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diff --git a/16954-8.txt b/16954-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d76ad3 --- /dev/null +++ b/16954-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5859 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, "Us", by Mary Louisa S. Molesworth, +Illustrated by Walter Crane + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: "Us" + An Old Fashioned Story + + +Author: Mary Louisa S. Molesworth + + + +Release Date: October 27, 2005 [eBook #16954] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "US"*** + + +E-text prepared by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Ted Garvin, Emmy, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 16954-h.htm or 16954-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/9/5/16954/16954-h/16954-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/9/5/16954/16954-h.zip) + + + + + +"US" + +An Old Fashioned Story + +by + +MRS MOLESWORTH + +Author of "carrots", "cuckoo Clock", etc. + +With Illustrations by Walter Crane + + + + + + +[Illustration: IN ANOTHER MOMENT TOBY'S NOSE WAS IN THE BOWL TOO, TO +TOBY'S SUPREME CONTENT!--p. 26. _Front_] + + +[Illustration] + + +London: +MacMillan & Co. Ltd + +1899 + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + PAGE +HOW THEY CAME TO BE "US" 1 + + CHAPTER II. +BREAD AND MILK 20 + + CHAPTER III. +QUEER VISITORS 40 + + CHAPTER IV. +BABES IN A WOOD 59 + + CHAPTER V. +TIM 79 + + CHAPTER VI. +TOBY AND BARBARA 100 + + CHAPTER VII. +DIANA'S PROMISE 119 + + CHAPTER VIII. +NEW HOPES 139 + + CHAPTER IX. +CROOKFORD FAIR 156 + + CHAPTER X. +A BOAT AND A BABY 177 + + CHAPTER XI. +A SAD DILEMMA 197 + + CHAPTER XII. +GOOD-BYE TO "US" 218 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + +IN ANOTHER MOMENT TOBY'S NOSE WAS IN THE BOWL TOO, + TO TOBY'S SUPREME CONTENT Front. + +FROM BEHIND SOME STUBBLE A FEW YARDS OFF ROSE THE + FIGURE OF THE YOUNG BOY WHOM THE CHILDREN HAD + SEEN WALKING BEHIND THE GIPSIES--WHISTLING + WHILE HE CUT AT A BRANCH HE HELD IN HIS HAND Page 74 + +"HERE'S SOME SUPPER FOR YOU. WAKE UP, AND TRY + AND EAT A BIT. IT'LL DO YOU GOOD" 89 + +"THEY WANT OUT A BIT," SHE SAID. "THEY'RE TIRED + LIKE WITH BEING MEWED UP IN THERE ALL DAY AND + NEVER A BREATH OF AIR--NO WONDER" 132 + +"UPON MY WORD THEY ARE SOMETHING QUITE OUT OF THE + COMMON," HE SAID; "I WOULDN'T HAVE MISSED + THEM FOR A GOOD DEAL. WHAT A KING AND QUEEN + OF THE PIGMIES, OR 'BABES IN THE WOOD,' THEY'D + MAKE" 173 + +"I DO FINK WHEN US IS QUITE BIG AND CAN DO AS US + LIKES, US MUST HAVE A BOAT LIKE THIS, AND ALWAYS + GO SAILING ALONG" 195 + + + + "She is telling them stories of the wood, + And the Wolf and Little Red Riding-Hood." + _The Golden Legend._ + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +HOW THEY CAME TO BE "US." + + "Blue were their eyes as the fairy-flax, + Their cheeks like the dawn of day." + LONGFELLOW. + + +A soft rather shaky sort of tap at the door. It does not all at once +reach the rather deaf ears of the little old lady and tall, still older +gentleman who are seated in their usual arm-chairs, one with his +newspaper by the window, the other with her netting by the fire, in the +exceedingly neat--neat, indeed, is no word for it--"parlour" of Arbitt +Lodge. In what part of the country this queerly-named house was--is +still, perhaps--to be found there is no particular reason for telling; +whence came this same queer name will be told in good time. The parlour +suited _its_ name anyway better far than it would that of +"drawing-room," which would be given it nowadays. There was a round +table in the middle; there were high-backed mahogany chairs against the +wall, polished by age and careful rubbing to that stage of dark +shininess which makes even mahogany pleasant to the eye, and with seats +of flowering silk damask whose texture must have been _very_ good to be +so faded without being worn; there were spindle-legged side-tables +holding inlaid "papier-maché" desks and rose-wood work-boxes, and two or +three carved cedar or sandal-wood cases of various shapes. And, most +tempting of all to my mind, there were glass-doored cupboards in the +wall, with great treasures of handleless teacups and very fat teapots, +not to speak of bowls and jugs of every form and size; and everything, +from the Indian box with the ivory chessmen to the china Turk with his +long pipe of green spun-glass, sitting cross-legged on the high +mantelpiece between a very sentimental lady and gentleman, also of +china, who occupied its two ends,--_everything_ was exactly and +precisely in its own place, in what had been its own place ever since +the day, now more than thirty years ago, when Grandpapa, the tall old +gentleman, had retired from the army on half-pay and come to settle down +at Arbitt Lodge for the rest of his life with Grandmamma and their son +Marmaduke. A very small Marmaduke, for he was the only one left of a +pretty flock who, one after the other, had but hovered down into the +world for a year or two to spread their tiny wings and take flight +again, leaving two desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlour +at Arbitt Lodge had _that_ little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to +run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, +to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in _his_ time +faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of +pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly +as--ah! but I am forgetting--never mind, I may as well finish the +sentence--just exactly as it made "us" sneeze now! + +After the tap came a kind of little pattering and scratching, like baby +taps, not quite sure of their own existence; then, had Grandpapa's and +Grandmamma's ears been a very little sharper, they could not but have +heard a small duel in words. + +"_You_, bruvver, my fingers' bones is tired." + +"I _told_ you, sister," reproachfully, "us should always bring old +Neddy's nose downstairs with us. They never hear _us_ tapping." + +Then a faint sigh or two and a redoubled assault, crowned with success. +Grandmamma, whom after all I am not sure but that I have maligned in +calling her deaf--the taps were so very faint really!--Grandmamma looks +up from her netting, and in a thin but clear voice calls out, "Come in!" + + +The door opens--then, after admitting the entrance of two small figures, +is carefully closed again, and the two small figures, with a military +salute from the boy, a bob, conscientiously intended for a curtsey, from +the girl, advance a step or two into the room. + +"Grandmamma," say the two high-pitched baby voices, speaking so exactly +together that they sound but as one. "Grandmamma, it's '_us_.'" + +Still no response. Grandmamma is not indifferent--far from it--but just +at this moment her netting is at a critical stage impossible to +disregard; she _thinks_ to herself "wait a moment, my dears," and is +quite under the impression that she has said it aloud; this is a +mistake, but all the same "my dears" do wait a moment--several moments +indeed, hand-in-hand, uncomplainingly, without indeed the very faintest +notion in their faithful little hearts that there is anything to +complain of--there are _some_ lessons to be learnt from children long +ago, I think,--while Grandmamma tries to secure her knots. + +Look at them while they stand there; it is always a good plan to save +time, and we have a minute or two to spare. They are so alike in size +and colour and feature that if it had not been that one was a boy and +the other a girl, there would have been no telling them apart. Before +Duke was put into the first stage of boy-attire--what that exactly was +in those days I confess I am not sure--they never _had_ been told apart +was the fact of the matter, till one day the brilliant idea struck +Grandmamma of decorating little Pamela with a coral necklace. She little +knew what she was about; both babies burst into howling distress, and +were not to be quieted even when the unlucky beads were taken away; no, +indeed, they only cried the more. Grandmamma and Nurse were at their +wits' end, and Grandpapa's superior intelligence had at last to be +appealed to. And not in vain. + +"They must _each_ have one," said Grandpapa solemnly. And so it had to +be. In consequence of which fine sense of justice and firm determination +on the part of the babies, they went on "not being told apart" till, as +I said, the day came when Marmaduke's attire began to be cut after a +different fashion, and by degrees he arrived at his present dignity of +nankin suits complete. Such funny suits you would think them +now--funnier even than Pamela's white frock, with its skirt to the +ankles and blue-sashed waist up close under the arm-pits, for even if +she walked in just as I describe her you would only call her "a +Kate-Greenway-dressed little girl." But Marmaduke's light yellow +trousers, buttoning up _over_ his waistcoat, with bright brass buttons, +and open yellow jacket to match, would look odd. Especially on such a +very little boy--for he and Pamela, as they stand there with their +flaxen hair falling over their shoulders and their very blue eyes gazing +solemnly before them, wondering when either of the old people will think +fit to speak to "us"--Pamela and he are only "six last birfday." + +All this time Grandpapa is in happy--no, I won't say "happy," for the +old gentleman is always, to give him his due, pleased to welcome the +children to his presence, "at the right time and in the right manner," +be it understood--in _complete_ unconsciousness of their near +neighbourhood. There was nothing to reveal it; they had not left the +door open so as to cause a draught, for Grandpapa abhorred draughts; +they were as still and quiet as two little mice, when mice _are_ quiet +that is to say. For often in the middle of the night, when my sleep has +been disturbed by these same little animals who have been held up as a +model for never disturbing any one, I have wondered how they gained this +distinction! "When mouses is quiet, perhaps it's cos they isn't there," +said a little boy I know, and the remark seems to me worthy of deep +consideration. + +Grandpapa was absorbed in his newspaper, for it was newspaper day for +_him_, and newspaper day only came once a week, and when it--the paper, +not the day--did come, it was already the best part of a week old. For +it came all the way from London, and that not by the post, as we +understand the word, but by the post of those days, which meant "his +Majesty's mail," literally speaking, and his Majesty's mail took a very +long time indeed to reach outlying parts of the country, for all the +brave appearance, horses foaming, whips cracking, and flourishing of +horns, not to say trumpets, with which it clattered over the stones of +the "High Streets" of those days. And the paper--poor two-leaved, +miserable little pretence that _we_ should think it--cost both for +itself and for its journey from London, oh so dear! I am afraid to say +how much, for I should be sorry to exaggerate. But "those days" are +receding ever farther and farther from us, and as I write it comes over +me sadly that it is no use _now_ to leave a blank on my page and say to +myself, "I will ask dear such a one, or such an other. He or she will +remember, and I will fill it in afterwards." For those dear ones of the +last generation are passing from us--have already passed from us in such +numbers that we who were young not so very long ago shall ere long find +ourselves in their places. So I would rather not say what Grandpapa's +newspaper cost, but certainly it was dear enough and rare enough for him +to think of little else the day it came; and I don't suppose he would +have noticed the two children at all, till Grandmamma had made him do +so, had it not been that just as they were beginning to be a _little_ +tired, to whisper to each other, "Suppose us stands on other legs for a +change," something--I don't know what--for his snuff-box had been lying +peacefully in his waistcoat pocket ever since Dymock, his old +soldier-servant, had brought in the newspaper--made him sneeze. And with +the sneeze he left off looking at the paper and raised his eyes, and his +eyes being very good ones for his age--much better in comparison than +his ears--he quickly caught sight of his grandchildren. + +"So ho!" he exclaimed, "and _you_ are there, master and missy! I did not +know it was already so late. Grave news, my love," he added, turning to +Grandmamma; "looks like war again. The world is trying to go too fast," +he went on, turning to his paper. "They are actually speaking of running +a new mail-coach from London which should reach Sandlingham in three +days. It is appalling,--why, I remember when I was young it took----" + +"It is flying in the face of Providence, _I_ should say, my dear," +interrupted Grandmamma. + +The two little faces near the door grew still more solemn. What strange +words big people used!--what could Grandpapa and Grandmamma mean? But +Grandpapa laid down his paper and looked at them again; Grandmamma too +by this time was less embarrassed by her work. The children felt that +they had at last attracted the old people's attention. + +"We came, Grandpapa and Grandmamma, to wish you good-night," began Duke. + +"And to hope you will bo'f sleep very well," added Pamela. + +This little formula was repeated every evening with the same ceremony. + +"Thank you, my good children," said Grandpapa encouragingly; on which +the little couple approached and stood one on each side of him, while he +patted the flaxen heads. + +"I may call you 'my good children' to-night, I hope?" he said +inquiringly. + +The two looked at each other. + +"Bruvver has been good, sir," said the little girl. + +"Sister has been good, sir," said the little boy. + +The two heads were patted again approvingly. + +"But us haven't _bo'f_ been good," added the two voices together. + +Grandpapa looked very serious. + +"Indeed, how can that be?" he said. + +There was a pause of consideration. Then a bright idea struck little +Marmaduke. + +"I think perhaps it was _most_ Toby," he said. "Us was running, and Toby +too, and us felled down, and Toby barked, and when us got up again it +was all tored." + +"What?" said Grandpapa, still very grave. + +"Sister's gown, sir." + +"My clean white gown," added Pamela impressively; "but bruvver didn't do +it. _He_ said so." + +"And sister didn't do it. _She_ said so," stated Duke. "But Nurse said +_one_ of us had done it. Only I don't think she had thought of Toby." + +"Perhaps not," said Grandpapa. "Let us hope it was Toby." + +"Nevertheless," said Grandmamma, who had quite disengaged herself from +her netting by this time, "Pamela must remember that she is growing a +big missy, and it does not become big misses to run about so as to tear +their gowns." + +Pamela listened respectfully, but Grandmamma's tone was not alarming. +The little girl slowly edged her way along from Grandpapa's chair to +Grandmamma's. + +"Did you never tear your gowns when you were a little missy, +Grandmamma?" she inquired, looking up solemnly into the old lady's face. +Grandmamma smiled, and looked across at her husband rather slily. He +shook his head. + +"Who would think it indeed?" he said, smiling in turn. "Listen, my +little girl, but be sure you tell it again to no one, for it was a +little bird told it to me, and little birds are not fond of having their +secrets repeated. Once upon a time there was not a greater hoyden in all +the countryside than your Grandmamma there. She swam the brooks, she +climbed the trees, she tore her gowns----" + +"Till at last my poor mother told the pedlar the next time he came round +he must bring her a web of some stuff that _wouldn't_ tear to dress me +in," said Grandmamma; "and to this day I mind me as if it had been but +last week of the cloth he brought. Sure enough it would neither tear nor +wear, and oh how ugly it was! 'Birstle peas' colour they called it, and +how ashamed I was of the time I had to wear it. 'Little miss in her +birstle-peas gown' was a byword in the countryside. No, my Pamela, I +should be sorry to have to dress you in such a gown." + +"I'll try not to tear my nice white gowns," said the little girl; "Nurse +said she would mend it, but it would take her a long time. Grandmamma," +she went on, suddenly changing the subject, "what does a 'charge' mean, +'a great charge?'" + +"Yes," said Marmaduke, who heard what she said, "'a _very_ great +charge.'" + +Grandpapa's eyes grew brighter. + +"Can they be speaking of a field of battle?" he said quickly. But Duke +turned his large wistful blue eyes on him before Grandmamma had time to +answer. + +"No, sir," he said, in his slow earnest way, "it wasn't about battles; +it was about _us_." + +"She said _us_ was that thing," added Pamela. + +"Who said so?" inquired Grandmamma, and her voice was perhaps a little, +a very little, sharp. + +"Nurse said it," said Pamela. "It was when us had felled down, and the +old woman was at the door of her house, and she asked if us was hurt, +and Nurse was vexed, and then she said that." + +"What old woman?" asked Grandmamma again. + +"Her that makes the cakes," said Duke. + +"Oh, Barbara Twiss!" said the old lady in a tone of relief. "Now, my +dear children, kiss Grandpapa and kiss me, and say good-night. I will +explain to you when you are bigger what Nurse meant. God bless you and +give you a nice sleep till to-morrow morning!" + +The two little creatures obeyed at once. No "oh, _mayn't_ we stay ten +minutes"'s, "just _five_ minutes then, oh please"'s--so coaxingly urged, +so hard to refuse--of the little ones of our day! No, Marmaduke and +Pamela said their "good-nights" in dutiful fashion, stopping a moment at +the door before leaving the room, there to execute the military salute +and the miniature curtsey, and went off to bed, their curiosity still +unsatisfied, as children's curiosity often had to remain in those times +when "wait till you are big and then you will be told" was the regular +reply to questions it was not easy or desirable to answer otherwise. + +There was a moment's silence when they had left the room. Grandpapa's +face was once more hidden in his newspaper; Grandmamma had taken up her +netting again, but it did not go on very vigorously. + +"I must warn Nurse," she said at last. "She means no harm, but she must +be careful what she says before the children. She forgets how big they +are growing, and how they notice all they hear." + +"It was no great harm, after all," said Grandpapa, more than half, to +tell the truth, immersed in his paper. + +"Not as said to a discreet person like Barbara," replied Grandmamma. +"But still--they have the right to all we can give them, the little +dears, as long as we are here to give it. I could not bear them ever to +have the idea that we felt them a burden." + +"Certainly not," agreed Grandpapa, looking up for a moment. "A _burden_ +they can never be; still it is a great responsibility--a great charge, +in one sense, as Nurse said--to have in our old age. For, do the best we +can, my love, we cannot be to them what their parents would have been. +Nor can we hope to be with them till we can see them able to take care +of themselves." + +"There is no knowing," said Grandmamma. "God is good. He may spare us +yet some years for the little ones' sakes. And it is a mercy to think +they have each other. It is always 'us' with them--never 'me.'" + +"Yes," said Grandpapa, "they love each other dearly;" and as if that +settled all the difficulties the future might bring, he disappeared +finally into the newspaper. + +Grandmamma, for her part, _meant_ to disappear into her netting. But +somehow it did not go on as briskly as usual. Her hands seemed to lag, +and more than once she was startled by a tear rolling quickly down her +thin soft old cheek--one of the slow-coming, touching tears of old age. +She would have been sorry for Grandpapa to see that she was crying; she +was always cheerful with him. But of that there was no fear. So +Grandmamma sat and cried a little quietly to herself, for the children's +innocent words had roused some sad thoughts, and brought before her some +pictures of happy pasts and happy "might-have-beens." + +"It is strange," she thought to herself, "very strange to think of--that +we two, old and tired and ready to rest, should be here left behind by +them all. All my pretty little ones, who might almost, some of them, +have been grandparents themselves by this time! Left behind to take care +of Duke's babies--ah, my brave boy, that was the hardest blow of all! +The others were too delicate and fragile for this world--I learnt not to +murmur at their so quickly taking flight. But he--so strong and full of +life--who had come through all the dangers of babyhood and childhood, +who had grown up so good and manly, so fit to do useful work in the +world--was there no other victim for the deadly cholera's clutch, out +there in the burning East?" and Grandmamma shuddered as a vision of the +terrible scenes of a plague-stricken land, that she had more than once +seen for herself, passed before her. "We had little cause to rejoice in +the times of peace when they came. It would have seemed less terrible +for him to be killed on the battlefield. Still--it was on the +battlefield of duty. My boy, my own good boy! No wonder she could not +live without him--poor, gentle little Lavinia, almost a child herself. +Though if she had been but a little stronger,--if she could but have +breasted the storm of sorrow till her youth came back again to her a +little in the pleasure of watching these dear babies improving as they +did,--she might have been a great comfort to us, and she would have +found work to do which would have kept her from over-grieving. Poor +Lavinia! How well I remember the evening they arrived--she and the two +poor yellow shrivelled-up looking little creatures. I remember, sad at +heart as we were--only two months after the bitter news of my boy's +death!--Nurse and I could almost have found it in our hearts to laugh +when the ayah unwrapped them for us to see. They were so like two +miserable little unfledged birds! And poor Lavinia so proud of them, +through her tears--what did she know of babies, poor dear?--and looking +so anxiously to see what we thought of them. I _could_ not say they were +pretty--Duke's children though they were." And a queer little +sound--half laugh, half sob--escaped from Grandmamma at the +recollection. But it did not matter--Grandpapa was too deaf to hear. So +she dried her eyes again quietly with her fine lavender-scented cambric +pocket-handkerchief, and went on with her recollections all to herself. +She seemed to see the two tiny creatures gradually--very +gradually--growing plump and rosy in the sweet fresh English air, the +look of unnatural old age that one sometimes sees in very delicate +babies by degrees fading away as the thin little faces grew round and +even dimpled; then came the recollection of the first toddling walk, +when the two kept tumbling against each other, so that even the sad-eyed +young widow could not help laughing; the first lisping words, which, +alas, might not be the sweet baby names for father or mother--for by +that time poor Lavinia had faded out of life, with words of whispered +love and thankfulness to the grandparents so willing to do their utmost. +But it was a sad little story at best, and even Grandmamma's brave old +heart trembled when she thought that it might come to be sadder still. + + +"What would become of them if they were left _quite_ alone in the +world," she could not help saying to herself. "And though I am not so +old as my dear husband by ten years, I cannot picture myself finding +strength to live without him, nor would a poor old woman like me be much +good to the young creatures if I did! But one must not lose courage, nor +grieve about troubles before they come. For, after all, who would ever +have believed these two poor fledglings would grow up to be two bonnie +bairnies like Marmaduke and Pamela now!" + +And for the last time that evening Grandmamma again wiped her +eyes--though these tears were of thankfulness and motherly pride in the +thought of the sweet and pretty children upstairs, who at that moment +were kneeling in their little white nightgowns, one on each side of old +Nurse, as they solemnly repeated after her the Lord's Prayer, and after +that their own evening petitions that "God would bless dear Grandpapa +and Grandmamma, and make 'us' very good children, and a comfort to them +in their old age." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +BREAD AND MILK. + + "Words which tenderness can speak + From the truths of homely reason." + WORDSWORTH. + + +Grandmamma would probably have spoken to Nurse the next day about being +careful as to what she said before the children, had not the next day +brought rather a commotion. Nurse was ill, which, old as she, too, was, +rarely happened. It was a bad attack of rheumatism, and very likely its +coming on had made her less patient than usual the day before. However +that may have been, Grandmamma was far too sorry to see her suffering to +say anything which might have troubled her, for she was already +distressed enough at not being able to get up and go about as usual. + +"Never mind, Nurse," said the children to console her, when a message +had been brought from Grandmamma in the morning to say that Nurse was on +no account to try to get up till the doctor had seen her, "us is going +to be very good. Us can do all your work, and you can stay in bed till +your legs is not cracked any more," for they had heard her complaining +of her knees and ankles being "wracked" with pain. + +On the whole I am afraid Duke and Pamela did not think Nurse's +rheumatism altogether an "ill-wind," as they sat on their high chairs at +breakfast at the nursery table. + +"Shall you eat all yours up, bruvver?" asked Pamela, pointing to the +bowl of bread and milk which Duke was discussing. + +"Shall you?" asked Duke warily, before committing himself. + +Pamela looked contemplatively at her bowl. + +"I think I'll leave just a very little," she said. "Cook won't see. I +wish the bowls wasn't _quite_ so big." + +"_Cook_ wouldn't see if us left a great deal," said Duke insinuatingly, +but Pamela looked shocked. + +"That would be very naughty," she said. "_If_ you leave a great deal, +Duke, I'll have to put it in the cupboard myself." + +Upon which mysterious hint Duke set to work valiantly. But he had a +small appetite, and so had Pamela. It was almost the only remains of +their having been such delicate little children, and perhaps if they had +been _too_ much given in to about eating, they would have ended by +eating almost nothing at all, and being much less strong and well than +they were. Nurse, who had come to them from a family of great strong +boys and girls at a country rectory, had no patience with "fads and +fancies;" and as, on the whole, the children had prospered wonderfully +under her care and she was really good to them, Grandmamma did not often +interfere, nor did it ever occur to them to complain, even though +nowadays children would, I think, find some of old Nurse's rules very +much to be complained of indeed. Of these one was, that if the children +did not finish the bowl of bread and milk at breakfast it was put away +in the nursery cupboard and had to be eaten, cold and uninviting-looking +as it had then become, before anything else at dinner-time. This was a +sore trouble to the little brother and sister, more especially as if +they did not finish the bread and milk they could not expect to have the +treat waiting for them downstairs in the dining-room at Grandpapa's and +Grandmamma's breakfast--of a cup of weak but sweet tea and a tiny slice +of bread and butter or toast, with sometimes the tops of the old +people's eggs, and at others a taste of honey, or marmalade, or +strawberry jam, all daintily set out by Grandmamma's own little white +hands! + +So for every reason Duke and Pamela wished to eat up the bread and milk +to the last spoonful. It was not that they did not like it--it was as +good and nice as bread and milk could be, and they were not dainty. Only +they could not eat so much! This morning they had not half finished when +their appetites began to flag. Perhaps it was with the excitement of +Nurse being absent--perhaps they chattered and "played" over their +breakfast, not having her to keep them up to the mark--I can't say. But +the bowls were still deplorably full, though the milk was no longer +steaming, and the little squares of bread had lost their neat shape, and +were all "squashy" together, when Duke threw down his spoon in despair. + +"I can't eat any more, sister. I cannot try any more." + +Pamela opened her lips to make some reproach; she was a very "proper" +little girl, as you have probably discovered, but the words died away +before they were uttered, as her eyes fell on her own bowl, and with a +deep sigh she said: + +"I'm afraid I can't finish mine either. And after us saying to Nurse +about going to be so good." + +Her blue eyes began to look very dewy. Duke, who could not bear to see +his dear "sister" sad, spoke out (in Nurse's absence be it observed) +valiantly--more so, it must be confessed, than was his wont. + +"I don't see that it's naughty of us not to eat more when us isn't +hungry for more. _I_ think it would be like little pigs to eat more than +they want. Little pigs would go on eating all day just 'cos they're too +silly, and they've got nothing else to do." + +"But," objected Pamela, "us haven't eaten as much as us _can_, Duke, for +you know downstairs us _could_ eat Grandmamma's treat. _I_ could--I +could snap it up in a minute, and the tea too, and yet I _can't_ eat any +more bread and milk!" and she gazed at the bowl with a puzzled as well +as doleful expression. "I'm afraid--yes, I'm afraid, Duke, that us is +dainty like Master Frederick and Miss Lucy in 'Amusing Tales.' And Nurse +says it is so very naughty to be dainty when so many poor children would +fink our bread and milk such a great treat." + +"I'm sure I wish, then, they'd come and eat it," said Duke. "I'd be very +glad to give it them." + +His boldness quite took away his sister's breath, and she looked up at +him in astonishment. + +"_Bruvver!_" she said reproachfully. + +"Well, there's nothing naughty in that. It would be much better than +letting it all be wasted. And----" but just at that moment came a queer +little sound at the door, which made Duke tumble off his high chair as +fast as he could, and hurry to open it. + +"It's Toby," he cried. + +Toby, sure enough, it was--Toby with his little black nose and bright +eyes gleaming from behind the overhanging shaggy hair, that no one _but_ +a Toby could have seen through without squinting--Toby, rather subdued +and meekly inquiring at first, as if not quite sure of his welcome, +till--a glance round the room satisfying him that there was no one to +dread, no one but his two dearly-beloved friends--his courage returned, +and he rushed towards them with short yelps of delight, twisting about +his furry little body, and wagging his queer short feathery tail, till +one could not tell what was what of him, and almost expected to see him +shake himself into bits! + +"Toby, dear Toby!" cried the children, all their perplexities forgotten +for the moment. "_How_ clever of him--isn't it?--to come to see us this +morning, just as if he knew us was alone. Dear Toby--but hush! don't +make a noise, Toby, or Nurse may be vexed--are you so pleased to see us, +Toby?" + +Suddenly Duke separated himself from the group of three all rolling in a +heap on the floor together and made for the table, and before Pamela +could see what he was doing he was back again--his bowl, into which he +had poured the contents of his sister's as well, in his hand, and in +another moment Toby's nose was in the bowl too, to Toby's supreme +content! It was done now--there was no stopping him till _he_ had done. +Aghast, and yet filled with admiration, Pamela could only express her +feelings by the one word--"Bruvver!" + +"Isn't it a good thought?" said Duke. "Why, he'll have finished it all +in a minute, and nobody will ever know that it wasn't us. And nothing +will have been wasted. There now," as Toby, having really made +wonderfully quick work, lifted from the now empty bowl his hairy muzzle +bespattered with remains of bread and milk, which he proceeded to lick +away with his sharp bright-red tongue, with an air of the greatest +satisfaction. + +For a moment or two Pamela's face expressed nothing but approval. But +gradually a little cloud stole over it. + +"What shall us say if Grandpapa and Grandmamma ask if us have eaten all +our bread and milk?" she said. + +Duke considered. + +"Us can say the bowls are quite empty. _That_ won't be a story," and +Pamela's face cleared again. Just then she had no time for second +thoughts, for the sound of a bell ringing downstairs made both children +start. + +"Prayers," they exclaimed, and as they said the word a young housemaid +put her face in at the door. + +"Master Duke and Miss Pamela," she said, "Nurse says I'm to take you +down to prayers. But you must come first to wash your hands and smooth +your hair." + +A very correct little couple presented themselves a few minutes later at +the dining-room door, and after the salute and the curtsey, and wishing +Grandpapa and Grandmamma "a very good morning," seated themselves one on +each side of the old lady, while Grandpapa read from the prayer-book a +few verses of the Bible, the Collect of last Sunday, and two or three +prayers for the benefit of the whole family, including a row of neat, +mostly elderly, servants near the door. Duke and Pamela listened +attentively, their hands crossed on their knees, their eyes fixed on +Grandpapa--no fidgetting or staring about or making signs to each other. +Such things would probably have been severely punished. + +And then came what was almost the happiest part of the day for +"us,"--breakfast number two; that is, breakfast with Grandpapa and +Grandmamma. With the greatest interest they watched to see what was to +be given them. This morning there were no eggs, but there were some +tempting little slices of toast, fresh butter, and a glass dish of +honey, clear as amber, with which materials Grandmamma proceeded to +fabricate two delicious sandwiches, having already filled the little +cups with weak, but, this morning, sugarless tea. + +"No need to put sugar when you are eating honey. You would not taste +it," she explained. "Now, then, is not that a nice little treat for my +two good children?" and Duke and Pamela were eagerly drawing in their +chairs when another question from Grandmamma suddenly reminded them of +what they had for the time forgotten. "You ate your breakfast nicely +upstairs, I hope? Did you finish all the bread and milk?" + +Brother looked at sister and sister looked at brother. Both grew rosier +than usual, but Grandmamma, though fairly quick of hearing, was somewhat +near-sighted. Pamela touched Duke without the old lady seeing, and +_looked_ what he understood--"Let us tell, Duke." But Duke would not +allow himself to think he did understand. The tea and the honey +sandwiches were so tempting! + +"The bowls were quite empty, Grandmamma," he said. And Grandmamma, who +had wondered a little at their hesitation in answering, seemed relieved. +For, kind as she was, "rules were rules," to Grandmamma's thinking; and, +though it would have pained her more than the children, she would +certainly have thought it right to send them upstairs treatless had the +answer been different. + +"That is well," she said cheerfully, and then the two climbed on to +their chairs and drew their cups and plates close to them; while +Grandmamma went round to her own end of the table, where--for she was a +very tiny little old lady--she was almost hidden from view by the large +silver tea-urn. She went on talking to Grandpapa, and the children set +to work at what was before them. They were quite silent; not that they +ever thought of really speaking, except when "spoken to," at their +grandparents' table, but no little whispers or smiles passed between +themselves as usual; they ate on solemnly, and _somehow_--how was +it?