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!"
"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.
"You don't think they'll put Tim in prison, do you?" asked Duke, seeing that the old woman's face grew grave when she had heard all.
"Oh no, surely, not so bad as that," she replied. "And even if we went back I don't know that it would do much good."
"Go back to where the policemans are," exclaimed the twins, growing pale at the very idea. "Oh please—please don't," and they both crept closer to their old friend.
"But if it would make them let Tim come wif us?" added Pamela, shivering, nevertheless. "I'd try not to be frightened. Poor Tim—he has been so good to us, us can't go and leave him all alone."
"But, my deary," said Barbara, "I don't rightly see what we can do for him. The police might think it right to keep us all there too—and I'm that eager to get you home to ease your dear Grandmamma and the General. I think it's best to go on and get your Grandpapa to write about the poor boy."
But now the idea of rescuing Tim was in the children's heads it was not so easy to get rid of it. They stood still looking at each other and at Mrs. Twiss with tears in their eyes; they had come by this time perhaps half a mile from where they had met their friends. The high-road was here shadier and less dusty, and it was anything but inviting to think of retracing the long stretch to Monkhaven, though from where they stood, a turn in the road hid it from them. All at once a whistle caught their ears—a whistle two or three times repeated in a particular way—Toby pricked up his ears, put himself in a very valiant attitude, and barked with a great show of importance, as much as to say, "Just you look out now, whoever you are. I am on guard now." But his bark did not seem to strike awe into the whistler, whoever he was. Again his note sounded clear and cheery. And this time, with a cry of "It's Tim, it's Tim," off flew Duke and Pam down the road, followed by Barbara—Toby of course keeping up a running accompaniment of flying circles round the whole party till at last the sight of his beloved little master and mistress hugging and kissing a bright-eyed, clean-faced, but sadly ragged boy was altogether too much for his refined feelings, and he began barking with real fury, flinging himself upon Tim as if he really meant to bite him.
Duke caught him up.
"Silly Toby," he cried, "it's Tim. You must learn to know Tim;" and old Barbara coming up by this time and speaking to the boy in a friendly tone, poor Toby's misgivings were satisfied, and he set to work to wagging his tail in a slightly subdued manner.
Then came explanations on both sides. Tim had to tell how he had slipped himself out through the window, narrow as it was, and how, thanks to an old water-butt and some loose bricks in the wall, he had scrambled down like a cat, and made off as fast as his legs would carry him to the place where he had left the children.
"And when you wasn't there I was fairly beat—I was," he said. "I knowed they hadn't had time to find you—perlice I mean—but I saw as you must have got tired waiting so long. So off I set till I met a woman who told me the way to the Sandle'ham road. I had a fancy you'd ask for it rather than come into the town if you thought they'd cotched me, and I was about right you see."
"Is this the Sandle'ham road? Oh yes, Barbara told us it was," said the children. "But us didn't know it was. Us just runned and runned when us saw the policeman, us was so frightened."
"But us was going back to try to get you out of prison if Barbara would have let us," added Pamela.
Then all about Barbara and Toby had to be explained, and a great weight fell from Tim's heart when he quite understood that the old woman was a real home friend—that there would no longer be any puzzle or difficulty as to how to do or which way to go, now that they had fallen in with this trusty protector.
"To be sure—well now this are a piece of luck, and no mistake," he repeated, one big smile lighting up all his pleasant face. But suddenly it clouded over.
"Then, ma'am, if you please, would it be better for me not to come no further? Would I be in the way, maybe?"
The children set up a cry before Barbara had time to reply.
"No, no, Tim; you must come. Grandpapa and Grandmamma will always take care of Tim, 'cos he's been so good to us—won't they, Barbara?"
Barbara looked rather anxious. Her own heart had warmed to the orphan boy, but she did not know how far she was justified in making promises for other people.
"I dursn't go back to Monkhaven," said Tim; "they'd be sure to cotch me, and they'd give it me for a-climbing out o' window and a-running away. Nor I dursn't go back to Mick. But you've only to say the word, ma'am, and I'm off. I'll hide about, and mayhap somehow I might get a chance among the boat-people. It's all I can think of; for I've no money—leastways this is master's and missy's, and you'd best take it for them," he went on, as he pulled out the little packet from the inside of his jacket which he had already vainly offered to Peter. "And about Peter, p'raps you'd say a word to the old gentleman about sending him something. He were very good to us, he were; and he can always get a letter that's sent to——" but here the lump that had kept rising in the poor boy's throat all the time he was speaking, and that he had gone on choking down, got altogether too big; he suddenly broke off and burst out sobbing. It was too much—not only to have to leave the dear little master and missy, but to have to say good-bye to all his beautiful plans and hopes—of learning to be a good and respectable boy—of leading a settled and decent life such as mother—"poor mother"—could look down upon with pleasure from her home up there somewhere near the sun, in the heaven about which her child knew so little, but in which he still most fervently believed.
