GYPSY AND GINGER MOVE ON
When the Policeman on the Strand Beat blew his whistle, it was heard by every Policeman on every confine of London. But it was not heard in Trafalgar Square, because the party was by this time at its height. And while the Moonshiners sang and danced and rioted with the children, the policemen were answering the summons from Ealing to Barking, and from Crowdon to Crouch End. Through the silent streets they streamed in hundreds, like blue fire streaming noiselessly around a Christmas Pudding. From all points of the compass they converged on Trafalgar Square.
Before they knew it, the Moonshiners were encircled.
It was the Night Watchman who gave the alarm, too late. Even he had been caught napping for once. He had been competing at Catherine Wheels with the Evening Newsboy when he ought to have been keeping an eye on the night. But now, as the foe advanced in massed formation through Pall Mall and Whitehall, the Strand and St. Martin’s Lane, he scented them like a hound and cried: “The Police!”
Dead silence fell upon Trafalgar Square. Only the ex-Professor made any demonstration, and that was a mute one. Meekly, yet carelessly, he bowed to right and left.
“What are we going to do?” whispered Ginger.
The Moonshiners drew together and consulted. The Taxi-Man was for defying the foe, but Ginger said,
“Think of the children.”
The Piccadilly Flower-Girls were for diddling the foe, but
“There aren’t enough of you,” said Gypsy.
“P’raps if we kep as still as mice,” said Rags, “they’d jest go away and not notice.”
But the Night Watchman looked at the thousands of children and roses and balloons, and at the luminous sign on the National Gallery, and said,
“Don’t count on it. The London Police have eyes like lynxes.”
“All right,” said Gypsy cheerfully.
We’re discovered. We’re trapped. But you shan’t suffer—it’s all me and Ginger” (he couldn’t be bothered with grammar at the moment), “and I’m going to tell them so. Come along, darling.”
And passing his arm around Ginger’s waist he leaped with her to the head of the Lion who looks towards St. James’s, and stood exposed to the gaze of the London Police.
The Strand Policeman advanced, and pointed with his truncheon to the legend on the National Gallery.
Gypsy gazed steadily down into his questioning eyes, and prepared to confess. As he opened his lips, the Strand Policeman saw a vision of rapid promotion, and Gypsy saw another of Six Months’ Hard.
But before he had uttered the first word of his confession, a sharp command rang out upon the night.
“Move on!” it said.
It was the voice of Lionel. And out of the mossy bank of the Nelson Column, the form of Lionel rose. Gypsy and Ginger nearly fell off the Lion.
“Move on!” said Lionel sternly.
“Where would you like to?” whispered Lionel.
“S-S-Sussex!” stammered Ginger.
“Get down orf that Lion!” thundered Lionel, and he shook his truncheon truculently at Gypsy and Ginger. “Can’t you see you’re obstructing traffic?” He cast an eye over the crowd of children and Moonshiners. “Get along ’ome,” he said to them briefly. “Move on!” he said to Gypsy and Ginger, still more briefly.
This time Gypsy and Ginger quite fell off the Lion. With Lionel at their backs they moved on. A way melted for them like magic through the serried ranks of the London Police. The Police made no protest. One of them had the matter well in hand; they heard from his lips the sacred formula which is the motor power of the Police and the Solar Systems.
“Move on!” said Lionel at punctuated intervals. “Move on! Move on!”
Gypsy and Ginger moved on, as in a dream. They did not see the London Arabs shinning off to their respective slums; they did not see the London Police resume their respective beats, or the People of the London Streets return to their respective kerbs and cornerstones. With Lionel at their backs, they kept moving on. But it rather seemed as though it was the world, not they, that moved.
The silver water of the Thames and the black towers of Parliament went by them like visions. They saw the fiery smoke of Victorian trains stream by like dragon’s breath. “Move on!” said Lionel. They heard the dogs of Hackbridge bay at the moon, and smelt the Mitcham Lavender. Box Hill rose like a dark wave on their left, and sank away as Leith Hill rose like another on their right. “Move on!” said Lionel. The woods of Surrey dissolved into the woods of Sussex. A river sleeping between pink willow herb and purple loosestrife curled before them. “Move on!” said Lionel. A spur of the Downs rolled up like a green ball. A deep chalk road, cut like the Milky Way in the side of the hill, opened a channel for their feet. “Move on!” said Lionel.
Gypsy and Ginger moved on. At the top of the hill Ginger sat down all of a sudden.
“Lionel,” said she, “I can’t move another step.”
But Lionel did not answer. When they turned their heads he was not there. He had just completed the longest move on the Police Records, and was now speeding back to Scotland Yard to throw up his Roving Commission.
Gypsy and Ginger sat on the top of the Downs till daybreak. As the sun came up, Ginger uttered a cry.
“Oh!” said Ginger. “Look!”
Gypsy looked, and saw that they were on the end of one chain of hills that faced the end of another chain of hills. In the valley that lay between, a river ran very full and level among green grass and gold buttercups.
“There’s such a lot to look at,” said Gypsy. “Particularly what?”
“My cottage!” said Ginger, and rolled down the hill. Gypsy rolled after her. But she picked herself up first, shook her head, and was along the road like a hare. He tracked her to the cottage by the things that fell out of her pockets, peppermints and pencils and penknives and tangles of string. Just as Gypsy arrived at the cottage Ginger was coming away from it. She looked extremely excited.
“Gypsy,” she said, “it’s empty! The Blacksmith’s Son isn’t there.” (She had told him all about the Blacksmith’s Son on the wedding-day.) “I’m going to see the Blacksmith.”
They found the Blacksmith alone at work in the Forge. He looked round at them, and said to Ginger, “What d’ye want, missy?” “Where’s your son?” asked Ginger. “Emigrated,” said the Blacksmith. “When?” asked Ginger. “Day arter you was here,” said the Blacksmith. “Where’s Lizzie Hooker?” asked Ginger. “Emigrated,” said the Blacksmith. “When?” asked Ginger. “Day arter that,” said the Blacksmith. “What happened to them?” asked Ginger. “Married. Ship-Ranch. Canada,” said the Blacksmith. “Don’t they want to live in the cottage?” asked Ginger. “No,” said the Blacksmith. “Then,” said Ginger, “I and Gypsy want to, please.”
The Blacksmith scratched his chin with his hammer. “I’m sorry, missy,” said the Blacksmith, “but for three hundred years, ever since that cottage were built, it’s been kept in the family for one of the Blacksmith’s sons.”
“Have you any more sons?” asked Gypsy.
“None,” said the Blacksmith.
“Will that one ever come back?” asked Gypsy.
“Never,” said the Blacksmith.
“Adopt me!” said Gypsy.
The Blacksmith looked at Ginger, and adopted Gypsy. As soon as he’d done it, he gave them the key of the cottage and got on with his job.
Gypsy and Ginger went to the shop and bought a pound of bulls’ eyes and a bottle of gingerbeer; and then they walked back to the cottage and moved in.
The End.