When they reached Falmouth Junction, a railway centre of note, their ways diverged. At the station, Royal bought coffee, sandwiches, and fruit, all of which he shared with the man; and the man gave him two black cigars at parting. Royal liked that furniture-fellow. He considered that when compared with the one-armed miscarrier of justice, the man had the makings of an excellent leprecaun in him; his beard sticking out of the mist was just like a leprecaun’s. But although the man, in his dreamy behindhand (or else beforehand) way, had confided much to Royal, with a wealth of detail as to his youngest child, “cutest kid of the bunch, and a reg’lar Dannle Webster with his spellin’-book,” our traveller did not in return open his heart about his escape from the jail-room. For a long time after that incident, Royal was inclined to suspect both justice and peace in quarters where they were least intended. Falmouth town boasts a traffic policeman; Royal, on spying those bright buttons, took swiftly to the road again. And now, on the last stretch of his wander-week, he bethought himself of the soldier grave on that little hill, scarcely an hour’s walk from the very end of his appointed round. He loved the place; he felt drowsy, in spite of the railway coffee and the fresh morning air, and he wanted to lie down and sleep for a pleasant hour under those pines, his head pillowed on heroic ashes. He phrased it thus to himself, although he knew that he would probably find a better resting-place on the warm ground somewhat removed from the grave. After a good little snatch of sleep, there would be time for a few last touches on the Amaryllis poem, and then, home. The Sumac Sonnet could wait. After all, a beefsteak luncheon has its merits. Royal was more tired than he knew. His pleasant hour of sleep multiplied itself by two, by three, by four. He woke with a start to find that the day was no longer young. He would have to step lively if he hoped to reach home by tea-time; scones, fresh from the oven! But he had just had a very marvellous dream, and surely, before the glamour of it should vanish, he owed it to the world to put some breath of it into his poem. Enthralled by his verses, the poet resented the approach of that other traveller, just puffing up over the western slope of the little hill. The man was forty-five or fifty or even sixty, the boy guessed; oh, ever so old! He was soiled, obese, crumpled, out of breath; he needed a shave. Limp gray hairs straggled behind his plaided cap. His profile was fattened, yet highly predacious. But his tweeds seemed rather better in quality than Royal’s, his shoes no worse. Royal’s bookish theory that you can always tell at a glance whether a man is a gentleman or not fell to pieces under that fugitive’s weary, wary eye. Certainly no poet, our sumac sonneteer decided. Villon never looked quite like that, nor Poe, nor Vachel Lindsay. IV