "And the charity?"

  "Yes, I'd take it from you." The tinker rolled over with a littlemoan composed of physical pain and mental discomfort. But in anothermoment he was sitting upright, shaking a mandatory fist at Patsy asshe disappeared through the door. "Remember--no help from thequality! I hate them as much as you do, and I won't have them comingaround with their inquisitive, patronizing, supercilious offers ofassistance to a--beggar. I tell you I want to be left alone! If youbring any one back with you I'll burn the stable down about me.Remember!"

  "Aye," she called back; "I'll be remembering."

  * * * * *

  She reached the road again; and for the manyeth time since she leftthe women's free ward of the City Hospital she marshaled all theO'Connell wits. But even the best of wits require opportunity, and toPatsy the immediate outlook seemed barren of such.

  "There's naught to do but keep going till something turns up," shesaid to herself; and she followed this Micawber advice to the letter.She came to the end of the grounds which had belonged to the burnedhouse and the deserted stable; she passed on, between a stretch ofthin woodland and a grove of giant pines; and there she came upon across-road. She looked to the right--it was empty. She looked to theleft--and behold there was "Opportunity," large, florid, andagitated, coming directly toward her from one of the tile-roofedhouses, and puffing audibly under the combined weight of herself andher bag.

  "Ze depot--how long ees eet?" she demanded, when she caught sight ofPatsy.

  The accent was unmistakably French, and Patsy obligingly answered herin her mother-tongue. "I cannot say exactly; about three--fourkilometers."

  "Opportunity" dropped her bag and embraced her. "Oh!" she burst out,volubly. "Think of Zoe Marat finding a countrywoman in this wildland. _Moi_--I can no longer stand it; and when madame's temper goes_pouffe_--I say, it is enough; let madame fast or cook for herguests, as she prefer. I go!"

  "_Eh, bien!_" agreed the outer Patsy, while her subjectiveconsciousness addressed her objective self in plain Donegal: "Faith!this is the maddest luck--the maddest, merriest luck! If yonderQuality House has lost one cook, 'twill be needing another; and 'tisa poor cook entirely that doesn't hold the keys of her own pantry.Food from Quality House needn't be choking the maddest tinker, ifit's paid for in honest work."

  Having been embraced by "Opportunity," Patsy saw no reason forwasting time in futile sympathy that might better be spent in promptexecution. She despatched the woman to the station with the briefestof directions and herself made straight for Quality House.

  She was smiling over her appearance and the incongruities of thesituation as she rang the bell at the front door and asked for"Madame" in
her best parisien.

  The maid, properly impressed, carried the message at once; andcuriosity brought madame in surprising haste to the hall, where shelooked Patsy over with frank amazement.

  "Madame speak French? Ah, I thought so. Madame desires acook--_voila!_"

  The abruptness of this announcement turned madame giddy. "How did youknow? Mine did not leave half an hour ago; there isn't another Frenchcook within five miles; it is unbelievable."

  "It is Providence." Patsy cast her eyes devoutly heavenward.

  "You have references--"

  "References!" Patsy shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "Whatwould madame do with references? She cannot eat them; she cannot feedthem to her guests. I can cook. Is that not sufficient?"

  "But--you do not think--It is impossible that I ever employ a servantwithout references. And you--you look like anything in the world buta French cook."

  "Madame is not so foolish as to find fault with the ways ofProvidence, or judge one by one's clothes? Who knows--at this momentit may be _a la mode_ in Paris for cooks to wear sailor blouses.Besides, madame is mistaken; I am not a servant. I am an artist--aculinary artist."

  "You can cook, truly?"

  "But yes, madame!"

  "Excellent sauces?"

  "_Mon Dieu_--Bechamel--Hollandaise--chaud-froid--maitred'hotel--Espagnole--Bearnaise--" Patsy completed the list with anecstatic kiss blown into the air.

  Madame sighed and spoke in English: "It is unbelievable--absurd. Ishouldn't trust my own eyes or palate if I sat down to-night to themost remarkable dinner in the world; but one must feed one's guests."She looked Patsy over again. "Your trunk?"

  "Trunk? Is it toilettes or sauces madame wishes me to make for herguests? _Ma foi!_ Trunks--references--one is as unimportant as theother. Is it not enough for the present if I cook for madame?Afterward--" She ended with the all-expressive shrug.

  Evidently madame conceded the point, for without further comment sheled the way to the kitchen and presented the bill of fare for dinner.

