Paul found it almost unbearable to be in as long as he was, and especially to be the object of as much notice as he was, so the second day he declared himself quite fit to go out and stroll around, and Mrs. Anketell was glad for him to be out in the sunshine and air again, he was so pale, and his spirits seemed so low.

On one point Mrs. Anketell had been most imperative--not a word as to the escaped convicts was to be mentioned before Stella and Michael.

They had had so much to excite and alarm them lately, she was most anxious to keep this last terror from them. Mike, she knew, had a childish dread of the prison and its occupants, and Stella, who was not strong yet after her illness, had also been nervous of being in the near neighbourhood of the prison. So the two younger ones ran out and played about with light hearts, full of pleasure that Paul was with them again, and anxious only to make him laugh and romp about, and tease them as he used to do.

But Paul, though he was out in the sunshine once more, and though he had escaped the detection of his wickedness, could not laugh, or joke, or take any interest in the others' amus.e.m.e.nt, for a great weight lay on his heart and his conscience, and he wondered if he should ever be a happy, light-hearted boy again.

It was such a lovely day, that first day he was out, so warm, and bright, and perfect, that Mrs. Anketell promised them they should have all their meals in the orchard, for there she felt they would be safe from harm, and Farmer Minards sent out for one of the shepherd's dogs to be with them too. So they had their mid-day dinner under the apple-trees, and played there contentedly enough, the children unconscious of any danger, their mother feeling for the time safe, and trying to put all fear from her, Paul in constant dread of he scarcely knew what.

In the afternoon Mr. Anketell had to leave them, as a telegram had come calling him to London at once. He was very vexed about it, for he felt peculiarly loath to leave them just then, he too being filled with a foreboding of fear, for which he could not account except by telling himself that Paul's extraordinary night adventure, and the narrow escape from the mora.s.s, had upset his nerves, and made him unusually fearful.

When the car came round to take him to the station, he called Paul aside, and spoke to him very gravely.

"Paul, my son," he said kindly, "I have to leave you all, though I am more than unwilling to do so, but I am going to leave your mother and the children in your charge. Keep the little ones in your sight, guard them all carefully. Cease to be a thoughtless child for the time, and try to be a man, with a man's grave sense of responsibility. Take care of them and of yourself, and remember a great trust rests on you."

"I will, father," said Paul earnestly, and his lips quivered as his father leaned affectionately on his shoulder. Confession trembled on his lips, but there was no time for it, though he felt that here was a chance to expiate his wickedness and deceit of the past. But if he could not confess, he could at any rate live down that past and wipe it out by his future conduct, and he would, he vowed he would. "I will take care of them, father, I promise you," he repeated earnestly.

The spirits of all flagged a good deal after Mr. Anketell's departure, and it was quite a sober little party that gathered round the tea-table in the orchard, and after tea they were quite content to sit and read instead of indulging in their old lively games.

At seven o'clock Mrs. Anketell rose and went in with Mike to give him his gla.s.s of milk before putting him to bed. "I think you had all better come in now," she said. "Can you bring in the rugs and things between you?"

The elder ones followed her in a few moments with their first load, and laid the things down in the pa.s.sage. Mrs. Anketell was outside calling to the maids, "I can't think where they are," she said anxiously, as the children pa.s.sed her on their way out. "Mrs. Minards, I know, has gone out in the car which took father; she had some shopping to do, but she left Laura and Ann in charge. It is very wrong of them to leave the house like this."

Paul went outside and shouted the girls' names at the top of his voice, but he and Stella were bringing their last load before he saw them coming in at the yard gate. They had been down to the hind's cottage, gossiping with his wife.

About nine o'clock Mrs. Minards came back in the car, driven by her husband, and soon after all the household retired to bed.

CHAPTER XI.

A TEST OF BRAVERY.

It must have been three or four hours later that Paul heard what he thought were mysterious noises and stealthy footsteps downstairs.

He had been lying restless and wakeful, haunted by a dread of he knew not what, his mind continually dwelling on the runaway convicts out on the moor, the clank of the iron as he had heard it that night sounding plainly in his ears. He remembered, too, how deserted the house had been when his mother and Mike had come into it, and how easily any one could have walked in, had he or she been so inclined.

Then in on his thoughts broke those sounds. A dreadful certainty of harm to come came to him, but he had plenty of pluck, and the memory of his promise to his father was strong in his mind. He got out of bed softly and opened his door; then he crept to his mother's door and listened; no sound came from there, and he hoped she was fast asleep, and Michael, too, whose cot had been moved in there for the time. Paul felt sincerely thankful. But though it was plain that the sounds had not come from there, he was certain they came from somewhere within the house.