--the honey sandwiches did not taste quite as delicious as they had +expected. But though each had the same sort of disappointed feeling, +neither said anything about it to the other. + +After breakfast Grandpapa went off to his study, and Grandmamma rang the +bell for Dymock, who carried away the big tea-urn, the silver hot-water +dish in which was served Grandpapa's rasher of bacon, the knives and +forks,--everything, in short, on the table except the cups and saucers +and the rest of the china belonging to the breakfast-service. This china +was very curious, and, to those who understood such things, very +beautiful. Grandpapa had got it in his travels at some out-of-the-way +place, and the story went that it had been made for some great Chinese +lady--some "mandarin-ess," Grandmamma used to say in laughing, who had +never allowed it to be copied. How it had been got from _her_ I cannot +say. It was very fine in quality, and it was painted all over with green +dragons, with gilt tongues and eyes, and the edges of the cups and +saucers were also gilt. There were large as well as small cups; the +large ones, of course, were for breakfast, and the small ones for tea, +but Grandmamma always kept out two of the latter for Duke and Pamela. In +those days one never saw large cups of oriental china, and this was what +made the service particularly uncommon, and Grandpapa had never been +able to find out if the large ones were really Chinese or only +imitation, copied from the smaller ones. If really Chinese, then the +lady-mandarin was most likely an Englishwoman after all, who had had +them specially made for her. + +You will be surprised to hear that during the thirty or forty years +during which Grandpapa and Grandmamma had daily used this precious china +not a single piece had been broken, scarcely even chipped, though, by +force of simple usage, the green dragons had grown less brilliant, and +here and there the golden tongues and eyes had altogether disappeared, +while the whole had grown soft and mellowed, so that a moment's glance +was enough to show it was really _old_ porcelain. And perhaps you will +be still more surprised to learn how it was that these happy cups and +saucers had escaped the usual fate of their kind. It was because +Grandmamma always washed them up herself! I think there was no part of +the day more pleasant to "us" than when--Dymock having cleared away all +that was his charge, and brought all that Grandmamma required from the +pantry--the old lady established herself at one end of the table, with +two bowls of beautifully white wood, and a jug of hot water before her, +and a towel of fine damask in her hand, and set to work daintily to +rinse out each cup and saucer in the first bowl, passing them then into +the fresh water of the second, and wiping them--after they had stood to +drip for a moment or two on a small slab of wood made for the +purpose--most carefully with the little cloth. It was nice to watch +her--her hands looked so white, and moved so nimbly, and--I had +forgotten to mention that--looked so business-like with the brown +holland cuffs braided in white which she kept for this occasion, and +always put on, with the big holland apron to match, before she began +operations. Yes, it had been a treat to "us" merely to watch her, and so +you can fancy how very proud Duke and Pamela felt when she at length +allowed them, each with a little towel, to wipe their own cups and +saucers. They had been promoted to this for some months now, and no +accident had happened; and on those days--few and far between, it must +be allowed--on which they had not been found deserving of their +breakfast number two, I think the punishment of not "helping Grandmamma +to wash up" had been quite as great as that of missing the treat itself. +For very often, while deftly getting through her task, Grandmamma would +talk so nicely to the children, telling them stories of the time when +she was a little girl herself, and of all the changes between those +far-away days and "now"; of the strange, wonderful places she had +visited with Grandpapa; of cities with mosques and minarets gleaming +against the intense blue sky of the East in the too splendid, scorching +sunshine that no one who has not seen it can picture to himself; of +rides--weary endless rides--night after night through the desert; or +voyages of months and months together across the pathless ocean. They +would sit, the little brother and sister, staring up at her with their +great solemn blue eyes, as if they would never tire of listening--how +wonderfully wise Grandpapa and Grandmamma must be!--"Surely," said +little Pamela one day with a great sigh, "surely Grandmamma must know +_everyfing_;" while Duke's breast swelled with the thought that he too, +like his father and grandfather before him, would journey some day to +those distant lands, there, if need were, like them "to fight for the +king." For there were times at which "bruvver" was quite determined to +be a soldier, though at others--the afternoon, for instance, when the +young bull poked his head through the hedge and shook it at him and +Pamela, and Duke's toy-sword had unfortunately been left at home in the +nursery--he did not feel quite so sure about it! + +But on this particular morning the little pair were less interested and +talkative than usual. They sat so quiet while Grandmamma made her +arrangements that her attention was aroused. + +"You are very silent little mice, this morning," she said. "Is it +because poor Nurse is ill that you seem in such low spirits?" + +Duke and Pamela looked at each other. It would have been so easy to say +"yes," and Grandmamma would have thought them so kind-hearted and +sympathising! Once one has swerved a little bit from the straight exact +road and begun to go down-hill even in the least, it is so tempting to +go on a little farther--so much less difficult than to stop short, or, +still more, to try to go back again. But these children were so unused +to say anything not quite true that they hesitated, and this hesitation +saved them from making another step in the wrong direction. + +"I wasn't finking of Nurse, Grandmamma," said Pamela at last in rather a +low voice. + +"Nor I wasn't neither," said Duke, taking courage by her example. + +"That's all right, then," said Grandmamma cheerfully, not having noticed +anything unusual in their tone. "Poor Nurse, we are sorry for her to be +ill, but I don't think it will be anything very bad. And I am sure you +will try to be _very_ good." + +"Yes, Grandmamma," said the two voices together, but less confidently +and more timidly than usual. This time their tone caught the old lady's +attention. + +"There's something on their minds," she said to herself. But she was a +wise old lady, and thought it better to wait a while before trying to +find out what it was. + +"When I was a little girl," she began--and the children pricked up their +ears--"when I was a little girl I remember once that our nurse was ill, +or she had to go away to see some friend who was ill, and, as I was the +eldest of several little brothers and sisters, I had to help to take +care of them. I had always thought it would be very pleasant to be +without a nurse, though we liked ours very well, and to be able to do +just as we wished. But I shall never forget how pleased I was to see her +come back again," and Grandmamma laughed a little at the recollection. + +"Why were you so pleased, Grandmamma?" asked Pamela. "Had you done +anyfing naughty?" + +"_That_ wouldn't have made Grandmamma pleased for her nurse to come +back," said Duke; and a sudden thought of how "us" would have felt had +Nurse come into the room just as Toby was licking up the last of the +bread and milk made his face grow rosy. + +"We had not meant to be naughty," said Grandmamma, "but we were not fit +to manage for ourselves. Each of us wanted to do a different way, and we +were like a flock of poor little sheep without a shepherd. You do not +know, children, what a comfort it is to have rules one must obey." + +"But big people don't have to obey," said Duke. + +"Ah yes, they have; and when they try to think they have not, then it is +that everything goes wrong with them;" and seeing by the look in the two +little faces that they were still puzzled--"People have to _obey_ all +their lives if they want to be happy," she went on. "Long after they +have no more nurses or fathers and mothers--or grandpapas and +grandmammas," with a little smile, which somehow made the corners of +Duke's and Pamela's mouths go down. "The use of all those when we are +young is only to teach us what obeying means--to teach us to listen to +the voice we should _always_ obey----" and Grandmamma stopped a minute +and looked at "us." + +"God," said the two very solemnly. + +"Yes; but God speaks to us in different ways, and we have to learn to +know His voice. And the way of all in which we _most_ need to know it is +when it speaks to us in our own hearts--in ourselves. It would be a very +poor sort of being good or obeying if it was only so long as somebody +else was beside us telling us what to do and looking to see that we did +it." + +"Yes," said the two little voices together, lower and still more solemn. + +"As, for instance, this morning if, just because Nurse was not with you, +you had done anything you would not have done had she been there," said +Grandmamma, looking keenly at the two flushed faces. + +Another--"Yes, Grandmamma." + +"Or," went on the old lady, speaking more slowly, "a worse kind of +disobeying--the telling what is not really true; lots of people, big as +well as little, do that, and sometimes they try to make _themselves_ +think, by all sorts of twistings and turnings, that they have not done +so when their own hearts know they _have_. For the voice inside us is +_very_ hard to silence or deceive--I think sometimes indeed it _never_ +is silenced, but that our ears grow deaf to it--that we make them so. +But this is very grave talk for you, my dear children--too grave and +difficult perhaps. I am getting so old that I suppose I sometimes forget +how very young you are! And here come your own little cups and saucers, +nicely rinsed out, and waiting to be wiped dry." + +"Thank you, Grandmamma," said Duke. + +"Fank you, Grandmamma," said Pamela. + +And the two small pairs of hands set to work carefully at their daily +task. But they did not speak or ask Grandmamma any questions, and +somehow the old lady felt a little uneasy, for, even though they were on +the whole quiet children, this morning there was a sort of constraint +about them which she did not understand. And they, on their side, felt +glad when the "washing-up" was over and Grandmamma sent them upstairs to +their nursery, where they had lessons every morning for two hours with a +young girl whose mother had a sort of dame school in the village. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +QUEER VISITORS. + + "... they are what their birth + And breeding suffer them to be-- + Wild outcasts of society." + _Gypsies_--WORDSWORTH. + + +Miss Mitten, the young governess, had not yet come when the children got +to the nursery, though all was in order for her--the table cleared, the +three chairs set round it ready. There was nothing to do but to get out +the books and slates. Duke went to the window and stood there staring +out silently; Pamela, who always liked to be busy, dragged forward a +chair, meaning to climb on to it so as to reach up to the high shelf +where the lesson things were kept. But, as she drew out the chair, +something that had been hidden from view in a corner near which stood a +small side-table caught her eye. She let go the chair, stooping down to +examine this something, and in a moment a cry escaped her. + +"Bruvver! oh, bruvver," she exclaimed, "just see! How can it have got +brokened?" and she held up the bowl--or what had been the bowl +rather--out of which Toby had gobbled up his unexpected +breakfast,--broken, hopelessly broken, into several pieces! + +In an instant Duke was beside her, and together they set to work to +examine the damage, as if, alas! any examining could have made it +better. It was far past mending, for, besides the two or three large +pieces Pamela had seized, there lay on the ground a mass of smaller +fragments, down to mere crumbs of china. + +"_Toby_ couldn't have done it, could he?" said Pamela. "He stayed in +here when us went down to prayers." + +"No, oh no! _Toby_ couldn't have broken it," said Duke; "and even if he +had, it would not have been his fault. He didn't put it down on the +floor. It was near here he ate the bread and milk up--perhaps he rolled +the bowl behind the table." + +"And Biddy pushed the table against it when she was taking away the +things. Yes, that must have been it," said Pamela. "Biddy couldn't have +noticed there was only one bowl on the tray." + +"Anyway she didn't look for it," said Duke. "She is very careless; Nurse +often says so." + +"But us can't put the blame on her," said Pamela. "Us _must_ tell, +Duke." + +Duke had the pieces of china in his hand, and was carefully considering +them. + +"Will Grandmamma be vexed, do you think, sister?" + +"Grandmamma doesn't like things being brokened," said Pamela. "And Nurse +said one day these bowls was very good china." + +"And Grandmamma will ask all about how it was broken," added Duke +dolefully; "and then us'll have to tell about giving Toby our bread and +milk, and oh, sister, I said the bowls was _quite_ empty, to make her +think _us_ had emptied them!" + +"I'm afraid Grandmamma will fink us is _very_ naughty," agreed Pamela; +"she'll fink us don't listen to that--that speaking inside us that she +was telling us about,--for it's quite true, bruvver; I felt it was quite +true when she was talking. It _does_ speak. I heard it this morning when +us was planning about not telling. Only I didn't listen," and the tears +rolled slowly down the little girl's face. + +"I heard it too, sister. Yes, it's quite true," said Duke, beginning to +sob. "But I can't go and tell Grandmamma now. There's such a great deal +to tell; it isn't only about Toby. It's about having said the bowls was +empty," and Duke's sobs redoubled. "Supposing--supposing, sister, us +didn't tell Grandmamma just this time, and us would never, _never_ not +listen to that speaking inside us again?" + +Pamela hesitated. She stood quite quite still, her eyes gazing before +her, but as if seeing nothing--she seemed to be listening. + +"Bruvver," she said at last, "I can't tell you yet. I must fink. But I'm +_almost_ sure it's speaking now. I'm almost sure it's saying us must +tell." + +"Oh don't, don't, Pamela," cried poor Duke; "you mustn't say that. For I +can't--I am sure I can't--tell Grandmamma. And you won't tell without me +knowing, will you, sister?" + +"For sure not," replied Pamela indignantly. "Us must do it togevver like +always. But there's Miss Mitten coming--I hear her. Wait till after +she's gone, bruvver, and then I'll tell you what I've been finking." + +With this Duke was obliged to content himself. But he and Pamela took +care to put away in a shelf of the toy cupboard, where they would not be +seen, the remains of the broken bowl. + +Miss Mitten had two very quiet and subdued little pupils that morning. +She noticed Duke's red eyes, but, not being on very intimate terms with +the children, for she was rather a formal young person, she said nothing +about them. Only when lessons were quite finished she told her pupils +they might tell their Grandmamma that they had been very good and +attentive. + +"Your good Grandmamma will be pleased to hear this," she said, "for she +must be troubled about poor Nurse's being ill. I hope you will do your +best to give her no trouble you can possibly avoid," and with these +words Miss Mitten took her leave. + +She had scarcely left when Biddy came to take the children out a walk, +and after that it was their dinner-time, so that it was not till the +afternoon that they found themselves quite alone and able to talk over +their troubles. They had not seen Grandmamma since the morning, for she +had gone out in the pony-carriage with Grandpapa to pay some visits, +which in those days were _really_ "morning calls"! and she had left word +that after their dinner Duke and Pamela might play in the garden till +she and Grandpapa came home. + +"And when us sees them coming us'll ask Grandpapa to tell Walters to +drive us round to the stable in the pony-carriage," said Duke, jumping +up and down in great excitement, quite forgetting his troubles for the +moment. But his forgetfulness did not last long. Biddy began looking +about the room as if in search of something; she seemed vexed and +uneasy. + +"What's the matter, Biddy?" said Duke, stopping in the midst of his +gymnastics. + +"Have you seen one of the china bowls anywhere about, you or Miss +Pamela, Master Duke?" asked the girl. "Cook is so angry with me, and she +will have it I've broken it and won't tell," and poor Biddy looked ready +to cry. + +"Didn't you miss it when you took the tray down?" said Pamela, and Duke +was astonished she could speak so quietly. + +"No," replied Biddy, "and then I _was_ at fault, for sure I gathered up +the things quickly, and never noticed there was but one bowl. And they +must have been both there, for you both had your breakfast. The only +thing I can think of is that some one took it out of the room after you +were downstairs, master and missy," for it never occurred to Biddy to +think Duke or Pamela would have concealed it had they broken the bowl, +"but I'm afeared Cook will lay it all on me." + +"Do you fink they cost much--bowls like these?" asked Pamela. + +"Not so very much perhaps, but I don't think I've ever seen any quite +like them in any shop. Besides, if even I could get to Sandle'ham to +see, it's a thing I daren't do. It's one of your Grandmamma's strictest +rules that if anything's broke we're to tell. And I'm sure if I had +broke it I would tell." + +"Perhaps Cook won't say anything more about it," said Duke, but Biddy +shook her head. + +"Not to-day perhaps. She's busy to-day, for two ladies and two gentlemen +are coming to dinner. But she'll be very angry with me when she comes to +send up your bread and milk to-morrow morning if so be as the bowl isn't +there." + +"Are there only two like that?" asked Pamela. + +"Your Grandmamma has some others, I think, but they're kept locked up in +a cupboard in the china closet," said Biddy dolefully. "I'd tell my +mistress myself in a minute if I had broke it, but the worst is, it will +seem as if I have broke it and won't tell, and that will make her very +vexed with me. But you must make haste to go out into the garden, master +and missy. It's such a fine day, and if you stayed here it might wake +Nurse. She's just fallen asleep, and the doctor said she might be better +to-morrow if she got some sleep." + +"Out in the garden" to-day it was lovely, for though only April it was +unusually bright and warm. And the garden of Arbitt Lodge matched the +house. It was so quaint and neat, and yet such a very delightful garden +to play in, full of queer little unexpected paths between high stiff +hedges that quite hid such small people as "us," leading to tiny bits of +lawn, where one was sure to find, if not a summer-house, at least a +rustic bench in a nice corner beside some old tree whose foliage made a +pleasant shade. Duke and Pamela had given names of their own to some of +the seats and arbours, as they found this a great convenience for their +games, especially that of paying visits. I think their favourite bench +was one placed on what they called "the hill;" that was a part of the +garden banked up very high against the wall, from which you could look +down on the passers-by without being seen by them, and the name of this +one was "Spy Tower." It was a nice place on a sunny day, for the high +trees made it shady, and when they had no particular game they cared to +play it was always amusing to watch who passed. + +This afternoon they did not feel in good enough spirits to play, and +almost without speaking they walked quietly in the direction of "the +hill." + +"Us can see when Grandpapa and Grandmamma are coming in time to run +round and meet them at the gate," said Pamela, as they climbed up the +bank. + +"I don't think I want to see them coming, and I don't want them to see +us," said Duke. "Sister, I am so midderable that I think if there was a +big sea near here I would go into it and be drowned." + +"Bruvver!" ejaculated Pamela. + +"Yes, sister," he continued, "it would be the best thing. For if I was +drown_ded_ quite dead, they'd all be so sorry that then you could tell +them about the bowl, and Biddy would not be scolded. And--and--you could +say it was far most _my_ fault, you know, for it was, and then they +wouldn't be very angry with you. Yes," he repeated solemnly, "it would +be the best thing." + +By this time Pamela was completely dissolved in tears--tears of +indignation as well as of grief. + +"Bruvver," she began again, "how can you say that? Us has always been +togevver. How can you fink I would _ever_ say it was most your fault, +not if you was ever so drownded. But oh, bruvver, don't frighten me so." + +Duke's own tears were flowing too. + +"There isn't any big sea near here," he said; "I only said if there was. +It's just that I am so very midderable. I wish Nurse hadn't got ill." + +"Oh, so do I," said Pamela fervently. + +By this time they had reached Spy Tower. Pamela seated herself +discreetly on the bench, though it was so much too high for her that her +short legs dangled in the air. Duke established himself on the ground in +front of her. It was a very still day--more like late summer than +spring--hardly a leaf stirred, and in the distance various sounds, the +far-off barking of a dog, the faint crowing and cackling of cocks and +hens, the voices, subdued to softness, "of the village boys and girls at +play," all mingled together pleasantly. The children were too young to +explain to themselves the pleasant influences about them, of the soft +sunshine and the cloudless sky, seen through the network of branches +overhead, of the balmy air and sweet murmurs of bird and insect life +rejoicing in the spring-time; but they felt them nevertheless. + +"How very happy us would have been to-day if it hadn't been for the bowl +being brokened," said Duke. + +"No, it began before that," said Pamela. "It was the not telling +Grandmamma. I fink that was the real naughty, bruvver. I don't _fink_ +Grandmamma would have minded so much us giving the bread and milk to +Toby." + +"Her wouldn't have given us any treat," objected Duke. + +"Well, that wouldn't have mattered very much for once. And perhaps it +would have been a good fing; _perhaps_ Grandmamma would have told Cook +not to send up quite so much, and----" + +"Why do you say that _now_?" said Duke rather crossly; "it's only making +it all worser and worser. I wish----" + +But what Duke wished was never to be known, for just at that moment +sounds coming down the lane, evidently drawing nearer and nearer, made +him start up and peep out from behind the few thin low-growing shrubs at +the top of the wall. + +"Hush, sister," he said, quite forgetting that it was himself and not +"sister" who had been speaking,--"there are _such_ funny people coming +down the lane. Come here, close by me; there, you can see them--don't +they look funny?" + +Pamela squeezed herself forward between Duke and a bush, and looked +where he pointed to. A little group of people was to be seen making +their way slowly along the lane. There were a man, two women, and two +boys--the women with red kerchiefs over their heads, and something +picturesque about their dress and bearing, though they were dirty and +ragged. They, as well as the man, had very dark skins, black hair, and +bright piercing eyes, and the elder of the two boys, a great +loose-limbed fellow of sixteen or so, was just like them. But the other +boy, who did not look more than nine or ten, though his skin was tanned +by the weather nearly as brown as his companion's, had lighter hair and +eyes. He followed the others at a little distance, not seeming to attend +to what they were saying, though they were all talking eagerly, and +rather loudly, in a queer kind of language, which Duke and Pamela could +not understand at all. The younger boy whistled as he came along, and he +held a stout branch in his hand, from which, with a short rough knife, +he was cutting away the twigs and bark. He did not seem unhappy though +he looked thin, and his clothes hardly held together they were so +ragged. + +All these particulars became visible to the children, as the party of +gipsies--for such they were, though of a low class--came nearer and +nearer. I forgot to say that the sixth member of the party was a donkey, +a poor half-starved looking creature, with roughly-made panniers, +stuffed with crockery apparently, for basins and jugs and pots of +various kinds were to be seen sticking out of them in all directions. +And besides the donkey's load there was a good deal more to carry, for +the man and the women and the big boy were all loaded with bundles of +different shapes and sizes, and the little fellow had a sort of knapsack +on his back. They would probably have passed on their way without +dreaming of the two small people in Spy Tower up above their heads, had +not Duke, suddenly catching sight of the donkey's burden, exclaimed +loudly to Pamela: + +"See, see, sister; they have jugs and dishes. Perhaps us could get a +bowl like ours." + +At the sound of the child's voice the man stopped short in what he was +saying to his companions, and looked up. + +"Good day, my little master, and my pretty missy too," he said in a +smooth voice, not the least like the rather harsh tones in which he had +been speaking a moment before in the strange language. "At your service, +and is there anything I can do for you?" + +"Oh the pretty dears," exclaimed one of the two women, while the other +turned away with a rough laugh, muttering something the children could +not distinguish the meaning of. "Oh the pretty dears! Like two sweet +birds up in a nest. And wouldn't you like your fortunes told, my +honeys?" + +"I don't know what that means," replied Duke, feeling very valiant at +the top of the wall. "I want to know if you've got any china bowls to +sell--bowls for bread and milk, with little blue leaves running over +them." + +"To be sure, to be sure," said the man. "We've the very thing--it is +strange, to be sure, that I should have just what the little master +wants, isn't it?" he went on, turning to the woman. + +"If the gentleman and lady could come down and look at them, they would +see better," said she, seizing the panniers with a great show of getting +out the crockery they contained. + +"Us can't come down there," said Duke. "You must come in at the gate, +and us will meet you at the back door." + +The man and woman hesitated. + +"Will the servants let us come so far, d'ye think?" asked the man. "Are +there no dogs about? Must we say the little master and missy told us to +come for that they want to buy a bowl?" + +"Oh no," cried Pamela hastily, "that wouldn't do. The servants mustn't +know." + +The man glanced at the woman with a meaning look. + +"To be sure, to be sure," she said. "Master and missy must please +themselves. It's no business of the servants. Perhaps it's for a little +present to their mamma they want one of our pretty bowls?" + +"Us hasn't any mamma," said Duke, "and it isn't for a present, but still +us doesn't want any one to know. Are you _sure_ you've got any bowls +just like ours?" + +"Certain sure," said the woman; "you see we've such a many--if I was to +get them all out you'd see. Yours is blue--with leaves all over +it--we've some, sweet and pretty, with pink roses and green leaves." + +"No, no," said the children, shaking their heads, "that wouldn't do. It +must be just the same." + +"And have you got it there, then?" asked the woman. "But that won't +matter. You'll soon see what beauties ours are. And so cheap! Not to +everybody of course as cheap as to you, but it isn't often we see so +pretty spoken a little gentleman and lady as you. And you shall have +them as cheap as we can give them." + +"Then us must get our money-box," said Duke. "It's in the nursery +cupboard. Will you go round to near the back gate," and he pointed in +the direction he named, "and sister will go through the garden to meet +you, and I'll run in for our money-box." + +The man peered about him, and again a sort of meaning look passed +between him and the woman. + +"To be sure, to be sure," he said. "And pretty missy will wait with us +till you come. But don't be long, master, for we've a weary way to go +afore night." + +"Poor things," said Pamela, "are you tired and hungry? I wish us could +ask you to come in and rest, but you see Grandpapa and Grandmamma are +out and Nurse is ill, and there's no one to ask." + +"Dear me, what a pity!" said the woman. "To be sure we're tired and +hungry, and it's not an easy business to unpack the panniers, but +anything to please master and missy." + +Just then the other woman, who had been standing apart with the big boy +all this time, called out something in the same strange-sounding +language. And, apparently forgetting the children's presence, the man +roared out at her with such brutal roughness that Duke and Pamela shrank +back trembling. The first woman hastened to reassure them. + +"For shame, Mick," she said, and then with a laugh she turned to the +children. "It's just a way he has. You must excuse him, master and +missy. And if little master will go quick for the money-box it would be +better. There won't be much in it, I suppose, but it isn't much we'd +want to take." + +"Oh but there's a great deal," said Duke. "One big guinea--that's +between us, and two little ones, one each, and three shillings and a +fourpenny of mine----" + +"And five sixpences and seven pennies of mine," said Pamela. + +"Who'd a-thought it?" said the woman admiringly. "I'd be pleased to see +so much money for once." + +"Well, I'll show it you," said Duke, and off he started. Pamela looked +after him for a moment. + +"Wouldn't it be better," she said to the woman, "if you saw a bit of the +bowl, then you could find the ones like it in a minute?" + +"What a clever missy!" exclaimed the woman, bent on flattery. + +"Then I'll run after bruvver and fetch the bits," said Pamela, and, not +heeding the woman's calling after her that there was no need to give +herself the trouble, off she set too, overtaking Duke just before he +reached the house. + +"I've come after you!" she exclaimed, breathless; "I want to get the +broken bits and then they'll see what the bowl was like. And, +bruvver,"--and the little girl hesitated a little,--"I was _raver_ +frightened to stay alone wif those people. The man did speak so rough, +didn't he?" + +Duke had felt very brave on the top of the wall, and rather proud of +himself for feeling so. + +"You needn't be afraid when _I'm_ there, sister," he said. "Besides they +can't hurt us--us'll just buy the bowl and run back with it. Us needn't +go farther than just by the back gate." + +"Do you fink you should take _all_ the money?" asked Pamela doubtfully. +"It can't cost all that." + +"I'll not take the gold guineas, then," said Duke. "At least," he went +on, sorely divided between caution and the wish to show off his riches, +"I'll only take _one_--just to let them see it. And one shilling and one +sixpence to let them see, and all the pennies. You needn't be +frightened, sister," he repeated encouragingly, as the two trotted +across the garden again, "I won't let the man speak rude to _you_." