Daw shook his head.
"The police have been after him and took him away. It seems he was helping in a shop at Cressford before he come to us, and he helped himself out of the till, and some pound notes have been found in his home. It's lucky he didn't steal from us; but I had my suspicions that the oats were disappearing quicker than they ought to!"
Fibo was vexed and troubled to hear this. He sent Dreamikins upstairs to Annette, and talked for some time with Daw about the boy, who had only been with him a few weeks, and seemed a bright respectable lad.
To Dreamikins it was a terrible blow. She was full of it the next morning when Freda and Daffy came to lessons. They listened awed and dismayed to the story; then Freda's eyes began to sparkle.
"Dreamikins, it's all for the best! Think of it, he'll be put in prison!"
"Well," said Dreamikins, "that's dreadful! It makes me cry to think of it. I thought only wicked people went to prison. Michael wasn't a bit wicked to me, and he liked Shylock and Shylock liked him!"
"But don't you see, if he's in prison we can go and see him; that's just what we thought was quite impossible; and then we shall have done everything to make us into proper sheep."
"Dreamikins hasn't visited any one sick yet," said Daffy; "we have."
"Yes, but it's only because of my leg I haven't. I mean to visit hundreds in the village. Everybody I shall go and see. Oh, what a joyful thought, Freda!" Her little face was alight with pleasure again. "How splendid it will be! Is he in prison now? Can we go and see him to-morrow? Will they let us in?"
They could only wonder and conjecture, and then lessons began, and they could discuss Michael no longer; but the minute Dreamikins was free she seized her crutch and almost dashed into her uncle's study.