"Us" Part 14

LONGFELLOW.

The jolting had ceased, and it was quite dark before Duke and Pamela awoke. But through the little window of the van came twinkling lights, and as they sat up and looked about them they heard a good many unusual sounds--the voices of people outside calling to each other, the noise of wheels along stony roadways--a sort of general clatter and movement which soon told that the encampment for the night was not, as. .h.i.therto, on the edge of some quiet village or on a lonely moor.

"Bruvver," said Pamela, who had been the first to rouse up, "are you awake? What a long time us has been asleep! Is it the middle of the night, and what a noise there is."

Duke slowly collected his ideas. He did not speak, but he stood up on the bench and peeped out of the window.

"It must be that big place where there's a fair," he said. "Look, sister, there's lots and lots of carts and peoples. And over there do you see there's rows of little shops--that must be the fair."

He seemed rather excited, but Pamela, after one peep, would not look any more.

"No, no, bruvver," she said. "I am frightened. If it is the fair, that man will be coming that Diana told us about, and perhaps he'll take us before Diana and Tim can help us to run away. I'm too frightened."

But Duke had managed to get the window unhooked, and was now on tiptoe, stretching out his head as far as it would go.

"Oh sister," he exclaimed, drawing it in again, "you _should_ see. It's such a big place, and such lots and lots of peoples, and such a noise.

Oh do climb up here, sister, and look out."

But Pamela still cowered down in her corner. Suddenly they heard the well-known sound of the key in the door,--for when the children were alone in the van they were always locked in,--and turning to look, they saw Diana. She brought with her a bowl of milk and some bread, which the children were very glad of, as they had eaten so little at dinner, and she said nothing till they had finished it.

"Are you still sleepy?" she said then. "Would you like to go to bed or to come out a little with me?"

"Oh, to go out a little," said Duke; but Pamela crept up close to Diana.

"I don't want to go out," she said. "I'm frightened. But I don't want to stay here alone for fear that man should come. Can't you help us to run away now, before he comes? Oh please do, dear Diana."

Diana soothed her very kindly.

"Don't be frightened, missy dear," she said. "He won't be coming just yet. I think you'd better come out a little with me. You'll sleep better for it."

"And you won't take us to that man?" said Pamela half suspiciously.

Diana looked at her reproachfully.

"Missy, missy dear, would I do such a thing?"

"Sister, you know she wouldn't," said Duke.

"Then I'll come," said Pamela, and in another minute the two children, each with a hand of the gipsy girl, were threading their way through the lanes of vans and carts, half-completed booths, tethered horses and donkeys, men, women, and children of all kinds, which were a.s.sembled on the outskirts of Crookford in preparation for the great fair. n.o.body noticed them much, though one or two gipsies loitering about, not of her own party, nodded at Diana as she pa.s.sed as an old acquaintance, with some more or less rough joke or word of greeting. And those belonging to Mick's caravan did not seem surprised at seeing the children at freedom.

This was what Diana wished, and it had been partly with this object, as well as to accustom Duke and Pamela a little to their present quarters, that she had managed to get leave to take them out a little, late as it was. It had seemed quite dark outside--looking through the window of the van--but in reality it was only dusk, though the lights moving about, the fires lit here and there in little stoves outside the booths, and the general bustle and confusion, made it a very bewildering scene.

Pamela tried not to be frightened, but she clutched Diana's hand close, till suddenly, on turning a corner, they ran against a boy coming at full speed. It was Tim, and the little girl let go of Diana to spring to him with a cry of pleasure.

"Oh Tim, dear Tim," she cried, "us hasn't seen you for such a long time!"

"True enough, missy," he said cheerfully; and, looking at him more closely, both children noticed that he did look brighter and merrier than ever, little as he was in the habit of seeming sad. "It's all right," he went on, turning to Diana; "such a piece o' luck!"

"Come and tell me as soon as we come back," said the girl. "I'll be in the van putting them to bed. Mick's off--gone to look for the Signor.

I'll try for them to be asleep when _they_ come," and with these rather mysterious words Diana drew on the children, and Tim ran off with a nod.

They walked on till they got a little clear of the crowd, and on to a road evidently leading out of the town. It had grown darker, but the moon had risen, and by her light at some little distance the children saw the same silvery thread that they had noticed winding along below them from the high moorland some days before.

"That's the river where the boats are like houses--that Tim told us about," said Pamela.

