CHAPTER XVII.—AN INCIDENT ON THE ROAD.
No rain came to mar their excursion to Stratford-on-Avon, the home of Shakespeare. All day they lingered in the quaint, charming town and, under the spell of traditions and memories, their own identities seemed to fade into insignificance. Journeying thus, the most carefully brought up person may become a happy vagabond, without past or future and only a delightful present.
That night they slept in the town of Warwick and the next day explored the old city and the splendid castle, the ancient and stately home of the Earls of Warwick.
“It’s so beautiful and so what a castle should be, it makes me feel like weeping,” Mary exclaimed.
Feargus, who knew the country well, had conducted them to a bridge spanning the Avon, where just at sunset they took a last long look at the towers and battlements, the massive buttresses and walls of the historic place.
The next morning, turning their faces resolutely toward the North, they pushed on through a country of surpassing greenness and charm. And so for days they traveled, lingering or not as the spirit moved them, but always following the North Star, which they seldom saw, being weary when night came and ready for bed as soon as supper was over.
All through this happy time, the “Comet” conducted himself so admirably that the good fairy must have touched him with her wand. Not once did he show any indication of balking over his labors. But the worm will turn, even when it is a magnificent worm fitted with a gasoline engine and rubber tires, and the “Comet” at last indulged in what appeared to be a nervous breakdown.
It was while they were still in the “border country,” and the road ambled along through a valley shut in by foothills on one side and a gurgling, busy little river on the other. First it was the rear tire that burst with a loud report, waking the echoes in that quiet region.
“What a nuisance,” exclaimed Billie, “now we shall have to lose time while we put on another.”
“We have plenty of time to lose, it strikes me,” put in Miss Campbell. “For my part, I’ve forgotten there was such a thing as time.”
“But it’s always loss of time when one has to mend broken things,” answered her impatient relative, in whom the going-on fever was becoming a highly developed quality.
Out they scrambled and Billie and Mary went to work to replace the tire, Feargus, their courier, who had proved a light-hearted and agreeable companion, helping them all he could.
Miss Campbell, placidly watching them from her cushion on a green bank at the side of the road, felt that punctured tires were a small incident in the scheme of affairs. Several country vehicles passed while they labored, and at last a country fellow driving a one-horse cart drew rein and regarded them with grave interest.
“Tha’ wouldst do better wi’ a horse that only casts a shoe once an’ a while,” he observed.
Feargus smiled.
“If you had your choice, my man, I’m thinkin’ you’d take the car, surely, and buy ten horses with the money it would bring you.”
“Come, come, now,” exclaimed the country man, settling himself comfortably on the seat and preparing for argument, “answer me this question if tha’ can. If I stick a pin in my horse’s leg, he goes the faster for the prick. If tha’ sticks a pin in tha’ steam horse’s leg, he will not go at all, at all.”
The young people laughed over this irrefutable statement.
“He certainly will not,” said Billie. “He’s completely disabled. But just you wait till I get this prick mended and see how he flies. In two minutes he’ll leave you and your old horse miles behind.”
“I’ll wait, then, ma’am, and gladly, for the sight so fine as tha’ tells me. A red rocket he’ll be, by jingo, a-shootin’ through tha’ air at such a rate.”
“His name is ‘Comet,’” remarked Mary proudly.
“Is it true, now?” asked the country fellow, his eyes twinkling with a subdued humor. “If tha’ be goin’ in a moment, I’ll tak’ the time to sit by the road side and see the grand spectacle.”
The girls always believed that the carter had bewitched the “Comet.” Certainly, as he drew his horse to one side of the highway, there was an expression on his face of intense enjoyment of what was to come.
“It’ll be a grand sight, ma’am,” he called again while Billie cranked up the machine and proudly took her seat at the wheel. “An’ a young lady the engineer, too!” he continued. “I never see the likes before in all me life. Tha’ ‘Comet,’ now! A fine name and tha’ be goin’ to have a fine ride, I’m thinkin’.”
