“Oh, nothing. I’ll come soon. You two go on.”
“Suppose you don’t get a place!” cried Parker to me.
“Oh, I shall get one fast enough: it won’t be so crowded as all that.”
“Now, look here, lad,” said Tod, with his face of resolution; “you are up to some dodge. What is it?”
“My head aches badly,” I said—and that was true. “I can’t go into that hot place until I have had a spell of fresh air. But I shall be sure to join you later, if I can.”
My headaches were always allowed. I had them rather often. Not the splitting, roaring pain that Tod would get in his head on rare occasions, once a twelvemonth, or so, when anything greatly worried him; but bad enough in all conscience. He said no more; and set off with Harry Parker up the street towards the Saracen’s Head.
The stars were flickering through the trees in Sansome Walk, looking as bright as though it were a frosty night in winter. It was cool and pleasant: the great heat of the day—which must have given me my headache—had passed. Mrs. Bird was already at the spot. She drew me underneath the trees on the side, looking up the walk as though she feared she had been followed. A burst of distant music crashed out and was borne towards us on the air: the circus band, at the Saracen’s Head. Lucy still glanced back the way she had come.
“Are you afraid of anything, Lucy?”
“There is no danger, I believe,” she answered; “but I cannot help being timid: for, if what I am doing were discovered, I—I—I don’t know what they would do to me.”