Seven Miles to Arden Part 11

He hurried her along--somewhere. Weariness and bodily depression closed her eyes; and she let him lead her--whither she neither wondered nor cared. Time and distance ceased to exist for her; she stumbled along, conscious of but two things--a fear that she would be ill again with no one to tend her, and a gigantic craving for heat--heat!

When she opened her eyes again they had stopped and were standing under a shuttered window at what appeared to be the back of a summer cottage; 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 of the shutters, and, when these were removed, to break the small, leaded pane of gla.s.s nearest the window-fastening. It was only a matter of seconds then before the window was opened and Patsy boosted over the sill into the kitchen beyond.

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

The tinker followed her advice, working the water out of her dripping garments in much the same fas.h.i.+on that he would have employed had she been a half-drowned cat. In spite of her numbness Patsy saw the grim humor of it all and came perilously near to a hysterical laugh. The tinker unconsciously forestalled it by shouldering her, as if she had been a whole bag of water-soaked cats, and carrying her up the stairs. After looking into three rooms he deposited her on the threshold of a fourth.

"It has the look of women folks; you're sure to find some left-behind clothes 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 search in 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 of intelligence. She came down the stairs a few minutes later, dragging a bundle of wet clothes after her, and found the tinker kneeling by the hearth, still in his dripping rags, and heaping more logs on the already blazing fire.

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

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

How long it lasted she could not have told; she only knew she was awake at last and acutely conscious of everything about her; and that she was warm--warm--warm! The room was dark except for the firelight; but whether it was evening or night or midnight, she could not have guessed. She found herself speculating in a hazy fas.h.i.+on where she was, whose house they had broken into, and what the tinker had done with himself. She had a vague, far-away feeling that she ought to be disturbed over something--her complete isolation with a strange companion on a night like this; but the physical contentment, the reaction from bodily torture, drugged her sensibilities. She closed her eyes lazily again and listened to the wind howling outside with the never-ceasing accompaniment of beating rain. She was content to revel 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 she had closed them, expecting to find the tinker there replenis.h.i.+ng the fire; instead--She sat up with a jerk, speechless, rubbing her eyes with two excited fists, intent on proving the unreality of what she had seen; but when she looked again there it was--the clean-cut figure of a man immaculate in white summer flannels.

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

The Patsys of this world are not given to trading on their charm or powers of attraction to win men to them--it is against their creed of true womanhood. Moreover, a man counts no more than a woman in their sum total of daily pleasure, and when they choose a comrade it is for human qualities, not s.e.xualities. And because of this, this particular Patsy felt the more intensely the humiliation and challenge 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 Saint Bridget, are ye?" she demanded.

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

VIII

WHEN TWO WERE NOT COMPANY

The laughter would have proved contagious to any except one in Patsy's humor; and, as laughing alone is sorry business, the man soon sobered and looked over at Patsy with the merriment lingering only in his eyes.

"By Willie Shakespeare, it's the duke's daughter in truth!"

The words made little impression on her; it was the laugh and voice that puzzled her; they were unmistakably the tinker's. But there was nothing familiar about face, figure, or expression, although Patsy studied them hard to find some trace of the man she had been journeying with.

With a final bewildered shake of the head her eyes met his coldly, mockingly. "My name is Patricia O'Connell"--her voice was crisp and tart; "it's the Irish for a short temper and a hot one. Now maybe you will have the grace to favor me with yours."

"Just the tinker," he complied, amiably, "and very much at your service." This was accompanied by a sweeping bow.

Patsy had marked that bow on two previous occasions, and it testified undeniably to the man's ident.i.ty. Yet Patsy's mind balked at accepting it; it was too galling to her pride, too slanderous of her past judgment and perceptibilities. A sudden rush of anger brought her to her feet, and, coming over to the opposite side of the hearth, she faced him, flushed, determined, and very dignified. It is to be doubted if Patsy could have sustained the latter with any degree of conviction if she could have seen herself. Straying strands of still damp hair curled bewitchingly about her face, bringing out the roundness of cheek and chin and the curious, guileless expression of her eyes. Moreover, the coquettish gown she wore was entrancing; it was a light blue, tunic affair with wide baby collar and cuffs, and a Roman girdle; and she had found stockings to match, with white buckskin pumps. It had been blind chance on her part--this making of a toilet, but the effect was none the less adorable--and condemning to dignity.

