TIM.
| "Whose imp art thou with dimpled cheek, |
| And curly pate and merry eye?" |
| J. Baillie. |
They were so excited, so eager to be off at once, that for a minute or two Tim could scarcely get them to listen to him. They had forgotten all about the snakes, or else their confidence in the boy as a protector was so great that they were sure he would defend them against every danger.
"Oh Tim, dear Tim, do let us go quick," they kept repeating.
"But master and missy," he explained at last when they would let him speak, "we can't. Don't you see Mick knows exactly where he left yer, and he'd be after us in a minute. There's nowhere near here where we could hide but what he'd find us. You'd only get me a beating, that 'ud be all about it. No, listen to me. P'raps Mick means to take yer home straight away, but if he doesn't we must wait a bit till I can find out what he's after. He's a deep one is Mick."
"Couldn't you run home quick to tell Grandpapa and Grandmamma where us is?" said Duke. "Grandpapa, and the coachman, and Dymock, and the gardener—they'd all come to fetch us."
"I dursn't," said Tim. "Not yet; Mick's a deep one. If he thought I'd run off to tell he'd——"
"What would he do?" they asked breathlessly.
"He'd hide away somehow. 'Twouldn't be so easy to find him. He'll be back in a moment too—I couldn't get off before he'd be after me. No; we must wait a bit till I see what he's after."
"Why haven't you runned away before?" asked Pamela. "If he's not your father, and if you don't like him."
"Nowhere to run to," said Tim simply. "It's not so bad for me. I'm used to it. It's not like you, master and missy. Diana and me, when you was up at the top o' the wall, we'd ha' done anything to stop you coming down."
"But, Tim," said Pamela, almost in a whisper "you don't mean that Mick's going to steal us away for always."
"No, no," said the boy, "he only wants to get some money for you. But we'll see in a bit. Just you stay there quiet till he comes, and don't you say you've seen me. I'll soon see you again; but he mustn't find me here."
They began to cry again when he left them, but he had not gone too soon; for in less than five minutes—by which time Tim had hidden himself some little way off—they heard the voice of the gipsy urging on the donkey over the rough ground. He seemed in a very bad temper, and Duke and Pamela shivered with fear.
"Oh I wish us had runned away," whispered Pamela, though, when she tried to lift herself up and found she could not put the wounded foot to the ground even so as to hobble, she felt that to escape would have been impossible. The gipsy scowled at them, but said nothing as he lifted first the boy and then the girl on to the donkey.
"There, now," he said, with a slight return to his falsely-smooth tones, "you'll be pleased at last, I should hope. To think of all the trouble we've had, the missus and me, a-unpacking of all the pots and crocks for you to ride on the donkey."
"And are you going to take us straight home, then?" said Pamela, whose spirits had begun to revive.
"What, without the bowl?" exclaimed Mick, in pretended surprise, "when there's such a lot all set out on the grass in a row for you to see."
He spoke so naturally that both the children were deceived for the moment. Perhaps after all he was not so bad—even Tim had said perhaps he was going to take them home! They looked up at him doubtfully.
"If you don't mind, please," said Duke, "us'd rather go home. It doesn't matter about the bowl, for sister's foot's so sore and it's getting late. I'll give you all the money—oh please, where have you put my money-box?"
Greatly to his surprise, the gipsy pulled it out of some slouching inner pocket of his jacket and gave it to him.
"Here it is, master; but it'd a' been lost but for me—a-laying on the ground there."
Duke opened it.
"I'll give you——" he began again, but he suddenly stopped short. "The little gold guinea's not here," he cried, "only the shilling and the sixpence and the pennies."
"Must have rolled out on the ground if ever it was there," said Mick sullenly. "I never see'd it."
"It was there," cried Duke angrily. "Do you think I'd tell a story? I must go back and look for it. Let me down, I say, let me down."
Then Mick turned on him with a very evil expression on his face.
