Mrs. Reed and Rosie were beside Dada and his precious burden almost immediately, but Maggie hung back, looking at her father with piteous, appealing eyes.
“Come here, Maidy,” he said huskily, “come—all’s forgive and forgot—there be summat to forgive and forget on all sides. I were a bit rough to ’ee last night, but there, d’ye see, I were very nigh out o’ my mind.”
Maggie made a clutch at the nearest available portion of Johnny’s person, which happened to be a sturdy little mottled leg—for he was positively swamped by the caresses of his family—stooped, kissed it, and burst into tears.
Rosie followed suit, the mother had been long ago weeping, and now John Reed himself began to gulp and make contortions of the face as though in preparation for a fresh outburst of emotion.
Poor little Johnny looked from one to the other, utterly bewildered. The sight of his whole family simultaneously in tears was too much for him, and, lifting up his voice, he gave vent to his feelings in a volume of sound which left no doubt as to the unimpaired condition of his lungs even after a night under the stars.
Jim Fry had been circling round the group scratching his head, rubbing his nose, and screwing up his mouth in token of dissatisfaction. At this juncture he thought it was time to interfere.
“Well, I never,” he remarked irritably, “I never did see sich folk. Here we’ve all been a-trapesing over the county lookin’ for the child, and thinkin’ him dead or stole, or hurted some way; and now we’ve a-found en safe and sound, wi’out so much as a scratch on en, and ye must all begin a-cryin’ and a-sobbin’ enough to frighten en out of his wits. ’Tisn’t what ye’d like, be it, Johnny?”
“No,” said Johnny, with such a heave of his little chest that it very nearly lifted him out of his father’s arms. Again he looked from one to the other with tearful, bewildered eyes, and again the sense of his injuries was too much for him. “I’d like—summat—to eat!” he announced in a bellow of wrath and woe.
And thereupon the whole simple family fell a-laughing; and once again Johnny was hugged all round, and though eyes were still wet, and every now and then there would be a little catch in the voice of one or other speaker, the general equanimity was restored, and the party fell to discussing the little boy’s practical suggestion.
It was a very happy family that presently sat down to breakfast in a neighbouring cottage, Johnny being handed with respectful tenderness from one to the other, and being disposed before the meal was out to look upon himself quite in the light of a hero. And Maggie sat between her father and Jim Fry, and was perhaps the happiest of all.