"Yes," said Diana, "it's the ca.n.a.l. It comes right into the town over that way," and she pointed the left. "The boats take stone from hereabouts,--there's lots of quarries near Crookford. I wanted you to see it, for we've been thinking, Tim and me--it's more his thought than mine--that that'd be the best way for you to get away. Mick'll not be likely to think of the ca.n.a.l, and Tim's been down to see if there was any one among the boat-people as would take you. He used to know some of them not far from here. And the ca.n.a.l goes straight on to a place called Monkhaven, on the road to Sandle'ham. Did you ever hear of that place?"

The children shook their heads.

"Well, it can't be helped. That's as far as you can get by the ca.n.a.l.

After that Tim must use his wits and look about him; and when you get to Sandle'ham I'm afraid there's no help for it--you'll have to ask the police to take you home."

"But Tim too?" said Pamela. "Tim's to go home with us."

"I hope so," said Diana. "I hope the old gentleman and lady will be good to him, poor boy! Tell them it was none of _his_ fault, your being stolen away--he's but a poor homeless waif himself; and even if so be as they could do nothing for him, he mustn't come back here. Mick'd be like to kill him."

"But Grandpapa and Grandmamma will be good to him. I _know_ they will,"

said Duke and Pamela together. "They'd be good to you too, Diana," they added timidly.

But Diana again shook her head.

"That can't be," she said. "Still, when all this has blown over a bit, I'll try to hear of you some day. Tim'll maybe be able to let me know the name of the place where your home is."

"And you must come to see us. Oh yes, yes--you must, Diana!" said the children, dancing about with glee. The girl looked at them in some surprise; it was the first time she had seen them merry and light-hearted as they were at home, and it made her better understand how wretched their new life must have been for them to change them so.

"I'll try," she said; "but it doesn't much matter for that. The thing is for you to be safe at home yourselves."

Then she said it was time to go back. It was quite dark by now, and the children kept very close to her as they found themselves again in the rabble of the behind-the-scenes of the fair. People there too were beginning to shut up for the night, for most of them, poor things, had been working hard all day.

As they came up to where Mick's party had encamped, Diana said something in the queer language the children did not understand to some of the gipsies who were hanging about. Their answer seemed to relieve her.

"Come, children," she said; "you must be tired. I'll get you to bed as quick as I can; and try to get to sleep. It's the best thing you can do."--"They'll not be coming just yet, maybe," she added to herself, "if they've got to drinking over their bargain; so much the better perhaps.

If only the children are asleep they'll perhaps be none the wiser, and I'll hear all there is to hear."

The preparing for bed was a different thing indeed from the careful washing, hair-brushing, and attiring in snow-white nightgowns that was called "undressing" "at home." All that Diana could manage in the way of washing apparatus was a rough wooden tub with cold water, a bit of coa.r.s.e soap, and an old rag by way of a towel! And even this she had done more to please the children than because she saw any need for it.

This evening she made no pretence of anything after taking off the children's outer clothes--Duke's nankin suit, now sadly soiled and dilapidated, and the old red flannel skirt and little shawl which had replaced Pamela's white frock. The frock was still in existence; but by Mick's orders Diana had trimmed it up gaudily for the child to make her appearance in to the Signor; so the little girl's attire was certainly very gipsy-like.

"Shall I have to go home to Grandmamma with this nugly old petticoat and no frock?" she asked, when Diana had taken off all her clothes down to her little flannel vest, and wrapped her up for the night in a clean, though old, cotton bedgown of her own. "And why have you taken off my chemise, Diana? I've kept it on other nights."

"I'm going to wash it," said Diana. "I'd like to send you back as decent as I _can_."

Pamela seemed satisfied. Then she and Duke knelt together at the side of the shake-down Diana called their bed, and said their prayers together and aloud. The gipsy girl had heard them before--several times--but this evening she listened with peculiar attention, and when at the end the little creatures, after praying for dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma, and that G.o.d would please soon take them safe home again, went on to add a special pet.i.tion for "dear Diana," who had been so kind to them, that she might be always good and happy, and that Mick and n.o.body should be unkind to her, the girl turned away her face to hide the tears which slowly welled up into her eyes.

"Good-night, dear Diana," said the two little voices, as she stooped to kiss them.

"Good-night, master and missy. Sleep well, and don't be frightened if you're wakened up. I'll be here." Then, as she was turning away, she hesitated. "Do you really think now," she said, "that it's any good praying for a wild gipsy girl like me?"

"Of course it is," said Pamela, starting up again. "Why shouldn't it be as much good for you as for any one? If you want to be good--and I think you are good, Diana--you can't help praying to G.o.d. For all the good comes from Him. That's what Grandmamma told us. And He puts little bits of His good into us."

Diana looked puzzled.