"Stop that, d'ye hear? Stop that," and he lifted his fist threateningly. "D'ye think I'm going to waste any more time on such brats and their nonsense? Catch me a-taking you home for you to go and say I've stolen your money, and get me put in prison by your grandpapas and grandmammas as likely as not," he went on in a half-threatening, half-whining tone.
Duke was going to answer, but Pamela pulled his sleeve.
"Be quiet, bruvver," she said in a whisper. "Tim said us must wait a bit."
Almost as she said the words a voice was heard whistling at a little distance—they were now out of the wood on a rough bridle path. Mick looked round sharply and descried a figure coming near them.
"What have you been about, you good-for-nothing?" he shouted. "Why didn't you stay with the others? You might have lent me a hand with the donkey and the brats."
Tim stood still in the middle of the path, and stared at them without speaking. Then he turned round and walked beside Mick, who was leading the donkey.
"What are ye a-doing with the little master and missy?" he asked coolly.
"Mind yer business," muttered the gipsy gruffly. Then he added in a louder tone, "Master and missy has lost their way, don't ye see? They're ever so far from home. It was lucky I met them."
"Are ye a-going to take them home?" continued Tim.
"For sure, when I can find the time. But that won't be just yet a bit. There's the missus a-waiting for us."
And, turning a corner, they came suddenly in sight of the other gipsies—the two women and the big sulky-looking boy—gathered round a tree, the donkey's panniers and the various bundles the party had been carrying lying on the ground beside them. If the panniers had been unpacked and their contents spread out, as Mick had told the children, they had certainly been quickly packed up again. But there was no time for wondering about how this could be; the woman whom the pedlar called "the missus" came up to her husband as soon as she saw them, and said a few words hastily, and with a look of great annoyance, in the queer language she had spoken before, to which he replied with some angry expression which it was probably well the children did not understand.
"Better have done with it, I should say," said the other woman, who was much younger and nicer-looking, but still with a rather sullen and discontented face.
"That's just like her," said Mick. "What we'd come to if we listened to her talk it beats me to say."
"You've not come to much good by not listening to it," retorted Diana fiercely. But Tim, who had gone towards her, said something in a low voice which seemed to calm her.
"It's true—we'll only waste our time if we take to quarrelling," she said. "What's to be done, then?"
"We must put the panniers back, and the girl must sit between them somehow," said the man. "She can't walk—the boy must run beside."
So saying, he lifted both children off the donkey, not so gently but that Pamela gave a cry as her sore foot touched the ground. But no one except Duke paid any attention to her, not even Tim, which she thought very unkind of him. She said so in a low voice to Duke, but he whispered to her to be quiet.
"If only my foot was not sore, now us could have runned away," she could not help whispering again. For all the gipsies seemed so busy in loading themselves and the donkey that for a few minutes the children could have fancied they had forgotten all about them. It was not so, however. As soon as the panniers were fastened on again Mick turned to Pamela, and, without giving her time to resist, placed her again on the donkey. It was very uncomfortable for her; her poor little legs were stretched out half across the panniers, and she felt that the moment the donkey moved she would surely fall off. So, as might have been expected, she began to cry. The gipsy was turning to her with some rough words, when Diana interfered.
"Let me settle her," she said. "What a fool you are, Mick!" Then she drew out of her own bundle a rough but not very dirty checked wool shawl, with which she covered the little girl, who was shivering with cold, and at the same time made a sort of cushion for her with one end of it, so that she could sit more securely.
"Thank you," said Pamela, amidst her sobs; "but oh I hope it's not very far to home."
Mick stood looking on, and at this he gave a sneering laugh.
"It's just as well to have covered her up," he said. "Isn't there another shawl as'd do for the boy? Not that it matters; we'll meet no one the road we're going. The sooner we're off the better."
