“Then you kin take this here bit o’ paper for me. Keep straight along the road, and you’ll get a lift from a cart or a waggon, and do you take this bit o’ paper to the door of the mill by the stone bridge in the valley; and say it’s from Freedom Cowper.”
She swayed as she spoke, and Robin thought she was going to die again, for her eyes half closed, and she leaned against a tree. But soon she was speaking urgently, “O Gawd in Heaven, take the paper, give it to the man ... at the mill ... run, for I hear my folk comen, and they’ll never let you go, they’ll never let you go.”
There was a distant sound of footsteps, a far stir in the leaves. Robin and Mousie fled from the girl away among the trees, to the little wattle that surrounded the woodland, and scrambling over as best they might, they lay down on the further side.
They heard voices talking, and the girl’s voice hardly audible, and then footsteps going further and further away. At last there was silence and, their courage returning, they arose and pursued their way along the road.
But not now, alas, with a joyful anticipation. How willingly now would Mousie have seen home’s familiar aspects, and Robin was far hungrier than he had ever been. For it was now about six o’clock in the afternoon, and they had made their escape about eleven, and they had walked and scrambled for seven hours, and had a severe fright as well.
But Robin held the bit of paper, and perhaps the idea of a lift in a waggon, made him urge Mousie along the road.
It was not long before they heard the sound of wheels behind them, and a hooded farm-cart appeared.
“Please give us a lift,” cried out Robin, and they were soon up beside the driver.
“We want to be put down at the mill, please, by the stone bridge in the valley.”
“Whoi that be farmer Dreege’s mill,” said the man; “but Farmer Dreege he be at the fair surely; there’ll not be a soul about I’m thinking, without Jasper Ford be left to mind the place.”