At midday, which Bambo was able to guess pretty nearly by the sun, the fugitives halted to have their dinner. Joan said it was not dinner at all, only breakfast over again; for it consisted of some more cold rabbit, a slice of bread each, with a drink of water. And very good it tasted to these hungry little people, who many a time at Firgrove had discontentedly turned up their noses at much more dainty fare. Then Joan fell asleep, cradled comfortably in the dwarf's long arms, and Darby dozed at his side.
When they awoke it was well on in the afternoon. The sun was no longer visible; a chilling wind had sprung up from the east; dull gray clouds hung loweringly overhead; a close mist, as of coming rain, wrapped the landscape as in a mantle. Bambo felt that they must push on, and, if possible, find somewhere to shelter in for the night. It would never do for these tenderly-nurtured children to be exposed to a drenching. About himself the dwarf had no anxiety. A shower more or less could not matter much, he thought, as a more severe fit of coughing than usual shook his frail, thin body and tore at his poor, raw chest. Nothing mattered now, he told himself, except that he should accomplish the work his Master had given him to do, and along with the work he believed that he should also be granted a sufficiency of strength. After that—why, he would be quite ready and eager for the next call upon him, whenever it came.
But there was not a house or cottage within sight, only a long stretch of barren land, half heather, partly coarse grass, over which some small, horned sheep and half-grown cattle had been turned out to pasture. About three miles off, at a place called Hanleigh Heath, there was a farm with a solitary wayside dwelling attached—a big, bare barn of a place, part of which the farmer had utilized as a sort of rude hostelry. The dwarf knew it well. It was called the Traveller's Delight. He had put up there with the Harrises one night several years before. The landlord and Joe seemed the best of friends—as "thick as thieves," in fact. Therefore Bambo felt that he dared not venture within the hostelry with his charges—it would not be safe; besides, they had no money to pay for lodging. Nevertheless, they must make for it with all speed. The rain was coming on, and soon too. The Traveller's Delight held out their only chance of refuge from the wet and the darkness, and the dwarf hoped that in some of its straggling outhouses they should find shelter for the night.
It was almost dark when Darby and the dwarf saw a light twinkling a short way off, like a bright, friendly eye from out the gloom. Oh, how thankful they were! for both were weary beyond the power of moving many yards further. Darby was staggering from giddiness and stumbling at every step. His little legs dragged one after the other as if each foot were weighted with lead. Bambo spoke no word, for speech was now hardly possible to him, his throat was so sore, his breath so laboured, his chest so torn by the deep, grating cough, which, in spite of all his efforts, he could not suppress. The instant the rain actually began to fall he had taken off his jacket to wrap around Joan, who was sound asleep in his arms, and his vest he had put upon Darby. It hung about the boy's slim shoulders and over his knees somewhat like a sack. It had saved him from a wetting, however; while Bambo, thus stripped of his outer garments, was soaked to the skin.
He carefully laid the still sleeping Joan under the shelter of a hayrick in the stackyard behind the inn; and charging Darby neither to make a noise nor leave her alone, no matter what might happen, the dwarf crept cautiously forward—stealthy in his movements as a cat stalking a mouse—to ascertain whether there was any safe cover to which he could convey the children.
From the front of the inn the lamplight streamed through the uncurtained windows, shining cheerily on the wet cobble-stones of the sloppy courtyard, and now and again a shrill voice pierced the silence of the night as a woman's figure moved to and fro within the warmly-glowing kitchen. But outside there was no sign of life; all was still except for the occasional shuffling of the horses' feet in the stable, the slow, deep breathing of the cows in an adjacent shed; and Bambo became bolder. He peeped in at this window, he peered within that door, until at length he found what he wanted—an empty house with plenty of clean, dry straw strewn upon its floor.
In summer it had probably been used for housing the calves which were now wandering at will over the wide, wet pasture-lands, having arrived at an age when they could be promoted to share the privations without enjoying any of the comforts of the grown-up creatures belonging to the establishment. No one was likely to have an errand there now that its former occupants were away. In any case, nobody would be about before morning, Bambo reasoned, and by day-dawn he and his charges would have once more taken the road for Firgrove.
Gently and carefully he raised Joan from her bed beside the haystack, fearing that if she awoke she might make a noise. She did awake, however, sat up, looked all round in a frightened fashion, then began to whimper. Drawing a fold of shawl across her mouth and whispering to Darby to keep close, the dwarf carried her as swiftly and silently as possible to the shelter which he had discovered. There, snugly curled up among the clean, dry straw like kittens in a basket, the little ones were both soon sound asleep.
But Bambo could not sleep, although his weakness and weariness amounted almost to pain. He was strangely wakeful, and eagerly on the alert for the slightest sound which might indicate either disturbance or danger. By-and-by, however, his head began to droop on his chest; his eyes were closed, his long arms lay limply by his side. The present faded away from him; he drifted back into the past again. Once more he was a child at his mother's knee; his brow was bent upon her lap, his hands were folded as she bade him fold them when he said his evening prayer—a simple petition which in all his wanderings the dwarf never forgot, and of late years never omitted to repeat each night—in perfect faith and childlike confidence that his words would be heard, his requests granted:—
"I lay my body down to sleep,
And pray that God my soul will keep;
And if I die before I wake,
I pray that God my soul will take. Amen."