Seven Miles to Arden

_It leads away, at the ring o' day, On to the beckoning hills; And the throstles sing by the holy spring Which the Blessed Virgin fills.

White is the road and light is the load, For the burden we bear together. Our feet beat time on the upward climb That ends in the purpling heather.

There is spring in the air and everywhere The throb of a life new-born, In mating thrush and blossoming brush, In the hush o' the glowing morn.

Our hearts bound free as the open sea; Where now is our dole o' sorrow? The winds have swept the tears we've wept-- And promise a braver morrow.

But this I pray as we go our way: To find the Hills o' Heather, And, at hush o' night, in peace to light Our roadside fire together._

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE WAY OF IT 1

II. A SIGN-POST POINTS TO AN ADVENTURE 12

III. PATSY PLAYS A PART 25

IV. THE OCCUPANT OF A BALMACAAN COAT 39

V. A TINKER POINTS THE ROAD 48

VI. AT DAY'S END 64

VII. THE TINKER PLAYS A PART 85

VIII. WHEN TWO WERE NOT COMPANY 106

IX. PATSY ACQUIRES SOME INFORMATION 121

X. JOSEPH JOURNEYS TO A FAR COUNTRY 139

XI. AND CHANCE STAGES MELODRAMA INSTEAD OF COMEDY 153

XII. A CHANGE OF NATIONALITY 165

XIII. A MESSAGE AND A MAP 191

XIV. ENTER KING MIDAS 202

XV. ARDEN 216

XVI. THE ROAD BEGINS ALL OVER AGAIN 231

SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN

I

THE WAY OF IT

Patsy O'Connell sat on the edge of her cot in the women's free ward of the City Hospital. She was pulling on a vagabond pair of gloves while she mentally gathered up a somewhat doubtful, ragged lot of prospects and stood them in a row before her for contemplation, comparison, and a final choice. They strongly resembled the contents of her steamer trunk, held at a respectable boarding-house in University Square by a certain Miss Gibb for unpaid board, for these were made up of a jumble of priceless and worthless belongings, unmarketable because of their extremes.

She had time a-plenty for contemplation; the staff wished to see her before she left, and the staff at that moment was consulting at the other end of the hospital.

Properly speaking, Patsy was Patricia O'Connell, but no one had ever been known to refer to her in that cold-blooded manner, save on the programs of the Irish National Plays--and in the City Hospital's register. What the City Hospital knew of Patsy was precisely what the American public and press knew, what the National Players knew, what the world at large knew--precisely what Patricia O'Connell had chosen to tell--nothing more, nothing less. They had accepted her on her own scanty terms and believed in her implicitly. There was one thing undeniably true about her--her reality. Having established this fact beyond a doubt, it was a simple matter to like her and trust her.

No one had ever thought it necessary to question Patsy about her nationality; it was too obvious. Concerning her past and her family she answered every one alike: "Sure, I was born without either. I was found by accident, just, one morning hanging on to the thorn of a Killarney rose-bush that happened to be growing by the Brittany coast. They say I was found by the Physician to the King, who was traveling past, and that's how it comes I can speak French and King's English equally pure; although I'm not denying I prefer them both with a bit of brogue." She always thought in Irish--straight, Donegal Irish--with a dropping of final g's, a bur to the r's, and a "ye" for a "you." Invariably this was her manner of speech with those she loved, or toward whom she felt the kinship of sympathetic understanding.

To those who pushed their inquisitiveness about ancestry to the breaking-point Patsy blinked a pair of steely-blue eyes while she wrinkled her forehead into a speculative frown: "Faith! I can hearken back to Adam the same as yourselves; but if it's some one more modern you're asking for--there's that rascal, Dan O'Connell. He's too long dead to deny any claim I might put on him, so devil a word will I be saying. Only--if ye should find by chance, any time, that I'd rather fight with my wits than my fists, ye can lay that to Dan's door; along with the stubbornness of a tinker's ass."