_Midsummer Night's Dream._

There was no one to be seen when they got to the back gate. The children stood and looked about--Pamela with the bits of broken crockery in her ap.r.o.n held up in front, Duke tightly clasping the precious money-box.

They looked this way and that way, up the lane and down the lane, but could see nothing or n.o.body save Farmer Riggs' very old horse turned out at the side of the hedge, and two or three ducks who had perversely chosen to wander out to grub about in a small pool of stagnant water instead of gratefully enjoying their own nice clean pond, as Grandmamma's ducks might have been expected to do. At another time Duke and Pamela would certainly have chased the stray ducks home again, with many pertinent remarks on their naughty disobedience, but just now they had no thought or attention to give to anything but their own concerns.

A sudden feeling came over Pamela, and she turned to Duke.

"Bruvver," she said, "those people hasn't come. I fink they're not good people, and they won't come near the house. I daresay they're somewhere down the lane, not far off--but don't you _fink_ perhaps us had better not look for them any more, but just go home, and when Grandmamma comes in tell her _everyfing_. Even if she is raver angry, wouldn't it be better, bruvver? I'm almost sure my little voice inside is telling me so," and Pamela stood for a moment with a look of intent listening on her face. "Yes, I'm sure that's what it's trying to say. Can you hear yours, bruvver?"

Duke looked undecided.

"I can't listen just now, sister," he replied. "I'm full of thinking how nice it would be to buy a bowl just the same, and take it in and give it to poor Biddy, and then she wouldn't be scolded. I don't think I'd mind telling Grandmamma once us had got the bowl. She'd be so pleased to have one the same."

"_I_ fink she'd be most pleased for us to tell her everyfing,"

maintained Pamela stoutly.

And Duke, always impressed by her opinion, wavered, and no doubt he would have wavered back into the right way, had not, just at that moment, a low whistle been heard some way to the left down the lane; and, looking in the direction from whence it came, the little boy and girl caught sight of a head quickly poked out and as quickly drawn back again into the shade of the hedge. But not too quickly for them to have recognised the sharp black eyes and rough black hair of the gipsy pedlar.

Without replying to Pamela Duke darted off, and, though much against her will, the little girl felt she could not but follow him. Before they had quite reached the spot the head was poked out again.

"I've had to wait here for you, master and missy," said the man. "There were some farmers men down that way, round the corner," and he jerked his thumb--for he had by this time come out of his hole--in an imaginary direction, "as said this were a private road, and they'd set dogs on us if we came on. I'm a peaceable fellow, and not fond o' fightin', so I'd just have gone on my way out of their road but for promisin' you to come round this way."

"It's very strange," said Duke; "I don't know what it means about a private road, but I know everybody always pa.s.ses this way--that's why us likes Spy Tower so much, there's so many people pa.s.sing."

"It's all along of our being poor folk," said the man; "there's no fair play for poor folk. But I'm one as keeps his word, so here I am. And the donkey and the missus are down the road there waiting--there's a little wood where we thought n.o.body would disturb us for a bit, if you and missy will come so far--the missus said she'd unpack the pots. But you must be quick--I dursn't hang about here, and if you can't come there's no more to be said," and he turned as if to go.

"Just wait one instant, please," said Pamela hastily, extracting one of the fragments from her ap.r.o.n; "just look at this. It's no use our going to see the bowls if you've none the same--do you fink you have any like this?"

The man pretended to start.

"Well, that is cur'ous," he said. "If my eyes is not deceivin' me, that's the very pattern we've a whole set on--the bowls shouldn't ought to be sold separate, but to oblige you we'll see what the missus will do," and again he turned to go.

The children looked at each other. They had never before in their lives been outside the gates alone; of this back road and where it led to they knew very little, as it was always on the other road--that leading to Sandlingham--that Nurse liked to walk. They did not remember the little wood the man spoke of, but they did not like to contradict him; then, if it was only such a little way, they could run back in a minute when they had got the bowl, and all would be right. So they took each other's hands and followed the man, who was already striding some steps in front down the lane, glancing behind him over his shoulder from time to time to see if the little couple had made up their minds.

A few minutes' quick walking on his part, necessitating something between a trot and a run on theirs, brought them out of the lane into the high road. Here the man stopped short for a moment and looked about him--the children supposed in search of his companions and the donkey.

