"Nor yet no dealings with that redheaded chap what I never see?"
"Now, is it likely?" Beale asked reproachfully. "I should 'ope we're a cut above a low chap like wot 'e is. The pram's dry as a bone and shiny as yer 'at, and we'll start the first thing in the morning."
And in the early morning, which is fresh and sweet even in Deptford, they bade farewell to Amelia and the dogs and set out.
Amelia watched them down the street and waved a farewell as they turned the corner. "It'll be a bit lonesome," she said. "One thing, I shan't be burgled, with all them dogs in the house."
The voices of the dogs, as she went in and shut the door, seemed to assure her that she would not even be so very lonely.
And now they were really on the road. And they were going to Arden—to that place by the sea where Dickie's uncle, in the other life, had a castle, and where Dickie was to meet his cousins, after his seven months of waiting.
You may think that Dickie would be very excited by the thought of meeting, in this workaday, nowadays world, the children with whom he had had such wonderful adventures in the other world, the dream world—too excited, perhaps, to feel really interested in the little every-day happenings of "the road." But this was not so. The present was after all the real thing. The dreams could wait. The knowledge that they were there, waiting, made all the ordinary things more beautiful and more interesting. The feel of the soft dust underfoot, the bright, dewy grass and clover by the wayside, the lessening of houses and the growing wideness of field and pasture, all contented and delighted Dickie. He felt to the full all the joy that Mr. Beale felt in "'oofing it," and when as the sun was sinking they overtook a bent, slow-going figure, it was with a thrill of real pleasure that Dickie recognized the woman who had given him the blue ribbon for True.
True himself, now grown large and thick of coat, seemed to recognize a friend, gambolled round her dreadful boots, sniffed at her withered hand.
"Give her a lift with her basket, shall us?" Dickie whispered to Mr. Beale and climbed out of the perambulator. "I can make shift to do this last piece."
So the three went on together, in friendly silence. As they neared Orpington the woman said, "Our road parts here; and thank you kindly. A kindness is never wasted, so they say."