"But, sister, how can us go home? _I_ don't know the way, do you?"

Pamela looked about her doubtfully.

"P'raps it isn't so very far," she said. "Us had better go on; and when it's a long way from the policeman, us can ask somebody the road."

There seemed indeed nothing else to do. On they tramped for what seemed to them an endless way, and still they were in the narrow lane with the high hedges; so that, after walking for a very long time, they could have fancied they were in the same place where they started. And as they met no one they could not ask the way, even had they dared to do so. At last--just as they were beginning to get very tired--the lane quite suddenly came out on a short open bit of waste land, across which a cart-track led to a wide well-kept road. And this, though they had no idea of it, was actually the coach-road to Sandlingham; for--though, it must be allowed, more by luck than good management--they had hit upon a short cut to the highway, which if Tim had known of it would have saved him all his present troubles!

For a moment or two Duke and Pamela felt cheered by having at last got out of the weary lane. They ran eagerly across the short distance that separated them from the road, with a vague idea that once on it they would somehow or other see something--meet some one to guide them as to what next to do. But it was not so--there it stretched before them, white and smooth and dusty at both sides, rising a little to the right and sloping downwards to the left--away, away, away--to where? Not a cart or carriage of any kind--not a foot-pa.s.senger even--was to be seen.

And the sun was hot, and the four little legs were very tired; and where was the use of tiring them still more when they might only be wandering farther and farther from their home? For, though the choice was not great, being simply a question of up-hill or down-dale, it was as bad as if there had been half a dozen ways before them, as they had not the least idea which of the two was the right one!

The two pair of blue eyes looked at each other piteously; then the eyelids drooped, and big tears slowly welled out from underneath them; the twins flung their arms about each other, and, sitting down on the little bit of dusty gra.s.s that bordered the highway, burst into loud and despairing sobs.

CHAPTER XII.

GOOD-BYE TO "US."

"And as the evening twilight fades away, The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day."

_Morituri Salutamus._

By slow degrees their sobs exhausted themselves. Pamela leant her head against Duke and shut her eyes.

"I am so tired, bruvver," she said. "If us could only get some quiet place out of the sun I would like to lie down and go to sleep. Wouldn't you, bruvver?"

"I don't know," said Duke.

"I wonder if the birds would cover us up wif leaves," said Pamela dreamily, "like those little children long ago?"

"That would be if us was dead," said Duke. "Oh sister, you don't think us must be going to die!"

"I don't know," said Pamela in her turn.

Suddenly Duke raised himself a little, and Pamela, feeling him move, sat up and opened her eyes.

"What is it?" she asked, but he did not need to answer, for just then she too heard the sound that had caught Duke's ears. It was the barking of a dog--not a deep baying sound, but a short, eager, energetic bark, and seemingly very near them. The children looked at each other and then rose to their feet.

"Couldn't you fink it was Toby?" said Pamela in a low voice, though why she spoke so low she could not have said.

Duke nodded, and then, moved by the same impulse, they went forward to the middle of the road and looked about them, hand in hand. Again came the sharp eager bark, and this time a voice was heard as if soothing the dog, though they could not quite catch the words. But some one was near them--thus much seemed certain, and the very idea had comfort in it.

Still, for a minute or two they could not make out where were the dog and its owner; for they did not know that a short way down the road a path ending in a stile crossed the fields from the village of Nooks to the high-road. And when, therefore, at but a few paces distant, there suddenly appeared a small figure, looking dark against the white dust of the road, frisking and frolicking about in evident excitement, it really seemed to the little brother and sister as if it had sprung out of the earth by magic. They had not time, however, to speak--hardly to wonder--to themselves before, all frisking and frolicking at an end, the s.h.a.ggy ball was upon them, and, with a rush that for half a second made Pamela inclined to scream, the little dog flew at them, barking, yelping, almost choking with delight, flinging himself first on one then on the other, darting back a step or two as if to see them more distinctly and make sure he was not mistaken, then rolling himself upon them again all quivering and shaking with rapture. And the cry of ecstasy that broke from the twins would have gone to the heart of any one that loved them.

"Oh Toby, Toby!--bruvver--sister--it is, it _is_ our own Toby. He has come to take us home. Oh dear, _dear_ Toby!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OH TOBY, TOBY!--BRUVVER--SISTER--IT IS, IT IS OUR OWN TOBY, HE HAS COME TO TAKE US HOME. OH DEAR, DEAR TOBY!"--p. 220.]

It _did_ go to the heart of some one not far off. A quaintly-clad, somewhat aged, woman was slowly climbing the stile at the moment that the words rang clearly out into the summer air. "Oh Toby, _our_ Toby!"

and no one who had not seen it could have believed how nimbly old Barbara skipped or slid or tumbled down the steps on the road-side of the stile, and how, in far less time than it takes to tell it, she was down on her knees in the dust with a child in each arm, and Toby flashing about the trio, so that he seemed to be everywhere at once.