He crept softly along the pa.s.sage and stood at the head of the stairs listening. At first all was quiet, but just as he was thinking of creeping back to his bed again, telling himself he had made a mistake, there came from below a faint sound of sc.r.a.ping, and of stealthy movements. At the sounds, so unmistakably those of a person bent on concealment, his heart thumped madly, a cold sweat broke out on his brow; his heart indeed thumped so loudly he was afraid it would be heard by the person below, but he went bravely down a few steps further and listened again. Yes, there was no doubt there was someone down there.

What could he, a small boy, do against a desperate man? Farmer Minards slept on the other side of the house, and his room could only be reached by a flight of stairs running up from the kitchen. To get at him Paul must go right down, and through the house, close to, if not actually pa.s.sing by the burglar, or whoever it might be who was acting so stealthily. But Farmer Minards must be roused somehow. This was the one thing Paul was certain of. Without making a sound he crept down another stair or two. Whoever it was down below, he had a light, for Paul could see a faint glimmer, and it came, he imagined, from the little room the farmer called his 'office.'

Scarcely knowing to what his thoughts led, Paul thought he might possibly creep down and pa.s.s the office unnoticed, then fly softly through the kitchen and up to the farmer's room. All chance of success would depend, though, on the man not being near the office door, or facing that way.

But before his thoughts were really formed Paul had put them into action.

He was too much alarmed and too full of the responsibility of his position to dawdle. Suppose any harm should come to his mother or the children!

He grew sick with terror at the thought, and flew on faster.

There was only a faint swish in the air to indicate that anyone had moved, a sound so faint that the thief in the office did not hear it. He was busily engaged on the lock of the farmer's safe.

The kitchen reached, Paul flew up the back stairs, and burst like a hurricane into the first room he came to. Luckily it was the right one.

It took him some time to rouse the old farmer and to make him understand what was happening, and when that was accomplished nothing would satisfy him but that he must dress as fully as on every other morning, and then rouse the household in that part of the house.

Paul quivered with impatience. "Quick! quick!" he groaned. "He may go up and murder mother or Stella while we are here." But the farmer had never been quick in his life, and did not know the meaning of the word.

"Plenty of time," he said, and Paul groaned with anguish. "Plenty of time, sir. That there lock'll keep un quiet for a brave bit, and I ain't going to trust myself in that place without plenty to back me up."

"I must go back alone, then," said Paul at last, in an agony of impatience; "I promised father I'd take care of them." And he began to descend the stairs, hoping by his departure to accelerate the movements of the others. But his hope was a forlorn one, and he went back by himself, in spite of the farmer's repeated injunctions to "wait a bit."

He hoped by being equally swift and silent to escape the notice of the thief again, but the man was no longer in the office. Whether he had succeeded in robbing the safe or not Paul did not know, but he soon gathered that he had gone upstairs; in fact, as Paul himself reached the landing, he heard him raise the latch of Stella's door and creep into the room.

"Who are you--what do you want?" gasped Paul. He was rendered well-nigh speechless at coming suddenly face to face with the burglar.

The man turned on him like a hunted animal at bay. "If you make a sound I'll shoot you!" he snarled, and with the same he whipped a revolver from his pocket. "If you'll hold your tongue and say nothing no harm'll come to anybody, but if you give the alarm I'll--"

But he did not complete his sentence, for their voices had wakened Stella, and at the sight of the stranger she started up in bed with a scream.

Frantic and desperate, the man turned from Paul to her. "Stop that noise, will you?" he hissed, "or I'll--" But at that moment Paul rushed past him, sprang on the bed, and placed his own body in front of his sister's.

"No, you don't," he half sobbed, half screamed, "you--you coward, you'll hit me first!"

It is doubtful if the man would have fired at little Stella; probably he meant only to frighten the children, but at that instant he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and with a frenzied look around him for a means of escape, he saw the doorway filled by the burly form of Farmer Minards.

Now Farmer Minards was not accustomed to the capturing of desperate men.

A better man with a kicking horse, or a savage bull, could not perhaps, be found on Dartmoor, and if the convict had stood and allowed himself to be pinioned with only a moderate amount of struggling and kicking, the farmer's presence of mind would have been sufficient, but, as it was, when the man made one bold rush, with pistol c.o.c.ked, for the very spot where he stood, he gave way before the rush; but for an instant there was a struggle and a fight, for Muggridge and the man who slept at the farm were close behind the farmer, little expecting their master to give way so soon, and leave them to grapple with their visitor, and it may have been that he intended to shoot down one of them, or that in the struggle the pistol accidentally went off, but in another second a bullet whistled through the air, and, pa.s.sing clean through the fleshy part of Paul's arm, became embedded in the wall behind.