He took hold of the bridle and set off as fast as he could get the donkey to go. Diana kept her place beside it, so that, even if Pamela had fallen off, it would only have been into the young woman's arms. Duke followed with Tim and the other woman, but he had really to "run," as Mick had said, for his short legs could not otherwise have kept up with the others. He was soon too out of breath to speak—besides, he dared not have said anything to Tim in the hearing of "the missus," of whom he was almost more afraid than even of Mick. And the only sign of friendliness Tim, on his side, dared show him was by taking his hand whenever he thought the woman would not notice. But, tired as he was already, Duke could not long have kept up; he felt as if he must have cried out, when suddenly they came to a turning in the road and the gipsy stopped.
"We'll get back into the wood this way," he said, without turning his head, and with some difficulty he managed to get the donkey across a dry ditch, and down a steep bank, when, sure enough, they found themselves again among trees. It was already dusk, and a very little way on in the wood it became almost dark. The gipsy went on some distance farther—obliged, however, to go very slowly; then at last he stopped.
"This'll do for to-night," he said. "I'm about sick of all this nonsense, I can tell ye. We might ha' been at Brigslade to-night if it hadn't been for these brats."
"Then do as I say," said Diana. "I'll manage it for you. Big Tony can carry one, and I the other."
But Mick only turned away with an oath.
"HERE'S SOME SUPPER FOR YOU. WAKE UP, AND TRY AND EAT A BIT. IT'LL DO
YOU GOOD."—p. [89].
Big Tony was the name of the gipsy boy. He never spoke, and never seemed to take any interest in anything, for he was half-witted, as it is called; though Duke and Pamela only thought him very sulky and silent compared with the friendly little Tim. By this time they were too completely tired to think about anything—they even felt too stupid to wonder if they were on the way home or not—and when Diana lifted Pamela off the donkey and set her down, still wrapped in the shawl, to lean with her back against a tree, Duke crept up to her, drawing a corner of the shawl round him, for he too was very cold by now, poor little boy—and sat there by his sister, both of them in a sort of half stupor, too tired even to know that they were very hungry!
They did fall asleep—though they did not know it till they were roused by some one gently pulling them.
"Here's some supper for you. Wake up, and try and eat a bit. It'll do you good," the gipsy Diana was saying to them; and when they managed to open their sleepy eyes, they saw that she had a wooden bowl in one hand, in which some hot coffee was steaming, and a hunch of bread in the other. It was not very good coffee, and neither Duke nor Pamela was accustomed to coffee of any kind at home, but it was hot and sweet, and they were so hungry that even the coarse butterless bread tasted good. As they grew more awake they began to wonder how the coffee had been made, but the mystery was soon explained, for at a short distance a fire of leaves and branches was burning brightly with a kettle sputtering merrily in the middle. And round the fire Mick and his wife and big Tony were sitting or lying, each with food in their hands; while a little nearer them Tim was pulling another shawl out of a bundle.
"Give it me here," said Diana, and then she wrapped it round Duke, drawing the other more closely about Pamela.
"Now you can go to sleep again," she said, seeing that the coffee and bread had disappeared. "It'll not be a cold night, and we'll have to be off early in the morning;" and then she turned away and sat down to eat her own supper at a little distance.
"Tim," whispered Duke; but the boy caught the faint sound and edged himself nearer.
"Tim," said Duke again, "is he not going to take us home to-night?"
"I'se a-feared not," replied Tim in the same tone.
A low deep sigh escaped poor Duke. Pamela, so worn out by the pain as well as fatigue she had suffered that she could no longer keep up, was already fast asleep again.
"When it's quite, quite dark," continued Duke, "and when Mick and them all are asleep, don't you think us might run away, Tim?"
Tim shook his head.
"Missy can't walk; and she's dead tired out, let alone her poor foot," he said. "You must wait a bit till she can walk anyway. Try to go to sleep, and to-morrow we'll see."
Duke began to cry quietly.
"I'm too midderable to sleep," he said. "And it's all my fault. Just look at sister, Tim. She's not even undressed, and she'll die—sleeping all night without any bed out in the cold. Oh, and it's all my fault!"
"Hush, hush, master!" said Tim, terrified lest the others should overhear them.
