"You might have told me, all the same!" said Diana, pouting a little.
"Dear child, had I done so would you have called me your old pal? It
is a title dearer to me than any other." Hereupon she brought him the
three-legged stool which, despite his protestations, she forced him to
take. And so we began dinner, though often the Tinker would pause,
food-laden jackknife in mid-air, to steal amazed and surreptitious
glances at his lordship, sitting serenely, the tin plate balanced on
his knees, eating with remarkable appetite and gusto.
"D'ye like it, old pal?" questioned Diana suddenly.
"Diana," answered the Ancient Person with his whimsical look, "words
are sometimes poor and inadequate--I like it beyond expression."
"That's because it's strange to you an' in the open air--"
"Nay, child, I have eaten strange meals amid strange people in
strange, wild places of the earth, but never such a meal as this."
"D'ye mean foreign places--across the sea?" questioned Diana eagerly.
"Yes, I have seen much of the wonders and glories of the world, vasty
deserts, trackless forests, stupendous mountains, mighty rivers, and
yet--and yet what more wonderful than this little island of ours, what
more tenderly beautiful than our green, English countryside? The
thunderous roar of plunging cataracts, the cloud-capped pinnacles of
mighty mountains may fill the soul with awed and speechless wonder,
but for pure joy give me an English coppice of a summer evening when
blackbird and thrush are calling, or to sit and hearken to the
immemorial music of a brook--Friend Jarvis, you write verses, I
believe?"
"Lord, sir--my lord," answered Jeremy, his bronzed cheek flushing,
"how should you know that?"
"I learned the fact from Peregrine who spoke of them in such high
praise that I should much like to read some of them if you would
suffer me--"
"Why, sir," stammered Jeremy, "they're wrote on such scraps an' bits
o' paper, I only write 'em to please myself an'--an'--"
"Because he must!" added Diana.
Pages:
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275