A SAD DILEMMA.
| "Like children that have lost their way |
| And know their names, but nothing more." |
| Phœbe. |
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.