After a moment Moll spoke.

"You bid me shut up," she said, with an angry jangle in her naturally soft, full tones. "All right, I will, Joe Harris; but when the time comes--as come it shall--that you're sorry you didn't listen to me, don't look to Moll for pity. There, them's my last words."

Then a sullen silence fell upon the pair; but by the time the caravan had reached its destination they were chatting as harmoniously as if no difference of opinion had ever arisen to disturb their peace.

The horses were again unyoked, the bear dragged from its lair, and arrangements put in train for the night. After a scanty supper of sc.r.a.ps and fragments--for by this time the store in the larder was at low ebb--having charged Bambo and Tonio with threats and strong words to look well after the children on peril of their lives, and on no account to allow them out of the van, Joe and Moll dressed themselves in their best, and set off to look up some old friends and spend a pleasant evening in the town.

No sooner were they safely out of the way than Tonio slyly disappeared--following, doubtless, the example set him by his master and mistress--possessing no more sense of responsibility to restrain his movements than a kitten or a b.u.t.terfly. Thus the dwarf found himself, greatly to his satisfaction and delight, left in sole charge of the captives and the encampment.

The first faint light of the misty October morning was spreading up slowly from the east, the delicate h.o.a.r frost of autumn was lying like a filmy veil of silvery gossamer over the furze bushes and rough gra.s.s around the camping-place, before the pair of pleasure-seekers returned.

By that time, however, Tonio was sleeping soundly beside the piebalds in shelter of a tumble-down wall, with the monkey curled closely in against his dusky breast. Joe and Moll were stupid, tired, and decidedly out of sorts, as people are wont to be after a surfeit of enjoyment and a scant supply of sleep. Bruno growled as usual at being disturbed, and clanked his chain as if in remonstrance; from behind the wall the uneasy fidgeting of the hungry horses could be plainly heard; while Tonio's noisy snoring rose and fell upon the still, damp air with rhythmical regularity. But over the old yellow caravan a curious and suspicious silence reigned; not a sound was to be heard within its wooden walls, not a glimmer of light came through its curtained panes.

Joe muttered an ugly word, roughly threw open the door, struck a match, lighted the lamp and peered about him. Bambo's usual shakedown was deserted; the pallet where the children should have been was unoccupied.

The place was empty; the prisoners had escaped--under the guidance of the dwarf undoubtedly, many hours before, probably.

Behind her husband's back Moll executed a sort of breakdown dance, so great was her satisfaction at the unexpected way in which her wishes had been carried out. But the disappointment and wrath of Joe over this sudden overthrow of his schemes were deep and furious.

CHAPTER XII.

FOLLOWED BY THE ENEMY.

"What will the fishers do, When at the break of day They seek the pretty boats they left Moored in the quiet bay?

They seek the pretty boats, And find that they are fled; Alas! what will the fishers do?

How can they earn their bread?"

--"A."

After his talk with Darby, the dwarf thought long and anxiously as to what would be their best route to Firgrove. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances their simplest one would have been to start from Barchester, or else go back to Engleton, then straight along by the ca.n.a.l to Firdale, thence to Firgrove, which was only about a mile from the village. But Joe and Moll would be sure to follow them, in order to make an attempt to recover their captives. Several times before Joe had tried to kidnap an attractive smart child whom he could train to be a sort of golden prop upon which his laziness could lean, but hitherto he had always been balked in his purpose. He would be furiously angry, Bambo knew, when he discovered that, just when a life of ease and idleness such as he had longed for seemed certain in the near future, he was as far as ever from accomplishing his object.

So, in order to avoid the chance of being brought back and subjected to greater cruelty than before, the dwarf decided to take a much longer way than that by the ca.n.a.l. They would strike out across the common behind Barchester, then double back a bit, and follow an unfrequented road which also led to Firdale, winding through a long tract of hilly land, laid out chiefly in runs for mountain cattle and hardy sheep, and scarcely inhabited except by herds and shepherds.