This was evidently appreciated by the tinker, for his face was an odd mixture of grotesque solemnity and keen enjoyment. Patsy was altogether too fl.u.s.tered to diagnose his expression, but it added considerably to the temperature of the O'Connell temper. In view of the civilized surroundings and her state of dignity Patsy had taken to King's English with barely a hint of her native brogue.

"If you are the tinker--and I presume you are--I should very much appreciate an explanation. Would you mind telling me how you happened to be hanging onto that stump, in rags, and looking half-witted when I--when I came by?"

"Why--just because I was a tinker," he laughed.

"Then what are you now?"

"Once a tinker, always a tinker. I'm just a good-for-nothing; good to mend other people's broken pots, and little else; knowing more about birds than human beings, and poor company for any one saving the very generous-hearted."

Patsy stamped her foot. "Why can't you play fair? Isn't it only decent to tell who you are and what you were doing on the road when I found you?"

"You know as well as I what I was doing--hanging onto the stump and trying to gather my wits. And don't you think it would be nicer if you talked Irish? It doesn't make a lad feel half as comfortable or as much at home when he is addressed in such perfect English."

Patsy snorted. "In a minute I'll not be addressing you at all. Do you think, if I had known you were what you are, I would ever have been so--so brazen as to ask for your company and tramp along with you for--_two_ days--or be here, now? Oh!" she finished, with a groan and a fierce clenching of her fists.

"No, I don't think so. That's why I didn't hurry about gathering up the wits; it seemed more sociable without them. I wouldn't have bothered with them now, only I couldn't stay in those rags any longer; it wouldn't have been kind to the furniture or the people who own it. These togs were the only things that came anywhere near to fitting me; and, somehow, a three-days' beard didn't match them.

Lucky for me, Heaven blessed the house with a good razor, and, presto! when the beard and the rags were gone the wits came back. I'm awfully sorry if you don't like them--the wits, I mean."

"Sure, ye must be!" Unconsciously Patsy had stepped back onto her native sod and her tongue fairly dripped with irony. "So ye thought ye'd have a morsel o' fun at the expense of a strange la.s.s, while ye laughed up your sleeve at how clever ye were."

"See here! don't be too hard, please! That foolishness was real enough; I had just been knocked over the head by the kind gentleman from whom I borrowed the rags. I paid him a tidy sum for the use of them, and evidently he thought it was a shame to leave me burdened with the balance of my money. Arguing wouldn't have done any good, so he took the simplest way--just sandbagged me and--"

"Was it much money?"

"Mercy, no! Just a few dollars, hardly worth the anaesthesia."

"And ye were--half-witted, then?"

"Half? A bare sixteenth! It wasn't until afternoon--until we reached the church at the cross-roads--that I really came into full possession--" The sentence trailed off into an inexplicable grin.

"And after that, 'twas I played the fool." Patsy's eyes kindled.

The tinker grew serious; he dug his hands deep into his capacious white flannels as if he were very much in earnest. "Can't you understand? If I hadn't played foolish you would never have let me wander with you--you just said so. I knew that, and I was selfish, lonely--and I didn't want to give you up. You can't blame me. When a man meets with genuine comrades.h.i.+p for the first time in his life--the kind he has always wanted, but has grown to believe doesn't exist--he's bound to win a crumb of it for himself, it costs no more than a trick of foolishness. Surely you understand?"

"Oh, I understand! I'm understanding more and more every minute--'tis the gift of your tongue, I'm thinking--and I'm wondering which of us will be finding it the pleasantest." She flashed a look of unutterable scorn upon him. "If ye were not half-witted, would ye mind telling me how we came to be taking the wrong road at the church?"

The tinker choked.

"Aye, I thought so. Ye lied to me."

"No, not exactly; you see--" he floundered helplessly.

"Faith! don't send a lie to mend a lie; 'tis poor business, I can promise ye."

"Well,"--the tinker's tone grew dogged--"was it such a heinous sin, after all, to want to keep you with me a little longer?"

The fire in Patsy's eyes leaped forth at last. "Sin, did ye say? Faith! 'tis the wrong name ye've given it entirely. 'Twas amus.e.m.e.nt, ye meant; the fun of trading on a girl's ignorance and simple-heartedness; the trick of getting the good makings of a tale to tell afterward to other fine gentlemen like yourself."