"No, no!" wailed Joan. "I doesn't want to go nowhere 'cept back. An' I wants Miss Carolina an' my supper, an' my own dear comfy cwib," she added, feeling, for once in her life, that it would not be entirely disagreeable to be put to bed.
"You hear that," pleaded Darby. "Please put her down. She'll only tire you, because she's very solid for her size; I sometimes carry her myself. Please! We're not a bit afraid, and we haven't far to go now," he added, glancing up toward the brow of the hill, which was now flooded with moonlight. And as he saw how short was the distance to its summit—although, alas! the shortness was only seeming—his heart bounded with gladness and relief; for in spite of his courageous bearing, poor Darby was dreadfully afraid. All the stray stories and ridiculous remarks—many of them never meant for his ears—that he had ever heard concerning highwaymen, robbers, tramps, poachers, foreigners, and wicked people generally, came crowding to his memory thick and fast, and for the first time since they had fled from Firgrove he began to wish himself safely back there once more.
Moll made no answer. She glanced around to make sure that no straggler was near who could by any chance have heard Joan's cries. Then she swathed the child's head in her shawl again, and, with Joe striding in front and Darby dragging at his heel, the party set off at a rapid rate, which sorely tried Darby's short, tired legs, sturdy though they were. But notwithstanding the smartness of their pace, they did not seem to come much nearer to the top of the hill.
The winding road upon which the travellers had set their faces, after turning their backs on Engleton, had by this time dwindled into a narrow bridle-path. And as they proceeded, it too gradually disappeared until it was completely lost in the wide stretch of hilly land, half heather, half scrubby grass, that spread all around them as far as Darby could see.
All at once Joe stopped, and looked anxiously away in front, round the base of the hill.
"They were to halt hereabouts," he muttered to his wife, "but I don't see a sign o' them. Do you, Moll? you've allus had sharp sight."
Moll swept the landscape with a glance quick and keen as a hawk's. Then, without speaking, she pointed with her finger to a spot about half a mile off where the ground dipped slightly and formed a sort of hollow, sheltered on the far side by a clump of stunted firs.
Darby had followed the direction of Moll's large forefinger with his gaze. After a little he made out quite plainly, rising against the clear sky beyond the low-lying ground, a faint trail of blue-gray smoke; and lower down, considerably below the smoke, there shone a small spot of light which winked intermittently through the gathering gloom, as if behind it there blinked a very sleepy star.
"Ay, that's the caravan, sure enough," said Joe, in a tone of satisfaction. "My, Moll, you are a cute un, an' no mistake!—Come on, my young shaver; step out the best you know, for I'm wantin' some supper, I can tell you!"
"But we're not going that way," said Darby, trying to withdraw his hand from the vice-like grip in which it was held.—"Please put Joan down, ma'am," he begged, turning to Moll. "I'm much obliged to you for carrying her so far. Our way lies up the hill and yours down," continued the child, bending his grave, innocent eyes upon the woman's hardened countenance. "So you see we must part here," he added, with a brave attempt at a smile.