They could, of course, have travelled by rail, but this mode did not even occur to Bambo. For one thing, he was penniless, except for a few coppers that had escaped Moll's covetous eyes and grasping fingers the last time she rifled his pockets, when she supposed him to be asleep; and for another, he was not used to railway journeys. He had never, in fact, been inside a railway carriage in all his life, and he would have hated and shrunk from the attention he would most a.s.suredly have attracted from all sorts of people--pity, horror, shrugs, smiles, grins, jeers, and laughter. It was bad enough to be stared at in booths and fairs when he was dressed up as a general in a shabby scarlet uniform and plumed hat with Bruno by his side. That was different. That was the only way he had ever hit upon by which he might honestly earn his food and shelter, such as it was. But from choice the dwarf had always avoided his fellow-creatures. Surrounded by the strong, the self-satisfied, the handsome, the gay, the consciousness of his own oddity and deformity was borne in upon his sensitive spirit in the keenest manner; but in the woods and fields, by the roadside and the hedgerows, he felt another person entirely. There Bambo forgot that he was so unlike his fellows; and among the birds, the beasts, the trees, the flowers, with G.o.d's wide heaven above and the green earth under foot, this simple, large-souled child of nature dropped his burden, and for the time being felt happy and at home.

He knew quite well the way along which he proposed to travel, for he had footed it from Firdale to Barchester more than once when he was a boy.

In the scattered cottages and herdsmen's huts there were simple, kindly souls, who would welcome any one from the outside world, and willingly give them a bit of bread, a drink of milk, with maybe a shakedown by their fireside for the night, without asking any awkward questions or gazing too curiously at the odd little man and his charming companions.

They might get a lift, too, for a few miles now and again in a cart or wagon going between one and another of the few farms along the route.

Bambo sincerely hoped they should, for Joan would not be able to walk very far at once. Her feet were tender, and her shoes were thin. Bambo knew she should have to be carried the greater part of the way, and his great anxiety was lest his fund of strength, which had gradually grown so sadly small, should fail him before he had completed his self-imposed task. What would become of the little ones if he were forced to lie down under the friendly shelter of some wayside hedge, utterly unable to drag himself another step? Would Joe and Moll find them and force them back to a life of lovelessness, hardship, and degradation? Oh, surely not!

and the dwarf's soul sank within him as he contemplated the bare possibility of such failure and defeat.

For a while Bambo gave way to despondency and these by no means unnatural fears. Soon, however, this mood pa.s.sed away, banished as swiftly as mist before sunshine, by the recollection of a promise--old almost as the everlasting hills, yet new as the song which the redeemed ones sing around the throne of G.o.d,--

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy G.o.d: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

Like a whisper of sweetest music the peace of the words stole over the dwarf's troubled spirit, soothing and fortifying him so that he felt himself no longer a weakling, a pigmy, but a veritable giant to fight and to endure. And with a smile upon his lips and a light not of earth in his sunken eyes, Bambo and his charges slipped noiselessly away from the bear, the monkey, and the caravan, and set out, not to _seek_ the Happy Land, as Darby said with one of his quaint, grave glances, but this time to _find_ it.

The first streaks of sunlight were lighting up the landscape before the little party paused to take a rest, and to eat some of the food which the dwarf's fore-thought had provided. Darby found a dry seat upon the trunk of a fallen tree. Upon it they sat and ate their breakfast of cold rabbit and dry bread, washed down by a draught of pure water carried in a tin porringer from a spring which bubbled out of the bank hard by--a spring that was half hidden by the feathery moss, trailing periwinkle, and brown fern fronds with which it was surrounded. The children breakfasted heartily, their early outing having sharpened their appet.i.tes; but Bambo's eating was only a pretence, for he was not hungry. Joan was a fairly solid weight for a girl of five, and he had carried her in his arms nearly all the way from the encampment. He was tired and exhausted in consequence; his hands burned, his lips were parched, his brow fevered. He laved his face with the clear, cool water; and after a long, deep drink from the porringer, which Joan held to his lips with all the precision and gravity of a professional nurse, he felt strengthened and refreshed.

By-and-by they set out again, and now Joan trotted by Bambo's side, chattering gaily the while. The sunshine was warm and bright. The air was alive with myriads of insects flitting and buzzing their brief life away. Sparrows chirped and wrangled in the bare brown hedges, robins piped their sweet, plaintive tune from every tree; film-like webs of silvery gossamer decked the gra.s.s beneath their feet, and draped the stunted furze bushes as with a bridal veil of rarest lace. It was all so gladsome, so beautiful, so free, that Joan laughed and skipped for joy.

