“They heard later that a fair-skinned child had been seen with gypsies on the road to London, but that was not till long afterwards. For years the mother heard no news of her, and wandered up and down the country with the one little clog in her hand seeking her: she felt sure she should know her again, though all this time the child was growing up, and was a baby no longer. But the mother never quite despaired, and she had a feeling that somehow the little clog would help her in her search: on its wooden sole, as well as on that of the lost one, she had scratched two letters—BM.
“So the time went on and on. It was seven long years after she had lost her child that the mother heard of a situation in a place called Wensdale, and went there to live. Now you can tell me the mother’s name.”
“Why, of course, it must be Maggie,” said Jackie, who had been staring fixedly at Mary for the last two minutes with his mouth wide open; “and that’s why she caught hold of my shoe and—”
“Let me finish the story,” said Mrs Chelwood, “and then you shall talk about it as much as you like. In this very place there was a little girl living at the vicarage who had been left in the garden there by gypsies seven years ago. She had a funny little shoe with her when she was found, and had kept it ever since; and now, perhaps, you know who that little girl is.”
“It’s me!” cried Mary, starting up—“it’s my shoe—and I saw the letters—and I don’t belong to the gypsies after all, and—”
“My dear,” said the squire, putting his head in at the door, “I’m too muddy to come in, but you’ll all be glad to hear that we’ve caught those rascals and they’re all in Dorminster jail.”
Mrs Chelwood hurried out of the room, and the children all began to talk at once, to ask questions, to exclaim, to wonder if the gypsies would be hanged, and so on. Presently, however, it was found that Mary had strange and dreadful experiences to relate. A silence fell upon the others until she had finished, and then they looked at her with a sort of awe.
“So our chickens won’t be stolen,” she repeated, “and that dreadful Seraminta can’t take me away.”
“It’s a tremendously puzzling thing though,” said Jackie reflectively; “here you’ve got two mothers, you see, and two names. How will you manage, and where will you live?”
“She’s only got one real mother,” cried Patrick.