"And wherever has he been all this time?"
"Dear knows! He doesn't, except that it was with some men--gipsies--who carried him away and beat him most of the time. He's all black and blue, except his face, and that was dirty brown, and one of his eyes was blackened; one of the men nearly knocked it out."
"Well, well, well! It's an uncommonly strange world, child!
"Yes. How's old Jim?"
"He was all right when I left him, but anything may happen to those boys, apparently, without the slightest warning. Now, if you'll give me something to eat I'll go along and hear what Jack has got to say for himself."
Jack, however, had very little information to give that could be turned to any account. It was at the far side of the Mere that he had come upon a couple of men crouching under a sand-hill, as though they were on the look out for somebody. They had collared him, tied a stick in his mouth, and carried him away--where, he had no idea--a very long way, till they came up with a party on the road. There he was placed in one of the travelling caravans, fed from time to time, and not allowed out for many days. He had tried to escape more than once and been soundly thrashed for it. His back--well, there it was, and it made Eager almost ill to think of what those terrible weals must have meant to the boy. Then, after a long lime, another chance came, when all the men were lying drunk one night and some of the women too. He had crept out, and ran and ran straight on till his legs wouldn't carry him another step. A farmer's wife had taken pity on him at sight of his back and helped him on his road. And through her, others. He knew where he wanted to get to, and so, bit by bit, mostly on his own feet, but with an occasional lift in a friendly cart, he had reached home.
"And what do you say to all that, Mr. Eager?" asked Sir Denzil.
"I say, first, that I am most devoutly thankful that he has come back to us. What may be behind it all is altogether beyond me. If he is their boy would they treat him so cruelly?"
"To gain their ends they would stick at nothing. I see no daylight in the matter."
"You had no chance of seeing how the old woman received him, I suppose, sir?"