And was she not going back to Miss Carolina, and the cats, and baby, and Auntie Alice, and Firgrove? Darby trudged more soberly by the dwarf's side, and they chatted as they went. Bambo told tales of his boyhood. He described to the children the tiny two-roomed cottage, long since swept away to be replaced by a more sanitary habitation, where he and his widowed mother lived with his grandfather and grandmother. He spoke of his kind grandmother's death, and his mother's, almost immediately after, from the same destroying fever. Thus Bambo was left practically alone in the world. His grandfather was a sour, silent man, disappointed first in his only son, who had never been anything but a ne'er-do-well and a burden to his parents; then in his grandson, whose deformity and helplessness the old man resented as a personal injury at the hand of Providence. He could not tolerate the child as a baby--never set eyes upon him, in fact, if he could help it. When the baby grew from infancy to childhood, he quickly learned, guided by the unerring instinct usually possessed by the young, to keep out of his grandfather's way and to fear him, so that there was little love lost between them. After the two women were gone the state of matters grew worse. Sore from a sense of injustice, starved for want of affection, the boy was often sullen and sometimes disobedient. Strife and even blows were the outcome, until life in Moses Green's lodging--for he had quitted the cottage--became unbearable to the wretched, misguided boy. Indeed, so unhappy did he feel in those dark days after his mother's death, that he had been often tempted to wonder why G.o.d had made him at all when he was not made as others, when in all the big, wide world there seemed no fitting place for such as he.

There were several kind, good people who, aware of the harsh, unnatural feeling of the surly old gardener towards his grandson, were anxious to befriend the orphan child--Squire Turner of Firgrove, the father of Aunt Catharine and Auntie Alice, being among the number. But the first thing they one and all proposed was that for a while he should be sent to school, and to this the lad resolutely refused to submit. Did he not know what strong, active boys who could leap, and run, and fight, and play football were like out of school? They were his enemies, his tormentors, who mocked, gibed, jeered, stoned him even, until he sometimes felt he would like to wrap his long arms round their necks and strangle the whole lot of them. And if they were cruel and unkind out of school, when he could generally get away from them somehow, or hide, what would they be in it where there should be no escape? School indeed!

Not likely! So in order to free himself from the attentions of those who meant well enough, no doubt, but, in the dwarf's opinion, did not know what they were talking about, Bambo did what many another boy has done on the top of his temper before and since--he ran away, far, far away to the big town of Barchester, upon which he and the children had just turned their backs, tramping every step of the long, weary journey.

It was quickly made plain to him, however, that most of the lads who loafed about the Barchester street corners were curiously similar to the boys of Firdale in their love of teasing and making a mock of any creature weaker than themselves, any one whose appearance or peculiarities presented a fair b.u.t.t for their rough ridicule, and gradually the dwarf grew to cherish a rooted hatred to his race.

The days went on. He had arrived in Barchester with only a long-treasured threepenny piece in his pocket. Rapidly it melted away; for a few pence do not last very long, even when one buys only a halfpenny worth of bread a day and sleeps on a doorstep. He was almost famished and worn to a shadow when, by good luck or ill, he fell in with the proprietor of the Satellite Circus Company and his troupe, as Joe so grandly called the occupants of the huge yellow caravan. They were just starting on tour--the phrase is Joe's--for the summer. Joe eagerly invited the dwarf to accompany them, being on the lookout at the time for a fresh sensation, and seeing in the extraordinary-looking lad, with the huge head, stunted legs, and sprawling feet, a novel addition to his party at the cost merely of some sc.r.a.ps and a shelter, when a shelter was available and not required for any other purpose.

The boy on his part jumped at the man's offer, for was he not starving?

Besides, he was overjoyed at the prospect of the freedom and the outdoor life held out to him by the proposal that he should become part and parcel of the constantly-moving caravan. And what a fine way of escape from his persecutors! So there and then the dwarf was enrolled as a regular member of the Satellite Circus Company. His real name--plain Jimmy Green--was scornfully cast aside. Mr. Harris voted it slow and commonplace. After a good deal of thought and much indecision, he subst.i.tuted the more catchy one of Bambo as being both novel and appropriate to the profession--Bambo, the musical dwarf; though why he was dubbed musical was always a puzzle to the poor little man, because n.o.body had ever known him to sing a note in his life. Sing! why, with his hoa.r.s.e, croaky voice he could no more make music than a frog in a marsh. The absurdity of it amused him at first every time he saw his name flaring in big red and yellow letters from placards and h.o.a.rdings.

