"Us" Part 7

"Here it is, master; but it'd a' been lost but for me--a-laying on the ground there."

Duke opened it.

"I'll give you----" he began again, but he suddenly stopped short. "The little gold guinea's not here," he cried, "only the shilling and the sixpence and the pennies."

"Must have rolled out on the ground if ever it was there," said Mick sullenly. "_I_ never see'd it."

"It _was_ there," cried Duke angrily. "Do you think I'd tell a story? I must go back and look for it. Let me down, I say, let me down."

Then Mick turned on him with a very evil expression on his face.

"Stop that, d'ye hear? Stop that," and he lifted his fist threateningly.

"D'ye think I'm going to waste any more time on such brats and their nonsense? Catch me a-taking you home for you to go and say I've stolen your money, and get me put in prison by your grandpapas and grandmammas as likely as not," he went on in a half-threatening, half-whining tone.

Duke was going to answer, but Pamela pulled his sleeve.

"Be quiet, bruvver," she said in a whisper. "Tim said us must wait a bit."

Almost as she said the words a voice was heard whistling at a little distance--they were now out of the wood on a rough bridle path. Mick looked round sharply and descried a figure coming near them.

"What have you been about, you good-for-nothing?" he shouted. "Why didn't you stay with the others? You might have lent me a hand with the donkey and the brats."

Tim stood still in the middle of the path, and stared at them without speaking. Then he turned round and walked beside Mick, who was leading the donkey.

"What are ye a-doing with the little master and missy?" he asked coolly.

"Mind yer business," muttered the gipsy gruffly. Then he added in a louder tone, "Master and missy has lost their way, don't ye see? They're ever so far from home. It was lucky I met them."

"Are ye a-going to take them home?" continued Tim.

"For sure, when I can find the time. But that won't be just yet a bit.

There's the missus a-waiting for us."

And, turning a corner, they came suddenly in sight of the other gipsies--the two women and the big sulky-looking boy--gathered round a tree, the donkey's panniers and the various bundles the party had been carrying lying on the ground beside them. If the panniers had been unpacked and their contents spread out, as Mick had told the children, they had certainly been quickly packed up again. But there was no time for wondering about how this could be; the woman whom the pedlar called "the missus" came up to her husband as soon as she saw them, and said a few words hastily, and with a look of great annoyance, in the queer language she had spoken before, to which he replied with some angry expression which it was probably well the children did not understand.

"Better have done with it, I should say," said the other woman, who was much younger and nicer-looking, but still with a rather sullen and discontented face.

"That's just like her," said Mick. "What we'd come to if we listened to her talk it beats me to say."

"You've not come to much good by not listening to it," retorted Diana fiercely. But Tim, who had gone towards her, said something in a low voice which seemed to calm her.

"It's true--we'll only waste our time if we take to quarrelling," she said. "What's to be done, then?"

"We must put the panniers back, and the girl must sit between them somehow," said the man. "She can't walk--the boy must run beside."

So saying, he lifted both children off the donkey, not so gently but that Pamela gave a cry as her sore foot touched the ground. But no one except Duke paid any attention to her, not even Tim, which she thought very unkind of him. She said so in a low voice to Duke, but he whispered to her to be quiet.

"If only my foot was not sore, now us could have runned away," she could not help whispering again. For all the gipsies seemed so busy in loading themselves and the donkey that for a few minutes the children could have fancied they had forgotten all about them. It was not so, however. As soon as the panniers were fastened on again Mick turned to Pamela, and, without giving her time to resist, placed her again on the donkey. It was very uncomfortable for her; her poor little legs were stretched out half across the panniers, and she felt that the moment the donkey moved she would surely fall off. So, as might have been expected, she began to cry. The gipsy was turning to her with some rough words, when Diana interfered.

"Let me settle her," she said. "What a fool you are, Mick!" Then she drew out of her own bundle a rough but not very dirty checked wool shawl, with which she covered the little girl, who was shivering with cold, and at the same time made a sort of cushion for her with one end of it, so that she could sit more securely.

"Thank you," said Pamela, amidst her sobs; "but oh I hope it's not very far to home."

Mick stood looking on, and at this he gave a sneering laugh.

