His tongue went like a mill, and the whole tribe soon knew all about him and his parents.
One morning the servants got up supernaturally early, to wash. Mr. Reginald was detected stealing back to his roost, and reported to the master.
Mr. Beecher had him up directly, locked him into the study alone, put the other students into the drawing-room, and erected bars to his bedroom window.
A few days of this, and he pined like a bird in a cage.
A few more, and his gypsy girl came fortune-telling to the servants, and wormed out the truth.
Then she came at night under his window, and made him a signal. He told her his hard case, and told her also a resolution he had come to. She informed the tribe. The tribe consulted. A keen saw was flung up to him; in two nights he was through the bars; the third he was free, and joined his sable friends.
They struck their tents, and decamped with horses, asses, tents, and baggage, and were many miles away by daybreak, without troubling turnpikes.
The boy left not a line behind him, and Mr. Beecher half hoped he might come back; still he sent to the nearest station, and telegraphed to Huntercombe.
Sir Charles mounted a fleet horse, and rode off at once into Cambridgeshire. He set inquiries on foot, and learned that the boy had been seen consorting with a tribe of gypsies. He heard, also, that these were rather high gypsies, many of them foreigners; and that they dealt in horses, and had a farrier; and that one or two of the girls were handsome, and also singers.
Sir Charles telegraphed for detectives from London; wrote to the mayors of towns; advertised, with full description and large reward, and brought such pressure to bear upon the Egyptians, that the band begin to fear: they consulted, and took measures for their own security; none too soon, for, they being encamped on Grey's Common in Oxfordshire, Sir Charles and the rural police rode into the camp and demanded young Hopeful.