  "'For twelve,'" read Patsy. "And to-morrow is Sunday. Ah, Providenceis good to madame, _mais-oui?_"

  But madame's thoughts were on more practical matters. "Your wages?"

  "One hundred francs a week, and the kitchen to myself. I, too, have atemper, madame." Patsy gave a quick toss to her head, while her eyessnapped.

  * * * * *

  That night the week-end guests at Quality House sat over theircoffee, volubly commenting on the rare excellence of their dinner andthe good fortune of their hostess in her possession of such a cook.Madame kept her own counsel and blessed Providence; but she did notallow that good fortune to escape with her better judgment--oranything else. She ordered the butler, before retiring, to count thesilver and lock it in her dressing-room; this was to be done everynight--as long as the new cook remained.

  And the new cook? Her work despatched, and her kitchen to herself,she was free to get dinner for one more of madame's guests.

  "Faith! he'd die of a black fit if he ever knew he was a guest ofQuality House--and she'd die of another if she found out whom shewas entertaining. But, glory be to Peter! what neither of them knowswon't hurt them." And Patsy, unobserved, opened the back door andretraced the road to the deserted stable with a full basket and aglad heart.

  She found the tinker under some trees at the back, smoking adisreputable cuddy pipe with a worse accompaniment of tobacco. Whenhe saw her he removed it apologetically.

  "It smells horrible, I know. I found it, forgotten, on a ledge of thestable, but it keeps a chap from remembering that he is hungry."

  "Poor lad!" Patsy knelt on the ground beside him and opened herbasket. "Put your nose into that, just. 'Tis a nine-course dinner andevery bit of the best. Faith! 'tis lucky I was found on a Brittanyrose-bush instead of one in Heidelberg, Birmingham, or Philadelphia;and if ye can't be born with gold in your mouth the next best thingis a mixing-spoon."

  "Meaning?" queried the tinker.

  "Meaning--that there's many a poor soul who goes hungry through lifebecause she is wanting the knowledge of how to mix what's alreadyunder her nose."

  The tinker looked suspiciously from the contents of the basket toPatsy, kneeling beside it, and he dropped into a shameless mimicry ofher brogue. "Aye, but how did she come by--what's under her nose?Here's a dinner for a king's son."

  "Well, I'll be letting ye play the king's son instead of the foolto-night, just, if ye'll give over asking any more questions andeat."

  "But"--he sniffed the plate she had handed him with addedsuspicion--"roast duck and sherry sauce! Honest, now--have ye beenbegging?"

  "No--nor stealing--nor, by the same token, have I murdered any one toget the dinner from him." There was fine sarcasm in her voice as shereturned the tinker's searching look.

  "Then where did it come from? I'll not eat a mouthful until I get anhonest answer." The tinker put the plate down beside him and foldedhis arms.

  Patsy snorted with exasperation. "Was I ever saying ye could play theking's son? Faith! ye'll never play anything but the fool--first andlast." Her voice suddenly took on a more coaxing tone; she wasthinking of that good dinner growing cold--spoiled by the man'sridiculous curiosity. "I'll tell ye what--if ye'll agree to begineating, I'll agree to begin telling ye about it--and we'll both agreenot to stop till we get to the end. But Holy Saint Martin! who everheard of a man before letting his conscience in ahead of his hunger!"

  The bargain was made; and while the tinker devoured one platefulafter another with a ravenous haste that almost discredited hisprevious restraint, Patsy spun a fanciful tale of having found acluricaun under a quicken-tree. With great elaboration and seemingregard for the truth, she explained his magical qualities, andhow--if you were clever enough to possess yourself of his cap--youcould get almost anything from him.

  "I held his cap firmly with the one hand and him by the scruff of theneck with the other; and says I to him, 'Little man, ye'll not begetting this back till ye've fetched me a dinner fit for a tinker.''Well, and good,' says he, 'but ye can't find that this side of theKing's Hotel, Dublin; and that will take time.' 'Take the time,' saysI, 'but get the dinner.' And from that minute till the present I'vebeen waiting under that quicken-tree for him to make the trip thereand back."

  Patsy finished, and the two of them smiled at each other with raregood humor out under the June stars. Only the tinker's smile wasskeptical.

  "So--ye are not believing me--" Patsy shammed a solemn, grieved look."Well--I'll forgive ye this time if ye'll agree that the dinner wasgood, for I'd hate like the devil to be giving the wee man back hiscap for anything but the best."