Billie threw in the clutch and waited, intending to furnish that country fellow with a fit reward for his anticipations. They sat in breathless expectancy. Another moment and they would be a scarlet speck on the landscape and the carter left by the roadside to consider the advantages of driving over automobiling. But the “Comet” never budged an inch.
With a roar of laughter that waked the echoes in the surrounding hills, the disconcerting individual in the cart touched his horse with his whip and ambled down the road, calling over his shoulder:
“Tha’ be the fine comet, tha’ be. Tha’ be a real shootin’ star in the fir-ma-ment, I’m thinkin’. Tha’ flies, tha’ does.”
He roared again joyfully, as he jogged along, and Billie, half laughing and half exasperated, jumped out to see what the matter was.
“Everybody get out,” she ordered, while Feargus, well-trained in his duties as assistant chauffeur, lifted the cushion from the front seat and opened the tool box.
“I hope it won’t be a repetition of that awful night on the plains last summer, when the ‘Comet’ went to pieces so completely,” Miss Campbell remarked.
“Now, Cousin Helen, you know you enjoyed the night in the open,” called Billie, already enveloped in her repairing apron with the intention of crawling under the car.
But it did look as if history were going to repeat itself as time dragged slowly on; the shadows began to deepen; the air grew chilly and still the stubborn motor would not respond to treatment. Miss Campbell began to feel timid and anxious. Should she send Feargus for help at the next village or should they wait for a passing carter to take them all in, leaving the “Comet” to its fate?
Suddenly the stillness was broken by a familiar whir, and another motor car hove into view in the distance. Feargus, crawling from under the machine, ran to the middle of the road and waved his arms for the car to stop; but it did not even slow up, in spite of the etiquette which requires one motorist to help another, and Feargus had just time to leap out of the road as the great machine whizzed past.
“I’m glad it didn’t stop,” he announced calmly. “Do you know who the man was next the chauffeur? It was the Duke of Kilkenty. I’d sooner ask help of a carter than of him.”
“I wonder if he has found little Arthur yet?” observed Mary.
Somehow, their minds had been so filled with other things, that the kidnapping of the boy had been almost forgotten.
“Perhaps that’s why he was in too big a hurry to help another car in trouble. He is on the track,” suggested Billie.
“He’s always been in too big a hurry for that,” broke in Feargus bitterly. “But I don’t think he’s on the track.”
“Why?”
“The paper this morning didn’t say so.”
“Do you mean to say you have been reading newspapers on the subject and not said a word to us?”
“I glanced over one this morning,” he answered carelessly.
“I should think you might have told us the latest news,” exclaimed Nancy irritably.
“Children, children, don’t quarrel. It’s growing late and we must be coming to some sort of decision,” Miss Campbell expostulated. “How far are we from anywhere?”
“We are about ten miles from anywhere,” called Billie, who studied her road map like a daily lesson.
“I think we had better take refuge in some farm house hereabouts,” suggested Feargus.
“And leave the ‘Comet’ to be stolen, as he was once before?” cried Billie. “Never!”
“I’ll stand guard over him. I’ll roll up in a blanket and sleep on the back seat,” answered the boy meekly. “If you ladies will stay here and protect each other, I’ll explore first and see what can be found.”
“It was a comfort to have a man with them, and such a good-natured one, too,” thought Miss Campbell as Feargus disappeared through the trees.
They waited in silence for some time. At last Billie, growing impatient, started to follow.
“Go with her, one of you,” ordered Miss Campbell nervously, seeing that the impetuous girl had not waited to ask permission.
Nancy rushed after her friend’s retreating figure, and after walking a few moments, the two girls found themselves on the edge of a dingle. Below, in the warm glow of a fire, they could see the forms of two men in close conversation. Nearby a tent had been pitched, and at one side a horse was contentedly munching grass. While they watched, a girl emerged from somewhere with a frying pan in one hand and a small pail in the other.