"My precious darlings!--my dear little master and missy!--and has old Barbara found you after all? or Toby rather. I thank the Lord who has heard my prayers. To think I should have such a delight in my old days as to be the one to take you back to my dearest lady! A sore heart was I coming along with--to think that I had heard nothing of you for all I had felt so sure I would. And oh, my darlings, where _have_ you been, and how has it all come about?"

But a string of questions was the first answer she got.

"Have you come to look for us, dear Barbara? Did Grandpapa and Grandmamma send you, and Toby too? How did you know which way to come?

And have you seen Tim? Did Tim tell you?"

"Tim, Tim, I know nought of who Tim is, my dearies," said Barbara, shaking her head. "If it's any one that's been good to you, so much the better. I've been at Nooks, the village hard by, for some days with my niece. I meant to have stayed but two or three nights, but I've been more nor a week, and a worry in my heart all the time not to get back home to hear if there was no news of you, and how my poor lady was. And to think if I _had_ gone home I wouldn't have met you--dear--dear--but the ordering of things is wonderful!"

"And didn't you come to look for us, then? But why is Toby with you?"

asked the children.

"He was worritting your dear Grandmamma. There was no peace with him after you were lost. And though I didn't rightly come to Monkhaven to look for you, I had a feeling--it was bore in on me that I'd maybe find some trace of you, and I thought Toby would be the best help. And truly I could believe he'd scented you were not far off--the worry he's been all this morning! A-barking and a-sniffing and a-listening like! I was in two minds as to which way I'd take this morning--round by Monkhaven or by the lane. But Toby he was all for the lane, and so I just took his way, the Lord be thanked!"

"He _knowed_ us was here--he did, didn't he? Oh, darling Toby!" cried the twins.

But then Barbara had to be told all. Not very clear was the children's account of their adventures at first; for the losing of Tim and the vision of the policeman and the ca.n.a.l boat were the topmost on their minds, and came tumbling out long before anything about the gipsies, which of course was the princ.i.p.al thing to tell. Bit by bit, however, thanks to her patience, their old friend came to understand the whole.

She heaved a deep sigh at last.

"To think that it was the gipsies after all."

But she made not many remarks, and said little about the broken-bowl-part of the story. It would be for their dear Grandmamma to show them where they had been wrong, she thought modestly, if indeed they had not found it out for themselves already. I think they had.

"Us is always going to tell Grandmamma _everyfing_ now," said Pamela.

"And us is always going to listen to the talking of that little voice,"

added Duke.

But the first excitement over, old Barbara began to notice that the children were looking very white and tired. How was she ever to get them to Brigslade--a five miles' walk at least--where again, for she had chosen Brigslade market-day on purpose, she counted on Farmer Carson to give her a lift home? She was not strong enough to carry them--one at a time--more than a short distance. Besides she had her big basket.

Glancing at it gave her another idea.

"I can at least give you something to eat," she said. "Niece Turwall packed all manner of good things in here," and, after some rummaging, out she brought two slices of home-made cake and a bottle of currant wine, of which she gave them each a little in a cup without a handle which Mrs. Turwall had thoughtfully put in. The cake and the wine revived the children wonderfully. They said they were able to walk "a long long way," and indeed there was nothing for it but to try, and so the happy little party set off.

The thought of Tim, however, weighed on their minds, and when Barbara had arrived at some sort of idea as to who he was, and what he had done, she too felt even more anxious about him. Even without prejudice it must be allowed that the police of those days were not what they are now, and Barbara knew that for a poor waif like Tim it would not be easy to obtain a fair hearing.

"And he won't be wanting to get that gipsy girl into trouble by telling on the lot of them, which will make it harder for the poor lad," thought the shrewd old woman, for the children had told her all about Diana.

"But there's nothing to be done that I can see except to get the General to write to the police at Monkhaven." For Mrs. Twiss knew that Duke and Pam would be terribly against the idea of going back to the town and to the police office. And she herself had no wish to do so--she was not without some distrust of the officers of the law herself, and it would, too, have grieved her sadly not to have been the one to restore the lost children to their friends. Besides, Farmer Carson would be waiting for her at the cross roads, for "if by any chance I don't come back before, you may be sure I'll be there on Friday, next market-day," she had said to him at parting.

"You don't think they'll put Tim in prison, do you?" asked Duke, seeing that the old woman's face grew grave when she had heard all.

"Oh no, surely, not so bad as that," she replied. "And even if we went back I don't know that it would do much good."

"Go back to where the policemans are," exclaimed the twins, growing pale at the very idea. "Oh please--_please_ don't," and they both crept closer to their old friend.

"But if it would make them let Tim come wif us?" added Pamela, shivering, nevertheless. "I'd _try_ not to be frightened. Poor Tim--he has been so good to us, us can't go and leave him all alone."

"But, my deary," said Barbara, "I don't rightly see what we can do for him. The police might think it right to keep us all there too--and I'm that eager to get you home to ease your dear Grandmamma and the General.