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +BABES IN A WOOD. + + "Out of this wood do not desire to go; + Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no." + _Midsummer Night's Dream._ + + +There was no one to be seen when they got to the back gate. The children +stood and looked about--Pamela with the bits of broken crockery in her +apron held up in front, Duke tightly clasping the precious money-box. +They looked this way and that way, up the lane and down the lane, but +could see nothing or nobody save Farmer Riggs' very old horse turned out +at the side of the hedge, and two or three ducks who had perversely +chosen to wander out to grub about in a small pool of stagnant water +instead of gratefully enjoying their own nice clean pond, as +Grandmamma's ducks might have been expected to do. At another time Duke +and Pamela would certainly have chased the stray ducks home again, with +many pertinent remarks on their naughty disobedience, but just now they +had no thought or attention to give to anything but their own concerns. + + +A sudden feeling came over Pamela, and she turned to Duke. + +"Bruvver," she said, "those people hasn't come. I fink they're not good +people, and they won't come near the house. I daresay they're somewhere +down the lane, not far off--but don't you _fink_ perhaps us had better +not look for them any more, but just go home, and when Grandmamma comes +in tell her _everyfing_. Even if she is raver angry, wouldn't it be +better, bruvver? I'm almost sure my little voice inside is telling me +so," and Pamela stood for a moment with a look of intent listening on +her face. "Yes, I'm sure that's what it's trying to say. Can you hear +yours, bruvver?" + +Duke looked undecided. + +"I can't listen just now, sister," he replied. "I'm full of thinking how +nice it would be to buy a bowl just the same, and take it in and give it +to poor Biddy, and then she wouldn't be scolded. I don't think I'd mind +telling Grandmamma once us had got the bowl. She'd be so pleased to have +one the same." + +"_I_ fink she'd be most pleased for us to tell her everyfing," +maintained Pamela stoutly. + +And Duke, always impressed by her opinion, wavered, and no doubt he +would have wavered back into the right way, had not, just at that +moment, a low whistle been heard some way to the left down the lane; +and, looking in the direction from whence it came, the little boy and +girl caught sight of a head quickly poked out and as quickly drawn back +again into the shade of the hedge. But not too quickly for them to have +recognised the sharp black eyes and rough black hair of the gipsy +pedlar. + +Without replying to Pamela Duke darted off, and, though much against her +will, the little girl felt she could not but follow him. Before they had +quite reached the spot the head was poked out again. + +"I've had to wait here for you, master and missy," said the man. "There +were some farmers men down that way, round the corner," and he jerked +his thumb--for he had by this time come out of his hole--in an imaginary +direction, "as said this were a private road, and they'd set dogs on us +if we came on. I'm a peaceable fellow, and not fond o' fightin', so I'd +just have gone on my way out of their road but for promisin' you to come +round this way." + +"It's very strange," said Duke; "I don't know what it means about a +private road, but I know everybody always passes this way--that's why us +likes Spy Tower so much, there's so many people passing." + +"It's all along of our being poor folk," said the man; "there's no fair +play for poor folk. But I'm one as keeps his word, so here I am. And the +donkey and the missus are down the road there waiting--there's a little +wood where we thought nobody would disturb us for a bit, if you and +missy will come so far--the missus said she'd unpack the pots. But you +must be quick--I dursn't hang about here, and if you can't come there's +no more to be said," and he turned as if to go. + +"Just wait one instant, please," said Pamela hastily, extracting one of +the fragments from her apron; "just look at this. It's no use our going +to see the bowls if you've none the same--do you fink you have any like +this?" + +The man pretended to start. + +"Well, that is cur'ous," he said. "If my eyes is not deceivin' me, +that's the very pattern we've a whole set on--the bowls shouldn't ought +to be sold separate, but to oblige you we'll see what the missus will +do," and again he turned to go. + +The children looked at each other. They had never before in their lives +been outside the gates alone; of this back road and where it led to they +knew very little, as it was always on the other road--that leading to +Sandlingham--that Nurse liked to walk. They did not remember the little +wood the man spoke of, but they did not like to contradict him; then, if +it was only such a little way, they could run back in a minute when they +had got the bowl, and all would be right. So they took each other's +hands and followed the man, who was already striding some steps in front +down the lane, glancing behind him over his shoulder from time to time +to see if the little couple had made up their minds. + +A few minutes' quick walking on his part, necessitating something +between a trot and a run on theirs, brought them out of the lane into +the high road. Here the man stopped short for a moment and looked about +him--the children supposed in search of his companions and the donkey. +But there was no one and nothing to be seen. + +"I don't think us can come any farther," said Duke rather timidly. The +man turned round with a scowl on his face, but in a moment he had +smoothed it away and spoke in the same oily tones. + +"It's just a step farther," he said, "and I can take you a shorter way +through the fields than the missus could go with the donkey. This way, +master and missy," and he quickly crossed the road, still glancing up +and down, and, climbing over a stile, stood beckoning for the children +to follow. + +They had never noticed this stile before; they had not the slightest +idea where it led to, but somehow they felt more afraid now to turn back +than to go on; and, indeed, it would not have been any use, for, had he +cared to do so, the man could have overtaken them in a moment. The stile +was hard for their short legs to climb, but they had a great dislike to +the idea of his touching them, and would not ask for help. And once he +had got them on the other side of it he seemed to feel he had them in +his power, and did not take much notice of them, but strode on through +the rough brushwood--for they were by this time in a sort of little +coppice--as if he cared for nothing but to get over the ground as fast +as possible. And still the two followed him--through the coppice, across +one or two ploughed fields, down a bit of lane where they had never been +before, plunging at last into a wood where the trees grew thick and +dark--a forest of gloom it seemed to Duke and Pamela--and all this time +they never met a creature, or passed any little cottage such as they +were accustomed to see on the cheerful Sandlingham road. The pedlar knew +the country, and had chosen the least frequented way. Had they by any +chance met a carriage or cart, even when crossing the high road, he +would not have dared to risk being seen with the children, but in that +case he would no doubt have hurried off, leaving them to find their way +home as best they might. But no such good fortune having befallen them, +on they trotted--hand-in-hand for the most part, though by this time +several stumbles had scratched and bruised them, and their flying hair, +flushed faces and tumbled clothes made them look very different from the +little "master and missy" Biddy had sent out into the peaceful garden to +play that sweet April afternoon. + +_Why_ they went on, they could not themselves have told. Often in after +years, and when they had grown older and wiser, they asked themselves +the question. It was not exactly fear, for as yet the man had not +actually spoken roughly to them, nor was it altogether a feeling of +shame at giving in--it was a mixture of both perhaps, and some strange +sort of fascination that even very wise people might not find it easy to +explain. For every time their steps lagged, and they felt as if they +could go no farther, a glance over his shoulder of the man in front +seemed to force them on again. And as the wood grew closer and darker +this feeling increased. They felt as if they were miles and miles from +home, in some strange and distant country they had never before seen or +heard of; they seemed to be going on and on, as in a dream. And though +poor little Pamela still, through all her stumbles and tumbles, held +tightly up before her the corners of her apron, containing the bits of +the unlucky bowl, and Duke, on his side, still firmly clutched his +precious money-box, I do not believe either of them had by this time any +very clear remembrance of why they were laden with these queer burdens, +or what was the object of the strange and painful expedition. + +And still on strode the piercing-eyed gipsy, as sure of his prey now +apparently as a fowler who watches unmoved the fruitless struggles of +some poor little birds in the net from which they have no chance of +escaping. + +It would be impossible to say how far they had gone--perhaps not so very +far after all, though their panting breath and trembling little legs +showed that the gipsy's purpose of tiring them out was pretty well +accomplished--when at last a sharp cry from Pamela forced the pedlar to +look round. She had caught her foot on a stone or a root, and fallen, +and in falling one of the jagged bits of the broken crockery had cut her +leg pretty deeply; the blood was already streaming from it, her little +white sock was deeply stained, and she lay on the ground almost fainting +with terror and pain. + +"Stop that screaming, will ye?" said the man, and then, with a half +return to his former tone, "There's nothing to cry about, missy. It's +just a scratch--I'll tie it up with a bit of rag," and he began fumbling +about in his dirty pockets as he spoke. "There's the donkey and the +others waiting for us just five minutes farther;" and for once the gipsy +spoke the truth. The way he had brought the children was in reality a +great round, chosen on purpose to bewilder them, so that the rest of his +party had been able to reach the meeting-place he had appointed very +much more quickly by the road. + +But Pamela, once thoroughly upset and frightened, was not to be so +easily calmed down. + +"No, no," she screamed, "I won't let him touch me. Go away, go away, you +ugly man," she cried, pushing him back with her tiny hands when he tried +to come near. "I _won't_ let you touch me or carry me," for that now +seemed to be the gipsy's intention, "leave me here with Duke; we don't +want you any more." + +The man's dark face grew darker with the scowl that came over it. For +half a moment he seemed on the point of seizing Pamela in his arms in +spite of her cries and resistance. But there was Duke too to be +considered; Pamela alone it would be easy to cover up, so that her cries +should not be heard; but he could not carry both, and if the boy ran +after them screaming, or if he tried to run home, to ask for help--for +"home" was really not far off--there was no knowing what trouble the +anything but blessed "brats" might bring upon worthy Mick and his horde! +So that respectable gentleman decided on different tactics. + +"You're a very naughty little girl," he said--speaking, however, not +roughly, but more as if Pamela's behaviour really shocked and hurt him. +"After all the trouble I've give myself for you--a-goin' out of my road, +and a-unpackin' all the pots and crocks down there, for to please you. +Not even to let me tie up your foot or carry you to the missus for her +to do it! Well, if you lie there till you bleed to death, it's no fault +o' mine." + +But Duke's presence of mind had returned by this time. + +"I'll tie up her foot with my hankercher," he said, producing the little +twelve-inch square of linen, which for a wonder he found in his pocket, +on the whole much cleaner than could have been expected. And though he +grew white and sick with the sight of the streaming blood, he managed +without any opposition from his sister to strap it up after a fashion, +the gipsy looking on in silence. + +"You can go now, thank you," said Duke, his voice trembling in spite of +himself. "Us don't mind about the bowl--it's too far to go. Us will tell +Grandmamma all about it--Oh how I do wish us had told her at first," he +broke off suddenly. "Please go," he went on again to the pedlar; +"sister's frightened. I'll stay here with her till her foot's better, +and then us'll go home." + +"And how will ye do that, I'd like to know, my young master?" said the +pedlar, and there was a mocking tone in his voice that made the boy look +up at him with fresh alarm. "Ye're furder from 'home' than ye think for. +No, no; here ye'll have to stay till I fetch the donkey to carry you +both. And to think of all that trouble and time lost for nothing." + +"They'll give you something at home for bringing us back; they will +indeed," said Duke. "Grandpapa and Grandmamma will be so pleased to see +us safe again, I _know_ they'll give you something," he repeated, while +a sob rose in his throat at the thought that already perhaps dear +Grandpapa and Grandmamma--never had they seemed _so_ dear!--were +wondering and troubled about their absence. And somehow he quite forgot +that he himself could reward the gipsy, for in attending to Pamela's +wounded foot he had laid down the money-box, and no longer remembered +that he had it with him. + +The gipsy grunted, and muttered something about "making sure" that Duke +scarcely heard. Then he turned to go. + +"I'm off for the donkey then. But mind you the stiller you stays in this +here wood the better," he added impressively. "That's why I didn't like +missy crying out so loud. It's a queer place--a _very_ queer place. I'se +warrant your Nurse never brought you this way when you were out +a-walking." + +"No, never," said Duke, startled, and even Pamela left off sobbing to +stare up at him with her tearful blue eyes, as if fascinated by these +mysterious hints. + +"Ah, I thought not," he said, nodding his head. "Well, stay where you +are, and make no sound whatsumnever, and no harm'll come to ye. But if +you stir or speak even above a whisper," and he lowered his own voice, +"there's no saying. There's beasts you never heard tell of in this +wood--worsest of all, snakes, that think nothing of twisting round a +child and off with it for their supper afore one could cry out. But if +you stop quite still they'll not find you out before I'm back with the +donkey. It's about their time o' day for sleeping just now, I'm +thinking," and with this crumb of consolation the cruel-hearted gipsy +turned on his heel. + +Words would fail me to describe the terror of the two poor little +children: a cry of appeal to the pedlar to stay beside them, not to +leave them to the dreadful creatures he spoke of, rose to their lips, +but stopped there. For were they not almost as terrified of him as of +the snakes? Pamela forgot all about her wounded foot, though it was +growing stiff with pain, and the blood, which Duke's unskilful binding +had not succeeded in checking, was still flowing in a way that would +have alarmed more experienced eyes. It was cold too--and terror made +them colder--for the evening was drawing on, and it was only April. Yet +they dared not move--Pamela indeed could not have stood up--and so there +they stayed, Duke crouched beside his sister, who lay almost at full +length on the short tufty grass, among the roots and stumps, for just +here a good deal of wood had been cut down. There was no fear of their +moving--the shivers and sobs that they could not control added to their +fears--they would have left off breathing even, if they could have +managed it, rather than risk betraying their presence to the snakes! + +But after some minutes--not more than five probably, though it seemed +more like five hours--had passed the silence and strain grew unbearable +to Duke. He peeped at Pamela; her eyes were closed, she looked so +dreadfully white!--his heart gave such a thump that he looked round for +a moment in terror, it seemed to him such a loud noise,--what could make +her look so? Could the fear and the pain have killed her? + +"Pamela," he whispered, in what he meant to be a very low whisper +indeed; "Oh, sister, are you dead?" + +Her eyelids fluttered a little, and she half opened them. + +"No, bruvver; at least I don't fink so," she said, and her whisper was +very faint without her trying to make it so, for she was really quite +exhausted. "I wasn't sure a minute ago, but I fink now I'm only dying. +But don't speak, for the snakes might hear." + +"They're asleep, he said," returned Duke, with a sob of anguish at +Pamela's words. + +"But some might be awake. If it wasn't for that, oh, bruvver, you might +run away, and perhaps you'd get safe home. Couldn't you _try_, bruvver?" +and Pamela half raised herself on her arm. + +"And leave _you_, sister!" cried Duke indignantly, forgetting to +whisper; "how could you think I'd ever do such a thing? If I could +_carry_ you--oh what a pity it is I'm not much bigger than you!" "You +couldn't carry _me_," said Pamela feebly, and her head sank back again; +"and the snakes would hear us and catch us. But oh, bruvver, I'm afraid +I'll be quite dead before the man comes back again, and yet I don't want +him to come." + +Almost in despair Duke sat up and looked round for any possibility of +help. It was nearer than he thought; and yet when a voice, apparently a +very little way off, called out, as if in answer to his unspoken +appeal-- + +"I'm a-coming. Don't ye be afeared," he started with new terror. + +"A snake!--Oh, sister, can it be a snake?" he cried wildly, for there +was nothing to be seen. + +"Snakes don't talk, as ever I heard on," said the voice again, and this +time it was accompanied by a merry laugh, which brought great comfort to +poor Duke. And in another moment the mystery was explained. + +From behind some stubble a few yards off rose the figure of the young +boy whom the children had seen walking behind the gipsies--whistling +while he cut at a branch he held in his hand--from their point of +observation in Spy Tower. His face was tanned and freckled by the sun, +but his fair hair and bright blue eyes showed that he was not by birth +one of the dark-skinned tribe; and something in the bright smile, +showing a row of teeth as white and even as Duke's own, and in the +cheerful voice, at once gained the little boy's confidence. + +[Illustration: FROM BEHIND SOME STUBBLE A FEW YARDS OFF ROSE THE FIGURE +OF THE YOUNG BOY WHOM THE CHILDREN HAD SEEN WALKING BEHIND THE +GIPSIES--WHISTLING WHILE HE CUT AT A BRANCH HE HELD IN HIS HAND.--p. +74.] + +"I've been looking for ye," he said, speaking in a rather lower tone. "I +knew he was a-going to bring ye round this way, so I hid in the bushes +till I see'd him go by. And I crep' along on my hands and knees for fear +he should look back. But he's out o' the way for a few minutes. It's +only a bit of a step to where the others is, but he said something about +the donkey, didn't he? It'll take him a bit to unload it. An' what's he +been a-doing to ye?" he went on, glancing round till his eyes for the +first time caught sight clearly of the little figure stretched on the +ground. "He's never gone and dared to hit the little lady?" and the +good-humoured face grew dark and almost fierce as he stooped down close +to Pamela. She looked pitiable enough; her face had grown whiter and +whiter, her eyes were still closed, and the blood from her foot had +crept about her as she lay till it had soiled the frills of her little +white skirts. + +"No," said Duke; "no, it's her foot. The bits of the bowl cut it when +she felled down. I tied it up with my hankercher, but it hasn't left off +bleeding." + +The boy did not speak, he was too busy examining the poor foot, which he +handled so tenderly that Pamela did not shrink from his touch. At last +he looked up. + +"I say, master," he said, "we must have some water for this 'ere foot. +Just you sit down where I am and hold it so; it won't bleed so bad that +way, and I'll get some water. There's some hard by," and he looked +round. "If I had but something to fetch some in." + +"There's my money-box," said Duke, with a sudden flash of recollection, +"it would hold a little," and in his turn he looked round. But no +money-box was to be seen. "Oh where can it be?" he cried. "I know I had +it when sister felled." + +"Was there summat in it?" asked the boy. + +"Oh yes," replied Duke; "one of the little gold guineas, and one of my +shillings, and one of sister's sixpennies, and all the pennies." + +"Ah," said the boy, "then I'm afeared you've said good-bye to the lot o' +them. Catch Mick let fish like that out of his net. But," he added--for +Duke seemed to be stunned by the loss--"sit ye down, and I'll fetch what +water I can in my cap, or we'll have missy's foot very bad, and that 'ud +be worser than losin' the money." + +He was back in a moment with water enough to soak the diminutive +handkerchief, with which he gently bathed away some of the blood, so +that he could see the wound. It was a bad cut, but it was not now +bleeding so much. The little surgeon pressed the sides gently together, +which made Pamela give a little scream of pain. + +"Don't cry, missy dear," he said. "It'll not hurt so much when I've tied +it up. Ye've not another hankerwich? I'd like to lay this one over the +cut--it's nice and wet--and tie it on with summat else." + +"I fink there's one in my pocket," said Pamela, and when Duke had +extracted it, and with its help the poor foot was tied up much more +scientifically than before, she sat up and looked about her, less white +and miserable by a good deal, thanks to their new friend. + +"What a nice boy you are," she said condescendingly. "What's your name? +Is that---- ugly man" she was going to have said, but she hesitated, +afraid of hurting the boy's feelings--"is the man your father?" and she +dropped her voice. + +"Bless yer, no," he replied with real fervency, "and that's one thing +I'm thankful for. Mick my father; _no_, thank you, missy. My name's Tim, +leastways so I'm called. Diana she says it's short for Timothy, but +Tim's long enough." + +"And who's Diana?" asked the children, beginning to forget their own +troubles in curiosity. + +"Her as he roared out at so--yonder--when you was up at the top o' the +wall. She's a deal better than him and the missus is Diana. But listen, +master and missy. He'll be back in a minute, and----" + +"Oh let us run away before he comes! oh do help us to run away!" they +exclaimed, all their terrors returning. "Us doesn't want the bowl now. +Oh Tim, can't us all run away, quick, before he comes?" + +And the two little creatures seized hold of their new friend's ragged +jacket as if they felt that in him was their only chance of safety. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +TIM. + + "Whose imp art thou with dimpled cheek, + And curly pate and merry eye?" + J. BAILLIE. + + +They were so excited, so eager to be off at once, that for a minute or +two Tim could scarcely get them to listen to him. They had forgotten all +about the snakes, or else their confidence in the boy as a protector was +so great that they were sure he would defend them against every danger. + +"Oh Tim, dear Tim, do let us go quick," they kept repeating. + +"But master and missy," he explained at last when they would let him +speak, "we can't. Don't you see Mick knows exactly where he left yer, +and he'd be after us in a minute. There's nowhere near here where we +could hide but what he'd find us. You'd only get me a beating, that 'ud +be all about it. No, listen to me. P'raps Mick means to take yer home +straight away, but if he doesn't we must wait a bit till I can find out +what he's after. He's a deep one is Mick." + +"Couldn't you run home quick to tell Grandpapa and Grandmamma where us +is?" said Duke. "Grandpapa, and the coachman, and Dymock, and the +gardener--they'd all come to fetch us." + +"I dursn't," said Tim. "Not yet; Mick's a deep one. If he thought I'd +run off to tell he'd----" + +"What would he do?" they asked breathlessly. + +"He'd hide away somehow. 'Twouldn't be so easy to find him. He'll be +back in a moment too--I couldn't get off before he'd be after me. No; we +must wait a bit till I see what he's after." + +"Why haven't you runned away before?" asked Pamela. "If he's not your +father, and if you don't like him." + +"Nowhere to run to," said Tim simply. "It's not so bad for me. I'm used +to it. It's not like you, master and missy. Diana and me, when you was +up at the top o' the wall, we'd ha' done anything to stop you coming +down." + +"But, Tim," said Pamela, almost in a whisper "you don't mean that Mick's +going to steal us away for always." + +"No, no," said the boy, "he only wants to get some money for you. But +we'll see in a bit. Just you stay there quiet till he comes, and don't +you say you've seen me. I'll soon see you again; but he mustn't find me +here." + +They began to cry again when he left them, but he had not gone too soon; +for in less than five minutes--by which time Tim had hidden himself some +little way off--they heard the voice of the gipsy urging on the donkey +over the rough ground. He seemed in a very bad temper, and Duke and +Pamela shivered with fear. + +"Oh I wish us had runned away," whispered Pamela, though, when she tried +to lift herself up and found she could not put the wounded foot to the +ground even so as to hobble, she felt that to escape would have been +impossible. The gipsy scowled at them, but said nothing as he lifted +first the boy and then the girl on to the donkey. + +"There, now," he said, with a slight return to his falsely-smooth tones, +"you'll be pleased at last, I should hope. To think of all the trouble +we've had, the missus and me, a-unpacking of all the pots and crocks for +you to ride on the donkey." + +"And are you going to take us straight home, then?" said Pamela, whose +spirits had begun to revive. + +"What, without the bowl?" exclaimed Mick, in pretended surprise, "when +there's such a lot all set out on the grass in a row for you to see." + +He spoke so naturally that both the children were deceived for the +moment. Perhaps after all he was not so bad--even Tim had said _perhaps_ +he was going to take them home! They looked up at him doubtfully. + +"If you don't mind, please," said Duke, "us'd rather go home. It doesn't +matter about the bowl, for sister's foot's so sore and it's getting +late. I'll give you all the money--oh please, where have you put my +money-box?" + +Greatly to his surprise, the gipsy pulled it out of some slouching inner +pocket of his jacket and gave it to him. + +"Here it is, master; but it'd a' been lost but for me--a-laying on the +ground there." + +Duke opened it. + +"I'll give you----" he began again, but he suddenly stopped short. "The +little gold guinea's not here," he cried, "only the shilling and the +sixpence and the pennies." + +"Must have rolled out on the ground if ever it was there," said Mick +sullenly. "_I_ never see'd it." + +"It _was_ there," cried Duke angrily. "Do you think I'd tell a story? I +must go back and look for it. Let me down, I say, let me down." + +Then Mick turned on him with a very evil expression on his face. + +"Stop that, d'ye hear? Stop that," and he lifted his fist threateningly. +"D'ye think I'm going to waste any more time on such brats and their +nonsense? Catch me a-taking you home for you to go and say I've stolen +your money, and get me put in prison by your grandpapas and grandmammas +as likely as not," he went on in a half-threatening, half-whining tone. + +Duke was going to answer, but Pamela pulled his sleeve. + +"Be quiet, bruvver," she said in a whisper. "Tim said us must wait a +bit." + +Almost as she said the words a voice was heard whistling at a little +distance--they were now out of the wood on a rough bridle path. Mick +looked round sharply and descried a figure coming near them. + +"What have you been about, you good-for-nothing?" he shouted. "Why +didn't you stay with the others? You might have lent me a hand with the +donkey and the brats." + +Tim stood still in the middle of the path, and stared at them without +speaking. Then he turned round and walked beside Mick, who was leading +the donkey. + +"What are ye a-doing with the little master and missy?" he asked coolly. + +"Mind yer business," muttered the gipsy gruffly. Then he added in a +louder tone, "Master and missy has lost their way, don't ye see? They're +ever so far from home. It was lucky I met them." + +"Are ye a-going to take them home?" continued Tim. + +"For sure, when I can find the time. But that won't be just yet a bit. +There's the missus a-waiting for us." + +And, turning a corner, they came suddenly in sight of the other +gipsies--the two women and the big sulky-looking boy--gathered round a +tree, the donkey's panniers and the various bundles the party had been +carrying lying on the ground beside them. If the panniers had been +unpacked and their contents spread out, as Mick had told the children, +they had certainly been quickly packed up again. But there was no time +for wondering about how this could be; the woman whom the pedlar called +"the missus" came up to her husband as soon as she saw them, and said a +few words hastily, and with a look of great annoyance, in the queer +language she had spoken before, to which he replied with some angry +expression which it was probably well the children did not understand. + +"Better have done with it, I should say," said the other woman, who was +much younger and nicer-looking, but still with a rather sullen and +discontented face. + +"That's just like her," said Mick. "What we'd come to if we listened to +her talk it beats me to say." + +"You've not come to much good by not listening to it," retorted Diana +fiercely. But Tim, who had gone towards her, said something in a low +voice which seemed to calm her. + +"It's true--we'll only waste our time if we take to quarrelling," she +said. "What's to be done, then?" + +"We must put the panniers back, and the girl must sit between them +somehow," said the man. "She can't walk--the boy must run beside." + +So saying, he lifted both children off the donkey, not so gently but +that Pamela gave a cry as her sore foot touched the ground. But no one +except Duke paid any attention to her, not even Tim, which she thought +very unkind of him. She said so in a low voice to Duke, but he whispered +to her to be quiet. + +"If only my foot was not sore, now us could have runned away," she could +not help whispering again. For all the gipsies seemed so busy in loading +themselves and the donkey that for a few minutes the children could have +fancied they had forgotten all about them. It was not so, however. As +soon as the panniers were fastened on again Mick turned to Pamela, and, +without giving her time to resist, placed her again on the donkey. It +was very uncomfortable for her; her poor little legs were stretched out +half across the panniers, and she felt that the moment the donkey moved +she would surely fall off. So, as might have been expected, she began to +cry. The gipsy was turning to her with some rough words, when Diana +interfered. + +"Let me settle her," she said. "What a fool you are, Mick!" Then she +drew out of her own bundle a rough but not very dirty checked wool +shawl, with which she covered the little girl, who was shivering with +cold, and at the same time made a sort of cushion for her with one end +of it, so that she could sit more securely. + +"Thank you," said Pamela, amidst her sobs; "but oh I hope it's not very +far to home." + +Mick stood looking on, and at this he gave a sneering laugh. + +"It's just as well to have covered her up," he said. "Isn't there +another shawl as'd do for the boy? Not that it matters; we'll meet no +one the road we're going. The sooner we're off the better." + +He took hold of the bridle and set off as fast as he could get the +donkey to go. Diana kept her place beside it, so that, even if Pamela +had fallen off, it would only have been into the young woman's arms. +Duke followed with Tim and the other woman, but he had really to "run," +as Mick had said, for his short legs could not otherwise have kept up +with the others. He was soon too out of breath to speak--besides, he +dared not have said anything to Tim in the hearing of "the missus," of +whom he was almost more afraid than even of Mick. And the only sign of +friendliness Tim, on his side, dared show him was by taking his hand +whenever he thought the woman would not notice. But, tired as he was +already, Duke could not long have kept up; he felt as if he _must_ have +cried out, when suddenly they came to a turning in the road and the +gipsy stopped. + +"We'll get back into the wood this way," he said, without turning his +head, and with some difficulty he managed to get the donkey across a dry +ditch, and down a steep bank, when, sure enough, they found themselves +again among trees. It was already dusk, and a very little way on in the +wood it became almost dark. The gipsy went on some distance +farther--obliged, however, to go very slowly; then at last he stopped. + +"This'll do for to-night," he said. "I'm about sick of all this +nonsense, I can tell ye. We might ha' been at Brigslade to-night if it +hadn't been for these brats." + +"Then do as I say," said Diana. "I'll manage it for you. Big Tony can +carry one, and I the other." + +But Mick only turned away with an oath. + +[Illustration: "HERE'S SOME SUPPER FOR YOU. WAKE UP, AND TRY AND EAT A +BIT. IT'LL DO YOU GOOD."