“Here—up here, just at the other side of the hedge.”
“Why don’t you come down?”
“I can’t—I’m tied to a tree! I’ve been tied all night!” exclaimed the poor child, bursting into an agony of tears, which for some time prevented Alie from understanding another word which she uttered.
Alie lost no time in making her way to the place. She clambered up the mossy bank, careless of nettles—scrambled over the low briery hedge on the top—and beyond it, fastened to the trunk of a tree she found the unhappy Madge, pale, exhausted with crying and want of rest, her arms chafed by the cord which bound her, and which she had vainly struggled to break. Happily Alie had a knife in her pocket, or she could never have unloosed the tightened knots. The moment that Madge was free, she fell sobbing into the arms of her deliverer.
“How cruel! oh, how cruel to bind you so!” exclaimed Alie; “what had you done to make them so angry?”
“I had done nothing!” cried Madge between her sobs. “Perhaps they wanted to keep me from going after them: they need not have been afraid—I’d have given no trouble!”
“Do you think that they mean to come back soon?” said Alie, glancing timidly around.
“I don’t think so,” replied the girl. “They would not tell me where they were going, nor let me see which way they went. It was all done so quick! Father came home late yesterday, and said something to mother—something about being found out; mother started, seemed afraid, and pointed to me. Then they whispered together—looking at me every minute; and then they pulled down the tent, and packed up all in haste; and before they left, father tied me up here, and said he’d beat me if I made any noise.”
“Let’s come to my home,” said Alie, “and ask mother what’s to be done. You must want a little breakfast sadly, and a little rest too, poor, poor Madge!”
Before many minutes were over the gipsy girl was seated at Mrs. Morris’s deal table with a basin of warm bread and milk before her, feeling something like a traveller after a stormy voyage, when he has cast anchor in a haven at last. When Madge’s hunger was satisfied, Alie led her to her own little crib, where the poor child soon fell into a refreshing sleep.