"
Trove made no reply, but he thought much and deeply of what the
tinker said. They lay back a while on the needle carpet, thinking.
They could hear the murmur of the brook and a woodpecker drumming
on a dead tree.
"Me head is busy as yon woodpecker's," Darrel went on. "It's the
soul fire in this great, free garden o' God--it's America. Have ye
felt it, boy?"
"Yes; it is in your eyes and on your tongue," said Trove.
"Ah boy! 'tis only God's oxygen. Think o' the poor fools withering
on cracker barrels in Hillsborough an' wearing away 'the lag end o'
their lewdness.' I have no patience with the like o' them, I'd
rather be a butcher's clerk an' carry with me the redolence o' ham."
In Hillsborough, where all spoke of him as an odd man of great
learning, there were none, saving Trove and two or three others,
that knew the tinker well, for he took no part in the roaring
gossip of shop and store.
"Hath it ever occurred to thee," said Darrel, as they walked along,
"that a fool is blind to his folly, a wise man to his wisdom?"
When they were through the edge of the wilderness and came out on
Cedar Hill, and saw, below them, the great, round shadow of Robin's
Inn, they began to hasten their steps.
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