What happened to Tad

by Mary E. Ropes

But to his surprise, he found himself talking into empty space. The culprit at the bar had not waited for the verdict. Tad was gone.

[CHAPTER VI]

AFLOAT

WHEN the wind blew the clouds away about midnight, and the moon came out, the cold white light falling upon a lonely high road revealed a wretched figure toiling on with weary, dragging steps, his garments heavy with rain.

This miserable tramp was Tad. He still carried his satchel, but that too was drenched, and when he stopped and groped in it for some food to stay the pangs of hunger, he pulled out only a squashy mess of pulp which had once called itself a penny roll, but which now bore no resemblance whatever—not even a family likeness—to that dainty.

With a sigh and a glance of disgust, Tad threw the sop into the ditch at the side of the road, and plodded on, splashing recklessly through the deep mud and puddles. The road, bounded on the right by cornfields, had run along the cliff keeping close to the coastline. But now the way cut straight across the shoulder of a promontory, and began to dip to a gorge on the further side, between mighty jagged walls where some long ago convulsion of nature had broken the cliff line of the shore.

This gully widened towards the beach, ending there, above high-water mark, in soft, deep, white sand which gleamed like silver in the moonlight.

To the heavy sleepful eyes of the traveller, the spot looked inviting enough. Sheltered from the wind, dry under foot, and as lonely and deserted as ever a fugitive and a vagabond could desire, this rocky, sand-carpeted nook seemed a very haven of refuge to poor Tad. Slowly and cautiously picking his way among the irregularities of the gorge, the forlorn lad clambered down, and presently found himself in the sandy corner which promised so welcome a refuge.

Here, by the white light of the moon, he crawled in and out among the rocks till he found a deep bed of dry sand with large boulders all round it, so that it was quite a sheltered nest, shutting out the keen autumn wind, and screening him too from observation, had there been anyone to see.

Here, then, nestling down among the rocks, and burrowing into the sand like a rabbit, poor Tad, lulled by the quiet, monotonous wash of the waves on the shingle lower down, fell sound asleep—so sound that he heard nothing, saw nothing. Till in broad daylight, he awoke suddenly with the feeling of something cold against his cheek. And starting up, he found a little rough cur gazing inquisitively into his face, with its comical head on one side. It was the little, chill, black nose of the animal rubbing against his cheek that had waked him.