--p. 89.] + +Big Tony was the name of the gipsy boy. He never spoke, and never seemed +to take any interest in anything, for he was half-witted, as it is +called; though Duke and Pamela only thought him very sulky and silent +compared with the friendly little Tim. By this time they were too +completely tired to think about anything--they even felt too stupid to +wonder if they were on the way home or not--and when Diana lifted Pamela +off the donkey and set her down, still wrapped in the shawl, to lean +with her back against a tree, Duke crept up to her, drawing a corner of +the shawl round him, for he too was very cold by now, poor little +boy--and sat there by his sister, both of them in a sort of half stupor, +too tired even to know that they were very hungry! + +They did fall asleep--though they did not know it till they were roused +by some one gently pulling them. + +"Here's some supper for you. Wake up, and try and eat a bit. It'll do +you good," the gipsy Diana was saying to them; and when they managed to +open their sleepy eyes, they saw that she had a wooden bowl in one hand, +in which some hot coffee was steaming, and a hunch of bread in the +other. It was not very good coffee, and neither Duke nor Pamela was +accustomed to coffee of any kind at home, but it was hot and sweet, and +they were so hungry that even the coarse butterless bread tasted good. +As they grew more awake they began to wonder how the coffee had been +made, but the mystery was soon explained, for at a short distance a fire +of leaves and branches was burning brightly with a kettle sputtering +merrily in the middle. And round the fire Mick and his wife and big Tony +were sitting or lying, each with food in their hands; while a little +nearer them Tim was pulling another shawl out of a bundle. + +"Give it me here," said Diana, and then she wrapped it round Duke, +drawing the other more closely about Pamela. + +"Now you can go to sleep again," she said, seeing that the coffee and +bread had disappeared. "It'll not be a cold night, and we'll have to be +off early in the morning;" and then she turned away and sat down to eat +her own supper at a little distance. + +"Tim," whispered Duke; but the boy caught the faint sound and edged +himself nearer. + +"Tim," said Duke again, "is he not going to take us home to-night?" + +"I'se a-feared not," replied Tim in the same tone. + +A low deep sigh escaped poor Duke. Pamela, so worn out by the pain as +well as fatigue she had suffered that she could no longer keep up, was +already fast asleep again. + +"When it's quite, quite dark," continued Duke, "and when Mick and them +all are asleep, don't you think us might run away, Tim?" + +Tim shook his head. + +"Missy can't walk; and she's dead tired out, let alone her poor foot," +he said. "You must wait a bit till she can walk anyway. Try to go to +sleep, and to-morrow we'll see." + +Duke began to cry quietly. + +"I'm too midderable to sleep," he said. "And it's all my fault. Just +look at sister, Tim. She's not even undressed, and she'll die--sleeping +all night without any bed out in the cold. Oh, and it's all my fault!" + +"Hush, hush, master!" said Tim, terrified lest the others should +overhear them. + +"What does he want to do with us? Why won't he take us home?" asked +Duke. + +Tim hesitated a moment. + +"I thought at first it was just to get money for bringing of ye back," +he said. "I've known him do that." + +"But us would tell," said Duke indignantly. "Us would tell that he +wouldn't let us go home." + +"Ah, he'd manage so as 'twouldn't matter what you said," replied Tim. +"He'd get some pal of his to find you like, and then he'd get the money +back from him." + +"What's a pal?" asked Duke bewildered. + +"Another like hisself; a friend o' his'n," said Tim. "But that's not +what he's after. I found out what it is. There's a show at some big +place we're going to; and they want pretty little ones like you and +little missy, to dress them up and teach them to dance, and to play all +sort o' tricks--a-riding on ponies and suchlike, I daresay. I'se seen +them. And Mick'll get a good deal that way. I'd bet anything, and so'd +Diana, that's what he's after." + +"But us'd _tell_," repeated Duke, "us'd tell that he'd stoled us away, +and they'd have to let us go home." + +Again Tim shook his head. + +"Those as 'ud pay Mick for ye wouldn't give much heed to aught you'd +say," he answered. "And it'll maybe be a long way off from here--over +the sea maybe." + +"Then," said Duke, "then us _must_ run away, Tim. And if you won't help +us, us'll run away alone, as soon as ever sister's foot's better. Us +_must_, Tim." + +He had raised his voice in his excitement, so that Tim glanced anxiously +in the direction of the fire. But Mick and his wife seemed to have +fallen asleep themselves, or perhaps the wind rustling overhead among +the branches prevented the child's little voice reaching them; they gave +no signs of hearing. All the same it was best to be cautious. + +"Master," said Tim solemnly, "I'm ready to help you. I said so to Diana, +I did, as soon as ever I see'd what Mick was after, a-tempting you and +missy with his nonsense about the bowl you wanted; there's no bowls like +what you wanted among the crocks." + +"Why didn't you call out to us and tell us not to come?" said Duke. + +"I dursn't--and Mick'd have told you it was all my lies. And I never +thought he was a-going to bring you right away neither. I thought he'd +get money out of you like he does whenever he's a chance. But, master, +if you're ever to get safe away you must do as I tell you, you must." + +This was all the comfort poor Duke could get. In the meantime there was +nothing to do but try to go to sleep and forget his troubles. There was +not very much time to do so in, for long before it was really dawn the +gipsies were up and astir, and by noon the little brother and sister +were farther from "home" than they had ever been since the day when +their poor young mother arrived at Arbitt Lodge with her two +starved-looking fledglings, now nearly six years ago. For some miles +from where they had spent the night Mick and his party joined a +travelling caravan of their friends, all bound for the great fair of +which Tim had spoken to Duke. And now it would have been difficult for +even Grandpapa or Grandmamma to recognise their dear children. Their own +clothes were taken from them, their white skin, like that of the +princesses in the old fairy tales, was washed with something which, if +not walnut juice, had the same effect, and they were dressed in coarse +rough garments belonging to some of the gipsy children of the caravan. +Still, on the whole, they were not unkindly treated--they had enough to +eat of common food, and Diana, who took them a good deal under her +charge, was kind to them in her rough sulky way. But it was a dreadful +change for the poor little things, and they would already have tried, at +all risks, to run away, had it not been for Tim's begging them to be +patient and trust to him. + +All day long--it was now the third day since they had been stolen--the +two or three covered vans or waggons which contained the gipsies and +their possessions jogged slowly along the roads and lanes. Now and then +they halted for a few hours if they came to any village or small town +where it seemed likely that they could do a little business, either in +selling their crockery or cheap cutlery, baskets, and suchlike, or +perhaps in fortune-telling, and no doubt wherever they stopped the +farm-yards and poultry-yards in the neighbourhood were none the better +for it. At such times Duke and Pamela were always hidden away deep in +the recesses of one of the waggons, so there was nothing they dreaded +more than when they saw signs of making a halt. It was wretched to be +huddled for hours together in a dark corner among all sorts of dirty +packages, while the other children were allowed to run about the village +street picking up any odd pence they could by playing tricks or selling +little trifles out of the general repository. And the brother and sister +were not at all consoled by being told that before long they should be +dressed up in beautiful gold and silver clothes--"like a real prince and +princess," said Mick, once when he was in a good humour--and taught to +dance like fairies. For Tim's words had explained to them the meaning of +these fine promises, and, though they said nothing, the little pair were +far less babyish and foolish in some ways than the gipsies, who judged +them by their delicate appearance and small stature, had any idea of. +But still they were very young, and there is no telling how soon they +would have begun to get accustomed to their strange life,--how soon even +the remembrance of Grandpapa and Grandmamma and their pretty peaceful +home, of Toby and Miss Mitten, of the garden and their little white +beds, of Nurse and Biddy and Dymock, and all that had hitherto made up +their world,--would have begun to grow dim and hazy, and at last seem +only a dream, of which Mick, and the Missus and Diana, and the others, +and the green lanes, with the waggons ever creeping along, and the +coarse food and coarser talking and laughing and scolding, were the +reality, had it not been for some fortunate events which opened out to +them the hope of escape before they had learnt to forget they were in +prison. + +Tim was a great favourite in the gipsy camp. He was not one of them, but +he did not seem to remember any other life; in any case he never spoke +of it, and he was so much better tempered and obliging than the cruel, +quarrelsome gipsy boys, that it was always to him that ran the two or +three tiny black-eyed children when their mothers had cuffed them out of +the way; it was always he who had a kind word or a pat on the head for +the two half-starved curs that slunk along beside or under the carts. +There was no mystery about his life--he was not a stolen child, and he +could faintly remember the little cottage where he had lived with his +mother before she died, leaving him perfectly friendless and penniless, +so that he was glad to pick up an odd sixpence, or even less, wherever +he could, till one day he fell in with Mick, who offered him his food +and the chance of more by degrees, as he wanted a sharp lad to help him +in his various trades--of pedlar, tinker, basket-maker, wicker-chair +mender, etc., not to speak of poultry-stealing, orchard-robbing, and +even child-thieving when he got a chance that seemed likely to be +profitable. + +Poor little Tim--he had learnt very scanty good in his short life! His +mother, bowed down with care and sorrow--for her husband, a thatcher by +trade, had been killed by an accident, leaving her with the boy of three +years old and two delicate babies, who both died--had barely managed to +keep herself and him alive by working in the fields, and she used to +come home at night so tired out that she could scarcely speak to the +child, much less teach him as she would have liked to do. Still on +Sundays she always, till her last illness, managed to take him to +church, and in her simple way tried to explain to him something of what +he then heard. But he was only eight years old when she died, and, +though he had not forgotten _her_, the memory of her words had grown +confused and misty. For, in the four years since then, he had had no +companions but tramps and gipsies--till the day when Duke and Pamela +were decoyed away by Mick, he had never exchanged more than a passing +word or two with any one of a better class. And somehow the sight of +their sweet innocent faces, the sound of their gentle little voices had +at once gained his heart. Never had he thought so much of his mother, of +his tiny brother and sister, who, he fancied, would have been about the +size of the little strangers, as since he had been with them. And when +he saw them looking shocked and frightened at the rough words and tones +of the gipsies,--when Pamela burst out sobbing to see how dirty her face +and hands were, and Duke grew scarlet with fury at the boys for throwing +stones at the poor dogs,--most of all, perhaps, when the two little +creatures knelt together in a corner of the van to say their prayers +night and morning--prayers which now always ended in a sobbing entreaty +"to be taken home again to dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma,"--a strange +feeling rose in Tim's throat and seemed as if it would choke him. And he +lay awake night after night trying to recall what his mother had taught +him, wishing he knew what it meant to be "good," wondering if the +Grandpapa and Grandmamma of whom the children so constantly spoke would +perhaps take pity on him and put him in the way of a better sort of +life, if he could succeed in helping the little master and missy to +escape from the gipsies and get safe back to their own home. + +For every day, now that he had seen more of the children, he understood +better how dreadful it would be for them if wicked Mick's intentions +were to succeed. But hitherto no opportunity of running away had +offered--the children were far too closely watched. And Tim dared not +take any one, not even Diana, into his confidence! + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TOBY AND BARBARA. + + "Missing or lost, last Sunday night." + THOMAS MOORE. + + +The chance for which Tim was hoping seemed slow of coming. He was always +on the look-out for it; and, indeed, had he not been so Duke would have +kept him up to his promise, for whenever he saw Tim alone for a moment +he was sure to whisper to him, "How soon do you think us can run away?" +And it was now the seventh day since the children had been carried off! + +Pamela's foot was almost well. She could walk and even run without it +hurting her. Diana had bound it up carefully, after putting on some +ointment which certainly healed it very quickly. For, with all their +ignorance and brutality, the gipsies were really clever in some ways. +They had knowledge of herbs which had been handed down to them by their +ancestors, and their fingers were skilful and nimble. And for their own +sakes Mick and the Missus were anxious that their two pretty prisoners +should not fall ill. So that, though dirty and uncared-for as far as +appearance went, the little pair had not really suffered in health by +their misfortunes. + +It was partly, perhaps, owing to their innocent hopefulness, which kept +up their spirits when, had they been wiser and older, they would have +lost heart and grown ill with fear and anxiety. + +They were now far enough from Sandlingham for Mick to feel pretty sure +they would not be tracked. The actual distance they had travelled was +not great, but a few miles in those days were really more than a hundred +at the present time. For there were, of course, no railways; in many +parts of the country the cross-roads were so bad that it was necessary +and really quicker to make long rounds rather than leave "the king's +highway." And--still more important, perhaps, in such a case--there were +no telegraphs! No possibility for poor Grandpapa and Grandmamma--as +there would be nowadays, _could_ such a thing happen as the theft of +little children--to send word in the space of an hour or two to the +police all over the country. Indeed, compared with what it is in our +times, the police hardly existed. + +And everything was in the gipsies' favour. No one had seen them in the +neighbourhood of Arbitt Lodge. They had not been on the Sandlingham +high-road before meeting the children, and had avoided it on purpose +after that. So, among the many explanations that were offered to the +poor old gentleman and lady of their grandchildren's disappearance, +though "stolen by gipsies" was suggested, it was not seriously taken up. + +"There have been no gipsies about here for months past," said Grandpapa. +"Besides, the children were in our own grounds--gipsies could not have +got in without being seen--it is not as if they had been straying about +the lanes." + +Everything that could be done had been done. All the ponds in the +neighbourhood had been dragged; the only dangerous place anywhere +near--a sort of overhanging cliff over some unused quarries--had been at +once visited; the quarries themselves searched in every corner--even +though they were very meek-and-mild, inoffensive quarries, where it +would have been difficult to hide even a little dog like Toby. And all, +as we of course know, had been in vain! There really seemed by the end +of this same seventh day _nothing_ left to do. And Grandpapa sat with +bowed gray head, his newspaper unopened on the table beside him, broken +down, brave old soldier though he was,--utterly broken down by this +terrible blow. While Grandmamma slowly drew her arm-chair a little +nearer than usual to the fire, for grief makes people--old people +especially--chilly. All her briskness and energy were gone; her sweet +old face was white and drawn, with no pretty pink flush in the cheeks +now; her bright eyes were dimmed and paled by the tears they had shed, +till now even the power of weeping seemed exhausted. + +"I never thought--no, through all I never thought," she murmured to +herself, so low that even if Grandpapa had been much sharper of hearing +than he was her words could not have reached him,--"I never thought that +a day would come when I should thank the Lord that my Marmaduke--yes, +and poor little Lavinia too--had not lived to see their darlings the +pretty creatures they had become! Yet now I am thankful--thankful for +them to have been spared this anguish. Though, again, if they had been +alive and well and able to take care of Duke and Pam, perhaps it would +never have happened." + +And once more--for the hundredth time, I daresay--poor Grandmamma began +torturing herself by wondering in what she had erred--how could she have +taken better care of the children?--was it her fault or Grandpapa's, or +Nurse's, or Biddy's, or anybody's? There had been _something_ the matter +with Duke and Pam that last morning; they had had something on their +little minds. She had thought so at the time, and now she was more than +ever sure of it. What could it have been? + +"I thought it best not to force their confidence, babies though they +are," she reflected. "But perhaps if I had persuaded them very tenderly, +they would have told me. Was I too severe and strict with them, the +darlings? I meant to act for the best, but I am a foolish old woman--if +only the punishment of my mistakes could fall on me alone! Ah dear, ah +dear!--it would have been hard to lose them by death, but in that case I +should have felt that they were going to their father and mother; while +_now_--it is awful to picture where they may be, or what may have become +of them! Oh Toby, is it you, you poor little dog?" for just at this +moment Toby rubbed himself against her foot, looking up in her face with +a sad wistful expression in his bright eyes. "Oh Toby, Toby," said +Grandmamma, "I wonder if you could tell us anything to clear up this +dreadful mystery if you could talk." + +But Toby only wagged his tail--he was very sad too, but he had far too +much self-respect _not_ to wag his tail when he was kindly spoken to, +however depressed he might be feeling--and looked up again, blinking his +eyes behind their shaggy veil. + +"Oh Toby," said poor Grandmamma again, as if she really did not know +what else to say. + +And Grandpapa, half ashamed of his own prostration, roused himself to +try to say a cheering word or two. + +"We must hope still, my love," he said. "To-morrow may bring news from +the Central London Police Office, where the Sandlingham overseer has +written to. He bade us keep up hope for a few days yet, we must +remember." + +"Only for a few days more," repeated Grandmamma. "And if those days +bring nothing, what _are_ we to think--what are we to do?" + +"Upon my soul," said Grandpapa, "I do _not_ know;" and with a heavy sigh +he turned away again, glancing at the newspaper as if half inclined to +open it, but without the heart to do so. + +"Of course," he said, "if by any possibility they had fallen into kind +hands, and it had occurred to any one to advertise about them, we should +have known it before this. The police are all on the alert by now. If +dishonest people have carried them off for the sake of a reward, they +will find means of claiming it before long. The head-man at Sandlingham +does not advise our offering a reward as yet. He says it might lead to +more delay if they are in dishonest hands. Their captors would wait to +see if more would not be offered--better let them make the first move, +he says." + +"To think of putting a price on the darlings, as if they were little +strayed dogs!" exclaimed Grandmamma, lifting her hands. + +Just at this moment the door opened, and Dymock came in. Grandmamma +raised her face quickly, with a look of expectation--the door never +opened in those sad days without her heart beating faster with the hope +of possible tidings--but it as quickly faded again. Dymock had just the +same melancholy expression; he still walked on tiptoe, and spoke in a +muffled voice, as if he were entering a sick-room. This was his way of +showing his sympathy, which really was most deep and sincere But somehow +it provoked Grandmamma, who was, it must be confessed, _rather_ a +quick-tempered old lady at all times, and at present her nerves were of +course unusually irritated. + +"Well, what is it, Dymock?" she said testily. "I wish you would not go +about like a mute at a funeral. You make me think I don't know what." + +"Beg pardon, ma'am, I'm sure," said Dymock humbly, but still in the same +subdued way. He would not have taken offence just now at any remark of +Grandmamma's; but he could not help speaking to her with a sort of +respectful indulgence, as much as to say, "I know she can't help it, +poor old lady," which Grandmamma found exceedingly aggravating. "Beg +pardon. But it's Mrs. Twiss. If she could see you for a moment, ma'am?" + +"Old Barbara!" exclaimed Grandmamma. "Is it possible that she--she is so +shrewd and sensible--can she have heard anything do you think, Dymock?" + +But Dymock shook his head solemnly. + +"No, no, ma'am. It's not that. I'm very sorry if by my manner I raised +any false hopes." + +"That you certainly did not, my good Dymock," said the old lady grimly. + + +"But--would you see Mrs. Twiss, ma'am? She's going from home I believe." + +"Going from home--she who never leaves her own cottage! Yes, I will see +her," and in another moment the neat old woman was making her curtsey at +the door. + +"Come in, come in, Barbara," said Grandmamma. "And so you are off +somewhere? How is that? Ah, if I were as strong and well as you, I think +I would be tempted to set off on my travels to look for my lost +darlings. It is the staying here waiting and doing nothing that is so +dreadful, my good friend." + +And Grandmamma's voice quavered with the last words. It was not the +first time she had seen Barbara since the children's disappearance, for +they were old friends, and the cake woman had hurried up to Arbitt Lodge +at once on hearing of the sad trouble that had befallen its inmates, to +express her concern and see if maybe she could be of any use. + +"Yes, indeed, ma'am. I can well understand it," she said. "How you bear +up as you do is just wonderful. I'm sure I can't get it out of my mind +for a moment. I keep seeing them as they passed by that last afternoon. +Nurse was a bit vexed with them--missy's frock was torn and----" + +"Yes," interrupted Grandmamma--Grandpapa seeing her occupied had at last +made up his mind to open his newspaper--"Yes, I was thinking of that. +They told us about it, and they asked what it meant to be 'a great +charge;' they had heard Nurse say that to you. She is a good woman, I +feel sure, Barbara, but perhaps she is a little too strict. I have got +it so on my mind that they had some little trouble they did not like to +tell about, and that that, somehow, has had to do with it all." + +"You don't mean, ma'am, that such tiny trots as that would have run away +on purpose?" said Barbara in surprise. "Oh no, they'd never have done +that." + +"No, I do not mean that exactly," said Grandmamma. "I do not think I +know rightly what I mean. Dear, dear, I wish Dymock would keep Toby +away," she added. "You don't know how he startles me--every time he +comes close to me I fancy somehow it is the children," and Grandmamma +looked so uneasy and nervous that Barbara quietly took up the little dog +and put him out of the room. "And, Barbara, you had no reason for coming +to see me? Except, of course--I was forgetting--that you are going +away." + +"Only for a few days, ma'am," Barbara replied. "I had a letter from my +niece--leastways from her husband--the niece who lives over near +Monkhaven--yesterday. She's been very ill, ma'am,--very ill indeed, and +though she's getting better it would be a great comfort to her to see +me, and maybe spirit her up a bit to get well quicker. So I'm just +setting off--I've locked up my cottage and left the key next door. But I +couldn't start without looking in again to see if maybe you had any +news." + +"No, no--nothing," replied Grandmamma. "And I feel as if I couldn't bear +much more. I am breaking up, Barbara; a few days more will see the last +of me, my old friend, if they bring no tidings." + +Barbara's eyes filled with tears, but she said nothing.--She had +exhausted all her attempts at comfort, all her "perhaps"'s, and +"maybe"'s as to what had become of the children; and though she was a +very cheerful and hopeful old woman, she was also very sympathising, and +it made her dreadfully sad to see Grandmamma so changed and cast down. + +"It goes to my heart, ma'am, to see you so," she got out at last. "I +know there's nothing I can do, but all the same I wish I weren't going +away just now, though the few days will soon be past." + +"Yes," said Grandmamma, "they will certainly; and yet even two days seem +an eternity just now. You see how foolish and weak I am growing, +Barbara. I want every day to be over, and yet I cannot bear to have the +days pass and to say to myself that the chances of any tidings are +lessening and lessening. Soon it will be two weeks--it is already eight +days. When it was only two days it did not seem so hopeless. But I must +not keep you, Barbara. How do you mean to get to Monkhaven?" + +"Farmer Carson is to give me a lift as far as Brigslade, and then I can +walk the rest," said the sturdy old woman, "so good-day to you, ma'am, +and, oh deary me, but I do hope there may be better news to hear when I +come back on Friday," and with a cordial shake of the hand from +Grandmamma, Barbara turned to go. But just then there came at the door a +whining and scratching which made the old lady give a sigh of +impatience. + +"It is the dog again," she said. "He is so restless there is no keeping +him quiet, and, though I am very fond of him, I really cannot bear the +sight of him just now. I do wish he were away." + +Grandmamma spoke so weariedly and seemed so nervous that Barbara felt +more sorry for her than ever. Suddenly an idea struck her. + +"Would you let me take him with me, ma'am?" she said. "He knows me so +well that I should have no trouble with him, and he'd be nice company on +the walk from Brigslade." + +Grandmamma hesitated, but only for a moment. + +"Yes, take him, Barbara," she said. "He will be much happier with you, +poor little dog. And till I have my darlings again,--and will that ever +be, Barbara?--I really cannot bear to see or hear him. Yes, take him +with you, poor little dog; and--and--keep him as long as you +like--unless--unless there _do_ come good news." + +And thus it came to pass that Toby set out on his travels with Barbara +Twiss, while poor Grandmamma shrank down again into her arm-chair by the +fire, and Grandpapa tried to imagine he was reading his newspaper as +usual. + +What did poor Toby think of it all? His ideas had been very confused +for some days, poor little dog. He could not make out what had become of +the children. He sniffed about everywhere, once or twice barking with +sudden delight when, coming upon some relic of his little master or +mistress, such as Duke's old garden hat or Pamela's tiny parasol, he +imagined for a moment or two that he had found them, only to creep off +again with his tail between his legs in renewed disappointment when he +discovered his mistake, all of which, it is easy to understand, had been +very trying to poor Grandmamma, and no doubt to Toby himself. He did not +understand what he was scolded for when he certainly meant no harm; he +could not make out why Dymock gave him little shoves out of the way and +Biddy bade him sharply be quiet when he, naturally enough, yelped at +this inconsiderate treatment. And worst of all, when, after the most +mature reflection, he took up his quarters on one of the two little +white beds in the night nursery, deciding that there, sooner or later, +his friends _must_ return, was it not _too_ bad that Nurse, hobbling +about again after her rheumatic attack, which she had made much worse by +fretting,--was it not _too_ bad that she should unceremoniously dislodge +him with never a "by your leave," or "with your leave"? + +Toby shook himself and walked off in disgust. + +"You very silly and stupid old woman," he said to her in his own mind, +"if you only had the sense to understand _my_ language, you would see +that the only rational thing to do is to wait for Duke and Pam in a +place where they are sure to come. And that is their beds. I have +thought it out, I assure you. But there is no use trying to put +reasonable ideas into human beings' heads. I might bark myself black in +the face before any one could take in what I mean." + +It was just after this that he had wandered away downstairs in search of +a quiet corner; and on first entering the parlour Grandmamma spoke to +him so kindly that he began to think of bestowing his company upon her +for the rest of the day, especially as she was always installed near a +good fire. Toby dearly loved a fire; even on a hot summer's day the +kitchen fire had great attractions for him. But when Mrs. Twiss came in, +and he, as was his duty and business of course, went to the door to see +who it was, that officious Dymock shut him out again, and actually when +he whined and scratched in the politest manner to be let in Grandmamma +spoke crossly to him. + +"Et tu, Brute!" thought Toby to himself. What was coming over the world? + +On the whole he was not sorry to find himself trotting down the lane +beside Barbara, whom he had a sincere regard for. She spoke to him with +proper respect; she was not given to shoves like Dymock, or sharp +expressions like Nurse and Biddy, and when she called him to follow her, +Toby willingly followed. + +"You're to come along with me, poor doggie," she said. "You're only a +worry to the good lady at present, and I'm pleased to have your company. +Besides, who knows, you're a sharp dog, Toby, and you and I will keep +our eyes and ears open, and you your nose as well, for that's a gift the +more, you have, you doggies, nor us." + +And so saying Barbara and her companion made their way to the +cross-roads, a point well known in the country-side. For there a great +finger-post served the double purpose of informing the traveller in four +directions and of frightening many a country lad or lassie of a +moonlight night, when it stood gaunt and staring like a gigantic +skeleton, as everybody knows the meeting of cross-roads is at no time a +canny spot. + +Here Farmer Carson had promised to take up Barbara, for his home lay a +mile or two out of the village, all of which she kindly explained to her +little companion as they went along. She had a great habit of talking to +herself, and she was so much alone that it was quite a treat to have +"some one" to talk to, as she also informed Toby. He looked up at her +with his bright eyes, from time to time wagging his tail, "for all the +world like a Christian," thought Barbara, but nevertheless I am afraid +he did not take in her information as fully as appeared. For when, after +they had sat waiting for him for some minutes, the worthy farmer drove +up with a cheery "Good morning, Mrs. Twiss," Toby had the impertinence +to bark furiously at him and his most respectable old mare, as if they +had not quite as good a right as he to the king's highway! + +This, of course caught the farmer's attention. + +"That's a knowing little chap you've got with you, neighbour Twiss," he +said; "he favours the one at the Lodge, does he not?" + +This naturally led to Barbara's explaining that he was the one at the +Lodge in person, and then she and her friend beguiled the way by talking +over the sad and mysterious disappearance of the children. + +It was very sad, and very strange, the farmer agreed. Then he scratched +his head with the hand that was not occupied with the reins. + +"I've thought a deal about it," he said, "and I've come to think +it's--as likely as not--gipsies after all." + +Barbara started. + +"But there's been none about," she said, "not for ever so long. The +General"--the General was Grandpapa--"thought of that at the very first +and asked all about. But there'd been none heard of, and heard of they +always are pretty quick, and none so pleasantly, as you should know +well, Mr. Carson." + +"I do so, I do so," he agreed, nodding his head. "But they're a cunning +lot. If they'd any reason for getting quick out of the way, they'd do +it. All I can tell you is this, and I only heard it last night: one o' +my men coming home what he calls a short-cut way saw traces of a fire +down by Black Marsh; and he's certain sure the marks weren't there the +day before the children disappeared. That was the last time he'd passed +that way." + +"And that's more nor a week past," said Barbara. "If it should be +so,--if the gipsies have really got them,--they may be a long way off by +now." + +"Just so," said the farmer; "that's the worst of it. And no telling what +road they've gone, neither. No; I'm sadly afraid if it's been gipsies +there's not much chance of seeing them again, unless they're tempted by +the rewards. Pretty little creatures like that they can always make a +good deal by, for those shows as goes about. And they're such +babies--only four or five years old, aren't they? They'll soon forget +where they come from and all." + +"Nay," said Barbara, "they're small for their age, for they're six past. +But they're not dull; no, indeed, they're very quick children. They'd +not forget in a hurry." + +Then she grew very silent. It made her terribly sad to think of the two +tender little creatures in such hands; suddenly Toby, who had been +quietly reposing at her feet, jumped up and gave a short sharp bark. + +"What is it, Toby?" said Barbara, patting him. + +Toby grunted a little, and then lay down again. The reason of his +barking was that he had just discovered why old Barbara had brought him +away on this journey. It was that _he_ was to find the children--he +quite understood all about it now, and wished to say so. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +DIANA'S PROMISE. + + "Oh, who can say + But that this dream may yet come true?" + THOMAS MOORE. + + +For some days the gipsy caravan had been making its way along a very +lonely road; they had come across no towns at all and no large villages. +They got over more ground now, for there was less temptation to linger. +The truth was that Mick and the other heads of the party had in some way +got news that the great fair to which they were bound was to begin +sooner than they expected, and unless they hurried on they might not be +there in time to take up a good position among the many strays and waifs +of their kind always to be found at such places. There were ever so many +ways in which they expected to turn a number of honest or dishonest +"pennies" at this same fair. It was one of their regular harvest times. +Mick and his friends always managed to do something in the way of +horse-dealing on such occasions, and Diana, who was the best-looking of +the younger gipsy-women, was thoroughly up to all the tricks of +fortune-telling. Her cold haughty manners had often more success than +the wheedling flatteries of the others. She _looked_ as if she were +quite above trickery of any kind, and no doubt the things she told were +not altogether nonsense or falsehood. For she had learned to be +wonderfully quick in reading the characters of those who applied to her, +even in divining the thoughts and anxieties in their minds. And besides +these resources the gipsies had a good show of baskets and brooms of +their own manufacture to dispose of; added to which this year a hard +bargain was to be driven with Signor Fribusco, the owner of the +travelling circus, for the "two lovely orphans," whose description had +already been given to him by some of the gipsy's confidantes, to whom +Mick had sent word, knowing them to be in the Signor's neighbourhood. + +Some of this Tim had found out by dint of listening to bits of +conversation when he was supposed to be asleep. He grew more and more +afraid as the days passed on and no chance of escape offered, for +various things began to make him fear they were not very far from the +town they were bound to. For one thing Mick's wife and Diana began to +pay more attention to the two children's appearance. Their fair hair was +brushed and combed every day, and their delicate skin was carefully +washed with something that restored it almost to its natural colour; all +of which had an ominous meaning for Tim. + +"Diana is very kind now," said Pamela, one day when she and Duke had +been allowed for once to run about a little with the other children. +There certainly seemed small risk in their doing so, for the gipsies had +encamped for the night on a desolate moor, where no human habitations of +any kind were in sight, no passers-by to be feared. + +"Yes," said Duke, who had hold of Tim's other hand; "she makes us nice +and clean and tidy." + +"And she's making a gown for me," said Pamela. "It's made of my own +white gown, but she's sewing rows of red and blue and gold round it. And +she says if Duke is good she's going to make him a red jacket. Isn't it +kind of her? Do you know, Tim," she went on in a lower tone, "us has +been thinking that perhaps they're meaning to take us home soon, and +that they want us to look very nice. Do you think it's that, Tim? I'm +sure Grandpapa and Grandmamma would be so pleased they'd give them lots +of money if they took us back." + +"I'm afeared it's not taking you home they're thinking of, missie," said +Tim grimly. + +"Then why don't you help us to run away, Tim?" said Duke impatiently. +"I've asked you and asked you. I'm sure us might run away _now_--there's +nobody looking after us." + +"And where would we run to?" said Tim. "There's not a mortal house nor a +tree even to be seen. Run away, indeed! We'd be cotched--cotched afore +we'd run half a mile. And yet it's the very first time you've bin let +run about a little. I'm ready enough to run away, but no good running +away to be cotched again--it 'ud be worser nor ever." + +"Then is us never to run away? Is us never to see Grandpapa, and +Grandmamma, and Dymock, and Biddy, and Nurse, and Toby--oh, dear +Toby!--and the garden, and the nursery, and our little beds, again?" +said both children, speaking together and helping each other with the +list of their lost blessings, and in the end bursting into tears. + +Tim looked at them ruefully. + +"Don't 'ee now, don't 'ee, master and missy," he said anxiously. +"They'll see you've been crying, and they'll not let you out any more." + +Duke and Pamela tried to choke down their sobs. + +"Will you try to help us to run away, then, if us is very good--Tim, +dear Tim, oh do," they said piteously. And Tim tried to soothe them with +kind words and promises to do his best. + +Poor fellow, he was only too ready to run away for his own sake as well +as theirs. The feelings which had been stirred and reawakened by the +children's companionship had not slumbered again; on the contrary, they +seemed to gain strength every day. Every day he felt more and more +loathing for his present life; every night when he tumbled into the +ragged heap which was called his bed he said to himself more strongly +that he _must_ get away--he could not bear to think that his mother, +looking down on him from the heaven in which she had taught him to +believe, could see him the dirty careless gipsy boy he had become. It +was wonderful how her words came back to him now--how every time he +could manage to get a little talk with his new friends their gentle +voices and pretty ways seemed to revive old memories that he had not +known were there. And the thought of rescuing them,--of succeeding in +taking them safe back to their own home,--opened a new door for him. + +"Maybe," said Tim to himself, "the old gentleman and lady'd take me on +as a stable-boy or such like if the little master and missie'd speak a +word for me, as I'm sure they would. And I'm right down sure I'd try to +do my best--anything to get away from this life." + +Of course he could have got away by himself at any time much more easily +than with the children. But till now, as he had told them, he had not +cared to try it, for where had he to run to? And, besides, it was only +since Duke and Pamela had been with the gipsies that the wish to return +to a better kind of life had grown so very strong. + +He sighed heavily as he stood on the desolate moor with his two little +companions, for he felt what he would not say to them, how terribly +difficult their escape would be. + +Suddenly Pamela tugged at his arm. + +"What is that shining down there, Tim?" she said, pointing over the +moor, which sloped downwards at one side. "Is it a river?" + +Tim looked where she directed, and his face brightened a little. + +"'Tis the canal, missie," he said. "It comes past Monkhaven, and goes--I +don't rightly know where to. Maybe to that place we're going to, where +the fair's to be. I once went a bit of a way on a canal--that was afore +I was with Mick and his lot. There was a boy and his mother as was very +good to me. I wish I could see them again, I do." + +"But what _is_ a canal, Tim," said Pamela. "Us has never seen one, and +that down there looks like a silver thread--it shines like water." + +"So it is water, missie--a canal's a sort of a river, only it goes along +always quite straight. It doesn't go bending in and out like a real +river, sometimes bigger and sometimes littler like." + +"And how did you go on it," asked Duke. "And the boy and his mother? You +couldn't walk on it if it was water--nobody can except Jesus in the big +Bible at home. _He_ walked on the top of the water." + +"Did he really?" said Tim, opening his eyes. "I've heerd tell on him. He +was very good to poor folk and such like, wasn't he? Mother telled me +about him, tho' I thought I'd forgotten all she'd told me. But I +remember the name now as you says it. And what did he walk on the top o' +the water for, master?" + +Duke looked a little puzzled. + +"I don't quite remember, but I think it was to help some poor men when +the sea was rough." + +"No, no," said Pamela; "_that_ was the time he felled asleep, and they +woked him up to make the storm go away." + +"I'm sure there was a storm the time he was walking on the water, too," +said Duke; "there's the picture of it. When us goes in, sister, us'll +get Grandmamma's picture-Bible and look"--but suddenly his voice fell, +his eager expression faded. In the interest of the little discussion he +had forgotten where they were, how far away from Grandmamma and her +picture-Bible, how uncertain if ever they should see her or it again! +Pamela understood. + +"I wish Jesus would come and help us now," she said softly. "I'm sure us +needs him quite as much as those men he was so kind to. Tell us about +the canal, Tim." + +"It's boats," replied Tim. "Long boats made just the right shape. And +they've got rooms in them--quite tidy-like. The one that boy lived in +along o' his mother was as nice as--as nice as nice. And then they go +a-sailin' along--right from one end of the canal to the other." + +"What for--just because they like it?" + +"Oh no. They've all sorts of things they take about from one place to +another--wood often and coal. But that wasn't a coal boat--it was nice +and clean that one. And there's hosses as walks along the side of the +canals, pullin' of the boats with ropes. It's a pleasant life enough, to +my thinking--that's to say when they're tidy, civil-like folk. Some of +them's awful rough--as rough as Mick and the Missus and all o' _them_." + +Duke and Pamela listened with the greatest interest. They quite forgot +to cry any more about their home in listening to what Tim told them. + +"Oh, Tim," said Pamela, "I'll tell you what _would_ be nice. If us and +you could get one of those boats, and a horse to pull it, and go sailing +away till we got home to Grandpapa and Grandmamma. That would be nice, +wouldn't it, Tim?" + +"Yes, missie," said Tim. "But is there canals near your place?" + +Pamela's face fell. + +"I don't know. I never thought of that," she said. "But I daresay +there's one that goes to not far off from there. And Mick would never +catch us then, would he, Tim? We'd go so fast, wouldn't we?" + +"They don't go that fast--not canal boats," replied Tim. "Still I don't +think as Mick'd ever think of looking for us there. That'd be the best +of it." + +But just then the rough voice of Mick himself was heard calling to them +to come back; for they had wandered to some little distance from the +other children, who were quarrelling and shouting near the vans. + +"Come back you brats, will ye?" he roared. And the poor little things, +like frightened sheep, followed by Tim, hurried back. Pamela shuddered +at the sound of their jailor's voice in a way the boy could not bear to +see. Mick had never yet actually struck her or her brother so as to hurt +them; but Tim well knew that any day it might come to that. + +"And a blow from his heavy hand--such a blow as he's given me many a +time when he's been tipsy--would go near to killing them tender sort o' +fairy-like critturs," said the boy to himself, shuddering in his turn. +"He's been extra sober for a good bit, but onst he gets to the fair +there's no saying." + +And over and over again, as he was falling asleep, he asked himself what +could be done,--how it would be possible to make their escape? Somehow +the sight of the canal had roused a little hope in him, though he did +not yet see how it could be turned to purpose. + +"If we keeps it in sight, I'll see if I can't get near hand it some day +and have a look at the boats, if there's any passing. Maybe there'd be +some coming from where the fair is. And if there was any folk like them +as was so good to me that time, they'd be the right sort for to help +us." + +And poor Tim had a most beautiful dream that night. He thought he +himself and Duke and Pamela were sailing down a lovely stream in a boat +shining like silver, and with sails of white striped with red and blue +and gold, like the frock Diana was trimming for Pamela. They went so +fast it was more like flying than sailing, and all of a sudden they met +another boat in which were a lady and gentleman, whom he somehow knew at +once were the Grandpapa and Grandmamma of the children's talk, though +they were dressed so grandly in crimson robes, and with golden crowns on +their heads like kings and queens, that he was frightened to speak to +them; for he had nothing on but his ragged clothes. And just as Duke and +Pamela were rushing towards them with joy, and he was turning away +ashamed and miserable, wiping his tears with his jacket sleeve, a soft +voice called to him not to be afraid but to come forward too. And +looking up he saw a figure hovering over him, all white and shining like +an angel. But when he looked at the face--though it was so beautiful--he +knew he had seen it before. It was that of his poor mother; he knew at +once it was she, though in life he could only remember her wan and worn +and often weeping. + +"Take courage, my boy--a new life is beginning for you. Have no fear." + +And then, just as it seemed to him that little Pamela turned round, +holding out her hand to lead him forward, he woke! + +But his dream left a hopeful feeling in his heart. It was still very +early morning and all his companions were asleep. Tim got up and very +quietly crept out of the sort of one-sided tent, made by drawing a +sail-cloth downwards from the top of the van, where he and the other +boys slept. He walked a little way over the rough moor, for there was no +road, scarcely even a track, and looked down to where, in the clear thin +morning light, the canal lay glittering below. Then he gazed over the +waste in front. Which way would they be going? Would they skirt the +canal more closely or branch off and strike away from it? Tim could not +tell. But he resolved to keep his eyes and ears open and to find out. + +All that day the gipsy vans jolted along the rough cart-track across the +moor. They halted as usual at mid-day--but Tim could not get to speak to +the twins at all. And then the caravan started again and went rumbling +on till much later than usual, for, as Tim overheard from the gipsies' +conversation, they were eager now to get to Crookford, where the fair +was to be, as quickly as possible. When they at last stopped for the +night it was almost dark; but the boy crept close up to the entrance of +the waggon where he knew the children to be, and hid himself at the +side, and, as he expected, the two little figures came timidly forward. + +"Diana," they said softly, and he heard the girl answer not unkindly, +but coldly, as was her way. + +"Well, what now?" + +"Mayn't us come out a little bit, even if it is dark? Us is so tired of +being in here all day." + +"And my head's aching," added Pamela. + +Diana hesitated. A small fine rain--or perhaps it was only mist--was +beginning to fall; but in spite of that she would probably have let them +out a little had not Mick just then come forward. + +"They want out a bit," she said. "They're tired like with being mewed up +in there all day and never a breath of air--no wonder," and she made as +if she were going to lift Pamela down the steps. + +"Are you crazed, girl?" said the gipsy, pushing her back. "To let them +out now in the chill of the evening, and it raining too--to have them +catch their deaths of cold just as I've some chance of making up for all +the trouble they've cost me. Fool that I was to be bothered with them. +But you're not a-going to spoil all now--that I can tell ye." + +Diana looked at him without speaking. She was not at all in the habit of +giving in to him, but she knew that a quarrel terrified the children. +She felt too, as she lifted her dark face to the clouded sky, that it +was really raining, and she reflected that there might be truth in what +Mick said so rudely. + +[Illustration: "THEY WANT OUT A BIT," SHE SAID. "THEY'RE TIRED LIKE WITH +BEING MEWED UP IN THERE ALL DAY AND NEVER A BREATH OF AIR--NO +WONDER."--p. 132.] + +"I think it is too cold and damp for you," she said turning to the door +where the two little white faces were looking out piteously. "Never +mind," she added in a lower tone, "I'll come back in a minute, and we'll +open the window to let some air in, and then I'll sing you to sleep." + + +Tim could scarcely believe his ears to hear the rough harsh Diana +speaking so gently. + +"If _she'd_ help us," he thought to himself, "there'd be some chance +then." + +But he remained quite still, crouching in the shelter of the van--almost +indeed under it--he was so anxious to hear more of Mick's plans if he +could, for he noticed that the gipsy hung about while the girl was +speaking to the children, as if he had something to say to her unheard +by them. + +They were so frightened of him that they drew back into the dark +recesses of the van, and when they were no longer to be seen, Mick +pulled Diana's sleeve to attract her attention. + +"Just you listen to me, girl, will ye?" he said. "I'll stand none of +your nonsense--thinking to queen it over us all. Now just listen to me." + +Diana shook his hand off her arm. + +"I'll listen if you'll speak civil, Mick," she said. "What is it you've +got to say?" + +She spoke quietly but sternly, and he seemed frightened. He had +evidently been drinking more than of late, and Tim shuddered at the +thought of what might happen if he were to get into one of his regular +tipsy fits while the children were still there. + +"It's along o' them childer," said Mick, though less roughly now. +"You're a-spoiling of them, and I won't have it. To-morrow evening'll +see us at Crookford, and the day after they're to be took to the Signor. +Their looks'll please him--I'm not afeard for that; but I've gave him to +understand that they're well broke in, and there'll be no trouble in +teaching them the tricks and singin' and dancin' and all that. And he's +to give me a good sum down and a share of the profits. And if he's not +pleased and they're turned back on my hands--well, it'll be _your_ +doing--that I can tell you, and you shall pay for it. So there--you know +my mind." + +He had worked himself up into rage and excitement again while he spoke, +but Diana did not seem to care. + +"What do you know of the man? will he be good to them?" she said coolly. + +Mick gave a sneering laugh. + +"He won't starve them nor beat them so as to spoil their pretty looks," +he said. "They'll have to do what they're told, and learn quick what +they've got to learn. You don't suppose childer like that 'ull pay for +their keep if they're to be made princes and princesses of?" + +"Then what did you steal them for? You do nothing but grumble about them +now you've got them--why didn't you, any way, take them home after a bit +and get something for your pains?" + +"I thought o' doing so at the first," said Mick sulkily, as if forced to +speak in spite of himself. "But they're sharper nor I thought for. No +knowing what they'd ha' told. And when Johnny Vyse came by and told o' +the fair, and the Signor sure to be ready to take 'em and pay straight +for 'em, I see'd no use in running my head into a noose by taking 'em +back and getting took myself for my pains. I've had enough o' that sort +o' thing, as you might know." + +"Let _me_ take them home, then," said Diana suddenly. "I'll manage so as +no blame shall fall on you--no one shall hear anything about you. And +for myself I don't care. I'd almost as lief be in prison as not +sometimes." + +Mick stared at her. + +"Are ye a-going out of yer mind?" he said, "or d'ye think I am? After +all the trouble I've had with the brats, is it likely I'll send 'em home +and lose all? It's too late now to try for a reward; they're sharp +enough to tell they could have been took home long ago. But if the +Signor isn't square with me, I may make something that way too--I can +tell on _him_ maybe. But I'll take care to get my reward and be out o' +the way first. I'm not such a fool as you took me for after all, eh? And +if you see what's for your good you'll do your best to help me, and +you'll find I'll not forget you. One way or another I'm pretty sure to +make a tidy thing of them." + +Diana turned away, and for a moment or two there was silence. Tim's +heart beat so fast he almost felt as if the gipsies would hear it. He +could not see Diana's face, but he trembled with fear lest Mick's bribes +should win her over. And when her words came it seemed as if his fears +were to be fulfilled. + +"You _are_ a sharp one, Mick, and no mistake," she said, with a strange +hard laugh. The gipsy was too muddled in his head to notice anything +peculiar in her tone, and he took her answer for a consent. + +"That's right. I thought ye'd hear reason," he said. And then he lurched +off to his own quarters. + +Diana stood where she was for a moment. Suddenly she raised her hands to +her face, and Tim fancied he heard a smothered sob. Without stopping to +think what he was risking, the boy crept out of the shadow where he had +been hidden, and caught hold of her skirts just as she was turning to +mount into the van where the children were. + +"Diana," he said breathlessly, "I've heard all he said. You don't mean +to take part with him, do you? You'll never help to sell those pretty +babies like that? I'll do anything--anything you tell me--if you'll join +with me to get them sent home." + +In her turn Diana caught hold of him and held him fast. + +"Tim," she said, "you want to get off yourself, and you'd do your best +for them. I've seen it. But alone you'd never manage it. I'll help you, +Tim. I won't have it on my conscience that I stood by and saw those +innocents sold to such a life. If it had been to keep them a while +longer with us, I mightn't have done anything, not just yet, not till I +saw a chance. But whatever Mick and the others say, I won't see them +taken away unless it is to go back to their own people." + +"That's right, Diana," said Tim. + +"And I'll help you. Keep your wits about you and be ready when I give +the sign. Now get out of the way and take care. If Mick hadn't made +himself stupid lately he'd have seen you were thinking of something. You +mustn't say a word to the children; leave them to me," and again +squeezing the boy's arm meaningly, she climbed up into the waggon, where +the two little prisoners, tired of waiting for her, had fallen fast +asleep. + +Tim, for his part, tumbled into his so-called bed that night, with a +wonderfully lightened heart, and his dreams were filled with the most +joyous hopes. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +NEW HOPES. + + "I am a friend to them and you." + _Winter's Tale._ + + +It was a good thing Tim had some new ground of hope, for otherwise the +next day or two would have sadly distressed him. He never once could get +near the children. And, what he found very strange, Diana herself seemed +to be doing her utmost to keep him from them. Two or three times, +especially when Mick or the Missus happened to be near, she roughly +pushed him back when he was making his way to the door of the van, where +Duke and his sister were. And at first the boy was not only surprised, +but rather offended. + +"What for will you not let me play with them a bit?" he said to her, +half inclined to appeal to Mick, who did not interfere. + +"They've no need of _you_--keep out of my way," Diana answered roughly, +at which Mick and the others laughed as if it was a very good joke, for +hitherto Diana had been always accused of "favouring" the boy. + +Tim looked up resentfully. He had it on his tongue--for after all he was +only a child--to say something which might have done harm never to be +undone, for he could not understand Diana. But something in her face, as +she looked at him steadily, stopped the words of reproach as they rose +to his lips. + +"You'll make an end of them, you will, if you keep them choked up in +there all day," he said sullenly. "Why can't you let 'em out for a bit +of a run with me, like you've done before?" + +"I'll let them out when it suits me, and not before. It's none of your +business," she replied, while adding in a lower tone that no one else +could overhear: "I'd never have thought you such a fool, Tim;" and Tim, +feeling rather small,--for he began to understand her a little,--walked +off. + +All this was at what they called dinner-time, when the vans generally +halted for an hour or so and hitherto--even when they were travelling +too quickly for the children to have walked beside for a change, as they +had sometimes done when going slowly--Mick or Diana had always let them +out at this hour for a breath of fresh air. But to-day, though it was +beautifully fine and the sun was shining most temptingly, poor Duke and +Pamela had to be content with the sight of it through the tiny little +window in the side of the van, which Diana opened, and with such air as +could get in by the same means. It was hot and stuffy inside, and their +little heads ached with being jolted along, and with having had no +exercise such as they were accustomed to. Still they did not look +altogether miserable or unhappy, as they tried to eat the dinner the +gipsy girl had brought them on a tin plate, from the quickly-lighted +fire by the hedge, where the old hag who did the cooking for the party +had been stewing away at a mess in a great pot. She ladled out the +contents all round for the others, but Diana helped herself. She picked +out the nicest bits she could see for the two little prisoners, and +stood by them for a minute or two to see if they really were going to +eat. + +"I'll come back in a bit to see if it's all gone," she said, when she +had seen them at work, "and remember what I said this morning. That'll +help to make you eat hearty." + +"Her's very kind," said Duke; but as he spoke he laid down the coarse +two-pronged fork Diana had given him to eat with, and seemed glad of an +excuse to rest in his labours for a while. "But I can't eat this, can +you, sister?" + +Pamela looked up--she had got a small bone in her fingers, at which she +was trying to nibble. + +"I'm pretending to be Toby eating a bone," she said gravely. "Sometimes +it makes it seem nicer." + +"_I_ don't think so," said Duke. "It only makes it worser to think of +Toby," and his voice grew very doleful, as if he were going to cry. + +"Now don't, bruvver," said Pamela. "Let's think of what Diana said." + +"What was it?" said Duke. "Say it again." + +"'Twas that, p'raps, if us was very good and did just ezactly what her +tells us, us'd go somewhere soon, where us'd be _very_ happy," said +Pamela. "Where do you fink it can be, Duke? Us mustn't tell _nobody_, +not even Tim; but I don't mind, for Diana said she thought Tim'd go too. +Do you fink she meant" (and here poor little Pam, who had learnt +unnatural caution already, glanced round her--as if any one could have +been hidden in the small space of the van!--and lowered her +voice)--"that she meant us was to go _home_ again to dear Grandmamma and +Grandpapa?" + +Duke shook his head. + +"No," he said, "they'll never send us home now. Mick'd be put in prison +if he took us home. I know that. I heard what they was saying about it +one day when they didn't know I was there. And it's too far away--it's a +dreadful way away. We can never go home. I daresay Grandpapa and +Grandmamma and everybody's dead by now," concluded Duke, who talked with +a sort of reckless composure sometimes, altogether too much for Pamela, +who burst into tears. + +"Oh bruvver!" she cried between her sobs, "don't talk like that. I +_fink_ God's too good to have let dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma die. And +us has said our prayers such many many times about going home. I'm sure +Grandpapa would never put Mick in prison if us asked him not, and p'raps +if Mick was sure of that he'd take us home. Oh don't you fink us might +go and ask him," and she started up. + +"Us can't promise it; Grandpapa'd _have_ to do it. It'd be his _dooty_," +said Duke sternly--his ideas on all subjects were very grim at +present--"he'd have to stop Mick going and stealing away other children +like he did us. And Diana said us mustn't speak to _nobody_ about what +she told us." + +"I don't care about it if it isn't that us is going home," said Pamela, +crying quietly. "I don't care about gold frocks like fairies and all +that if dear Grandmamma and Grandpapa can't see us." + +Duke looked at her gloomily. + +"P'raps Diana meant us'd soon be going to heaven," he said at last. "I +heard them saying us'd 'not stand it long,' and I know that means going +to die." + +"I don't care," sobbed Pamela again, "if Grandpapa and Grandmamma are +dead, heaven'd be the best place for us to go to;" and regardless of all +Diana had said to her about trying to eat and to keep up her spirits, +the little girl let the tin plate, with the greasy meat and gravy, slip +off her knees on to the floor, and, leaning her head on the hard wooden +bench, she went off in a fit of piteous and hopeless sobbing. In a +moment Duke's arms were around her, and he was kissing and hugging and +doing his best to console her. + +"Dear little sister," he cried, "don't be so _very_ unhappy. It was very +naughty of me to say dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma and everybody would +be dead." + +"And Toby," interrupted Pamela. "Did you mean Toby too?" + +Duke considered. + +"No, I don't think I meant Toby. He must be a good deal younger than +Grandpapa and Grandmamma, and I don't think he'd be _quite_ so unhappy +about us as they'd be." + +"If _I'd_ been Toby I'd have come to look for us," said Pamela, crying +now less violently. "Us could have wrote a letter and tied it to his +collar, and then Grandpapa could have come to look for us. Toby can run +so fast," and she was going on to describe what she would have done in +Toby's place when the little door of the van opened and Diana +reappeared. Her face clouded as she looked at the children. + +"Crying again! Oh missie," she said reproachfully, "that's not good of +you. You'll cry yourself ill, and then----" Diana in turn looked round +and lowered her voice, "have you forgotten the secret I told you? You'll +never get away where you'd like to be if you make yourself ill. And +scarce a bite of dinner have you touched," she went on, looking at the +bits of meat reposing beside the overturned plate. + +Pamela lifted up her tear-swollen face and drew herself out of Duke's +arms, to fling herself into Diana's. + +"If us is going to die, it's no good eating," she said. + +"Who said you was a-going to die?" exclaimed the gipsy girl. + +"Duke and I was talking, and us thought p'raps heaven was the nice place +you said us'd go to if us was good," replied Pamela. + +Diana gave a little laugh, half sad and half bitter. + +"It isn't here you'll learn much about going to _that_ place," she said. +"But that wasn't what I meant. Listen, master and missy; but, mind you, +never you say one word,--now hush and listen," and in a very low voice +she went on: "To-night we'll get to a big town where there's a fair. +Mick's got it all settled to give you to a--a gentleman there, who'd +dress you up fine and teach you to sing and to dance." + +"Would he be kind to us?" asked both children eagerly. Diana shook her +head. + +"Maybe, and maybe not. That's just why I cannot stand by and see you +given to him," said Diana, half as if speaking to herself. "It was a bad +day's work when he took them," she went on. Then suddenly rousing +herself: "Listen children, again," she said. "If that man as I'm +speaking of comes to see you to-night, as he most likely will, you must, +for my sake and your own, speak very pretty, and try to laugh and look +happy and answer all he says. It's only for once. For to-morrow--I can't +say for sure to-morrow--but I think it will be, and I can't say the +time--I'm going to do my best to get you sent back to where you should +never have been taken from." She stopped a moment as if to judge of the +effect of her words. For an instant the children did not speak; they +just stared at her with their blue eyes opened to their widest extent, +their little white faces looking whiter than before, till gradually a +rush of rosy colour spread over them, the blue eyes filled with tears, +and both Duke and Pamela flung themselves into the gipsy girl's arms. + +"_Home_, do you mean, Diana?" they said. "Home to our own dear Grandpapa +and Grandmamma?" + +"And Toby," added Duke. + +"And Toby," echoed Pam. + +Diana clasped them tight; her eyes, that for many a day had not shed a +tear, were running over. + +"Yes, home, my blessed darlings," she said. + +"But you'll come with us" was the next idea. "You've been so good to us. +Grandpapa'd never put _you_ in prison, Diana." + +They sat up now and looked at her anxiously. + +"Perhaps not," she said, shaking her head nevertheless. "But I dursn't +go with you. I must stay here to stop them going the right way after you +for one thing. And then--you didn't know it, but, bad as he is, Mick's +my brother. I dursn't get him into trouble." + +"Mick's your bruvver!" repeated Pam; "the same as bruvver is to me. And +he speaks so naughty to you, Diana. I don't fink he _can_ be your +bruvver. I fink you've made a mistake. Oh do come wif us, dear Diana. +You and Tim." + +"Yes for Tim, it'd be the best thing he could do, and the best chance +for you to get safe home. But for me," and again Diana shook her head. +"Let alone Mick, I'm only a poor wild gipsy girl," she said. "I couldn't +take to your pretty quiet ways; no, it'd kill me. It's in the gipsy +blood--we must for ever be on the go. It wasn't so bad long ago when +father and mother was alive. Father was honest--he was a gentleman +gipsy, he was. But Mick's another sort. If I could get away from him I +would--but not so as to get him into trouble. I'll try some day to get +among a better lot. There's bad and good among us, though you mightn't +believe it. But here am I wasting time talking of myself, and I want to +tell you all I'm thinking of. First, do you know the name of the village +or town nearest where you live?" + +"Sandle'ham," said the children. + +"But is that near your home?" pursued Diana. The twins shook their +heads. They didn't know. + +"Us was there once," said Duke. "But it was a long time ago. It seemed a +very far way." + +"And is there no village nearer?" + +"Yes, of course," said Pamela. "There's where Barbara Twiss and the +butcher Live, and where the church is." + +"And what's it called?" + +"What's it called?" repeated the children. "Why, it's just called the +village. It isn't called anything else." + +"That's what I was afraid of," said Diana. "And it was all new country +thereabouts to me. Well, there's nothing for it but to make for +Sandle'ham, and once there Tim must go to the police." + +At this dreadful word the children set up a shriek, but Diana quickly +stopped them. + +"Hush, hush!" she said, "you'll have them all coming to see what's the +matter. The police won't hurt _you_, you silly children. They'd be your +best friends if only they could find you. I'd rather have had nothing to +say to them, for fear they should get too much out of Tim, but I see no +other way to get you safe home. But now we mustn't talk any more, only +remember all I've said if that man comes. And to-morrow, when I give you +the word, you must be ready," she went on impressively; "you won't be +afraid with Tim. I'll do the best I can, but we'll have to trust a deal +to Tim; and you must do just what he tells you, and never mind if it +seems strange and hard. It's the only chance for them," she added to +herself, with a strange longing in her beautiful dark eyes, as she again +left them, "but if I could but have taken them safe back myself I'd have +felt easier in my mind." + +She put in her head again to warn the children not to try to speak to +Tim, and if they must speak to each other to do so in a whisper. + +But at first their hearts seemed too full to speak. They just sat with +their arms round each other, too bewildered and almost stunned with the +good news to take it in. + +"Bruvver," said Pamela at last, "don't you fink it's because us has said +our prayers such many many times?" + +"P'raps," replied Duke. + +"And you _don't_ fink now what--you know what you said about Grandpapa +and Grandmamma," said Pamela, her voice faltering. + +Duke hesitated. He was not quite generous enough to own that his gloomy +prophecies had been a good deal the result of his being tired and cross +and contradictory. In his heart he had no misgiving such as he had +expressed to Pamela--he had no idea that what he had said might really +have been true. + +"You _don't_ fink so, bruvver?" persisted Pam. + +"I daresay if us goes back very soon it'll make them better even if they +are very ill. I think us had better put that in our prayers too--for us +to get back to them so quick that there won't be time for them to get +very ill. I wouldn't mind them being just a _little_ ill, would you, +sister? It'd be so nice to see them getting better." + +"I'd _rather_ they wasn't ill at all," said Pamela, "but I daresay +God'll understand. Oh I _wish_ it was to-morrow! don't you, bruvver?" + +"Hush," said Duke. "Diana said us mustn't talk loud--and see, sister, +they're going to put the horse in and go on again. Oh how tired I am of +going along shaking like this all day! And don't you remember, sister, +when us was little us used to think it would be _so_ nice to live in a +cart like a house, like this?" + +"Us never thought how _nugly_ it would be inside," said Pamela, glancing +round the little square space in which they were with great +dissatisfaction. And no wonder--the waggon was stuffed with bundles and +packages of all shapes and sizes; on the sides hung dirty coats and +cloaks belonging to some of the tribe, and the only pleasant object to +be seen was a heap of nice clean-looking baskets and brooms, which had +been brought in here, as the basket-cart was already filled to +overflowing. For the gipsies expected to do a good trade in these things +at the Crookford fair. + +"I wish Diana would give us one of these nice baskets to take home--a +present to Grandmamma," continued Pamela, as her glance fell upon them. + +"You're very silly, sister," said Duke. "Don't you understand that us is +going to _run away_, like Tim has always been wanting. And Diana's going +to help us to run away. Mick mustn't know and nobody, not till us is too +far for them to catch us. I think it's a great pity Diana told you; +you're too little to understand." + +"I'm as big as you, bruvver, and my birfday's the same. You're very +unkind to say I'm littler than you, and I _do_ understand." + +She spoke indignantly, but the last words ended in tears. Poor little +people!