Bambo was all right; he rather liked the change. And Bambo he had remained ever since, until, like Darby and Joan, the dwarf had almost forgotten his claim to any other name.

From year to year he stayed on with Joe and Moll. Other members of the company came and went, but still the dwarf remained--now cuffed and kicked, when he did not by his grotesque antics and claptrap tricks bring in as many pence as his patrons believed he might; again let alone when he had been lucky, and they were in a good humour with themselves and all the world. He acted as bear-leader and buffoon, villain and hero, alternately in public; while in private he was cook, drudge, messman, and menagerie manager for the rest of the party, for animals of some sort invariably formed part of the attractions of the troupe. Now it was a performing poodle, picked up somewhere in Mr. Harris's own ingenious way of finding things which had never been lost; again it was a cage of white mice; at another time a wonderful parrot, with always a monkey, and generally a bear. Bambo had a great way with these creatures, and often succeeded in teaching them tricks when Joe had failed. His methods were few and simple, based chiefly upon kindness and perseverance; whereas Joe's one idea of imparting instruction was by threats and chastis.e.m.e.nt in some form, dealt out impartially to each and all, and more than one valuable animal had come to grief on the system.

It was a hard life, and after a time became very monotonous to the dwarf, who was often heartsick of it all. But what else was there for him to do? Nothing that he knew of, so he stayed on.

One after another the changing seasons slipped swiftly away, and in their pa.s.sing brought to the Satellite Circus Company reverses and bad times. They found it impossible to keep pace with the ever-growing craze for something fresh, a new excitement, and in consequence had slowly but surely been losing their place in public favour. Then the company was broken up. The Swedish giantess went over to an opposition troupe; the German ventriloquist and conjurer had died of apoplexy; their leading lady, who so airily executed the tight-rope performances as well, went off one fine day without saying good-bye, and married the clown, with whom she had serious thoughts of setting up a select show on her own account. The roomy, comfortable caravan was sold, and an old lumbering machine hired each summer instead; while in winter the party lived from hand to mouth on their wits, putting up here, there, and anyhow. The animals had all died or been disposed of except the horses--a pair of broken-down yet intelligent piebalds--Puck, and Bruno, the bear that Bambo had trained from a cub, and tamed until he was as gentle as a lamb with every one but Joe, towards whom he seemed to entertain a dislike both deep and savage.

As the years rolled round, Bambo became reconciled to his lot, and in course of time more than reconciled, even happy. For in the many solitary hours he pa.s.sed perched above the horses upon the box of the caravan, when the soft summer wind fanned his face, or in dark, dewy midnights, when in the shelter of some leafy forest glade he felt himself alone with nature, long-forgotten words he had heard from his mother's lips, prayers she had taught him, hymns she had crooned beside his bed, came back to his memory--not quickly or clearly all at once, but slowly, hazily. He eagerly welcomed these memories, and hungrily held them close. At first they represented to him his mother--gentle, pitiful, loving--come back from the dead, and the friendless youth felt no longer desolate. Then he began to ponder the meaning of the thoughts that filled his heart and brain; and G.o.d, by His silent lessons, conveyed through every bird that flies, every insect that crawls, each flower that raises its smiling beauty to the sun, helped him to understand. He had learned to read, in an imperfect sort of way, during his early years. He bought a Bible with clear type in the next village they stopped at, and, by dint of frequent practice, he was soon able to read it easily. The Book became his constant comfort and delight.

Henceforth existence ceased to be a burden to the despised dwarf; each day brought a fresh message of hope, and held a sweeter significance of love for this. .h.i.therto hopeless, loveless creature, because the Lord had discovered to him the real meaning of life, and he knew himself--mean, unworthy though he was--at his true value: no longer only a log, a spectacle, an offence, but an immortal soul for whom the dear Christ Jesus had esteemed it no shame to die! He was sure that he was wanted in the world, that there was a use for him, a something which he alone could do, and he patiently awaited the Lord's orders. Now he knew that his special work had been put ready to his hand--the deliverance of these two little ones. And although the call to action did not sound until his sands of life were well-nigh run, the answer "Ready!" rang none the less cheerily and promptly.

At midday, which Bambo was able to guess pretty nearly by the sun, the fugitives halted to have their dinner. Joan said it was not dinner at all, only breakfast over again; for it consisted of some more cold rabbit, a slice of bread each, with a drink of water. And very good it tasted to these hungry little people, who many a time at Firgrove had discontentedly turned up their noses at much more dainty fare. Then Joan fell asleep, cradled comfortably in the dwarf's long arms, and Darby dozed at his side.