"I'm a great fool," he sobbed, "but I did—I did want to be a good lad, and to give up gipsying."
Barbara's heart by this time was completely melted, and Duke's and Pam's tears were flowing.
"Tim, dear Tim, you must come with us," they said. "Oh, Barbara, do tell him he's to come. Why, even Toby sees how good Tim is; he's not barking a bit, and he's sniffing at him to show he's a friend."
And Toby, hearing his own name, looked up in the old woman's face as if he too were pleading poor Tim's cause. She hesitated no longer.
"Come with us my poor boy," she said, "it'll go hard if we can't find a place for you somewheres. And the General and the old lady is good and kind as can be. Don't ye be a-feared, but come with us. You must help me to get master and missy home, for it's a good bit we have to get over, you know."
So Tim dried his eyes, and his hopes revived. And this time the little cavalcade set out in good earnest to make the best of their way to Brigslade, with no lookings back towards Monkhaven; for, indeed, their greatest wish was to leave it as quickly as possible far behind them. They were a good way off fortunately before clever Superintendent Boyds and his assistants found out that their bird was flown, and when they did find it out they went after him in the wrong direction; and it was not till three days after the children had been safe at home that formal information, which doubtless would have been very cheering to poor Grandpapa, came to him that the police at Monkhaven were believed to be on the track!
How can I describe to you that coming home? If I could take you back with me some thirty years or so and let you hear it as I did then—direct from the lips of a very old lady and gentleman, who still spoke to each other as "brother" and "sister," whose white hair was of the soft silvery kind which one sees at a glance was once flaxen—oh how much more interesting it would be, and how much better it would be told! But that cannot be. My dear old friends long ago told the story of their childish adventure for the last time; though I am very sure nothing would please them better than to know it had helped to amuse for an hour or two some of the Marmadukes and Pamelas of to-day. So I will do my best.
It was a long stretch for the little legs to Brigslade; without Tim I doubt if poor old Mrs. Twiss and Toby would have got them there. But the boy was not to be tired; his strength seemed "like the strength of ten" Tims, thanks to the happy hopes with which his heart was filled. He carried Pamela and even Duke turn about on his back, he told stories and sang songs to make them forget their aching legs and smarting feet. And fortunately there still remained enough home-made cake and currant wine for every one to have a little refreshment, especially as Tim found a beautifully clear spring of water to mix with the wine when the children complained of thirst.
They got to the cross-roads before Farmer Carson, for Barbara was one of those sensible people who always take time by the forelock; so they rested there till the old gray mare came jogging up, and her master, on the look-out for one old woman, but not for a party of four—five I should say, counting Toby—could not believe his eyes, and scarcely his ears, when Mrs. Twiss told him the whole story. How they all got into the spring-cart I couldn't explain, but they did somehow, and the mare did not seem to mind it at all. And at last, late on that lovely early summer evening, Farmer Carson drew up in the lane at the back of the house; and, after helping the whole party out, drove off with a hearty Good-night, and hopes that they'd find the old gentleman and lady in good health, and able to bear the happy surprise.
It must be broken gently to them; and how to do this had been on Barbara's mind all the time they had been in the cart, for up till then she had been able to think of nothing but how to get the children along. They, of course—except perhaps that they were too tired for any more excitement—would have been for running straight in with joyful cries. But they were so subdued by fatigue that their old friend found no difficulty in persuading them to sit down quietly by the hedge, guarded by Tim, while she and Toby went in to prepare the way.
"For you know, my dearies, your poor Grandmamma has not been well and the start might be bad for her," she explained.
"But you're sure Grandmamma isn't dead?" said poor Pamela, looking up piteously in Barbara's face. "Duke was afraid she might be if us didn't come soon."
"But now you have come she'll soon get well again, please God," said Barbara, though her own heart beat tremulously as she made her way round by the back entrance.
It was Toby after all who "broke" the happy tidings. In spite of all Barbara could do—of all her "Hush, Toby, then,"'s "Gently my little doggie,"'s—he would rush in to the parlour as soon as the door was opened in such a rapture of joyful barking, tail wagging and rushing and dashing, that Grandmamma looked up from the knitting she was trying to fancy she was doing in her arm-chair by the fire, and Grandpapa put down his five days' old newspaper which he was reading by the window, with a curious flutter of sudden hope all through them, notwithstanding their many disappointments.
"It is you, Barbara, back again at last," began Grandmamma. "How white you look, my poor Barbara—and—why, what's the matter with Toby? Is he so pleased to see us old people again?"
"He is very pleased, ma'am—he's a very wise and a very good feeling dog is Toby, there's no doubt. And one that knows when to be sad and—and when to be rejoiced, as I might say," said Barbara, though her voice trembled with the effort to speak calmly.
