‘I’m—so—sorry,’ panted Emmeline: ‘some people—are chasing me—with stones.’
‘There’s nobody chasing you,’ said the old lady severely, and when Emmeline looked round she saw that it was the truth. The Green Ginger children had all straggled back to their own land before this.
‘It’s just one of those rude games you children are always playing about the streets,’ grumbled the old lady. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what girls are coming to.’
Poor Emmeline! She had never in her life before been suspected of playing rude games in the streets, but she had not the heart to defend herself, so she walked on without another word. As she walked, the thought of her lost watch—that dear little watch which had been her mother’s very last gift—came back to her like a stab, and made her eyes fill with tears till everything became blurred, and she stumbled along not seeing where she was going.
But she was a plucky little soul at the bottom, not given to crying over spilt milk when there were more urgent things to be done, so, as her handkerchief had got lost in the course of her adventures, she wiped her eyes on the back of her glove.
‘After all, it’s only right you should have some punishment, for you oughtn’t to have come into Eastwich without leave,’ she told herself, with something of that stern sense of justice with which she had been wont to govern the twins. ‘And, anyhow, the thing that really matters is to find Micky, so what you’ve got to do now is to ask the way to the Fair.’
CHAPTER XV
MICKY AT THE FAIR
The two policemen at Chudstone were feeling extremely puzzled.