When they awoke it was well on in the afternoon. The sun was no longer visible; a chilling wind had sprung up from the east; dull gray clouds hung loweringly overhead; a close mist, as of coming rain, wrapped the landscape as in a mantle. Bambo felt that they must push on, and, if possible, find somewhere to shelter in for the night. It would never do for these tenderly-nurtured children to be exposed to a drenching. About himself the dwarf had no anxiety. A shower more or less could not matter much, he thought, as a more severe fit of coughing than usual shook his frail, thin body and tore at his poor, raw chest. Nothing mattered now, he told himself, except that he should accomplish the work his Master had given him to do, and along with the work he believed that he should also be granted a sufficiency of strength. After that--why, he would be quite ready and eager for the next call upon him, whenever it came.

But there was not a house or cottage within sight, only a long stretch of barren land, half heather, partly coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, over which some small, horned sheep and half-grown cattle had been turned out to pasture. About three miles off, at a place called Hanleigh Heath, there was a farm with a solitary wayside dwelling attached--a big, bare barn of a place, part of which the farmer had utilized as a sort of rude hostelry. The dwarf knew it well. It was called the Traveller's Delight.

He had put up there with the Harrises one night several years before.

The landlord and Joe seemed the best of friends--as "thick as thieves,"

in fact. Therefore Bambo felt that he dared not venture within the hostelry with his charges--it would not be safe; besides, they had no money to pay for lodging. Nevertheless, they must make for it with all speed. The rain was coming on, and soon too. The Traveller's Delight held out their only chance of refuge from the wet and the darkness, and the dwarf hoped that in some of its straggling outhouses they should find shelter for the night.

It was almost dark when Darby and the dwarf saw a light twinkling a short way off, like a bright, friendly eye from out the gloom. Oh, how thankful they were! for both were weary beyond the power of moving many yards further. Darby was staggering from giddiness and stumbling at every step. His little legs dragged one after the other as if each foot were weighted with lead. Bambo spoke no word, for speech was now hardly possible to him, his throat was so sore, his breath so laboured, his chest so torn by the deep, grating cough, which, in spite of all his efforts, he could not suppress. The instant the rain actually began to fall he had taken off his jacket to wrap around Joan, who was sound asleep in his arms, and his vest he had put upon Darby. It hung about the boy's slim shoulders and over his knees somewhat like a sack. It had saved him from a wetting, however; while Bambo, thus stripped of his outer garments, was soaked to the skin.

He carefully laid the still sleeping Joan under the shelter of a hayrick in the stackyard behind the inn; and charging Darby neither to make a noise nor leave her alone, no matter what might happen, the dwarf crept cautiously forward--stealthy in his movements as a cat stalking a mouse--to ascertain whether there was any safe cover to which he could convey the children.

From the front of the inn the lamplight streamed through the uncurtained windows, shining cheerily on the wet cobble-stones of the sloppy courtyard, and now and again a shrill voice pierced the silence of the night as a woman's figure moved to and fro within the warmly-glowing kitchen. But outside there was no sign of life; all was still except for the occasional shuffling of the horses' feet in the stable, the slow, deep breathing of the cows in an adjacent shed; and Bambo became bolder.

He peeped in at this window, he peered within that door, until at length he found what he wanted--an empty house with plenty of clean, dry straw strewn upon its floor.

In summer it had probably been used for housing the calves which were now wandering at will over the wide, wet pasture-lands, having arrived at an age when they could be promoted to share the privations without enjoying any of the comforts of the grown-up creatures belonging to the establishment. No one was likely to have an errand there now that its former occupants were away. In any case, n.o.body would be about before morning, Bambo reasoned, and by day-dawn he and his charges would have once more taken the road for Firgrove.

Gently and carefully he raised Joan from her bed beside the haystack, fearing that if she awoke she might make a noise. She did awake, however, sat up, looked all round in a frightened fashion, then began to whimper. Drawing a fold of shawl across her mouth and whispering to Darby to keep close, the dwarf carried her as swiftly and silently as possible to the shelter which he had discovered. There, snugly curled up among the clean, dry straw like kittens in a basket, the little ones were both soon sound asleep.