THAT day could not dawn too early for Mousie. She lay, after Freedom’s whisper had ceased, staring upon the darkness with wide lids. Her stay among the gipsies had deepened her nature in some measure. Before this the course of her being had been like that of a little burn, full of kinks and babblings, frothing round some obstructing but tiny stone, now conveying a straw as importantly as it had been a three-decker, now leaping in the sunshine doing nothing at all. But she had moments now of much thinking, and had gained some of that self-control, that comes to those who have faced the realities of life.
Soon the camp was stirring, and she rose from her box-bed. She saw a look in Robin’s face that had not been there yesterday, and her heart gave a great throb.
“Where are the childer?” screamed the old Granny, who was always at her crossest in the morning, spoiling the shining hours with her rasping old tongue.
“Where be the childer? Off with yer! off with yer, I tell ’ee; and if ’ee don’t fetch the water in double-quick time, it’s Granny Petulengro that ’ull know it, and make you know it, ye lazy, loitering varmints, yer good-for-nothing brats! Now then get off wid ’ee, I tell ’ee; get off wid ’ee, ye brazen everlastin’ nuisance. I’ll come after ye, I will!” She stood and shook her fist, muttering angrily.
Robin and Mousie took up the pitcher and ran swiftly. They climbed over the little fence and bent their steps towards the brook, then hardly exchanging a word between them, they set the pitcher down, and crossing to the other bank, they sped up the rough hillside. How far off the hill looked—it seemed to recede before them. They ran and ran, till at last they had to slacken their pace, but now the mill seemed nearer. O, how thankful they were when they came up to it, and heard the clank and lumber of the great sails going round in the fresh wind.
They flung themselves against the door that was to shelter them; they battered in their eagerness. And then the door opened, and Jasper Ford appeared. He drew them in with kind broad hands, that seemed full of pity and protection, and Mousie fell sobbing against his shoulder. The mill seemed full of people, about six pairs of eyes were looking on, expressing various degrees of sympathy.
Mousie and Robin were given something to eat, but every footstep outside was a terror. Then Jasper told them what was about to happen, that Freedom and he together had planned their escape. There was to be no time lost in getting the stain off, the hour of their departure was close at hand. Only Jasper required one thing of them—implicit obedience; and they were to trust him through all. Even if it seemed sometimes long, and as if he’d forgotten them, they must still trust him, and wherever and however they found themselves, they were to wait patiently and still.
Of course both children said “Yes,” and Mousie hugged Jasper, and thought how good his mealy coat smelt, and said “yes” a hundred times more.
And then Jasper took out two sacks and tied the children up in them, and in half-an-hour’s time they were placed with about twenty other sacks in a long waggon, that came to the mill.
So once more they were upon the road driving. And Mousie and Robin spent the next hours learning to weave that garment of the soul called Patience, that hardly any children, and very few people, know anything about.