--life in a gipsy caravan was not the sort of thing to improve +their tempers. But the dispute was soon followed by a reconciliation, +and then they decided it was better not to talk any more about what +Diana had told them, but to "make plans" inside their heads about how +nice it would be to go home again; how they would knock at the door so +softly, and creep into the parlour where Grandmamma would be sitting by +the fire with Toby at her feet, and Grandpapa at the table with the +newspaper; and _how_ they would hug them both! At which point you will +see the plan making was no longer confined to the "inside of their +heads." + +"And Duke," added Pamela half timidly. "Us must tell all about the +broken bowl. And us must always tell everything like that to +Grandmamma." + +"Yes," said Duke. + +"I fink my voice that Grandmamma told us about _did_ tell me to tell," +pursued the little girl thoughtfully. "Didn't yours, bruvver?" + +"I sometimes think it did," said Duke with unusual humility. "I think it +must have been that I wouldn't listen. You would have listened, sister. +It was much more my fault than yours. I shall tell _that_." + +"No, no, it was bof our faults," said Pamela. "But I fink Grandpapa and +Grandmamma will be so very pleased to have us that they won't care whose +fault it was." + +And then the two little creatures leant their heads each on the other's, +and tried to keep themselves steady against the rough jolting, till by +degrees--and it was the best thing they could have done--they both fell +asleep, and were sleeping as peacefully as in their own white cots at +home when, later in the afternoon, Diana got into the waggon again, and, +rolling up an old shawl, carefully laid it as a pillow under the two +fair heads. It was getting dusk by now, and the gipsies all disappeared +into the vans, for they began to drive too quickly for it to be possible +for them to keep up by walking alongside. + +The gipsy girl sat there gazing at the two little faces she had learnt +to love. She gazed at them with a deep tenderness in her dark eyes. She +knew it was almost the last time she should see them, but it was not of +that she was thinking. + +"If I could but have taken them back myself and seen them safe!" she +kept thinking. "But I daren't. With Tim no one will notice them much, +but with me it'd be different. And it'd get Mick and the others into +trouble, even if I didn't care for myself. It's safer for them too for +me to stay behind. But how to get them safe out of Crookford! I must +speak to Tim. And I don't care what Mick says or does after this. I'll +never, _never_ again have a hand in this kind of business; he may steal +horses and poultry and what he likes, but I'll have no more to do with +stealing children. If ill had come, or did come, to these innocent +creatures I'd never know another easy moment." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +CROOKFORD FAIR. + + "And the booths of mountebanks, + With the smell of tan and planks." + LONGFELLOW. + + +The jolting had ceased, and it was quite dark before Duke and Pamela +awoke. But through the little window of the van came twinkling lights, +and as they sat up and looked about them they heard a good many unusual +sounds--the voices of people outside calling to each other, the noise of +wheels along stony roadways--a sort of general clatter and movement +which soon told that the encampment for the night was not, as hitherto, +on the edge of some quiet village or on a lonely moor. + +"Bruvver," said Pamela, who had been the first to rouse up, "are you +awake? What a long time us has been asleep! Is it the middle of the +night, and what a noise there is." + +Duke slowly collected his ideas. He did not speak, but he stood up on +the bench and peeped out of the window. + +"It must be that big place where there's a fair," he said. "Look, +sister, there's lots and lots of carts and peoples. And over there do +you see there's rows of little shops--that must be the fair." + +He seemed rather excited, but Pamela, after one peep, would not look any +more. + +"No, no, bruvver," she said. "I am frightened. If it is the fair, that +man will be coming that Diana told us about, and perhaps he'll take us +before Diana and Tim can help us to run away. I'm too frightened." + +But Duke had managed to get the window unhooked, and was now on tiptoe, +stretching out his head as far as it would go. + +"Oh sister," he exclaimed, drawing it in again, "you _should_ see. It's +such a big place, and such lots and lots of peoples, and such a noise. +Oh do climb up here, sister, and look out." + +But Pamela still cowered down in her corner. Suddenly they heard the +well-known sound of the key in the door,--for when the children were +alone in the van they were always locked in,--and turning to look, they +saw Diana. She brought with her a bowl of milk and some bread, which the +children were very glad of, as they had eaten so little at dinner, and +she said nothing till they had finished it. + +"Are you still sleepy?" she said then. "Would you like to go to bed or +to come out a little with me?" + +"Oh, to go out a little," said Duke; but Pamela crept up close to Diana. + +"I don't want to go out," she said. "I'm frightened. But I don't want to +stay here alone for fear that man should come. Can't you help us to run +away now, before he comes? Oh please do, dear Diana." + +Diana soothed her very kindly. + +"Don't be frightened, missy dear," she said. "He won't be coming just +yet. I think you'd better come out a little with me. You'll sleep better +for it." + +"And you won't take us to that man?" said Pamela half suspiciously. + +Diana looked at her reproachfully. + +"Missy, missy dear, would I do such a thing?" + +"Sister, you know she wouldn't," said Duke. + +"Then I'll come," said Pamela, and in another minute the two children, +each with a hand of the gipsy girl, were threading their way through the +lanes of vans and carts, half-completed booths, tethered horses and +donkeys, men, women, and children of all kinds, which were assembled on +the outskirts of Crookford in preparation for the great fair. Nobody +noticed them much, though one or two gipsies loitering about, not of her +own party, nodded at Diana as she passed as an old acquaintance, with +some more or less rough joke or word of greeting. And those belonging to +Mick's caravan did not seem surprised at seeing the children at freedom. +This was what Diana wished, and it had been partly with this object, as +well as to accustom Duke and Pamela a little to their present quarters, +that she had managed to get leave to take them out a little, late as it +was. It had seemed quite dark outside--looking through the window of the +van--but in reality it was only dusk, though the lights moving about, +the fires lit here and there in little stoves outside the booths, and +the general bustle and confusion, made it a very bewildering scene. +Pamela tried not to be frightened, but she clutched Diana's hand close, +till suddenly, on turning a corner, they ran against a boy coming at +full speed. It was Tim, and the little girl let go of Diana to spring to +him with a cry of pleasure. + +"Oh Tim, dear Tim," she cried, "us hasn't seen you for such a long +time!" + +"True enough, missy," he said cheerfully; and, looking at him more +closely, both children noticed that he did look brighter and merrier +than ever, little as he was in the habit of seeming sad. "It's all +right," he went on, turning to Diana; "such a piece o' luck!" + +"Come and tell me as soon as we come back," said the girl. "I'll be in +the van putting them to bed. Mick's off--gone to look for the Signor. +I'll try for them to be asleep when _they_ come," and with these rather +mysterious words Diana drew on the children, and Tim ran off with a nod. + +They walked on till they got a little clear of the crowd, and on to a +road evidently leading out of the town. It had grown darker, but the +moon had risen, and by her light at some little distance the children +saw the same silvery thread that they had noticed winding along below +them from the high moorland some days before. + +"That's the river where the boats are like houses--that Tim told us +about," said Pamela. + +"Yes," said Diana, "it's the canal. It comes right into the town over +that way," and she pointed the left. "The boats take stone from +hereabouts,--there's lots of quarries near Crookford. I wanted you to +see it, for we've been thinking, Tim and me--it's more his thought than +mine--that that'd be the best way for you to get away. Mick'll not be +likely to think of the canal, and Tim's been down to see if there was +any one among the boat-people as would take you. He used to know some of +them not far from here. And the canal goes straight on to a place called +Monkhaven, on the road to Sandle'ham. Did you ever hear of that place?" + +The children shook their heads. + +"Well, it can't be helped. That's as far as you can get by the canal. +After that Tim must use his wits and look about him; and when you get to +Sandle'ham I'm afraid there's no help for it--you'll have to ask the +police to take you home." + +"But Tim too?" said Pamela. "Tim's to go home with us." + +"I hope so," said Diana. "I hope the old gentleman and lady will be good +to him, poor boy! Tell them it was none of _his_ fault, your being +stolen away--he's but a poor homeless waif himself; and even if so be as +they could do nothing for him, he mustn't come back here. Mick'd be like +to kill him." + +"But Grandpapa and Grandmamma will be good to him. I _know_ they will," +said Duke and Pamela together. "They'd be good to you too, Diana," they +added timidly. + +But Diana again shook her head. + +"That can't be," she said. "Still, when all this has blown over a bit, +I'll try to hear of you some day. Tim'll maybe be able to let me know +the name of the place where your home is." + +"And you must come to see us. Oh yes, yes--you must, Diana!" said the +children, dancing about with glee. The girl looked at them in some +surprise; it was the first time she had seen them merry and +light-hearted as they were at home, and it made her better understand +how wretched their new life must have been for them to change them so. + +"I'll try," she said; "but it doesn't much matter for that. The thing is +for you to be safe at home yourselves." + +Then she said it was time to go back. It was quite dark by now, and the +children kept very close to her as they found themselves again in the +rabble of the behind-the-scenes of the fair. People there too were +beginning to shut up for the night, for most of them, poor things, had +been working hard all day. + +As they came up to where Mick's party had encamped, Diana said something +in the queer language the children did not understand to some of the +gipsies who were hanging about. Their answer seemed to relieve her. + +"Come, children," she said; "you must be tired. I'll get you to bed as +quick as I can; and try to get to sleep. It's the best thing you can +do."--"They'll not be coming just yet, maybe," she added to herself, "if +they've got to drinking over their bargain; so much the better perhaps. +If only the children are asleep they'll perhaps be none the wiser, and +I'll hear all there is to hear." + +The preparing for bed was a different thing indeed from the careful +washing, hair-brushing, and attiring in snow-white nightgowns that was +called "undressing" "at home." All that Diana could manage in the way of +washing apparatus was a rough wooden tub with cold water, a bit of +coarse soap, and an old rag by way of a towel! And even this she had +done more to please the children than because she saw any need for it. +This evening she made no pretence of anything after taking off the +children's outer clothes--Duke's nankin suit, now sadly soiled and +dilapidated, and the old red flannel skirt and little shawl which had +replaced Pamela's white frock. The frock was still in existence; but by +Mick's orders Diana had trimmed it up gaudily for the child to make her +appearance in to the Signor; so the little girl's attire was certainly +very gipsy-like. + +"Shall I have to go home to Grandmamma with this nugly old petticoat and +no frock?" she asked, when Diana had taken off all her clothes down to +her little flannel vest, and wrapped her up for the night in a clean, +though old, cotton bedgown of her own. "And why have you taken off my +chemise, Diana? I've kept it on other nights." + +"I'm going to wash it," said Diana. "I'd like to send you back as decent +as I _can_." + +Pamela seemed satisfied. Then she and Duke knelt together at the side of +the shake-down Diana called their bed, and said their prayers together +and aloud. The gipsy girl had heard them before--several times--but this +evening she listened with peculiar attention, and when at the end the +little creatures, after praying for dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma, and +that God would please soon take them safe home again, went on to add a +special petition for "dear Diana," who had been so kind to them, that +she might be always good and happy, and that Mick and nobody should be +unkind to her, the girl turned away her face to hide the tears which +slowly welled up into her eyes. + +"Good-night, dear Diana," said the two little voices, as she stooped to +kiss them. + +"Good-night, master and missy. Sleep well, and don't be frightened if +you're wakened up. I'll be here." Then, as she was turning away, she +hesitated. "Do you really think now," she said, "that it's any good +praying for a wild gipsy girl like me?" + +"Of course it is," said Pamela, starting up again. "Why shouldn't it be +as much good for you as for any one? If you want to be good--and I think +you are good, Diana--you can't help praying to God. For all the good +comes from Him. That's what Grandmamma told us. And He puts little bits +of His good into us." + +Diana looked puzzled. + +"Yes," persisted Pamela, nodding her head. "There's like a little voice +that speaks inside us--that tells us when we're" (Pamela could use the +word "we," as correctly as possible when speaking in general, not merely +of Duke and herself) "naughty and when we're good." + +In her turn Diana nodded her head. + +"And the more we listen to it the plainer we hear it," added Pamela. + +"_Us_ didn't listen to it when us found that Toby had brokened the +bowl," said Duke gravely. "At least I didn't, and it leaves off speaking +when people doesn't listen." + +Diana had long ago heard the story of the beginning of the children's +troubles. + +"Listening to it is almost like praying, you see, Diana," said Pamela. +"And of course when we know all the good comes from God, it's only +_sense_ to pray to Him, isn't it?" + +"I'll think about it," said the gipsy quietly. "Now go to sleep as fast +as you can." + +Easier in their innocent minds about their own affairs by a great deal +than Diana was _for_ them, the twins quickly followed her advice. But +Diana dared not go to rest herself; in the first place she had a long +talk with Tim in a corner where they could not be overheard, and then, +finding that Mick had not yet come back, she hung about, terrified of +his returning with the Signor, and frightening the poor children, +without her being at hand. + +"You'd best go to bed, I think," said Tim. "I 'spex he's got to drinking +somewhere, and he won't be seen to-night." + +"I dursn't," said Diana. "He might come any minute, and that man might +want to carry them off in their sleep, so as to have no noise about it." + +"But how could you stop him?" asked Tim, his merry face growing very +sober. + +"I'd do my best, and you must be ready, you know," she said. + +"He'd be in a nice taking if he didn't find the Signor, or if _he_ +wanted to back out of it," said Tim. + +"Not much fear of that," said Diana. "The Signor's too sharp; he'll soon +see he couldn't get such a pretty pair once in twenty years. He's a man +I shudder at; once he wanted me to join his show, but, bad and cruel as +Mick is, I'd rather have to do with him. But hush, Tim, there they are! +I hear Mick's voice swearing--they're coming this way. Run you off and +hide yourself, but try to creep up to the van where the children are +when they're gone, and I'll tell you what has to be done." + +Tim disappeared with marvellous quickness. Diana rose to her feet and +went forward a little, with a light in her hand, to meet her brother. He +was accompanied, as she expected, by the Signor, and she saw in a moment +that Mick was more than half drunk, and in a humour which might become +dangerous at any moment. + +"He's made him drunk," she said to herself, "thinking he'll drive a +better bargain. He'd better have let him alone." + +The Signor was a very small, dark, fat man--dressed, as he considered, +"quite like a gentleman." He had bright, beady, twinkling eyes, and a +way of smiling and grinning as if he did not think nature had made him +enough like a monkey already, in which I do not think any one would have +agreed with him! + +"So here's your handsome sister, my friend Mick," he said, as he caught +sight of Diana--"handsomer than ever. And you were coming to meet us, +were you--very amiable I'm sure." + +Mick, whose eyes were dazzled by the light, and who was too stupid to +take in things quickly, frowned savagely when he saw the girl standing +quietly before him. + +"What are you waiting there for?" he said, with some ugly words. +"There's no need of _you_. Get out of the way. I know where to find the +childer. The Signor and I can manage our own affairs." + +"Can you?" said Diana contemptuously. "Well, good-night, then. You'll +waken them up and frighten them so that they'll scream for the whole +fair to hear them. And how the Signor means to get them away quietly if +they do so _I_ can't say. There'd maybe be some awkward questions to +answer as to how they came among us at all, if some of the people about +should be honest, decent folk. And there are fools of that kind where +you'd little look for them sometimes. However, it's no business of mine, +as you say. Good-night," and she turned away. + +The Signor turned to Mick with a very evil look in his face. + +"Fool that _you_ are," he muttered, but Mick only stared at him +stupidly. The Signor caught his arm and shook him. "Are you going to let +her go off?" he said. "You told me yourself she had looked after the +brats and could do anything with them, and now you go and set her back +up! She's fit to rouse the place out of spite, she is. And I can tell +you I'm not going to get myself into trouble about these children you've +made such a fuss about. I've not seen them yet, and rather than risk +anything I'll be off," and he, in turn, seemed as if he were going off. + + +This roused Mick. + +"Stay, stay--wait a bit," he said eagerly, "Diana," he called,--and as +Diana was in reality only waiting behind a shed she soon appeared +again,--"I were only joking. Of course it's for you to show the Signor +the pretty dears--such care as she's had of them, so bright and merry as +she's taught them to be, you wouldn't believe," he went on in a half +whine. "It'll be a sore trouble to her to part with them--you'll have to +think o' that, Signor. I've promised Diana we'd act handsome by _her_." + +"Of course, of course," said the other, with a sneer. "Sure to be +handsome doings where you and me's concerned, friend Mick. But where +_are_ the creatures? You're not playing me a trick after all, are you?" +he went on, looking round as if he expected to see the children start up +from the earth or drop down from the sky. + +"This way," said Diana, more civilly than she had yet spoken, "follow me +if you please--they're close by." + +In another minute she was standing on the steps of the van with the key +in the lock. Then suddenly she turned and faced the Signor. + +"They're asleep," she said. "I kept them up and awake a long time, but I +hadn't thought you'd be so late. I can wake them up if you like, and if +they saw me there they wouldn't cry. But they'd be half asleep--there'd +be no getting them to show off to-night. But of course it's as the +Signor chooses." + +He looked at her curiously. He was surprised to find her seemingly as +eager as Mick that he should think well of the merchandise they were +offering him for sale! He had rather expected the gipsy girl to set +herself against the transaction, for he knew she disliked him, and that +no money would have persuaded her herself to join his "troupe." But he +was too low himself to explain anything in others except by the lowest +motives. "She thinks she'll get something handsome out of me if she's +civil about it," he said to himself. Seeing, however, that civility was +to be the order of the day, he answered her with an extra quantity of +grins. + +"Quite of your opinion, my young lady. Better not disturb the little +dears. Should like a look at them, however, with your kind assistance." + +Diana said no more, but, unlocking and opening the door, stepped +carefully into the van, followed by her companions--Mick remaining +somewhat behind, probably because he could not have got quite into the +recesses of the waggon without tumbling, and such sense as remained to +him telling him he had better not make a noise. The van inside was +divided in two--something after the manner of a bathing-machine, such as +I daresay most children have often seen. The door in the middle was not +locked, and Diana pushed it softly open; then, advancing with the light +held high so as to show the children's faces without flaring painfully +upon them, stood at one side and signed to the Signor to come forward. +And he was too much startled and impressed--ugly, cold-hearted little +wretch though he was--by the sight before him to notice the strange, +half-triumphant, half-defiant expression on Diana's dark beautiful face. + + +[Illustration: "UPON MY WORD THEY ARE SOMETHING QUITE OUT OF THE +COMMON," HE SAID; + +"I WOULDN'T HAVE MISSED THEM FOR A GOOD DEAL. WHAT A KING AND QUEEN OF +THE PIGMIES, OR 'BABES IN THE WOOD,' THEY'D MAKE."--p. 173.] + +"There they are," it seemed to say, "and could anything be lovelier? +_Wouldn't_ you like to have them?" + +They lay there--the delicate little faces flushed with "rosy sleep"--the +fair fluffy hair like a golden shadow on the rough cushion which served +as a pillow, each with an arm thrown round the other; they looked so +like each other that even Diana was not sure which was which. No pair of +fairies decoyed from their own country could have been prettier. + +The Signor was startled into speaking the truth for once. + +"Upon my word they are something quite out of the common," he said; "I +wouldn't have missed them for a good deal. What a king and queen of the +pigmies, or 'babes in the wood,' they'd make! I'll have to get something +set up on purpose for them. And they're sharp at learning and speak +plain you say?--at least he did," he added, turning round to look for +Mick, who by this time had lurched up to the middle door of the van and +was leaning on the lintel, looking in stupidly. + +"Ay, they're sharp enough, and pretty spoken too," said Diana. + +"Sharp and pretty spoken," echoed Mick. + +"Then I'm your man," said the Signor; "I'll----" + +But the girl interrupted him. + +"There's one thing to be said," she began. "You must not think of +letting them be seen hereabouts. You might get yourself and us too into +trouble. It's too near where they come from." + +The Signor held up his hands warningly. + +"Hush," he said, "I don't want to know nothing of all that. They're two +desolate orphans, picked up by you out of charity, and I take them to +teach them a way of gaining a livelihood. That's all about it." + +"Well, all the same, you can do nothing with them hereabouts," repeated +Diana, anxious to gain time to put into execution the plans of escape. +"You'd better leave them here quietly with us till after the fair. No +one shall see them except those who've seen them already." + +They were in the outer half of the van by now, for Diana, afraid of +disturbing the children, had drawn back with the light, and the Signor +had followed her. + +At her last speech he turned upon her with sudden and angry suspicion. + +"No, no," he said. "I'll have no tricks served me. Have you been putting +your handsome sister up to this, Mick, you fool? You promised me the +brats at once." + +"Yes, at once. You shall have them at once when you pay me," said Mick, +beginning to get angry in turn, "but not before. I don't want to keep +them--not I; they're the pest of my life, they are, but I'll see my +money or you shall never set eyes on them again." + +And he looked so stolidly obstinate that the other man glanced at Diana +as if for advice. + +"You'd better have left him alone," she said in a low voice, +contemptuously. "If you make him angry now he's not sober, there's no +saying what he'll do." + +The Signor began to be really afraid that his prey might slip through +his hands. He turned to Diana. + +"I'm one for quick work and no shilly-shallying," he said. "And I have +Mick's word for it. He's signed a paper. I'll take care to get myself +and you into no trouble, but I must have the children at once. Now +listen, Mick. I'll be here to-morrow morning at say eight--well, nine +o'clock, with the money. And you must have the children ready--and help +me to take 'em off quietly, or--or--I don't want no bother," he added +meaningly. + +"All right," said Mick; "they'll be ready," and he followed the Signor +down the steps of the van, Diana still holding the light. + +"Nine o'clock," said the Signor once more, as if he depended more on the +girl than on the man. + +"At nine o'clock," she repeated, and she stood there till quite sure +that the Signor had taken himself off, and that Mick had no intention of +returning. + +Then she blew out the light and crept softly in and out among the vans, +tethered horses, etc., forming the gipsy caravan, till she came to the +waggon where she knew Tim slept. He was wide awake, expecting her, and +in answer to her whispered call said nothing till they had got some +yards away. + +"I think the other boys is asleep," he said, "but best make sure. Well, +Diana?" + +"You must go at once--no, not just at once, but as soon as the dawn +breaks. That man's coming for them at nine, and once in his hands----!" +Diana shook her head, and though she said no more the boy understood +her, that then all hope of escape would be gone. + +"I'll be ready," said Tim. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +A BOAT AND A BABY. + + "And now I _have_ a little boat." + _Peter Bell._ + + +The children were still sleeping when the first straggling feeble rays +of dawn began to creep through the darkness. Diana stood at the door of +the van and looked anxiously at the sunrise. Her experienced eye soon +saw that it was going to be a fine day, and she gave a sigh of relief. +She was still dressed as she had been the night before, for she had not +slept, not lain down even--so great had been her fear of falling +asleep--at all. She had spent all the dark hours in preparing for the +flight of the little prisoners--all that her hands, untrained in such +matters as sewing and mending, could do to make the twins appear in +decent guise on their return to their own home had been done. And now +all was ready. There was nothing to do but to wake them and explain to +them what was before them. Tim was already up and off--for she had +arranged with him to meet the children a little way out of the town, and +he had tapped at the door of the van as he passed. + +There was no one stirring among the queer inhabitants of the fair, as +Diana remarked with satisfaction. Everything was perfectly still, and +with a sigh the gipsy girl stepped up into the van again and went +through to the inner part. Duke and Pamela were lying much as they had +been the evening before. It seemed a pity to wake them, but it had to be +done. Diana stooped down and gently shook Duke's arm. + +"Master," she said,--"master and missy, you must wake up." + +Duke opened his sleepy eyes and stared before him; Pamela, more quickly +awakened, started up, crying: + +"What is it, Diana? It isn't that naughty man come for us?" + +"No, no," said the gipsy, glad to see that Pamela had her wits about +her. "It is that Tim is ready to run away with you, as you've so often +planned. And you must get up and dress as quick as you can before Mick +or any one is awake, for the man will be coming this morning, and I must +have you ever so far away before then." + +Her words completely aroused both children. In an instant they were on +their feet, nervously eager to be dressed and off. There was no question +of baths _this_ morning, but Diana washed their faces and hands well, +and smoothed their tangled hair. + +"I must make them as tidy as I can," she said to herself with a sob in +her throat. + +Duke saw with satisfaction that his nankin suit--which Diana had +persuaded him not to wear the day before, having lent him a pair of +trowsers of Tim's, which she had washed on purpose, and in which, +doubled up nearly to his waist, he looked very funny--was quite clean; +and Pamela, to her still greater surprise, found herself attired in a +tidy little skirt and jacket of dark blue stuff, with a little hood of +the same for her head. + +"Why, what's this?" she said. "It's a new gown!" + +"I made it," said Diana quietly. "I wanted you to look as tidy as I +could. You'll tell them, missy dear--won't you?