“Ay,” answered the man, as he lent a hand to the punt, while Wynkin jumped out of it. “A nice storm you be come in, brother Wynkin.”
“Yes,” laughed Wynkin, “but ’tis giving over a bit now. Have you got the cart?”
“Nay,” said Dickon; “old Dobbin’s so mortal afeard o’ lightning that I wouldn’t bring him out, and I’ve trundled down the garden wheel-barrer mysen, just to load with any small odds and ends you may have with you, and in the mornin’ we can come down and fetch the sacks, eh?”
“Right,” said Wynkin, “and here you are—catch,” and, stretching his arm under the canvas without removing it, he drew out the neatly packed baskets of good things which Lady Chauncy had sent as presents to his parents. “Now then, help me to tow the punt up alongside under the trees, and then we’ll be starting, for I’m as wet through as a fish.”
Then in a few minutes they had the punt safely tied up to the willow-stems, and away they went chatting cheerily as they trundled the barrow over the bank into the wet road beyond. For the first time Charles ventured to stir, creeping out from among the sacks as quickly as his cramped limbs permitted, into the body of the punt. He was chilled to the bone, and very hungry, and thought longingly of that roast beef he had despised so much some hours before, and he almost wished he had not left his doublet behind him. Fortunately, however, in groping along, he tumbled right down over something soft. It turned out to be the crimson frieze cloak, which in the darkness and in the hurry must have dropped out of the basket. How beautifully soft and warm and dry it felt! And with a cry of delight, Charles wrapped himself round in it from his head to his little ice-cold feet, and then, as luck would have it, out fell a manchet of the white bread, which must have caught in among the folds of the cloak, and without more ado Charles took a deep bite into it as he sat down in the bottom of the punt, huddled up warmly in the cloak. “And then I must be on the march,” he said to himself, cheered a little by the warmth and the food, but before he had swallowed three mouthfuls, his eyelids drooped heavily, his weary limbs slackened, and he was fast asleep.
When he awoke, dawn was just breaking fair and rosy over the distant hills. He sprang to his feet in affright, quite unconscious for the moment where he was, but his wits soon came back to him, and he looked cautiously round across the still, shadowy, low-lying banks. He could now see that beyond the trees stretched a gorse-covered common, and between, alongside the stream, wound a road.
Drawing off the cloak, he placed it back under the canvas, though rather reluctantly, for the air was chilly. Then, having made short work of the morsel of the white bread he found in his fingers when he first opened his eyes, he mounted to the edge of the punt and sprang to the bank. Reaching the road, he walked on a little way, looking cautiously every step he took, but for a good mile he did not see a single human creature, though the birds were singing lustily and the bees and gnats were skimming and skipping in the sunshine, for the morning was lovely. But before long, however, the field and farm workers began to be about, and in spite of his best endeavors to dodge them by dropping in among the hedgerows and the gorse-clumps, he was forced to face some of them. They took little heed, however, of the little ragged boy, for ragged enough he was in his down-trodden and sodden shoes, and his fine white shirt and finest cloth gray breeches all gone to about the same mud color. With his dark locks and swarthy cheeks smudged with dirt and the juice of the blackberries he plucked and ate hungrily as he hastened on, the good folk, if they noticed him at all, took him for some gipsy boy. But his heart was beginning to grow as heavy as his limbs, which were so weary that he could hardly put one bruised and bleeding foot before the other. All his merry adventure-loving thoughts were fading fast, and in their place rose up the terrible fear that when he reached London the King, instead of being rejoiced to see him, might be displeased. It was just possible, and the more tired he got, the more possible somehow it seemed, till at last he became terrified, for when his father was angry, his frown made the hearts of even grown-up great lords quake. All at once he fancied he heard voices calling, and overwhelmed with terror and fatigue, he had just strength enough left to hobble away into the wood which now ran along the roadside, till he seemed quite hidden, and, huddling together into the hollow of an old oak-tree, he sank down, sobbing bitterly.