"It's just as well to have covered her up," he said. "Isn't there another shawl as'd do for the boy? Not that it matters; we'll meet no one the road we're going. The sooner we're off the better."

He took hold of the bridle and set off as fast as he could get the donkey to go. Diana kept her place beside it, so that, even if Pamela had fallen off, it would only have been into the young woman's arms.

Duke followed with Tim and the other woman, but he had really to "run,"

as Mick had said, for his short legs could not otherwise have kept up with the others. He was soon too out of breath to speak--besides, he dared not have said anything to Tim in the hearing of "the missus," of whom he was almost more afraid than even of Mick. And the only sign of friendliness Tim, on his side, dared show him was by taking his hand whenever he thought the woman would not notice. But, tired as he was already, Duke could not long have kept up; he felt as if he _must_ have cried out, when suddenly they came to a turning in the road and the gipsy stopped.

"We'll get back into the wood this way," he said, without turning his head, and with some difficulty he managed to get the donkey across a dry ditch, and down a steep bank, when, sure enough, they found themselves again among trees. It was already dusk, and a very little way on in the wood it became almost dark. The gipsy went on some distance farther--obliged, however, to go very slowly; then at last he stopped.

"This'll do for to-night," he said. "I'm about sick of all this nonsense, I can tell ye. We might ha' been at Brigslade to-night if it hadn't been for these brats."

"Then do as I say," said Diana. "I'll manage it for you. Big Tony can carry one, and I the other."

But Mick only turned away with an oath.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HERE'S SOME SUPPER FOR YOU. WAKE UP, AND TRY AND EAT A BIT. IT'LL DO YOU GOOD."--p. 89.]

Big Tony was the name of the gipsy boy. He never spoke, and never seemed to take any interest in anything, for he was half-witted, as it is called; though Duke and Pamela only thought him very sulky and silent compared with the friendly little Tim. By this time they were too completely tired to think about anything--they even felt too stupid to wonder if they were on the way home or not--and when Diana lifted Pamela off the donkey and set her down, still wrapped in the shawl, to lean with her back against a tree, Duke crept up to her, drawing a corner of the shawl round him, for he too was very cold by now, poor little boy--and sat there by his sister, both of them in a sort of half stupor, too tired even to know that they were very hungry!

They did fall asleep--though they did not know it till they were roused by some one gently pulling them.

"Here's some supper for you. Wake up, and try and eat a bit. It'll do you good," the gipsy Diana was saying to them; and when they managed to open their sleepy eyes, they saw that she had a wooden bowl in one hand, in which some hot coffee was steaming, and a hunch of bread in the other. It was not very good coffee, and neither Duke nor Pamela was accustomed to coffee of any kind at home, but it was hot and sweet, and they were so hungry that even the coa.r.s.e b.u.t.terless bread tasted good.

As they grew more awake they began to wonder how the coffee had been made, but the mystery was soon explained, for at a short distance a fire of leaves and branches was burning brightly with a kettle sputtering merrily in the middle. And round the fire Mick and his wife and big Tony were sitting or lying, each with food in their hands; while a little nearer them Tim was pulling another shawl out of a bundle.

"Give it me here," said Diana, and then she wrapped it round Duke, drawing the other more closely about Pamela.

"Now you can go to sleep again," she said, seeing that the coffee and bread had disappeared. "It'll not be a cold night, and we'll have to be off early in the morning;" and then she turned away and sat down to eat her own supper at a little distance.

"Tim," whispered Duke; but the boy caught the faint sound and edged himself nearer.

"Tim," said Duke again, "is he not going to take us home to-night?"

"I'se a-feared not," replied Tim in the same tone.

A low deep sigh escaped poor Duke. Pamela, so worn out by the pain as well as fatigue she had suffered that she could no longer keep up, was already fast asleep again.

"When it's quite, quite dark," continued Duke, "and when Mick and them all are asleep, don't you think us might run away, Tim?"

Tim shook his head.

"Missy can't walk; and she's dead tired out, let alone her poor foot,"

he said. "You must wait a bit till she can walk anyway. Try to go to sleep, and to-morrow we'll see."

Duke began to cry quietly.