  With laggard grace the tinker stretched his hands over the now emptybasket and gripped Patsy's. "Lass, lass--what are you thinking of me?Faith! my manners are more ragged than my clothes--and I'm not fit tobe a--tinker. The dinner was the best I ever ate, and--bless ye andthe cluricaun!"

  Patsy cooked for three days at Quality House, that the tinker mightfeast night and morning to his heart's content while his ankle slowlymended. But he still persisted questioning concerning his food--whereand how Patsy had come by it; she still maintained as persistent asilence.

  "I've come by it honestly, and 'tis no charity fare," was the mostshe would say, adding by way of flavor: "For a sorry tinker ye arethe proudest I ever saw. Did ye ever know another, now, who wanted awritten certificate of moral character along with every morsel heate?"

  According to wage agreement she had the kitchen to herself; no oneentered except on matters of necessity; no one lingered after herwork was despatched. Madame came twice daily to confer with Patsy onintricacies of gestation, while she beamed upon her as a probationedsoul might look upon the keeper of the keys of Paradise. But the daysheld more for Patsy than sauces and entrees and pastries; they heldgossip as well. Soupcons were served up on loosened tongues, borne inthrough open window and swinging door--straight from the dining-roomand my lady's chamber. Most of it passed her ears, unhee
ded; it wasbut a droning accompaniment to her measuring, mixing, rolling, andbaking--until news came at last that concerned herself--gossip of theBurgemans, father and son.

  The butler and the parlor maid were cleaning the silver in thepantry--and the slide was raised. As transmitters of gossip they weremore than usually concerned, for had not the butler at one timeserved in the house of Burgeman, and the maid dusted next door?Therefore every item of news was well ripened before it dropped fromeither tongue, and Patsy gathered them in with eager ears.

  The master of Quality House happened to be a director of that bank onwhich the Burgeman check of ten thousand had been drawn. It had beenthe largest check drawn to cash presented at the bank; and the tellerhad confessed to the directors that he would never have paid over themoney to any one except the old man's son. In fact, he had been somuch concerned over it afterward that he had called up the Burgemanoffice, and had been much relieved to have the assurance of thesecretary that the check was certified and perfectly correct. Not asecond thought would have been given to the matter had not thesecretary's resignation been made public the next day--the day BillyBurgeman disappeared.

  Patsy's ears fairly bristled with interest. "That's news, if it isgossip. Where is the secretary now? And which of them has the tenthousand?"

  The director had touched on the subject of the check the next daywhen business had demanded his presence at the Burgeman home. Theresult had been distinctly baffling. Not that the director could puthis finger on any one suspicious point in the behavior of Burgeman,senior; but it left him with the distinct impression that the fatherwas shielding the son.

  "Aye, that's what Billy said his father would do--shield him out ofpride." Patsy dusted the flour from her arms and stood motionless,thinking.

  Burgeman, senior, had offered only one remark to the director, givencynically with a nervous jerking of the shoulders and twitching ofthe hands: "He was needing pocket-money, a small sum to keep him inshoe-laces and collar-buttons, I dare say. That's the way rich men'ssons keep their fathers' incomes from getting too cumbersome."

  Burgeman, senior, had been ill then--confined to his room; but thenext day his condition had become alarming. He was now dying at hishome in Arden and his son could not be found. These last twostatements were not merely gossip, but facts.

  Patsy listened impatiently to the parlor maid arguing the matter ofBilly's guilt with the butler. Their work was finished, and they werepassing through the kitchen on their way to the servants' hall.

  "Of course he took it"--the maid's tone was positive--"those richmen's sons always are a bad lot."

  "'E didn't take it, then. 'Is father's playin' some mean game on'im--that's what. Hi worked five months hin that 'ouse an' Hi'd aslief work for the devil!" And the butler pounded his fist foremphasis.

  It took all Patsy's self-control to refrain from launching into theargument herself, and that in the Irish tongue. She saved herself,however, by resorting to that temper of which she had boasted, andhurled at the two a torrent of words which sounded to them like themost horrible pagan blasphemy, and from which they fled in genuinehorror. In reality it was the names of all the places in France thatPatsy could recall with rapidity.

  When the kitchen was empty once more Patsy systematically gatheredtogether all that she knew and all that she had heard of BillyBurgeman, and weighed it against the bare possible chance she mighthave of helping him should she continue her quest. And in the end shemade her decision unwaveringly.

