“The fool,” said the tinker, solemnly; and then of a sudden he threw back his head and laughed.
Patsy stopped still on the road and considered him narrowly. “Couldn’t ye laugh again?” she suggested when the laugh was ended. “It improves ye wonderfully.” An afterthought flashed in her mind. “After all’s said and done, the fool is the best part in the whole play.”
After this they tramped along in silence. The tinker kept a little in advance, his head erect, his hands swinging loosely at his sides, his eyes on nothing at all. He seemed oblivious of what lay back of him or before him—and only half conscious of the companion at his side. But Patsy’s fancy was busy with a hundred things, while her eyes went afield for every scrap of prettiness the country held. There were meadows of brilliant daisies, broken by clumps of silver poplars, white birches, and a solitary sentinel pine; and there was the roadside tangle with its constant surprises of meadowsweet and columbine, white violets—in the swampy places—and once in a while an early wild rose.
“In Ireland,” she mused, “the gorse would be out, fringing the pastures, and on the roadside would be heartsease and faery thimbles, and perhaps a few late primroses; and the meadow would be green with corn.” A faint wisp of a sigh escaped her at the thought, and the tinker looked across at her questioningly. “Sure, it’s my heart hungering a bit for the bogland and a whiff of the turf smoke. This exile idea is a grand one for a play, but it gets lonesome at times in real life. Maybe ye are Irish yourself?”
“Maybe.”
It was Patsy’s turn to glance across at the tinker, but all she saw was the far-away, wondering look that she had seen first in his face. “Poor lad! Like as not he finds it hard remembering where he’s from; they all do. I’ll not pester him again.”
He looked up and caught her eyes upon him and smiled foolishly.
Patsy smiled back. “Do ye know, lad, I’ve not had a morsel of breakfast this day. Have ye any money with ye, by chance?”
The tinker stopped, put down his kit, and hunted about in his rags where the pocket places might be; but all he drew forth were his two empty hands. He looked down the stretch of road they had come with an odd twist to his mouth, then he burst forth into another laugh.