A path wound steeply down to the river's edge and to a boat. Kenny stared at it in some resentment.
Well, if he must hunt a bridge he would rest there first beneath the willow. The sun had made him drowsy. He might even camp on the river bank and if ever a foot came down the path and toward the boat, he would fire his revolver into the air and demand attention. The prospect pleased him. He went toward the willow.
Fate having toyed with Kenny tossed him a rose and smiled.
There was a battered horn upon the willow and below a wooden sign:
A battered horn of adventure! What might it not evoke? Woodland spirits perhaps, romance, a ferryman! Thank God the tree was old, the horn battered and the willow naiadic in its grace. A trio of blessing!
Kenny whistled softly in amazed delight and blew the horn. Its blast startled him and the wooded hills seemed to fling the echo back upon him. In better humor he flung himself down beneath a tree to wait for the ferryman--and went peacefully to sleep.
St. Kevin had once fallen asleep at a window with his arms outstretched in prayer; a swallow had made a nest in his hand and the saint had waited for the swallow's young to hatch. Kenny, with the legend dimly adrift in his brain, dreamed that he too must wait until a ferryman grew up. He grew up on the further shore to a youth in patches and then all at once the dream became a beautiful delight. The youth by a twist of woodland magic turned to a maid in a glory of old brocade. Such a maid might have stepped from an ancient tapestry to come in search of a knight of old.
Kenny did not stir. He must keep the dream to the end. If he moved now the maid would vanish.
"Mr. O'Neill!" A hand touched his shoulder.
A haze of old brocade golden in the sunlight retreated and then loomed persistently ahead. The dream if anything became a shade more clear. Well, if a man must dream, let him dream thus, vividly, turning the clock back to maids unbelievably quaint and winsome in old brocade. Sweet as an Irish smile, the face of this one, and as haunting. And beyond, an old flat-bottomed punt and a river, a real river--
Scarlet with confusion, Kenny sprang to his feet. Queen of Heaven! the girl was real. She had stepped from the page of an old romance into life and laughter, wearing for the mystification of chance beholders, an old-time gown of gold brocade! The mystery of her gown, the river setting, the laughing sweetness of her face, rooted him to the spot in wonder and delight. He knew every subtlety of her coloring in one glance. Her soft exquisite eyes were brown. Tragic, they might very well seem pools of ink. Her hair? In the sun there was bronze, deep and vivid, in the shadows brown. And the sun had deepened her skin to cream and tan and rose. Thank God he was a Celt, an artist and an aesthete!