Mary Louisa S. Molesworth - Us

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"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.

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