  "Troth! a conscience is a poor bit of property entirely," she sighed,as she stood the pate-shells on the ledge of the range to dry. "Itdrives ye after a man ye don't care a ha'penny about, and it drivesye from the one that ye do. Bad luck to it!"

  * * * * *

  That night Patsy sat under the trees with the tinker while he ate hissupper. A half-grown moon lighted the feast for them, for Patsy tookan occasional mouthful at the tinker's insistence that dining alonewas a miserably unsociable affair.

  "To watch ye eat that pate de fois gras a body would think ye hadbeen reared on them. Honest, now, have ye ever tasted one before inyour life?"

  "I have."

  "Then--ye have sat at rich men's tables?"

  "Or perhaps I have begged at rich men's doors. Maybe that is how Icame to have a distaste for their--charity."

  "Who are ye? Ye know I'd give the full of my empty pockets to knowwho ye are, and what started ye tramping the road--in rags."

  The tinker considered a moment. "Perhaps I took the road because Ibelieved it led to the only place I cared to find. Perhaps I lost theway to it, as you lost yours to Arden, and in the losing Ifound--something else. Perhaps--perhaps--oh, perhaps a hundredthings; but I'll make another bargain with you. I'll tell you allabout it when we reach Arden, if you'll tell me the name of the ladyou came to find."

  "I'll do more than that--I'll bring ye together and let ye help mendhim," and she stretched forth her hand to clinch the bargain.

  They sat in silence under the spattering of moonlight that sifteddown through the branches; for the moment the tinker had forgottenhis hunger.

  "Well?" queried Patsy at last. "A ha'penny for them."

  "I'm thinking the same old thoughts I've thought a hundred timesalready--since that first day: What makes you so different fromeverybody else? What ever sent you out into the world with yourgospel of kindness--on your lips and in your hands?"

  "Would ye really like to know?" Patsy's fingers stole through thegrass about them. "Faith! the world's not so soft and green as thisunder every one's feet. Ye see 'twas by a thorn I was found hangingto that Killarney rose-bush in Brittany, and I've always rememberedthe feeling of it."

  "I always suspected that the people who fell heir to stingingmemories generally went through life hugging their own troubles, andletting the rest of the world hug theirs."

  "I don't believe it!" Patsy shook her head fiercely. "What's the useof all the pain and sorrow and trouble scattered about everywhere ifit can't put a cure for others into the hands of those who have firsttasted it? And what better cure can ye find than kindness; isn't itthe best thing in the world?"

  "Is it? Can it cure--gold?"

  "And why not? If every man had more kindness than he had gold, wouldneighbor ever have to fear neighbor or childther go hungry for love?"The tinker did not answer, and Patsy went on with a deepeningintensity: "I'll tell ye a tale--a foolish tale that keeps repeatingitself over and over in my memory like the tick-tick-tick of a clock.Ye know that the Jesuit Fathers say--give them the care of a childtill he's ten and nothing afterward matters. Well, it's true; a childcan feel all the sweetness or bitterness, hunger or plenty, that lifeholds before he is that age even."

  Patsy stopped. A veery was singing in the woods close by, and shelistened for a moment. "Hearken to that bird, now. A good-for-naughtlad may have stolen his nest, or a cat filched his young, or his sonsand daughters flown away and left him; but he'll sing, for all that.'Tis a pity the rest of us can't do as well."

  "Yes," agreed the tinker, "but the story--"

  "Aye, the story. It begins with a wee white cottage in Brittany,fronted by roses and backed by great cliffs and the open sea." Patsyclasped her hands about her knees, while her eyes left the shadow ofthe trees and traveled to the open where the moonlight spread silveryclear and unbroken. And the tinker, watching, knew that her eyes wereseeing the things of which she was telling. "A wee white cottage--theroses and the cliffs," repeated Patsy, "and a great, grim, silentfigure of a man sitting there idle all day, watching a little lass ather play. Just the man and the child. And the trouble in his mindthat had kept the man silent and idle was an old, old trouble--old asthe peopled world itself.