"What does he want to do with us? Why won't he take us home?" asked Duke.
Tim hesitated a moment.
"I thought at first it was just to get money for bringing of ye back," he said. "I've known him do that."
"But us would tell," said Duke indignantly. "Us would tell that he wouldn't let us go home."
"Ah, he'd manage so as 'twouldn't matter what you said," replied Tim. "He'd get some pal of his to find you like, and then he'd get the money back from him."
"What's a pal?" asked Duke bewildered.
"Another like hisself; a friend o' his'n," said Tim. "But that's not what he's after. I found out what it is. There's a show at some big place we're going to; and they want pretty little ones like you and little missy, to dress them up and teach them to dance, and to play all sort o' tricks—a-riding on ponies and suchlike, I daresay. I'se seen them. And Mick'll get a good deal that way. I'd bet anything, and so'd Diana, that's what he's after."
"But us'd tell," repeated Duke, "us'd tell that he'd stoled us away, and they'd have to let us go home."
Again Tim shook his head.
"Those as 'ud pay Mick for ye wouldn't give much heed to aught you'd say," he answered. "And it'll maybe be a long way off from here—over the sea maybe."
"Then," said Duke, "then us must run away, Tim. And if you won't help us, us'll run away alone, as soon as ever sister's foot's better. Us must, Tim."
He had raised his voice in his excitement, so that Tim glanced anxiously in the direction of the fire. But Mick and his wife seemed to have fallen asleep themselves, or perhaps the wind rustling overhead among the branches prevented the child's little voice reaching them; they gave no signs of hearing. All the same it was best to be cautious.
"Master," said Tim solemnly, "I'm ready to help you. I said so to Diana, I did, as soon as ever I see'd what Mick was after, a-tempting you and missy with his nonsense about the bowl you wanted; there's no bowls like what you wanted among the crocks."
"Why didn't you call out to us and tell us not to come?" said Duke.
"I dursn't—and Mick'd have told you it was all my lies. And I never thought he was a-going to bring you right away neither. I thought he'd get money out of you like he does whenever he's a chance. But, master, if you're ever to get safe away you must do as I tell you, you must."
This was all the comfort poor Duke could get. In the meantime there was nothing to do but try to go to sleep and forget his troubles. There was not very much time to do so in, for long before it was really dawn the gipsies were up and astir, and by noon the little brother and sister were farther from "home" than they had ever been since the day when their poor young mother arrived at Arbitt Lodge with her two starved-looking fledglings, now nearly six years ago. For some miles from where they had spent the night Mick and his party joined a travelling caravan of their friends, all bound for the great fair of which Tim had spoken to Duke. And now it would have been difficult for even Grandpapa or Grandmamma to recognise their dear children. Their own clothes were taken from them, their white skin, like that of the princesses in the old fairy tales, was washed with something which, if not walnut juice, had the same effect, and they were dressed in coarse rough garments belonging to some of the gipsy children of the caravan. Still, on the whole, they were not unkindly treated—they had enough to eat of common food, and Diana, who took them a good deal under her charge, was kind to them in her rough sulky way. But it was a dreadful change for the poor little things, and they would already have tried, at all risks, to run away, had it not been for Tim's begging them to be patient and trust to him.
