Mary Louisa S. Molesworth - Us

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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, "L20 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.

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