  "Long before, he had married a woman who cared for two things--loveand gold; and he had but the one to give her. She had been a greatactress, a favorite at the Comedie Francaise; but she left her workand all the applause and adulation for him, an expatriated Irishmanwith naught but a great love, because
she thought she cared for lovemore. They had been wonderfully happy at first; he wrote beautifulverses about her--and his beloved motherland, and she said them forhim in that wonderful singing voice of hers that had made her theidol of half of France. And she had made a game of their poverty inthe wee white cottage with the roses--until her child was born andpoverty could no longer be played at. Then work became drudgery, andlove naught. The woman went back to her theater--and another man, aman who had gold a-plenty. And the child grew up playing alone besidethe silent, grim Irishman.

  "Then one day the child played with no one by to watch her; the manhad walked over the cliff and forgot ever to come back. Aye, and thechild played on till dark came and she fell asleep--there on thedoor-sill, under the roses. 'Twas a neighbor, passing, that foundher, and carried her home to put to bed with her own children. Afterthat the child was taken away to a convent, and the rich childrencalled her '_la pauvre petite_,' shared their saints'-days' giftswith her, and bought her candles that she might make a _novena_ tobring her father back again. But 'twas her mother it broughtinstead."

  Patsy stopped again to listen to the veery; he was not singing alonenow, and she smiled wistfully. "See! he's found a friend, a comradeto sing with him. That's grand!" Then she went back to the story:

  "The child was taken from the convent in the night and by somber-cladservants who seemed in a great hurry. She was brought a long way to achateau, one of the oldest and most beautiful in the south of France;and a small, shrivel-faced man in royal clothes met her at the doorand carried her up great marble stairs to a chamber lighted by twotall candles, just. They stopped on the threshold for a breath, andthe child saw that a woman was lying in the canopied bed--a very,very beautiful woman. To the child she seemed some goddess--or saint.

  "'Here is the child,' said the man; and the woman answered: 'Alone,Rene. Remember you promised--alone.'

  "After that the man left them together--the dying woman and herchild. Ah!--how can I be telling you the way she fondled and caressedher! How starved were the lips that touched the child's hair, cheeks,and eyelids! And when her strength failed she drew the child into hertired arms and whispered fragments of prayers, haunting memories,pitiful regrets. Of all the things she said the child remembered butone: 'Gold buys plenty for the body, but nothing for theheart--nothing--nothing!'

  "And that kept repeating itself over and over in the child's mind.She remembered it all through the night after they had taken her awayfrom those lifeless arms and she lay awake alone in a terrifying,dark room; she remembered it all through the long day when she satbeside the gorgeous catafalque that held her mother, and watched thetall candles in the dim chapel burn lower and lower and lower. Andthat was why she refused to stay afterward--and be taken care of bythe shrivel-faced man in that oldest and most beautiful chateau.Instead she slipped out early one morning, before any one was awaketo see and mark the way she went. It is unbelievable, sometimes, howchildren who have the will to do it can lose themselves. And so thischild--alone--went out into the world, empty-handed, seeking life."

  "But did she go empty-handed?" asked the tinker.

  "Aye, but not empty-hearted, thank God!"

  "And wherever the child went, she carried with her that hatred ofgold," mused the tinker.

  "Aye; why not? She had learned how pitifully little it was worth,when all's said and done. 'Twas her father's name she heard last onher mother's lips, and it was their child she prayed for with herdying breath." Patsy sprang to her feet. "Do ye see--the moon will bebeating me to bed, and 'twas a poor tale, after all. How is yourfoot?"

  "Better--much better."

  "Would ye be able to travel on it to-morrow?"

  The tinker shook his head. "The day after, perhaps."

  "Well, keep on coaxing it. Good night." And she had picked up herbasket and was gone before the tinker could stumble to his feet.

  * * * * *

  When the tinker woke the next morning the basket stood just insidethe stable door, linked through the pilgrim's staff. On investigationit proved to contain his breakfast and an envelope, and the envelopecontained a ten-dollar bill and a letter, which read:

  DEAR LAD,--I'll be well on the road when you get this; and with a tongue in my head and luck at my heels, please God, I'll reach Arden this time. You need not be afraid to use the money--or too proud, either. It was honestly earned and the charity of no one; you can take it as a loan or a gift--whichever you choose. Anyhow, it will bring you after me faster--which was your own promise.

  Yours in advance,

  P. O'CONNELL

  Surprise, disappointment, indignation, amusement, all battled for theupper hand; but it was a very different emotion from any of thesewhich finally mastered the tinker. He smoothed the bill very tenderlybetween his hands before he returned it to the envelope; but he didsomething more than smooth the envelope.

  And meanwhile Patsy tramped the road to Arden.