The irate little wretches would have followed up their assault had not a policeman suddenly made his appearance upon the scene, when they took to their heels, scattering and disappearing around a corner, like a flock of frightened sheep, quicker than it has taken to relate the occurrence.
Gladys gave a sigh of relief as the noise and pelting ceased, and then she turned her attention to the luckless waif whom she had befriended in his hour of need.
“Get up, boy,” she said, kindly, “they cannot hurt you now.”
But as he still crouched, trembling and frightened, at her feet, she turned to the coachman and said:
“John, help him up, he is too frightened to move.”
“Come, my lad, you’ve nothing to fear now,” the driver remarked, encouragingly, and reaching over the back of his seat he took the boy by the arm and lifted him from the floor, placing him opposite his young mistress.
He glared wildly about him at first, but as his eyes fell upon Gladys’ sympathetic face the fear faded from them, and he seemed reassured.
Then all at once he put his hand to his head in a distressed way, and called out:
“M’ha! m’ha!”
“What does he mean, John? Can they have hurt him, do you think?” Gladys asked, looking perplexed, and regarding the boy’s blank, though beautiful, face with anxiety.