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 mind That naught can cure—but Rosalind.
With a glad little cry she crumpled the paper in her hand and fled, straight as a throstle to its mate, 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.”