[CHAPTER III]
GONE
THE baby awoke after awhile, and cried a little, but Tad was too good and experienced a nurse not to have anticipated and arranged for what the child would want. He quickly produced from the basket the little one's feeding-bottle and some milk, and very soon the baby, quite satisfied and happy, was creeping about on the grass and playing with some flowers that Tad found for him. And when he wearied of this, the boy rocked him to sleep again in his arms.
Then, wearied by his own sleepless night, he lay down beside the child for a much-needed nap. His last feeling, before dropping into dreamland, being one of grim rejoicing in the recollection that his stepmother must already be in a "fine taking,"—as he would have expressed it,—about her baby. Tad had made up his mind not to carry the child back until dark, "for fear," he said to himself, "of being nabbed." But already it was afternoon, and in these autumn days the darkness came early.
When Tad awoke from a sound sleep of several hours, the twilight was creeping over earth and sky. The quiet rest had much refreshed him, and baby too had waked up in a happy mood, and looked so much less like his mother than usual, that Tad felt fonder of the poor little fellow than ever before, and even kissed his little round face when he picked him up.
Carrying the basket on his arm, and the baby over his shoulder, Tad walked across the meadow, and came to a stile leading out on to a common, where was a gipsy encampment.
A couple of carts were drawn up near the hedge on one side of the field, four or five stiff-legged, scraggy horses were grazing hungrily on the short, stubbly grass, while not far from a fire, which blazed merrily under a black pot, sat a little company of brown-skinned, rough-looking men and women, and a few children played about around them.
It helped to pass the time, watching the gipsies, so Tad, with the baby in his arms, got over the stile, and drawing nearer to the picturesque group, stood looking at the people, and hungrily sniffing the savoury steam that rose from the cooking-pot.
Presently a young woman rose from among the little company, and came towards Tad.
"You look hungry, lad; have a bite with us," she said.