But he never finished. The scream he had looked for came when he had given up expecting it. Patsy had wrenched herself free from his hold and was leaning over the wind-shield, beckoning frantically to a figure mounted on one of the girders of the bridge. It was a grotesque, vagabond figure in rags, a battered cap on the back of its head.
“Good God!” muttered the man in the car, stiffening.
Luckily for the tinker the car was running again at a moderate speed; the man had slowed up when he saw the rough planking over the bridge, and his hand had not time enough to reach the lever when the tinker was upon him. The car came to an abrupt stop.
Patsy sank back on the seat, white and trembling, as she watched the instant’s grappling of the two, followed by a lurching tumble over the side of the car to the planking. The fall knocked them apart, and for the space of a few quick breaths they half rose and faced each other—the one almost crazed with fury, the other steady, calm, but terrifyingly determined.
Before Patsy could move they were upon each other again—rolling about in the dust, clutching at each other’s throat—now half under the car, now almost through the girders of the bridge, with Patsy’s voice crying a warning. Again they were on their feet, grappling and hitting blindly; then down in the dust, rolling and clutching.
It was plain melodrama of the most banal form; and the most convincing part of it all was the evident personal enmity that directed each blow. Somehow it was borne in upon Patsy that her share in the quarrel was an infinitesimal part; it was the old, old scene in the fourth act: the hero paying up the villain for all past scores.
Like the scene in the fourth act, it came to an end at last. The time came when no answering blow met the tinker’s, when the hand that gripped his throat relaxed and the body back of it went down under him—breathless and inert. Patsy climbed out of the car to make room for the stowing away of its owner. He was conscious, but past articulate speech and thoroughly beaten; and the tinker kindly turned the car about for him and started him slowly off, so as to rid the road of him, as Patsy said. It looked possible, with a careful harboring of strength and persistence, for him to reach eventually the starting-point and his friend of the post-office. As his trail of dust lengthened between them Patsy gave a sigh of relieved content and turned to the tinker.
“Faith, ye are a sight for a sore heart.” Her hand slid into his outstretched one. “I’ll make a bargain with ye: if ye’ll forgive and forget the unfair things I said to ye that night I’ll not stay hurt over your leaving without notice the next morning.”
“It’s a bargain,” but he winced as he said it. “It seems as if our meetings were dependent on a certain amount of—of physical disablement.” He smiled reassuringly. “I don’t really mind in the least. I’d stand for knockout blows down miles of road, if they would bring you back—every time.”
“Don’t joke!” Patsy covered her face. “If—if ye only knew—what it means to have ye standing there this minute!” She drew in her breath quickly; it sounded dangerously like a sob. “If ye only knew what ye have saved me from—and what I am owing ye—” Her hands fell, and she looked at him with a sudden shy concern. “Poor lad! Here ye are—a fit subject for a hospital, and I’m wasting time talking instead of trying to mend ye up. Do ye think there might be water hereabouts where we could wash off some of that—grease paint?”