Certain it is that if Paul had not dragged his sister flat down behind him on the bed poor Stella's life would have been ended then and there.

But Paul had expiated his sin n.o.bly, and he had nearly laid down his life for hers. Stella really thought he had laid it down in very truth when he fell forward on his face with blood pouring from him, and, overcome with grief and horror, she fainted dead away beside him.

Farmer Minards saw the children fall, and he, too, thought Paul was killed. In fact, for the moment he thought they both were, and with the horror of it, forgetting the convict and everything else, he rushed to the bedside, leaving Muggridge and Davey to manage as best they could.

But the convict had the best of it, and the two had never a chance to close with him. By the force and unexpectedness with which he came he burst through them, and dealing Davey a blow on the head with his pistol, and Muggridge one in the face with his fist, which left them both stunned and bleeding, he flew down the stairs and out of the house by the very window through which he had entered.

When Stella and Paul at last awoke again to life, and to a recollection of what had taken place, it seemed to be everybody's aim to banish from their minds the painful past, and the memory of that terrible night, and to fill their lives with everything that could brighten and cheer them and help them to forget. Paul was quite a hero in all their eyes; to Stella he seemed the very ideal of all that was splendid and brave, and to Paul's credit it must be said that the opinion he had of himself was far lower and more contemptuous than he deserved, and he would not listen to one word of praise.

CHAPTER XII.

STELLA'S ADVENTURE.

Naturally, one of the first inquiries of the children on recovering was as to whether their a.s.sailant had been captured, and Mrs. Anketell was greatly troubled, fearing it would make them nervous of the place if they knew he was still at large, and she longed to be able to a.s.sure them that the man was safely under lock and key again. Another thing she feared was that the children would be too terrified to stay in the neighbourhood, and would wish to be taken home. But when by-and-by an immediate return home was suggested to them they pleaded so hard--to her great relief--to be allowed to stay, that she gladly fell in with their wishes, being anxious to leave with a happier impression of the place than that given by the fright, almost tragedy, they had just sustained.

So they stayed on. Stella soon grew bright and rosy again when she saw that Paul was not dangerously hurt, and with the happy knack which healthy, plucky children, have, she soon threw off any dread she might have of going out and about, and with 'Watch' (the dog Farmer Minards gave the children to be their own special protector) at their heels, she and Michael wandered about, within reach of home, as happily as if no such person as a convict existed.

Paul, of course, did not recover so quickly; he had to be quiet until his wound had healed, and Stella and Michael missed him very much in all their games and walks, so much so indeed that Mr. Anketell, who had been sent for at once, took to planning little excursions to various picturesque spots in the neighbourhood, where they would have tea in a cottage, or in a cottage garden, and drive home in the cool of the evening.

One day, soon after the accident, while Paul was still too weak to get about, Mr. Anketell suggested that they should drive that afternoon to a village called Windycross, walk on a mile to the little town which was their nearest shopping-place, and come back to Windycross to tea.

Stella was delighted. For days she had been longing to buy a little present for Paul, but did not know how to manage it; here was her opportunity, and with her purse in her pocket, and heart full of delightful importance, she clambered up into the carriage and drove off.

It was a lovely day, and the children were in the highest spirits, only saddened every now and again by the sight of the searchers still scouring the country for the escaped man, and the fear that the poor fellow might at any moment be caught, for, strange though it may seem, all the children's sympathies were with him, and they longed to hear that the search had been abandoned.

The drive to Windycross was a long one, but they reached there in good time, and Michael and Stella stood looking about them full of interest at the funny little low white cottages, while their father went into one and ordered tea. Then they strolled slowly on to the town, and Stella laid out two of the five shillings she possessed on a book she knew Paul was longing to possess. Her pleasure and excitement over her purchase were immense; she could not allow anyone else to carry it, and every now and again she was filled with a longing to untie the string and look at her treasure, to turn over the crisp new leaves, and glance at the pictures.

At last, when they reached the village, she could restrain herself no longer. They had got back earlier than they thought they would, and the tea was not ready, so Mr. Anketell, who wanted to call on a friend near by, thought he would go and do that while they were waiting, and take the children with him.