--that poor Diana did her +best." + +"Indeed us will," cried both together. But they did not know that the +gipsy girl had cut up her one decent dress to clothe little Pamela. + +"And shall us see Grandpapa and Grandmamma to-day?" they went on, +hugging Diana in their joy as they spoke. + +"Not to-day, nor to-morrow, but before long, I hope," she replied. And +then, as they were eager to go, "Won't you say your prayers, master and +missy, that you may come safe to your home; and," she added in a low +voice, "ask God to show poor Diana how to be good?" + +"Us will always pray for you, dear Diana," they said, after they had +risen from their knees again, "and some day, you know, you _must_ come +and see us." + +She did not answer, but, quickly lifting them down the steps of the +waggon, locked the door and put the key in her pocket. Then, still +without speaking,--the children seeming to understand they must be as +quiet as possible,--she lifted Pamela in her arms, and Duke running +beside, they had soon made their way out of the midst of the vans and +carts and booths, all of whose owners were still asleep. + +For even now it was barely dawn, and the air felt chilly, as is +generally the case early of a May morning. + +Diana walked so fast, though she had a big basket as well as a little +girl in her arms, that Duke, though he would not have owned it, could +scarcely keep up with her. But at last, just as he was beginning to feel +he must cry mercy, she slackened her pace and began to look about her. + +"He should be somewhere near," she said, more as if speaking to herself +than to the children, and just then, with a sort of whoop, out tumbled +Tim from the other side of a low hedge, where there was a dry ditch in +which he had been comfortably lying. + +"Hush!" said Diana, glancing round her. + +"There's no need," said Tim; "there's not a soul within hearing. I +needn't have come on before for that matter. No one saw us start." + +"And which way do you go now?" asked the gipsy, setting Pamela down as +she spoke, to the child's great satisfaction, though she had not liked +to say to Diana that she was really too big to be carried. + +"Straight on for about half a mile," answered the boy; "then there's a +road to the right takes us straight to the canal. It's not light enough +yet for you to see, but there's a little house close to the towing path +over there, where the boats often stop the night when it's crowded in +the town. That's where they're to be." + +"All right," said Diana. "I'll go with you to the turn, and then I must +get back as fast as I can." + +"Let me carry the basket," said Tim. He had a bundle under his arm, but +it was very light, for his possessions were few. + +"What's in the basket?" asked Duke. + +"All I could get," said Diana. "Some bread and eggs, and some oranges I +bought last night. I thought you'd be glad of them maybe. And Tim, you +have the money safe?" + +Tim nodded his head. + +In a few minutes they reached the road he had spoken of. In silence poor +Diana kissed the three children and turned away, for she could not +speak. But Duke and Pamela burst into tears. + +"Oh if you would but come with us," they said over and over again. But +Diana shook her head. + +"You shouldn't cry, master and missy dear, to go to your own home. It +was a wicked shame to take you from it, but I hope God will forgive me +the little I had to do with it, for I've truly done my best to get you +safe back. And you'll ask the kind gentleman and lady to be good to poor +Tim, and put him in an honest way of life." + +"Oh yes," sobbed the children. And then Diana kissed them again and +resolutely turned away. But Tim ran after her. + +"You don't think Mick'll beat you?" he said anxiously. + +"He shan't have the chance," she answered scornfully. "No, no, Tim, I'll +take care of myself. Be a good boy; getting away from us is the best +thing could come to you. And some day maybe I'll have news of you, and +you of me perhaps." + +Tim hastened back to the children, but his merry face was sad and his +heart heavy. + +A short time brought them to the edge of the canal, and there sure +enough a boat was moored. There was no one moving about the little house +Tim had pointed out, but on board the canal boat two figures were to be +seen--or rather three, for they were those of a young man and a younger +woman with a baby in her arms; and in answer to a whistle from Tim the +man came forward and called out cheerfully, "Good morning; is it all +right?" + +"All right," called back Tim, and then he turned to the children. + +"We're going in this boat, master and missy. See, won't it be fine fun, +sailing away along the canal?" + +Pamela seemed a little frightened. + +"You're sure he won't take us to that naughty man?" she said, holding +Tim's hand tight. + +"Bless you, no; it's to get away from him we're going in the boat. +Peter--that's the name of the man there--Peter's promised to take us as +far as he goes towards Sandle'ham. It's such a piece of luck as never +was to have come across him; he's the cousin of the boy I told you of +who let me stay in his boat when I was a little 'un." + +"Oh," cried the children,--"oh yes, us remembers that story. It was a +boy and his mother. And was it a boat just like this, Tim?" + +"Not near so clean and tidy. This one's been all new painted, don't you +see? It's as clean as clean. But we must be quick. Peter and I'll jump +you in. He's all ready to start. There's the horse a-waiting." + +Duke was quite content, but Pamela still hung back a little. + +"Us has never been in a boat," she said. + +"Come on," called out Peter, and the young woman with the baby came +forward with a smile. + +"You must look sharp," said Peter, in what was meant to be an +encouraging tone. "The morning's getting on, you know," he added to Tim, +"and if those folk down yonder took it in their heads to come this way +it'd be awk'ard." + +"I know," said Tim, and lifting Duke in his arms he handed him over to +Peter, thinking Pamela would be sure to follow. So she was, for she +would have gone after "bruvver" down the crater of Vesuvius itself I do +believe, but she looked white and trembled, and whispered piteously, + +"I am so frightened, Tim." + +"But it's better than if Mick had cotched us, and you'd had to go to +that Signor man, missy," said Tim encouragingly. + +This appealed to Pamela's common sense, and in a few minutes she seemed +quite happy. For Peter's wife introduced her to the baby, and as it was +really rather a nice baby--much cleaner than one could have expected to +find one of its species on a canal boat--the little girl soon found it a +most interesting object of study. She had seldom seen little babies, and +her pride was great when its mother proposed to her to hold it on her +own knee, and even allowed her to pull off its socks to count for +herself its ten little round rosy buttons of toes. The toes proved too +much for Duke, who had hitherto stood rather apart, considering himself, +as a boy, beyond the attractions of dolls and babies. But when Tim +even--great grown-up, twelve years old Tim--knelt down to admire the +tiny feet at Pamela's call, Duke condescended to count the toes one by +one for himself, and to say what a pity it was Toby was not here--baby +could ride so nicely on Toby's back, couldn't she? This idea, expressed +with the greatest gravity, set Peter and his wife off laughing, and all +five, or six if baby is to be included, were soon the best friends in +the world. + +"How nice it is here," said Pamela; "I'm not frightened now, Tim; only I +wish Diana could have come. It's so much nicer than in the waggon. You +don't think Mick will find out where us is, do you, Tim?" and a little +shudder passed through her. + +"Oh no, no; no fear," said Tim, but her words reminded him and Peter +that they were by no means "out of the wood." Peter was far from anxious +for a fight with the gipsies, whose lawless ways he knew well; and +besides this, being a kind-hearted though rough fellow, he had already +begun to feel an interest in the stolen children for their own sake; +though no doubt his consent to take them as passengers had been won by +the promises of reward Tim had not hesitated to hold out. + +He and the boy looked at each other. + +"We must be starting," said the bargeman, and he turned to jump ashore +and attach the towing ropes to the patient horse. "You must keep them in +the cabin for a while," he said to his wife. "They mustn't risk being +seen till we're a long way out of Crookford." + +Duke and Pamela looked up, but without clearly understanding what their +new host said. And Tim, who saw that Peter's queer accent puzzled them, +was not sorry. He did not want them to be frightened; he was frightened +enough himself to do for all three, he reflected, and they were so good +and biddable he could keep them quiet without rousing their fears. For, +though he could not have explained his own feelings, it somehow went to +the boy's heart to see the two little creatures already looking happier +and more peaceful than he had ever seen them! Why should they not be +quite happy? They were going to Grandpapa and Grandmamma and Toby; they +had no longer cruel Mick to fear; they had Tim to take care of +them--only the thought of poor Diana left behind made them a little sad! + + +"It is so nice here," repeated Pamela, when Tim's words had completely +reassured her. "But I'm rather hungry. Us hadn't any breakfast, you +know, Tim. Mightn't us, have some of the bread in the basket." + +"I've got some bread and some fresh milk," said Mrs. Peter. "I got the +milk just before you came; the girl at the 'Rest'"--the 'Rest' was the +little house where the canal boats stopped--"fetched it early." + +"Oh, us would like some milk," said the children eagerly. + +"Come into the cabin then, and you'll show me what you have in your +basket," said the young woman; and thus the children were easily +persuaded to put themselves in hiding. + +The cabin was but one room, though with what in a house would have been +called a sort of "lean-to," large enough to hold a bed. All was, of +course, very tidy, but so much neater and, above all, cleaner than the +gipsies' van that Duke and Pamela thought it delightful. The boat had +been newly repaired and painted, and besides this, Peter's wife--though +she could neither read nor write and had spent all her life on a canal +boat--was quite a wonder in her love of tidiness and cleanliness. + +"I'd like to live here always," said Pamela, whose spirits rose still +higher when she had had some nice fresh milk and bread. + +"Not without Grandpapa and Grandmamma," said Duke reproachfully. + +"Oh no, of course not," said Pamela. "But there wouldn't be quite enough +room for them in here, would there, Mrs. Peter?" + +"I am afraid not," she replied. "You see there's only one bed. But we've +made a nice place for you, master and missy, in here," and she drew back +a clean cotton curtain in one corner, behind which, on a sort of settle, +Peter and she had placed one of their mattresses so as to make a nice +shake-down. "You'll sleep very well in here, don't you think?" + +"Oh yes," exclaimed the children, "us will be very comfortable. What +nice clean sheets!" continued Pamela; "it makes me fink of our white +beds at home," and her voice grew rather doleful, as if she were going +to cry. + +"But you've no need to cry about your home _now_, missy dear," said Tim. +"You're on the way there." + +"Yes, how silly I am!" said Pamela. "I fink I forgot. It's such a long +time ago since us slept in a nice clean bed with sheets. I wish it was +time to go to bed now." + +"I think it would be a very good plan if you and master was to take a +little sleep. You must be tired getting up so early," suggested Mrs. +Peter, devoutly hoping they would agree to let themselves be quietly +stowed away behind the checked cotton curtain. For poor Mrs. Peter was +dreadfully afraid of the gipsies, and her motive in agreeing to befriend +Tim and the children was really far more the wish to save them from the +hands they had fallen among than any hope of reward. + +"I'd rather bury baby, bless her, any day, than think of her among +such," she had said on hearing the story. + +Duke and Pamela looked longingly at the "nice white sheets." They were +both, to tell the truth, very sleepy, but dignity had to be considered. + + +"It's only babies that go to bed in the day, Nurse says," objected Duke. +"She said so one day that us got into our beds, and she said us had +dirtied them with our shoes. Us had been playing in the garden." + +"But you've no need to keep your shoes on," said Mrs. Peter. "And many a +big person's very glad to take a sleep in the day, when they're tired +and have been up very early maybe." + +So at last the twins allowed themselves to be persuaded, and Mrs. +Peter's heart, and Tim's too, for that matter, were considerably lighter +when the curtain was drawn forward and no trace of the little passengers +was to be seen. Tim, following the young woman's advice, curled himself +up in a corner where he was easily hidden. + +"And now," said Mrs. Peter, "I'll just go up on the deck as usual, so +that if any boats pass us who know us by sight, they'll never think +we've any runaways on board; though for my part I can't see as that +Mick'd dare to make much stir, seeing as he might be had up for stealing +them." + +"It's not him I'm so much afeared of as that Signor," said Tim. "He's +such a terrible sharp one, Diana says." + +"But the perlice must be after the children by now," persisted Mrs. +Peter. "And every one far and wide knows of Crookford Fair and the +gipsies that comes to it." + +"P'raps they've never thought of gipsies," said Tim; and in this, as we +know, he was about right. + +The day passed peacefully. They met several boats making for Crookford, +who hailed them as usual, and they were overtaken by one or two others +making their way more quickly, because towed by two horses. But whether +or not there had been any inquiry among the canal people at Crookford +after the children, Peter and his party were left unmolested, and the +sight of his wife and baby as usual on the deck would have prevented any +one suspecting anything out of the common. + +It was late afternoon when the three--for Tim had slept as soundly as +the others--awoke. At first, in their nest behind the curtain, Duke and +Pamela could not imagine where they were--then the touch and sight of +the clean sheets recalled their memory. + +"Oh, bruvver, aren't you glad?" said Pamela. "I wonder what o'clock it +is, and if we've come a long way. Oh, I'm so hungry! I wonder where Tim +is!" + +Up jumped the boy like a faithful hound at the sound of his own name. + +"Here I am, missy," he said, rubbing his eyes. "I've been asleep too--it +makes one sleepy, I think, the smooth way the boat slips along." + +"Not like the jogging and jolting in the van," said Duke. "I'm hungry +too, Tim," he added. + +"Just stop where you are a bit while I go out on the deck and see," said +the boy. + +He made his way cautiously, peeping out before he let himself be seen. +The coast was clear, however. Mrs. Peter was knitting tranquilly, baby +asleep on her knee--Peter himself enjoying an afternoon pipe. + +For it was already afternoon. + +"You've had a good nap, all on you," said the young woman, smiling. "I +thought you'd 'a wakened up for your dinner. But I looked in two or +three times and the little dears was sleeping like angels in a +picture--so Peter and I we thought it would be a pity to disturb you. +Had you so far to come this morning? + +"Not far at all," said Tim. "I cannot think what made me so sleepy, nor +master and missy neither. Perhaps it's the being so quiet-like here +after all the flurry of getting off and thinking they'd be after us. +It's not often I sleep past my dinner time." + +"I've kep' it for you," said Mrs. Peter. "There's some baked 'taters hot +in the pan, and maybe the little master and missy'd like one of their +eggs." + +"I'm sure they would," said Tim; "a hegg and a baked 'tater's a dinner +for a king. And there's the oranges for a finish up." + +And he skipped back merrily to announce the good news. + +The dinner was thoroughly approved of by Duke and Pamela, and after they +had eaten it they were pleased at being allowed to stay on the deck of +the boat, and to run about and amuse themselves as they chose, for they +had now left Crookford so far behind them that Peter and his wife did +not think it likely any one would be coming in pursuit. + +"They'd 'a been after us by now if they'd been coming," said Peter. "A +horse'd have overtook us long afore this, and not going so very fast +nayther." + +The children had not enjoyed so much liberty for many weary days, and +their merry laughter was heard all over the boat, as they played +hide-and-seek with Tim, or paddled their hands in the clear water, +leaning over the sides of the boat. For they were now quite out in the +country, and the canal bore no traces of the dirt of the town. It was a +very pretty bit of country too through which they were passing; and +though the little brother and sister were too young to have admired or +even noticed a beautiful landscape of large extent, they were delighted +with the meadows dotted over with daisies and buttercups, and the woods +in whose recesses primroses and violets were to be seen, through which +they glided. + +[Illustration: "I DO FINK WHEN US IS QUITE BIG AND CAN DO AS US LIKES, +US MUST HAVE A BOAT LIKE THIS, AND ALWAYS GO SAILING ALONG."--p. 195.] + +"I do fink when us is quite big and can do as us likes, us must have a +boat like this, and always go sailing along," said Pamela, when, +half-tired with her play, she sat down beside the baby and its mother. + +"But it isn't always summer, or beautiful bright weather like this, +missy," said the young woman. "It's not such a pleasant life in winter +or even in wet weather. Last week even it was sadly cold. I hardly durst +let baby put her nose out of the cabin." + +"Then us'd only sail in the boat in fine weather," said Pamela +philosophically, to which of course there was nothing to be said. + +The next two days passed much in the same way. The sunshine fortunately +continued, and the children saw no reason to change their opinion of the +charms of canal life, especially as now and then Peter landed them on +the banks for a good run in the fields. And through all was the +delightful feeling that they were "going home." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +A SAD DILEMMA. + + "Like children that have lost their way + And know their names, but nothing more." + _Phoebe._ + + +It was the last night on the canal. Early the next morning they would be +at Monkhaven. The children were fast asleep; so were Peter and his wife +and baby. Only Tim was awake. He had asked to stay on deck, as he was +quite warm with a rug which Mrs. Peter lent him, and the cabin was full +enough. It was a lovely night, and the boy lay looking at the stars +overhead thinking, with rather a heavy heart. The nearer they got to the +children's home the more anxious he became, not on their account but on +his own. It would be so dreadful to be turned adrift again, and, in +spite of all the little people's promises, he could not feel sure that +the old gentleman and lady would care to have anything to say to him. + +"I'm such a rough one and I've been with such a bad lot," thought the +poor boy to himself while the tears came to his eyes. But he looked up +at the stars again, and somehow their calm cheerful shining seemed to +give him courage. He had been on the point of deciding that as soon as +he was quite sure of the children's safety he would run away, without +letting himself be seen at all, though where he should run to or what +would become of him he had not the least idea! But the silvery light +overhead reminded him somehow of his beautiful dream, for it illumined +the boat and the water and the trees as if they were painted by fairy +fingers. + +"It's come right so far, leastways as far as a dream could be like to +real things," he reflected. "I don't see why it shouldn't come right all +through. Just to think how proud I'd be if they'd make me stable-boy, or +gardener's lad maybe, and I could feel I were earning something and had +a place o' my own in the world. That's what mother would 'a wished for +me. 'Never mind how humble you are if you're earning your bread +honest-like,' I've oft heard her say. Poor mother, she'd be glad to know +I was out o' that lot anyway," and Tim's imagination pointed back to the +gipsy caravan. "All, saving Diana--what a lot they are, to be sure! I'm +sure and I hope she'll get out of it some day. 'Tis best to hope anyway, +so I'll try not to be down-hearted," and again Tim glanced up at the +lovely sky. "If I could but make a good guess now which of them there +stars is heaven, or the way into it anyway, I'd seem to know better-like +where poor mother is, and I'd look for it every night. I'm going to try +to be a better lad, mother dear. I can promise you that, and somehow I +can't help thinking things 'll come straighter for me." + +And then Tim curled himself round like a dormouse, and shut up his +bright merry eyes, and in five minutes was fast asleep. + +He had kept awake later than he knew probably, for the next morning's +sun was higher in the skies than he had intended it should be when a +slight shake of his arm and a not unfriendly though rough voice awoke +him. Up he jumped in a fright, for he had not yet got over the fear of +being pursued. + +"What's the matter?" he cried, but Peter--for Peter it was--soon +reassured him. + +"Naught's the matter," he said, "don't be afeared, but we're close to +Monkhaven. I've got to go on to the wharf, but that's out o' your way. I +thought we'd best talk over like what you'd best do. I've been up early; +I want to get to the wharf before it's crowded. So after you've had some +breakfast, you and the little uns, what d'ye think of next?" + +"To find the quickest road to Sandle'ham," said Tim; "that's the only +place they can tell the name of near their home. Diana," he went on, +"Diana thought as how I'd better go straight to the police at Monkhaven +and tell them the whole story, only not so as to set them after Mick if +I can help it. She said the police here is sure to know of the +children's being stolen by now, and they'd put us in the way of getting +quick to their home." + +"I think she's right," said Peter. "I'd go with you myself, but my +master's a sharp one, and I'd get into trouble for leaving the boat and +the horse, even if he didn't mind my having took passengers for onst," +he added, with a smile. + +"No, no," said Tim, "I'll manage all right. Not that I like going to the +police, but if so be as it can't be helped. And look here, Peter," he +went on, drawing out of the inside of his jacket a little parcel +carefully pinned to the lining, "talking of passengers, this is all I +can give you at present. It was all Diana could get together, but I feel +certain sure, as I told you, the old gentleman and lady will do +something handsome when they hear how good you've been," and out of the +little packet he gradually, for the coins were enveloped in much paper, +produced a half-crown, three shillings, and some coppers. + +Peter eyed them without speaking. He was fond of money, and even +half-a-crown represented a good deal to him. But he shook his head. + +"I'm not going to take nothing of that," he said; "you're not yet at +your journey's end. I won't say but what I'd take a something, and +gladly, from the old gentleman if he sees fit to send it when he's heard +all about it. A letter'll always get to me, sooner or later, at the +'Bargeman's Rest,' Crookford. You can remember that--Peter Toft--that's +my name." + +"I'll not forget, you may be sure," said Tim. "It's very good of you not +to take any, for it's true, as you say, we may need it. And so you think +too it's best to go straight to the police at Monkhaven." + +"I do so," said Peter, and thus it was settled. + +There were some tears, as might have been expected, and not only on the +children's part, when they came to say good-bye to Mrs. Peter and the +baby. But they soon dried in the excitement of getting on shore again +and setting off under Tim's care on the last stage of their journey +"home." + +"Is it a very long walk, do you think, Tim?" they asked. "Us knows the +way a _long_ way down the Sandle'ham road. Is that Sandle'ham?" as they +saw the roofs and chimneys of Monkhaven before them. + +"I wish it were!" said Tim. "No, that's a place they call Monkhaven, but +it's on the road to Sandle'ham. Did you never hear tell of Monkhaven, +master and missy?--think now." + +But after "thinking" for half a quarter of the second, the two fair +heads gave it up. + +"No; us had never heard of Monkhaven. What did it matter? Us would much +rather go straight home." + +Then Tim had to enter upon an explanation. He did not know the nearest +way to Sandle'ham, and they might wander about the country, losing their +way. They had very little money, and it most likely was too far to walk. +He was afraid to ask unless sure it was of some one he could trust; for +Mick might have sent word to some one at Monkhaven about them. Then +after Sandle'ham, which way were they to go? There was but one thing to +do--ask the police. The police would take care of them and set them on +the way. + +But oh, poor Tim! Little did he know the effect of that fatal word, and +yet he had far more reason to dread the police than the twins could +have. More than once he had only just escaped falling into its clutches, +and all through his vagrant life he had of course come to regard its +officers as his natural enemies. But he had put all that aside, and, +strong in his good cause, was ready now to turn to them as the +children's protectors. Duke and Pamela, on the contrary, who had no real +reason for being afraid of the police, were in frantic terror; their +poor little imaginations set to work and pictured "prison" as where they +were sure to be sent to. They would rather go back to the gipsies, they +would rather wander about the fields with Tim till they died--rather +_anything_ than go near the police. And they cried and sobbed and hung +upon Tim in their panic of terror, till the poor boy was fairly at his +wit's end, and had to give in so far as to promise to say no more about +it at present. So they spent the early hours of the beautiful spring +morning in a copse outside the little town, where they were quite happy, +and ate the provisions Peter's wife had put up for them with a good +appetite, thinking no more of the future than the birds in the bushes; +while poor Tim was grudging every moment of what he felt to be lost +time, and wondering where they were to get their next meal or find +shelter for the night! + +It ended at last in a compromise. Tim received gracious permission +himself to go to the police to ask the way, provided he left "us" in the +wood--"us" promising to be very good, not to stray out of a certain +distance, to speak to no possible passers-by, and to hide among the +brushwood if any suspicious-looking people came near. + +And, far more anxious at heart than if he could have persuaded them to +come with him, but still with no real misgiving but that in half an hour +he would be back with full directions for the rest of their journey, Tim +set off at a run in quest of the police office of Monkhaven. He was soon +in the main street of the town, which after all was more like a big +village--except at the end where lay the canal wharf, which was dirty +and crowded and bustling--and had no difficulty in finding the house he +was in search of. On the walls outside were pasted up posters of +different sizes and importance--notices of new regulations, and +"rewards" for various losses--but Tim, taking no notice of any of these, +hastened to knock at the door, and eagerly, though not without some +fear, stood waiting leave to enter. + +Two or three policemen were standing or sitting about talking to each +other. Tim's first knock was not heard, but a second brought one to the +door. + +"Please, sir," said the boy without waiting to be asked what he wanted, +"could you tell me the nearest way to Sandle'ham? I'm on my way +there--leastways to some place near-by there--there's two childer with +me, sir, as has got strayed away from their home, and----" + +"What's that he's saying?" said another man coming forward--he was the +head officer evidently--"Tell us that again,"--"Just make him come +inside, Simpkins, and just as well shut to the door," he added in a low +voice. Tim came forward unsuspiciously. "Well, what's that you were +saying?" he went on to Tim. + +"It's two childer, sir," repeated Tim--"two small childer as has got +strayed away from their home--you may have heard of it?--and I'm +a-taking them back, only I'm not rightly sure of the way, and I +thought--I thought, as it was the best to ax you, seeing as you've maybe +heard----" but here Tim's voice, which had been faltering somewhat, so +keen and hard was the look directed upon him, came altogether to an end; +and he grew so red and looked so uneasy that perhaps it was no wonder if +Superintendent Boyds thought him a suspicious character. + +"Ah indeed!--just so--you thought maybe we'd heard something of some +children as had _strayed_--_strayed_; not been decoyed away--oh not at +all--away from their home. And of course, young man, _you'd_ heard +nothing. You, nor those that sent you, didn't know nothing of this here, +I suppose?" and Boyds unfolded a yellow paper lying on the table and +held it up before Tim's face. "This here is new to you, no doubt?" + +Tim shook his head. The yellow paper with big black letters told him +nothing. Even the big figures, "£20 Reward," standing alone at the top, +had no meaning for him. "I can't read, sir," he said, growing redder +than before. + +"Oh indeed! and who was it then that told you to come here about the +children to ask the way, so that you could take them home, you know, and +get the reward all nice and handy? You thought maybe you'd get it +straight away, and that we'd send 'em home for you--was that what father +or mother thought?" + +Tim looked up, completely puzzled. + +"I don't know anything about a reward," he said, "and I haven't no +father or mother. Di----" but here he stopped short. "Diana told me to +come to you," he was going to have said, when it suddenly struck him +that the gipsy girl had bid him beware of mentioning any names. + +"Who?" said the superintendent sharply. + +"I can't say," said Tim. "It was a friend o' mine--that's all I can +say--as told me to come here." + +"A friend, eh? I'm thinking we'll have to know some more about some of +your friends before we're done with you. And where is these same +children, then? You can tell us that anyway!" + +"No," said Tim, beginning to take fright, "I can't. They'd be +afeared--dreadful--if they saw one o' your kind. I'll find my own way to +Sandle'ham if you can't tell it me," and he turned to go. + +But the policeman called Simpkins, at a sign from his superior, caught +hold of him. + +"Not so fast, young man, not so fast," said Boyds. "You'll have to tell +us where these there children are afore you're off." + +"I can't--indeed I can't--they'd be so frightened," said Tim. "Let me +go, and I'll try to get them to come back here with me--oh do let me +go!" + +But Simpkins only held him the faster. + +"Shut him up in there for a bit," said Boyds, pointing to a small inner +room opening into the one where they were,--"shut him in there till he +thinks better of it," and Simpkins was preparing to do so when Tim +turned to make a last appeal. "Don't lock me up whatever you do," he +said, clasping his hands in entreaty; "they'll die of fright if they're +left alone. I'd rather you'd go with me nor leave them alone. Yes, I'll +show you where they are if you'll let me run on first so as they won't +be so frightened." + +Simpkins glanced at Boyds--he was a kinder man than the superintendent +and really sharper, though much less conceited. He was half inclined to +believe in Tim. + +"What do you say to that?" he asked. + +But Boyds shook his head. + +"There's some trick in it. Let him run on first--I daresay! The +children's safe enough with those as sent him here to find out. No, no; +lock him up, and I'll step round to Mr. Bartlemore's,"--Mr. Bartlemore +was the nearest magistrate,--"and see what he thinks about it all. It'll +not take me long, and it'll show this young man here we're in earnest. +Lock him up." + +Simpkins pushed Tim, though not roughly, into the little room, and +turned the key on him. The boy no longer made any resistance or appeal. +Mr. Boyds put on his hat and went out, and the police office returned to +its former state of sleepy quiet so far as appearances went. But behind +the locked door a poor ragged boy was sobbing his eyes out, twisting and +writhing himself about in real agony of mind. + +"Oh, my master and missy, why did I leave you? What will they be doing? +Oh they was right and I was wrong! The perlice is a bad, wicked, +unbelieving lot--oh my, oh my!