Darrel of the Blessed Isles | Page 4

me thy youth," said the stranger, quickly, his gray eyes twinkling
under silvered brows.
The boy, now smiling, made no answer.
"No?" said the man, as he came on slowly. "Well, then, were thy wit as
good as thy legs it would be o' some use to me."
The words were spoken with dignity in a deep, kindly tone. They were
also faintly salted with Irish brogue.
He approached the men, all eyes fixed upon him with a look of inquiry.
"Have ye ever seen a drunken sailor on a mast?" he inquired of Allen,
"No."
"Well, sor," said the stranger, dismounting slowly, "I am not that. Let
me consider--have ye ever seen a cocoanut on a plum tree?"
"I believe not," said Allen, laughing.
"Well, sor, that is more like me. 'Tis long since I rode a horse, an' am

out o' place in the saddle."
He stood erect with dignity, a smile deepening the many lines in his
face.
"Can I do anything for you?" Allen asked.
"Ay--cure me o' poverty--have ye any clocks to mend?"
"Clocks! Are you a tinker?" said Allen.
"I am, sor, an' at thy service. Could beauty, me lord, have better
commerce than with honesty?"
They all surveyed him with curiosity and amusement as he tied the
mare.
All had begun to laugh. His words came rapidly on a quick
undercurrent of good nature. A clock sounded the stroke of midday.
"What, ho! The clock," said he, looking at his watch. "Thy time hath a
lagging foot, Marry, were I that slow, sor, I'd never get to Heaven."
"Mother," said Allen, going to the doorstep, "here is a tinker, and he
says the clock is slow."
"It seems to be out of order." said his wife, coming to the step.
"Seems, madam, nay, it is," said the stranger. "Did ye mind the stroke
of it?"
"No," said she.
"Marry, 'twas like the call of a dying man."
Allen thought a moment as he whittled.
"Had I such a stroke on me I'd--I'd think I was parralyzed," the stranger
added.
"You'd better fix it then," said Allen.
"Thou art wise, good man," said the stranger. "Mind the two hands on
the clock an' keep them to their pace or they'll beckon thee to poverty."
The clock was brought to the door-step and all gathered about him as
he went to work.
"Ye know a power o' scripter," said one of the hired men.
"Scripter," said the tinker, laughing. "I do, sor, an' much of it according
to the good Saint William. Have ye never read Shakespeare?"
None who sat before him knew anything of the immortal bard.
"He writ a book 'bout Dan'l Boone an' the Injuns," a hired man
ventured.
"'Angels an' ministers o' grace defend us!'" the tinker exclaimed,
Trove laughed.

"I'll give ye a riddle," said the tinker, turning to him.
"How is it the clock can keep a sober face?"
"It has no ears," Trove answered.
"Right," said the old tinker, smiling. "Thou art a knowing youth. Read
Shakespeare, boy--a little of him three times a day for the mind's sake.
I've travelled far in lonely places and needed no other company."
"Ever in India?" Trove inquired. He had been reading of that far land.
"I was, sor," the stranger continued, rubbing a wheel. "I was five years
in India, sor, an' part o' the time fighting as hard as ever a man could
fight."
"Fighting!" said Trove, much interested.
"I was, sor," he asserted, oiling a pinion of the old clock.
"On which side?"
"Inside an' outside."
"With natives?"
"I did, sor; three kinds o' them,--fever, fleas, an' the divvle."
"Give us some more Shakespeare," said the boy, smiling.
The tinker rubbed his spectacles thoughtfully, and, as he resumed his
work, a sounding flood of tragic utterance came out of him--the great
soliloquies of Hamlet and Macbeth and Richard III and Lear and
Antony, all said with spirit and appreciation. The job finished, they
bade him put up for dinner.
"A fine colt!" said Allen, as they were on their way to the stable.
"It is, sor," said the tinker, "a most excellent breed o' horses."
"Where from?"
"The grandsire from the desert of Arabia, where Allah created the horse
out o' the south wind. See the slender flanks of the Barbary? See her
eye?"
He seemed to talk in that odd strain for the mere joy of it, and there was
in his voice the God-given vanity of bird or poet.
He had caught the filly by her little plume and stood patting her
forehead.
"A wonderful thing, sor, is the horse's eye," he continued. "A glance!
an' they know if ye be kind or cruel. Sweet Phyllis! Her eyelids are as
bows; her lashes like the beard o' the