"And he is well?" she asked; "quite--quite well?"

"He is," said I.

"Thank God!" she whispered. "Tell me," she went on, "is he so very, very poor--is he much altered? I have not seen him for a whole, long year."

"Why, a year is apt to change a man," I answered. "Adversity is a hard school, but, sometimes, a very good one."

"Were he changed, no matter how--were be a beggar upon the roads, I should love him--always!" said she, speaking in that soft, caressing voice which only the best of women possess.

"Yes, I had guessed as much," said I, and found myself sighing.

"A year is a long, long time, and we were to have been married this month, but my father quarrelled with him and forbade him the house, so poor Perry went back to London. Then we heard he was ruined, and I almost died with grief--you see, his very poverty only made me love him the more. Yesterday--that man--"

"Sir Harry Mortimer?" said I.

"Yes (he was a friend of whom I had often heard Perry speak); and he told me that my Perry lay at Tonbridge, dying, and begging to see me before the end. He offered to escort me to him, assuring me that I could reach home again long before dusk. My father, who I knew would never permit me to go, was absent, and so--I ran away. Sir Harry had a carriage waiting, but, almost as soon as the door was closed upon us, and we had started, I began to be afraid of him and--and--"

"Sir Harry, as I said before, is an unpleasant animal," I nodded.

"Thank Heaven," she pursued, "we had not gone very far before the chaise broke down! And--the rest you know."

The footpath we had been following now led over a stile into a narrow lane or byway. Very soon we came to a high stone wall wherein was set a small wicket. Through this she led me, and we entered a broad park where was an avenue of fine old trees, beyond which I saw the gables of a house, for the stars had long since paled to the dawn, and there was a glory in the east.

"Your father will be rejoiced to have you safe back again," said I.

"Yes," she nodded, "but he will be very angry." And, hereupon, she stopped and began to pull, and twist, and pat her shining hair with dexterous white fingers, talking thus the while:

"My mother died at my birth, and since then father has worshipped her memory, and his face always grows wonderfully gentle when he looks upon her portrait. They say I'm greatly like her--though she was a famous beauty in her day. And, indeed, I think there must be some truth in it, for, no matter how I may put him out, my father can never be very angry when my hair is dressed so."

With the word, she turned, and truly, I thought the face peeping out from its clustered curls even more lovely and bewitching than before.

"I very much doubt if any man could," said I.

As we approached the house, I saw that the smooth gravel was much cut up as though by the coming and going of many wheels and horses, and also that one of the windows still shone with a bright light, and it was towards this window that my companion led me. In a while, having climbed the terrace steps, I noticed that this was one of those French windows opening to the ground.

Now, looking through into the room beyond, I beheld an old man who sat bowed down at a table, with his white head pillowed upon his arms, sitting so very still that he might have been asleep but for the fierce grip of his twitching hands. Now, upon the table, at no great distance from him, between the guttering candles, lay a hat--a very ill-used, battered-looking object --which I thought I recognized; wherefore, looking about, I presently espied its owner leaning against the mantel. He was powdered with dust from head to foot, and his worn garments looked more ragged than ever; and, as he stood there, in the droop of his head and the listless set of his shoulders, there was an air of the most utter dejection and hopelessness, while upon his thin cheek I saw the glisten of a great, solitary tear.

But, as I looked, the window was burst suddenly open:

"Perry!"

Love, surprise, joy, pity--all were summed up in that one short word--yet deeper than all was love. And, at that cry, the white head was raised, raised in time to see a vision of loveliness caught up in two ragged arms.

"Father!"

And now the three heads--the white, the golden, and the black --were drawn down together, drawn, and held close in an embrace that was indeed reunion.

Then, seeing my presence was become wholly unnecessary, I turned away, and was soon once more deep among the trees. Yet, as I went, I suddenly heard voices that called upon my name, but I kept on, and, in due season, came out upon the broad highway.

And, in a little, as I went, very full of thought, the sun rose up. So I walked along through a world all glorious with morning.

CHAPTER XXII

IN WHICH I MEET WITH A LITERARY TINKER

Even in that drowsy, semi-conscious state, that most delightful borderland which lies midway between sleeping and waking, I knew it could not be the woodpecker who, as I judged from sundry manifest signs, lodged in the tree above me. No woodpecker that ever pecked could originate such sounds as these--two quick, light strokes, followed by another, and heavier, thus: Tap, tap--TAP; a pause, and then, tap, tap--TAP again, and so on.

Whatever doubts I may have yet harbored on the subject, however, were presently dispelled by a fragrance sweeter, to the nostrils of a hungry man, than the breath of flowers, the spices of the East, or all the vaunted perfumes of Arabia--in a word, the odor of frying bacon.

Hereupon, I suddenly realized how exceedingly keen was my appetite, and sighed, bethinking me that I must first find a tavern before I could satisfy my craving, when a voice reached me from no great distance, a full, rich, sonorous voice, singing a song. And the words of the song were these:

"A tinker I am, O a tinker am I, A tinker I'll live, and a tinker I'll die; If the King in his crown would change places wi' me I'd laugh so I would, and I'd say unto he: 'A tinker I am, O a tinker am I.

A tinker I'll live, and a tinker I'll die.'"

It was a quaint air, with a shake at the end of the first two and last two lines, which, altogether, I thought very pleasing. I advanced, guided by the voice, until I came out into a grassy lane. Seated upon an artfully-contrived folding stool, was a man. He was a very small man despite his great voice, who held a kettle between his knees, and a light hammer in his hand, while a little to one side of him there blazed a crackling fire of twigs upon which a hissing frying-pan was balanced. But what chiefly drew and held my attention was the man's face; narrow and peaked, with little, round, twinkling eyes set deep in his head, close black hair, grizzled at the temples, and a long, blue chin.

And presently, as I stood staring at him, he finished his song, and chancing to raise his eyes stared back at me.

"Good morning!" said he at last, with a bright nod.

"So then you didn't cut your throat in the Hollow Oak, after all?" said I.

"Nor likely to either, master," he answered, shaking his head.

"Lord love your eyes and limbs, no!"

"But," said I, "some day or so ago I met a man--"

"Ah!" nodded the Tinker, "to be sure you did."

"A pedler of brooms, and ribands--"

"'Gabbing' Dick!" nodded the Tinker.

"Who told me very seriously--"

"That I'd been found in the big holler oak wi' my throat cut,"

nodded the Tinker.

"But what did he mean by it?"

"Why, y' see," explained the Tinker, leaning over to turn a frizzling bacon-rasher very dexterously with the blade of a jack-knife, "y' see, 'Gabbing' Dick is oncommon fond of murders, hangings, sooicides, and such like--it's just a way he's got."

"A very unpleasant way!" said I.

"But very harmless when all's done and said," added the Tinker.