--if onst I was but out o' here----" but +he stopped suddenly. The words he had said without thinking seemed to +say themselves over again to him as if some one else had addressed them +to him. + +"Out o' here," why shouldn't he get out of here? And Tim looked round +him curiously. There was a small window and it was high up. There was no +furniture but the bench on which he was sitting. But Tim was the son of +a mason, and it was not for nothing that he had lived with gipsies for +so long. He was a perfect cat at climbing, and as slippery as an eel in +the way he could squeeze himself through places which you would have +thought scarcely wide enough for his arm. His sobs ceased, his face +lighted up again; he drew out of his pocket his one dearest treasure, +from which night or day he was never separated, his pocket-knife, and, +propping the bench lengthways slanting against the wall like a ladder, +he managed to fix it pretty securely by scooping out a little hollow in +the roughly-boarded floor, so as to catch the end of the bench and +prevent its slipping down. And just as Superintendent Boyds was stepping +into Squire Bartlemore's study to wait for that gentleman's appearance, +a pair of bright eyes in a round sunburnt face might have been seen +spying the land from the small window high up in the wall of the lock-up +room of the police office. Spying it to good purpose, as will soon be +seen, though in the meantime I think it will be well to return to Duke +and Pamela all alone in the copse. + +Tim had not been gone five minutes before they began to wonder when he +would be back again. They sat quite still, however, for perhaps a +quarter of an hour, for they were just a little frightened at finding +themselves really alone. If Tim had turned back again I don't think he +would have had much difficulty in persuading them to go with him, even +to the dreadful police! But Tim never thought of turning back; he had +too thoroughly taken the little people at their word. + +After a while they grew so tired of waiting quietly that they jumped up +and began to run about. Once or twice they were scared by the sounds of +footsteps or voices at a little distance, but nobody came actually +through the copse, and they soon grew more assured, and left off +speaking in whispers and peeping timidly over their shoulders. At last, +"Sister," said Duke, "don't you think us might go just a teeny weeny bit +out of the wood, to watch if us can't see Tim coming down the road? I +know which side he went." + +"Us promised to stay here, didn't us?" replied Pamela. + +"Yes; but us _would_ be staying here," said Duke insinuatingly. "It's +just to peep, you know, to see if Tim's coming. He'd be very glad, for +p'raps he'll not be quite sure where to find us again, and if us goes a +little way along the road he'd see us quicker, and if us can't see him +us can come back here again." + +"Very well," said Pamela, and, hand in hand, the two made their way out +of the shelter of the trees and trotted half timidly a little way along +the road. It felt fresh and bright after the shady wood; some way before +them they saw rows of houses, and already they had passed cottages +standing separately in their gardens and a little to the right was a +church with a high steeple. Had they gone straight on they would soon +have found themselves in Monkhaven High Street, where, at this moment, +Tim was shut up in the police office. But after wandering on a little +way they got frightened, for no Tim was to be seen, and they stood still +and looked at each other. + +"P'raps this isn't the way he went after all," said Pamela. They had +already passed a road to the left, which also led into the town, though +less directly. + +"He _might_ have gone that way," said Duke, pointing back to this other +road; "let's go a little way along there and look." + +Pamela made no objection. The side road turned out more attractive, for +a little way from the corner stood a pretty white house in a really +lovely garden. It reminded them of their own home, and they stood at the +gates peeping in, admiring the flower-beds and the nicely-kept lawn and +smooth gravel paths, for the moment forgetting all about where they were +and what had become of their only protector. + +Suddenly, however, they were rudely brought back to the present and to +the fears of the morning, for from where they were they caught sight of +a burly blue-coated figure making his way to the front door from a side +gate by which he had entered the garden; for this pretty house was no +other than Squire Bartlemore's, and the tall figure was that of +Superintendent Boyds. He could not possibly have seen them--they were +very tiny, and the bushes as well as the railings hid them from the view +of any one not quite close to the gates. But they saw _him_--that was +enough, and more than enough. + +"He's caught Tim and put him in prison," said Pamela, and in a +terror-stricken whisper, "and now he's coming for _us_, bruvver;" and +bruvver, quite as frightened as she, did not attempt to reassure her. +Too terrified to see that the policeman was not coming their way at all, +but was quietly striding on towards the house, they caught each other +again by the hand and turned to fly. And fly they did--one could +scarcely have believed such tiny creatures could run so fast and so far. +They did not look which way they went--only that it was in the other +direction from whence they had come. They ran and ran--then stopped to +take breath and glance timidly behind them, and without speaking ran on +again--till they had left quite half a mile between them and the pretty +garden, and ventured at last to stand still and look about them. They +were in a narrow lane--high hedges shut it in at each side--they could +see very little way before or behind. But though they listened +anxiously, no sound but the twittering of the birds in the trees, and +the faint murmur of a little brook on the other side of hedge, was to be +heard. + +"He can't be running after us, I don't fink," said Pamela, drawing a +deep breath. + +"No," said Duke, but then he looked round disconsolately. "What can us +do?" he said. "Tim will never know to find us here." + +"Tim is in prison," said Pamela, "It's no use us going back to meet him. +I know he's in prison." + +"Then what can us do?" repeated Duke. + +"Us must go home and ask Grandpapa to get poor Tim out of prison," said +Pamela. + +"But, sister, how can us go home? _I_ don't know the way, do you?" + +Pamela looked about her doubtfully. + +"P'raps it isn't so very far," she said. "Us had better go on; and when +it's a long way from the policeman, us can ask somebody the road." + +There seemed indeed nothing else to do. On they tramped for what seemed +to them an endless way, and still they were in the narrow lane with the +high hedges; so that, after walking for a very long time, they could +have fancied they were in the same place where they started. And as they +met no one they could not ask the way, even had they dared to do so. At +last--just as they were beginning to get very tired--the lane quite +suddenly came out on a short open bit of waste land, across which a +cart-track led to a wide well-kept road. And this, though they had no +idea of it, was actually the coach-road to Sandlingham; for--though, it +must be allowed, more by luck than good management--they had hit upon a +short cut to the highway, which if Tim had known of it would have saved +him all his present troubles! + +For a moment or two Duke and Pamela felt cheered by having at last got +out of the weary lane. They ran eagerly across the short distance that +separated them from the road, with a vague idea that once on it they +would somehow or other see something--meet some one to guide them as to +what next to do. But it was not so--there it stretched before them, +white and smooth and dusty at both sides, rising a little to the right +and sloping downwards to the left--away, away, away--to where? Not a +cart or carriage of any kind--not a foot-passenger even--was to be seen. +And the sun was hot, and the four little legs were very tired; and where +was the use of tiring them still more when they might only be wandering +farther and farther from their home? For, though the choice was not +great, being simply a question of up-hill or down-dale, it was as bad as +if there had been half a dozen ways before them, as they had not the +least idea which of the two was the right one! + +The two pair of blue eyes looked at each other piteously; then the +eyelids drooped, and big tears slowly welled out from underneath them; +the twins flung their arms about each other, and, sitting down on the +little bit of dusty grass that bordered the highway, burst into loud and +despairing sobs. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +GOOD-BYE TO "US." + + "And as the evening twilight fades away, + The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day." + _Morituri Salutamus._ + + +By slow degrees their sobs exhausted themselves. Pamela leant her head +against Duke and shut her eyes. + +"I am so tired, bruvver," she said. "If us could only get some quiet +place out of the sun I would like to lie down and go to sleep. Wouldn't +you, bruvver?" + +"I don't know," said Duke. + +"I wonder if the birds would cover us up wif leaves," said Pamela +dreamily, "like those little children long ago?" + +"That would be if us was dead," said Duke. "Oh sister, you don't think +us must be going to die!" + +"I don't know," said Pamela in her turn. + +Suddenly Duke raised himself a little, and Pamela, feeling him move, sat +up and opened her eyes. + +"What is it?" she asked, but he did not need to answer, for just then +she too heard the sound that had caught Duke's ears. It was the barking +of a dog--not a deep baying sound, but a short, eager, energetic bark, +and seemingly very near them. The children looked at each other and then +rose to their feet. + +"Couldn't you fink it was Toby?" said Pamela in a low voice, though why +she spoke so low she could not have said. + +Duke nodded, and then, moved by the same impulse, they went forward to +the middle of the road and looked about them, hand in hand. Again came +the sharp eager bark, and this time a voice was heard as if soothing the +dog, though they could not quite catch the words. But some one was near +them--thus much seemed certain, and the very idea had comfort in it. +Still, for a minute or two they could not make out where were the dog +and its owner; for they did not know that a short way down the road a +path ending in a stile crossed the fields from the village of Nooks to +the high-road. And when, therefore, at but a few paces distant, there +suddenly appeared a small figure, looking dark against the white dust of +the road, frisking and frolicking about in evident excitement, it really +seemed to the little brother and sister as if it had sprung out of the +earth by magic. They had not time, however, to speak--hardly to +wonder--to themselves before, all frisking and frolicking at an end, the +shaggy ball was upon them, and, with a rush that for half a second made +Pamela inclined to scream, the little dog flew at them, barking, +yelping, almost choking with delight, flinging himself first on one then +on the other, darting back a step or two as if to see them more +distinctly and make sure he was not mistaken, then rolling himself upon +them again all quivering and shaking with rapture. And the cry of +ecstasy that broke from the twins would have gone to the heart of any +one that loved them. + +"Oh Toby, Toby!--bruvver--sister--it is, it _is_ our own Toby. He has +come to take us home. Oh dear, _dear_ Toby!" + +[Illustration: "OH TOBY, TOBY!--BRUVVER--SISTER--IT IS, IT IS OUR OWN +TOBY, HE HAS COME TO TAKE US HOME. OH DEAR, DEAR TOBY!"--p. 220.] + +It _did_ go to the heart of some one not far off. A quaintly-clad, +somewhat aged, woman was slowly climbing the stile at the moment that +the words rang clearly out into the summer air. "Oh Toby, _our_ Toby!" +and no one who had not seen it could have believed how nimbly old +Barbara skipped or slid or tumbled down the steps on the road-side of +the stile, and how, in far less time than it takes to tell it, she was +down on her knees in the dust with a child in each arm, and Toby +flashing about the trio, so that he seemed to be everywhere at once. + +"My precious darlings!--my dear little master and missy!--and has old +Barbara found you after all? or Toby rather. I thank the Lord who has +heard my prayers. To think I should have such a delight in my old days +as to be the one to take you back to my dearest lady! A sore heart was I +coming along with--to think that I had heard nothing of you for all I +had felt so sure I would. And oh, my darlings, where _have_ you been, +and how has it all come about?" + +But a string of questions was the first answer she got. + +"Have you come to look for us, dear Barbara? Did Grandpapa and +Grandmamma send you, and Toby too? How did you know which way to come? +And have you seen Tim? Did Tim tell you?" + +"Tim, Tim, I know nought of who Tim is, my dearies," said Barbara, +shaking her head. "If it's any one that's been good to you, so much the +better. I've been at Nooks, the village hard by, for some days with my +niece. I meant to have stayed but two or three nights, but I've been +more nor a week, and a worry in my heart all the time not to get back +home to hear if there was no news of you, and how my poor lady was. And +to think if I _had_ gone home I wouldn't have met you--dear--dear--but +the ordering of things is wonderful!" + +"And didn't you come to look for us, then? But why is Toby with you?" +asked the children. + +"He was worritting your dear Grandmamma. There was no peace with him +after you were lost. And though I didn't rightly come to Monkhaven to +look for you, I had a feeling--it was bore in on me that I'd maybe find +some trace of you, and I thought Toby would be the best help. And truly +I could believe he'd scented you were not far off--the worry he's been +all this morning! A-barking and a-sniffing and a-listening like! I was +in two minds as to which way I'd take this morning--round by Monkhaven +or by the lane. But Toby he was all for the lane, and so I just took his +way, the Lord be thanked!" + +"He _knowed_ us was here--he did, didn't he? Oh, darling Toby!" cried +the twins. + +But then Barbara had to be told all. Not very clear was the children's +account of their adventures at first; for the losing of Tim and the +vision of the policeman and the canal boat were the topmost on their +minds, and came tumbling out long before anything about the gipsies, +which of course was the principal thing to tell. Bit by bit, however, +thanks to her patience, their old friend came to understand the whole. +She heaved a deep sigh at last. + +"To think that it was the gipsies after all." + +But she made not many remarks, and said little about the +broken-bowl-part of the story. It would be for their dear Grandmamma to +show them where they had been wrong, she thought modestly, if indeed +they had not found it out for themselves already. I think they had. + +"Us is always going to tell Grandmamma _everyfing_ now," said Pamela. + +"And us is always going to listen to the talking of that little voice," +added Duke. + +But the first excitement over, old Barbara began to notice that the +children were looking very white and tired. How was she ever to get them +to Brigslade--a five miles' walk at least--where again, for she had +chosen Brigslade market-day on purpose, she counted on Farmer Carson to +give her a lift home? She was not strong enough to carry them--one at a +time--more than a short distance. Besides she had her big basket. +Glancing at it gave her another idea. + +"I can at least give you something to eat," she said. "Niece Turwall +packed all manner of good things in here," and, after some rummaging, +out she brought two slices of home-made cake and a bottle of currant +wine, of which she gave them each a little in a cup without a handle +which Mrs. Turwall had thoughtfully put in. The cake and the wine +revived the children wonderfully. They said they were able to walk "a +long long way," and indeed there was nothing for it but to try, and so +the happy little party set off. + +The thought of Tim, however, weighed on their minds, and when Barbara +had arrived at some sort of idea as to who he was, and what he had done, +she too felt even more anxious about him. Even without prejudice it must +be allowed that the police of those days were not what they are now, and +Barbara knew that for a poor waif like Tim it would not be easy to +obtain a fair hearing. + +"And he won't be wanting to get that gipsy girl into trouble by telling +on the lot of them, which will make it harder for the poor lad," thought +the shrewd old woman, for the children had told her all about Diana. +"But there's nothing to be done that I can see except to get the General +to write to the police at Monkhaven." For Mrs. Twiss knew that Duke and +Pam would be terribly against the idea of going back to the town and to +the police office. And she herself had no wish to do so--she was not +without some distrust of the officers of the law herself, and it would, +too, have grieved her sadly not to have been the one to restore the lost +children to their friends. Besides, Farmer Carson would be waiting for +her at the cross roads, for "if by any chance I don't come back before, +you may be sure I'll be there on Friday, next market-day," she had said +to him at parting. + +"You don't think they'll put Tim in prison, do you?" asked Duke, seeing +that the old woman's face grew grave when she had heard all. + +"Oh no, surely, not so bad as that," she replied. "And even if we went +back I don't know that it would do much good." + +"Go back to where the policemans are," exclaimed the twins, growing pale +at the very idea. "Oh please--_please_ don't," and they both crept +closer to their old friend. + +"But if it would make them let Tim come wif us?" added Pamela, +shivering, nevertheless. "I'd _try_ not to be frightened. Poor Tim--he +has been so good to us, us can't go and leave him all alone." + +"But, my deary," said Barbara, "I don't rightly see what we can do for +him. The police might think it right to keep us all there too--and I'm +that eager to get you home to ease your dear Grandmamma and the General. +I think it's best to go on and get your Grandpapa to write about the +poor boy." + +But now the idea of rescuing Tim was in the children's heads it was not +so easy to get rid of it. They stood still looking at each other and at +Mrs. Twiss with tears in their eyes; they had come by this time perhaps +half a mile from where they had met their friends. The high-road was +here shadier and less dusty, and it was anything but inviting to think +of retracing the long stretch to Monkhaven, though from where they +stood, a turn in the road hid it from them. All at once a whistle caught +their ears--a whistle two or three times repeated in a particular +way--Toby pricked up his ears, put himself in a very valiant attitude, +and barked with a great show of importance, as much as to say, "Just you +look out now, whoever you are. _I_ am on guard now." But his bark did +not seem to strike awe into the whistler, whoever he was. Again his note +sounded clear and cheery. And this time, with a cry of "It's Tim, it's +Tim," off flew Duke and Pam down the road, followed by Barbara--Toby of +course keeping up a running accompaniment of flying circles round the +whole party till at last the sight of his beloved little master and +mistress hugging and kissing a bright-eyed, clean-faced, but sadly +ragged boy was altogether too much for his refined feelings, and he +began barking with real fury, flinging himself upon Tim as if he really +meant to bite him. + +Duke caught him up. + +"Silly Toby," he cried, "it's Tim. You must learn to know Tim;" and old +Barbara coming up by this time and speaking to the boy in a friendly +tone, poor Toby's misgivings were satisfied, and he set to work to +wagging his tail in a slightly subdued manner. + +Then came explanations on both sides. Tim had to tell how he had slipped +himself out through the window, narrow as it was, and how, thanks to an +old water-butt and some loose bricks in the wall, he had scrambled down +like a cat, and made off as fast as his legs would carry him to the +place where he had left the children. + +"And when you wasn't there I was fairly beat--I was," he said. "I knowed +they hadn't had time to find you--perlice I mean--but I saw as you must +have got tired waiting so long. So off I set till I met a woman who told +me the way to the Sandle'ham road. I had a fancy you'd ask for it rather +than come into the town if you thought they'd cotched me, and I was +about right you see." + +"Is this the Sandle'ham road? Oh yes, Barbara told us it was," said the +children. "But us didn't know it was. Us just runned and runned when us +saw the policeman, us was so frightened." + +"But us _was_ going back to try to get you out of prison if Barbara +would have let us," added Pamela. + +Then all about Barbara and Toby had to be explained, and a great weight +fell from Tim's heart when he quite understood that the old woman was a +real home friend--that there would no longer be any puzzle or difficulty +as to how to do or which way to go, now that they had fallen in with +this trusty protector. + +"To be sure--well now this _are_ a piece of luck, and no mistake," he +repeated, one big smile lighting up all his pleasant face. But suddenly +it clouded over. + +"Then, ma'am, if you please, would it be better for me not to come no +further? Would I be in the way, maybe?" + +The children set up a cry before Barbara had time to reply. + +"No, no, Tim; you _must_ come. Grandpapa and Grandmamma will always take +care of Tim, 'cos he's been so good to us--won't they, Barbara?" + +Barbara looked rather anxious. Her own heart had warmed to the orphan +boy, but she did not know how far she was justified in making promises +for other people. + +"I dursn't go back to Monkhaven," said Tim; "they'd be sure to cotch me, +and they'd give it me for a-climbing out o' window and a-running away. +Nor I dursn't go back to Mick. But you've only to say the word, ma'am, +and I'm off. I'll hide about, and mayhap somehow I might get a chance +among the boat-people. It's all I can think of; for I've no +money--leastways this is master's and missy's, and you'd best take it +for them," he went on, as he pulled out the little packet from the +inside of his jacket which he had already vainly offered to Peter. "And +about Peter, p'raps you'd say a word to the old gentleman about sending +him something. He were very good to us, he were; and he can always get a +letter that's sent to----" but here the lump that had kept rising in the +poor boy's throat all the time he was speaking, and that he had gone on +choking down, got altogether too big; he suddenly broke off and burst +out sobbing. It was too much--not only to have to leave the dear little +master and missy, but to have to say good-bye to all his beautiful plans +and hopes--of learning to be a good and respectable boy--of leading a +settled and decent life such as mother--"poor mother"--could look down +upon with pleasure from her home up there somewhere near the sun, in the +heaven about which her child knew so little, but in which he still most +fervently believed. + +"I'm a great fool," he sobbed, "but I did--I did want to be a good lad, +and to give up gipsying." + +Barbara's heart by this time was completely melted, and Duke's and Pam's +tears were flowing. + +"Tim, dear Tim, you must come with us," they said. "Oh, Barbara, do tell +him he's to come. Why, even Toby sees how good Tim is; he's not barking +a bit, and he's sniffing at him to show he's a friend." + +And Toby, hearing his own name, looked up in the old woman's face as if +he too were pleading poor Tim's cause. She hesitated no longer. + +"Come with us my poor boy," she said, "it'll go hard if we can't find a +place for you somewheres. And the General and the old lady is good and +kind as can be. Don't ye be a-feared, but come with us. You must help me +to get master and missy home, for it's a good bit we have to get over, +you know." + +So Tim dried his eyes, and his hopes revived. And this time the little +cavalcade set out in good earnest to make the best of their way to +Brigslade, with no lookings back towards Monkhaven; for, indeed, their +greatest wish was to leave it as quickly as possible far behind them. +They were a good way off fortunately before clever Superintendent Boyds +and his assistants found out that their bird was flown, and when they +did find it out they went after him in the wrong direction; and it was +not till three days after the children had been safe at home that formal +information, which doubtless _would_ have been very cheering to poor +Grandpapa, came to him that the police at Monkhaven were believed to be +on the track! + +How can I describe to you that coming home? If I could take you back +with me some thirty years or so and let you hear it as I did +then--direct from the lips of a very old lady and gentleman, who still +spoke to each other as "brother" and "sister," whose white hair was of +the soft silvery kind which one sees at a glance was _once_ flaxen--oh +how much more interesting it would be, and how much better it would be +told! But that cannot be. My dear old friends long ago told the story of +their childish adventure for the last time; though I am very sure +nothing would please them better than to know it had helped to amuse for +an hour or two some of the Marmadukes and Pamelas of to-day. So I will +do my best. + +It was a long stretch for the little legs to Brigslade; without Tim I +doubt if poor old Mrs. Twiss and Toby would have got them there. But the +boy was not to be tired; his strength seemed "like the strength of ten" +Tims, thanks to the happy hopes with which his heart was filled. He +carried Pamela and even Duke turn about on his back, he told stories and +sang songs to make them forget their aching legs and smarting feet. And +fortunately there still remained enough home-made cake and currant wine +for every one to have a little refreshment, especially as Tim found a +beautifully clear spring of water to mix with the wine when the children +complained of thirst. + +They got to the cross-roads before Farmer Carson, for Barbara was one of +those sensible people who always take time by the forelock; so they +rested there till the old gray mare came jogging up, and her master, on +the look-out for one old woman, but not for a party of four--five I +should say, counting Toby--could not believe his eyes, and scarcely his +ears, when Mrs. Twiss told him the whole story. How they all got into +the spring-cart I couldn't explain, but they did somehow, and the mare +did not seem to mind it at all. And at last, late on that lovely early +summer evening, Farmer Carson drew up in the lane at the back of the +house; and, after helping the whole party out, drove off with a hearty +Good-night, and hopes that they'd find the old gentleman and lady in +good health, and able to bear the happy surprise. + +It must be broken gently to them; and how to do this had been on +Barbara's mind all the time they had been in the cart, for up till then +she had been able to think of nothing but how to get the children along. +They, of course--except perhaps that they were too tired for any more +excitement--would have been for running straight in with joyful cries. +But they were so subdued by fatigue that their old friend found no +difficulty in persuading them to sit down quietly by the hedge, guarded +by Tim, while she and Toby went in to prepare the way. + +"For you know, my dearies, your poor Grandmamma has not been well and +the start might be bad for her," she explained. + +"But you're sure Grandmamma isn't _dead_?" said poor Pamela, looking up +piteously in Barbara's face. "Duke was afraid she might be if us didn't +come soon." + +"But now you _have_ come she'll soon get well again, please God," said +Barbara, though her own heart beat tremulously as she made her way round +by the back entrance. + +It was Toby after all who "broke" the happy tidings. In spite of all +Barbara could do--of all her "Hush, Toby, then,"'s "Gently my little +doggie,"'s--he _would_ rush in to the parlour as soon as the door was +opened in such a rapture of joyful barking, tail wagging and rushing and +dashing, that Grandmamma looked up from the knitting she was trying to +fancy she was doing in her arm-chair by the fire, and Grandpapa put down +his five days' old newspaper which he was reading by the window, with a +curious flutter of sudden hope all through them, notwithstanding their +many disappointments. + +"It is you, Barbara, back again at last," began Grandmamma. "How white +you look, my poor Barbara--and--why, what's the matter with Toby? Is he +so pleased to see us old people again?" + +"He _is_ very pleased, ma'am--he's a very wise and a very good feeling +dog is Toby, there's no doubt. And one that knows when to be sad +and--and when to be rejoiced, as I might say," said Barbara, though her +voice trembled with the effort to speak calmly. + +Something seemed to flash across the room to Grandmamma as Mrs. Twiss +spoke--down fell the knitting, the needles, and the wool, all in a +tangle, as the old lady started to her feet. + +"Barbara--Barbara Twiss!" she cried. "What do you mean? Oh Barbara, you +have news of our darlings? Marmaduke, my dear husband, do you hear?" and +she raised her voice, "she has brought us news at last," and Grandmamma +tottered forward a few steps and then, growing suddenly dazed and giddy, +would have fallen had not Grandpapa and Barbara started towards her from +different sides and caught her. But she soon recovered herself, and +eagerly signed to Barbara to "tell." How Barbara told she never knew. It +seemed to her that Grandmamma guessed the words before she spoke them, +and looking back on it all afterwards she could recollect nothing but a +sort of joyous confusion--Grandpapa rushing out without his hat, but +stopping to take his stick all the same--Grandmamma holding by the table +to steady herself when, in another moment, they were all back +again--then a cluster all together--of Grandpapa, Grandmamma, Duke, +Pamela and Barbara, with Nurse and Biddy, and Dymock and Cook, and +stable-boys and gardeners, and everybody, and Toby everywhere at once. +Broken words and sobs and kisses and tears and blessings all together, +and Pamela's little soft high voice sounding above all as she cried-- + +"Oh, dear Grandmamma, us _is_ so glad you are not dead. Duke was so +afraid you might be." + +And Tim--where was he?--standing outside in the porch, but smiling to +himself--not afraid of being forgotten, for he had a trustful nature. + +"It's easy to see as the old gentleman and lady is terrible fond of +master and missy," he thought. "But they must be terrible clever folk in +these parts to have writing outside of the house even," for his glance +had fallen on the quaintly-carved letters on the lintel, "Niks sonder +Arbitt." "I wonder now what that there writing says," he reflected. + +But he was not allowed to wonder long. A few moments more and there came +the summons his faithful little heart had been sure would come. + +"Tim, Tim--where is Tim? Come and see our Grandpapa and our Grandmamma, +Tim," and two pairs of little hot hands dragged him into the parlour. + +It was not at all like his dream, but it was far grander than any room +he had ever been in before, and never afterwards did the boy forget the +strange sweet perfume which seemed a part of it all--the scent of the +dried rose-leaves in the jars, though he did not then know what it was. +But it always came back to him when he thought of that first +evening--the beginning to him of a good and honest and useful life--when +the tall old gentleman and the sweet little old lady laid their hands on +his curly head and blessed him for what he had done and promised to be +his friends. + +They kept their promise well and wisely. Grandpapa took real trouble to +find out what the boy was best fitted for, and when he found it was for +gardening, Tim was thoroughly trained by old Noble till he was able to +get a good place of his own. He lived with Barbara in her neat little +cottage, and in the evenings learned to read and write and cipher, so +that before very long he could make out the letters in the porch, though +Grandpapa had to be asked to tell their meaning. + +"Nothing without work," was what they meant. They had been carved there +by the old Dutchman who had built the farmhouse, afterwards turned into +the pretty quaint "Arbitt Lodge." + +"A good and true saying," added Grandpapa, and so the three children to +whom he was speaking found it. For all three in their different ways +worked hard and well, and when in my childhood I knew them as old +people, I felt, even before I quite understood it, that "the Colonel," +as he then had become, and his sweet white-haired sister deserved the +love and respect they seemed everywhere to receive. And I could see that +it was no common tie which bound to them their faithful servant Timothy, +whose roses were the pride of all the country-side, when, after many +years of separation, he came to end his life in their service, after +Duke's "fighting days" were over and his widowed sister was, but for +him, alone in the world. + + * * * * * + +One question may be asked. Did they ever hear of Diana again? Yes, +though not till Tim had grown into a strapping young fellow, and the +twins were tall and thin, and had long since left off talking of "us." + +There came along the lanes one summer's day a covered van hung over at +the back with baskets, such as the children well remembered. A +good-humoured looking man was walking by the horse, a handsome woman was +sitting by the door plaiting straw. + +"Gipsies," cried the children, who were on their way to the village, +and, big as they were, they were a little frightened when, with a cry, +the woman jumped down and flew towards them. + +"Master and missy, don't you know me? I'm Diana!" she exclaimed. + +And Diana it was, though very much changed for the better. She had +married one of her own tribe, but a very good specimen, and the husband +and wife travelled about on their own account making their living +"honestly," as she took care to tell. "For there's good and there's bad +of us, and it's been my luck to get a good one. Thank God for it," she +added, "for I've never forgot master and missy's pretty telling me even +poor Diana might think God cared for her." + +She was taken to see Grandpapa and Grandmamma of course, and they would +have helped her and her husband to a settled life had they wished it. +But no--gipsies they were, and gipsies they must remain. "It'd choke me +to live inside four walls," said Diana, "and we must travel about so as +we can see our own folk from time to time. But whenever we pass this way +we'll come to see master and missy and Tim." + +And so they did. + + + + * * * * * * + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + All punctuation has been normalised with the exception of + varied hyphenation. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "US"*** + + +******* This file should be named 16954-8.txt or 16954-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/9/5/16954 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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