Something seemed to flash across the room to Grandmamma as Mrs. Twiss spoke—down fell the knitting, the needles, and the wool, all in a tangle, as the old lady started to her feet.
"Barbara—Barbara Twiss!" she cried. "What do you mean? Oh Barbara, you have news of our darlings? Marmaduke, my dear husband, do you hear?" and she raised her voice, "she has brought us news at last," and Grandmamma tottered forward a few steps and then, growing suddenly dazed and giddy, would have fallen had not Grandpapa and Barbara started towards her from different sides and caught her. But she soon recovered herself, and eagerly signed to Barbara to "tell." How Barbara told she never knew. It seemed to her that Grandmamma guessed the words before she spoke them, and looking back on it all afterwards she could recollect nothing but a sort of joyous confusion—Grandpapa rushing out without his hat, but stopping to take his stick all the same—Grandmamma holding by the table to steady herself when, in another moment, they were all back again—then a cluster all together—of Grandpapa, Grandmamma, Duke, Pamela and Barbara, with Nurse and Biddy, and Dymock and Cook, and stable-boys and gardeners, and everybody, and Toby everywhere at once. Broken words and sobs and kisses and tears and blessings all together, and Pamela's little soft high voice sounding above all as she cried—
"Oh, dear Grandmamma, us is so glad you are not dead. Duke was so afraid you might be."
And Tim—where was he?—standing outside in the porch, but smiling to himself—not afraid of being forgotten, for he had a trustful nature.
"It's easy to see as the old gentleman and lady is terrible fond of master and missy," he thought. "But they must be terrible clever folk in these parts to have writing outside of the house even," for his glance had fallen on the quaintly-carved letters on the lintel, "Niks sonder Arbitt." "I wonder now what that there writing says," he reflected.
But he was not allowed to wonder long. A few moments more and there came the summons his faithful little heart had been sure would come.
"Tim, Tim—where is Tim? Come and see our Grandpapa and our Grandmamma, Tim," and two pairs of little hot hands dragged him into the parlour.
It was not at all like his dream, but it was far grander than any room he had ever been in before, and never afterwards did the boy forget the strange sweet perfume which seemed a part of it all—the scent of the dried rose-leaves in the jars, though he did not then know what it was. But it always came back to him when he thought of that first evening—the beginning to him of a good and honest and useful life—when the tall old gentleman and the sweet little old lady laid their hands on his curly head and blessed him for what he had done and promised to be his friends.
They kept their promise well and wisely. Grandpapa took real trouble to find out what the boy was best fitted for, and when he found it was for gardening, Tim was thoroughly trained by old Noble till he was able to get a good place of his own. He lived with Barbara in her neat little cottage, and in the evenings learned to read and write and cipher, so that before very long he could make out the letters in the porch, though Grandpapa had to be asked to tell their meaning.
"Nothing without work," was what they meant. They had been carved there by the old Dutchman who had built the farmhouse, afterwards turned into the pretty quaint "Arbitt Lodge."
"A good and true saying," added Grandpapa, and so the three children to whom he was speaking found it. For all three in their different ways worked hard and well, and when in my childhood I knew them as old people, I felt, even before I quite understood it, that "the Colonel," as he then had become, and his sweet white-haired sister deserved the love and respect they seemed everywhere to receive. And I could see that it was no common tie which bound to them their faithful servant Timothy, whose roses were the pride of all the country-side, when, after many years of separation, he came to end his life in their service, after Duke's "fighting days" were over and his widowed sister was, but for him, alone in the world.
One question may be asked. Did they ever hear of Diana again? Yes, though not till Tim had grown into a strapping young fellow, and the twins were tall and thin, and had long since left off talking of "us."
There came along the lanes one summer's day a covered van hung over at the back with baskets, such as the children well remembered. A good-humoured looking man was walking by the horse, a handsome woman was sitting by the door plaiting straw.
"Gipsies," cried the children, who were on their way to the village, and, big as they were, they were a little frightened when, with a cry, the woman jumped down and flew towards them.
"Master and missy, don't you know me? I'm Diana!" she exclaimed.
And Diana it was, though very much changed for the better. She had married one of her own tribe, but a very good specimen, and the husband and wife travelled about on their own account making their living "honestly," as she took care to tell. "For there's good and there's bad of us, and it's been my luck to get a good one. Thank God for it," she added, "for I've never forgot master and missy's pretty telling me even poor Diana might think God cared for her."
She was taken to see Grandpapa and Grandmamma of course, and they would have helped her and her husband to a settled life had they wished it. But no—gipsies they were, and gipsies they must remain. "It'd choke me to live inside four walls," said Diana, "and we must travel about so as we can see our own folk from time to time. But whenever we pass this way we'll come to see master and missy and Tim."
And so they did.
Transcriber's Note: All punctuation has been normalised with the exception of varied hyphenation.