All day long—it was now the third day since they had been stolen—the two or three covered vans or waggons which contained the gipsies and their possessions jogged slowly along the roads and lanes. Now and then they halted for a few hours if they came to any village or small town where it seemed likely that they could do a little business, either in selling their crockery or cheap cutlery, baskets, and suchlike, or perhaps in fortune-telling, and no doubt wherever they stopped the farm-yards and poultry-yards in the neighbourhood were none the better for it. At such times Duke and Pamela were always hidden away deep in the recesses of one of the waggons, so there was nothing they dreaded more than when they saw signs of making a halt. It was wretched to be huddled for hours together in a dark corner among all sorts of dirty packages, while the other children were allowed to run about the village street picking up any odd pence they could by playing tricks or selling little trifles out of the general repository. And the brother and sister were not at all consoled by being told that before long they should be dressed up in beautiful gold and silver clothes—"like a real prince and princess," said Mick, once when he was in a good humour—and taught to dance like fairies. For Tim's words had explained to them the meaning of these fine promises, and, though they said nothing, the little pair were far less babyish and foolish in some ways than the gipsies, who judged them by their delicate appearance and small stature, had any idea of. But still they were very young, and there is no telling how soon they would have begun to get accustomed to their strange life,—how soon even the remembrance of Grandpapa and Grandmamma and their pretty peaceful home, of Toby and Miss Mitten, of the garden and their little white beds, of Nurse and Biddy and Dymock, and all that had hitherto made up their world,—would have begun to grow dim and hazy, and at last seem only a dream, of which Mick, and the Missus and Diana, and the others, and the green lanes, with the waggons ever creeping along, and the coarse food and coarser talking and laughing and scolding, were the reality, had it not been for some fortunate events which opened out to them the hope of escape before they had learnt to forget they were in prison.
Tim was a great favourite in the gipsy camp. He was not one of them, but he did not seem to remember any other life; in any case he never spoke of it, and he was so much better tempered and obliging than the cruel, quarrelsome gipsy boys, that it was always to him that ran the two or three tiny black-eyed children when their mothers had cuffed them out of the way; it was always he who had a kind word or a pat on the head for the two half-starved curs that slunk along beside or under the carts. There was no mystery about his life—he was not a stolen child, and he could faintly remember the little cottage where he had lived with his mother before she died, leaving him perfectly friendless and penniless, so that he was glad to pick up an odd sixpence, or even less, wherever he could, till one day he fell in with Mick, who offered him his food and the chance of more by degrees, as he wanted a sharp lad to help him in his various trades—of pedlar, tinker, basket-maker, wicker-chair mender, etc., not to speak of poultry-stealing, orchard-robbing, and even child-thieving when he got a chance that seemed likely to be profitable.
Poor little Tim—he had learnt very scanty good in his short life! His mother, bowed down with care and sorrow—for her husband, a thatcher by trade, had been killed by an accident, leaving her with the boy of three years old and two delicate babies, who both died—had barely managed to keep herself and him alive by working in the fields, and she used to come home at night so tired out that she could scarcely speak to the child, much less teach him as she would have liked to do. Still on Sundays she always, till her last illness, managed to take him to church, and in her simple way tried to explain to him something of what he then heard. But he was only eight years old when she died, and, though he had not forgotten her, the memory of her words had grown confused and misty. For, in the four years since then, he had had no companions but tramps and gipsies—till the day when Duke and Pamela were decoyed away by Mick, he had never exchanged more than a passing word or two with any one of a better class. And somehow the sight of their sweet innocent faces, the sound of their gentle little voices had at once gained his heart. Never had he thought so much of his mother, of his tiny brother and sister, who, he fancied, would have been about the size of the little strangers, as since he had been with them. And when he saw them looking shocked and frightened at the rough words and tones of the gipsies,—when Pamela burst out sobbing to see how dirty her face and hands were, and Duke grew scarlet with fury at the boys for throwing stones at the poor dogs,—most of all, perhaps, when the two little creatures knelt together in a corner of the van to say their prayers night and morning—prayers which now always ended in a sobbing entreaty "to be taken home again to dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma,"—a strange feeling rose in Tim's throat and seemed as if it would choke him. And he lay awake night after night trying to recall what his mother had taught him, wishing he knew what it meant to be "good," wondering if the Grandpapa and Grandmamma of whom the children so constantly spoke would perhaps take pity on him and put him in the way of a better sort of life, if he could succeed in helping the little master and missy to escape from the gipsies and get safe back to their own home.
For every day, now that he had seen more of the children, he understood better how dreadful it would be for them if wicked Mick's intentions were to succeed. But hitherto no opportunity of running away had offered—the children were far too closely watched. And Tim dared not take any one, not even Diana, into his confidence!