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SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN

by

RUTH SAWYER

Author of
_The Primrose Ring_

Illustrated







Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York & London

SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN

Copyright, 1915, 1916, by The Curtis Publishing Company
Copyright, 1915, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published April, 1916


       *       *       *       *       *


BOOKS BY
RUTH SAWYER

   SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN. Illustrated. Post 8vo
   THE PRIMROSE RING. Illustrated. Post 8vo

   HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *



 [Illustration: (See page 220)
 "Where twin oaks rustle in the wind
 There waits a lad for Rosalind"]




 _TO
 HIMSELF_

 _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."

People had been known to pry into her religion; and on these Patsy
smiled indulgently as one does sometimes on overcurious children.
"Sure, I believe in every one--and as for a church, there's not a
place that goes by the name--synagogue, meeting-house, or
cathedral--that I can't be finding a wee bit of God waiting inside
for me. But I'll own to it, honestly, that when I'm out seeking Him,
I find Him easiest on some hilltop, with the wind blowing hard from
the sea and never a human soul in sight."

This was approximately all the world and the press knew of Patsy
O'Connell, barring the fact that she was neighboring in the twenties,
was fresh, unspoiled, and charming, and that she had played the
ingenue parts with the National Players, revealing an art that
promised a good future, should luck bring the chance. Unfortunately
this chance was not numbered among the prospects Patsy reviewed from
the edge of her hospital cot that day.

The interest of the press and the public approval of the National
Irish Players had not proved sufficient to propitiate that
iron-hearted monster, Financial Success. The company went into
bankruptcy before they had played half their bookings. Their final
curtain went down on a bit of serio-comic drama staged, impromptu, on
a North River dock, with barely enough cash in hand to pay the
company's home passage. On this occasion Patsy had missed her cue for
the first time. She had been left in the wings, so to speak; and that
night she filled the only vacant bed in the women's free ward of the
City Hospital.

It was pneumonia. Patsy had tossed about and moaned with the racking
pain of it, raving deliriously through her score or more of roles.
She had gone dancing off with the Faery Child to the Land of Heart's
Desire; she had sat beside the bier in "The Riders to the Sea"; she
had laughed through "The Full o' Moon," and played the Fool while the
Wise Man died. The nurses and doctors had listened with open-eyed
wonder and secret enjoyment; she had allowed them to peep into a new
world too full of charm and lure to be denied; and then of a sudden
she had settled down to a silent, grim tussle with the "Gray
Brother."

This was all weeks past. It was early June now; the theatrical season
was closed for two months, with no prospects in the booking agencies
until August. In the mean time she had eight dollars, seventy-six
cents, and a crooked sixpence as available collateral; and an unpaid
board bill.

Patsy felt sorry for Miss Gibb, but she felt no shame. Boarding-house
keepers, dressmakers, bootmakers, and the like must take the risk
along with the players themselves in the matter of getting paid for
their services. If the public--who paid two dollars a seat for a
performance--failed to appear, and box-office receipts failed to
margin their salaries, it was their misfortune, not their fault; and
others had to suffer along with them. But these debts of circumstance
never troubled Patsy. She paid them when she could, and when she
could not--there was always her trunk.

The City Hospital happened to know the extent of Patsy's property; it
is their business to find out these little private matters
concerning their free patients. They had also drawn certain
conclusions from the facts that no one had come to see Patsy and that
no communications had reached her from anywhere. It looked to them as
if Patsy were down and out, to state it baldly. Now the Patsys that
come to free wards of city hospitals are very rare; and the
superintendent and staff and nurses were interested beyond the usual
limits set by their time and work and the professional hardening of
their cardiac region.

"She's not to leave here until we find out just who she's got to look
after her until she gets on her feet again, understand"--and the old
doctor tapped the palm of his left hand with his right forefinger, a
sign of important emphasis.

Therefore the day nurse had gone to summon the staff while Patsy
still sat obediently on the edge of her cot, pulling on her vagabond
gloves, reviewing her prospects, and waiting.

"My! but we'll miss you!" came the voice from the woman in the next
bed, who had been watching her regretfully for some time.

"It's my noise ye'll be missing." And Patsy smiled back at her a
winning, comrade sort of smile.

"You kind o' got us all acquainted with one another and thinkin'