But there was no one and nothing to be seen.

"I don't think us can come any farther," said Duke rather timidly. The man turned round with a scowl on his face, but in a moment he had smoothed it away and spoke in the same oily tones.

"It's just a step farther," he said, "and I can take you a shorter way through the fields than the missus could go with the donkey. This way, master and missy," and he quickly crossed the road, still glancing up and down, and, climbing over a stile, stood beckoning for the children to follow.

They had never noticed this stile before; they had not the slightest idea where it led to, but somehow they felt more afraid now to turn back than to go on; and, indeed, it would not have been any use, for, had he cared to do so, the man could have overtaken them in a moment. The stile was hard for their short legs to climb, but they had a great dislike to the idea of his touching them, and would not ask for help. And once he had got them on the other side of it he seemed to feel he had them in his power, and did not take much notice of them, but strode on through the rough brushwood--for they were by this time in a sort of little coppice--as if he cared for nothing but to get over the ground as fast as possible. And still the two followed him--through the coppice, across one or two ploughed fields, down a bit of lane where they had never been before, plunging at last into a wood where the trees grew thick and dark--a forest of gloom it seemed to Duke and Pamela--and all this time they never met a creature, or pa.s.sed any little cottage such as they were accustomed to see on the cheerful Sandlingham road. The pedlar knew the country, and had chosen the least frequented way. Had they by any chance met a carriage or cart, even when crossing the high road, he would not have dared to risk being seen with the children, but in that case he would no doubt have hurried off, leaving them to find their way home as best they might. But no such good fortune having befallen them, on they trotted--hand-in-hand for the most part, though by this time several stumbles had scratched and bruised them, and their flying hair, flushed faces and tumbled clothes made them look very different from the little "master and missy" Biddy had sent out into the peaceful garden to play that sweet April afternoon.

_Why_ they went on, they could not themselves have told. Often in after years, and when they had grown older and wiser, they asked themselves the question. It was not exactly fear, for as yet the man had not actually spoken roughly to them, nor was it altogether a feeling of shame at giving in--it was a mixture of both perhaps, and some strange sort of fascination that even very wise people might not find it easy to explain. For every time their steps lagged, and they felt as if they could go no farther, a glance over his shoulder of the man in front seemed to force them on again. And as the wood grew closer and darker this feeling increased. They felt as if they were miles and miles from home, in some strange and distant country they had never before seen or heard of; they seemed to be going on and on, as in a dream. And though poor little Pamela still, through all her stumbles and tumbles, held tightly up before her the corners of her ap.r.o.n, containing the bits of the unlucky bowl, and Duke, on his side, still firmly clutched his precious money-box, I do not believe either of them had by this time any very clear remembrance of why they were laden with these queer burdens, or what was the object of the strange and painful expedition.

And still on strode the piercing-eyed gipsy, as sure of his prey now apparently as a fowler who watches unmoved the fruitless struggles of some poor little birds in the net from which they have no chance of escaping.

It would be impossible to say how far they had gone--perhaps not so very far after all, though their panting breath and trembling little legs showed that the gipsy's purpose of tiring them out was pretty well accomplished--when at last a sharp cry from Pamela forced the pedlar to look round. She had caught her foot on a stone or a root, and fallen, and in falling one of the jagged bits of the broken crockery had cut her leg pretty deeply; the blood was already streaming from it, her little white sock was deeply stained, and she lay on the ground almost fainting with terror and pain.

"Stop that screaming, will ye?" said the man, and then, with a half return to his former tone, "There's nothing to cry about, missy. It's just a scratch--I'll tie it up with a bit of rag," and he began fumbling about in his dirty pockets as he spoke. "There's the donkey and the others waiting for us just five minutes farther;" and for once the gipsy spoke the truth. The way he had brought the children was in reality a great round, chosen on purpose to bewilder them, so that the rest of his party had been able to reach the meeting-place he had appointed very much more quickly by the road.

But Pamela, once thoroughly upset and frightened, was not to be so easily calmed down.

"No, no," she screamed, "I won't let him touch me. Go away, go away, you ugly man," she cried, pushing him back with her tiny hands when he tried to come near. "I _won't_ let you touch me or carry me," for that now seemed to be the gipsy's intention, "leave me here with Duke; we don't want you any more."