“Gypsies,” whispered Nancy.
“They look like it,” assented Billie, “and that’s Feargus talking to the man.”
She had scarcely spoken when the Irish boy shook hands with the stranger and started up the hill. He walked slowly and seemed to be turning something over in his mind. The girls waited impatiently, wondering why he took so long.
Feargus looked embarrassed and anxious when he saw them waiting for him.
“Do hurry,” called Nancy.
“Are those people Gypsies?” asked Billie.
“No,—that is, not exactly. They are—well, wanderers.”
“Why did you shake hands with the man?”
“Oh, just to be friendly. He gave me some information. There is a farmhouse not far away where——”
“Listen,” interrupted Billie. “I hear the sound of another motor car.”
The three young people broke into a run and reached the disabled “Comet” just as a two-seated machine drew up alongside the road.
“Can I do anything for you?” asked a man with a pleasant-sounding voice.
“You certainly can, sir,” answered Miss Campbell, “and we shall be deeply indebted to you. We were just about to give up and spend the night wherever we could.”
The stranger leaped down from his motor car and began to examine the “Comet” with a practiced eye.
“Perhaps I can fix her up,” he said; “and if not, I’ll tow you to the next village. You’d find it fairly uncomfortable sleeping out here.”
With an electric lantern to guide him, he gave a quick professional examination of the “Comet’s” interior. Then he burst out laughing.
“I suppose you never noticed that your gasoline tank was empty?” he asked.
There was a moment of intense silence and Billie was glad it had grown too dark for him to see her crimson countenance.
“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” she apologized, “or rather it’s the fault of the people at the last garage. They said they had filled the tank full. I suppose they fibbed, and I have such a trusting nature I never thought to look and see. I am a poor chauffeur.”
“You are a very remarkable young woman to be a chauffeur at all,” answered the stranger, while he filled the tank from his emergency can. “Now, I imagine that will fix you and you can follow on to the next town. It’s just about ten miles, I think.”
They were in the midst of thanking him profusely, when he interrupted them.
“You’ve been traveling this road for some days, I suppose? You haven’t by chance seen some people who had a little boy in tow? They might possibly look like Gypsies.”
He had turned to Miss Campbell when he asked this question.
Feargus, who was about to crank up the “Comet,” suddenly stood up very straight and stiff.
“No, we have not met any persons exactly of that description,” Miss Campbell answered. “Are you looking for the little boy who was kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
“We knew him on board ship. Isn’t it interesting? He was in charge of two tutors and a doctor, poor little soul. I wondered why it took three men to look after one little boy.”
“I suppose it’s because his father is a very busy man,” answered the detective, for such he evidently was. “He is a pathetic little fellow.”
“What about those——” Nancy began, turning to Billie, when Feargus interrupted her.
“Be still,” he said in a low voice.
Billie was surprised and Nancy extremely irritated.
“Is any one suspected?” Miss Campbell was saying.
“Yes, but that is still a secret. However, we are on the track of two suspects.”
The “Comet’s” motor engine was now working busily.
“I think we had better be getting on,” continued the detective. “I’ll take the lead and you can follow.”
In a few minutes he was moving down the road in his racing car, the red car following behind.
“I think you should have told him, Feargus,” said Billie in a low voice. “He was very kind to us, and perhaps he might have found a clew through those people. Who knows?”
“Don’t you think it would have been rather unkind to involve those people in a lot of trouble?” replied Feargus.
“I don’t see why they would have been involved!” exclaimed Nancy.
“Why, they would probably have been arrested and taken to the next town as suspicious characters,” pursued Feargus.
The excuse seemed rather far-fetched, Billie thought, but then Feargus had a great sympathy for poor people and perhaps it would not have done any good to send the detective down into the little quiet dell to destroy the peace of the wanderers, as Feargus had called them.
What would she have said, if she had known that their young Irish courier left the hotel that night at bedtime on a horse hired in the village and did not return until near dawn?