They made it in another hour, unobserved by the few straggling players on the links.
The stable proved all Patsy had anticipated. She watched the tinker sink, exhausted, on the bedded hay, while she pulled down a forgotten horse-blanket from a near-by peg to throw over him; then she turned in a business-like manner back to the door.
“Are you going to Arden?” came the faint voice of the tinker after her.
“I might—and then again—I mightn’t. Was there any word ye might want me to fetch ahead for ye?”
“No; only—perhaps—would you think a chap too everlastingly impertinent to ask you to wait there for him—until he caught up with you?”
“I might—and then again—I mightn’t.” At the door she stopped, and for the second time considered her hands speculatively. “It wouldn’t inconvenience 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 been correct, then. “And the charity?”
“Yes, I’d take it from you.” The tinker rolled over with a little moan composed of physical pain and mental discomfort. But in another moment he was sitting upright, shaking a mandatory fist at Patsy as she disappeared through the door. “Remember—no help from the quality! I hate them as much as you do, and I won’t have them coming around with their inquisitive, patronizing, supercilious offers of assistance to a—beggar. I tell you I want to be left alone! If you bring any one back with you I’ll burn the stable down about me. Remember!”