The man's dark face grew darker with the scowl that came over it. For half a moment he seemed on the point of seizing Pamela in his arms in spite of her cries and resistance. But there was Duke too to be considered; Pamela alone it would be easy to cover up, so that her cries should not be heard; but he could not carry both, and if the boy ran after them screaming, or if he tried to run home, to ask for help--for "home" was really not far off--there was no knowing what trouble the anything but blessed "brats" might bring upon worthy Mick and his horde!

So that respectable gentleman decided on different tactics.

"You're a very naughty little girl," he said--speaking, however, not roughly, but more as if Pamela's behaviour really shocked and hurt him.

"After all the trouble I've give myself for you--a-goin' out of my road, and a-unpackin' all the pots and crocks down there, for to please you.

Not even to let me tie up your foot or carry you to the missus for her to do it! Well, if you lie there till you bleed to death, it's no fault o' mine."

But Duke's presence of mind had returned by this time.

"I'll tie up her foot with my hankercher," he said, producing the little twelve-inch square of linen, which for a wonder he found in his pocket, on the whole much cleaner than could have been expected. And though he grew white and sick with the sight of the streaming blood, he managed without any opposition from his sister to strap it up after a fashion, the gipsy looking on in silence.

"You can go now, thank you," said Duke, his voice trembling in spite of himself. "Us don't mind about the bowl--it's too far to go. Us will tell Grandmamma all about it--Oh how I do wish us had told her at first," he broke off suddenly. "Please go," he went on again to the pedlar; "sister's frightened. I'll stay here with her till her foot's better, and then us'll go home."

"And how will ye do that, I'd like to know, my young master?" said the pedlar, and there was a mocking tone in his voice that made the boy look up at him with fresh alarm. "Ye're furder from 'home' than ye think for.

No, no; here ye'll have to stay till I fetch the donkey to carry you both. And to think of all that trouble and time lost for nothing."

"They'll give you something at home for bringing us back; they will indeed," said Duke. "Grandpapa and Grandmamma will be so pleased to see us safe again, I _know_ they'll give you something," he repeated, while a sob rose in his throat at the thought that already perhaps dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma--never had they seemed _so_ dear!--were wondering and troubled about their absence. And somehow he quite forgot that he himself could reward the gipsy, for in attending to Pamela's wounded foot he had laid down the money-box, and no longer remembered that he had it with him.

The gipsy grunted, and muttered something about "making sure" that Duke scarcely heard. Then he turned to go.

"I'm off for the donkey then. But mind you the stiller you stays in this here wood the better," he added impressively. "That's why I didn't like missy crying out so loud. It's a queer place--a _very_ queer place. I'se warrant your Nurse never brought you this way when you were out a-walking."

"No, never," said Duke, startled, and even Pamela left off sobbing to stare up at him with her tearful blue eyes, as if fascinated by these mysterious hints.

"Ah, I thought not," he said, nodding his head. "Well, stay where you are, and make no sound whatsumnever, and no harm'll come to ye. But if you stir or speak even above a whisper," and he lowered his own voice, "there's no saying. There's beasts you never heard tell of in this wood--worsest of all, snakes, that think nothing of twisting round a child and off with it for their supper afore one could cry out. But if you stop quite still they'll not find you out before I'm back with the donkey. It's about their time o' day for sleeping just now, I'm thinking," and with this crumb of consolation the cruel-hearted gipsy turned on his heel.

Words would fail me to describe the terror of the two poor little children: a cry of appeal to the pedlar to stay beside them, not to leave them to the dreadful creatures he spoke of, rose to their lips, but stopped there. For were they not almost as terrified of him as of the snakes? Pamela forgot all about her wounded foot, though it was growing stiff with pain, and the blood, which Duke's unskilful binding had not succeeded in checking, was still flowing in a way that would have alarmed more experienced eyes. It was cold too--and terror made them colder--for the evening was drawing on, and it was only April. Yet they dared not move--Pamela indeed could not have stood up--and so there they stayed, Duke crouched beside his sister, who lay almost at full length on the short tufty gra.s.s, among the roots and stumps, for just here a good deal of wood had been cut down. There was no fear of their moving--the shivers and sobs that they could not control added to their fears--they would have left off breathing even, if they could have managed it, rather than risk betraying their presence to the snakes!

But after some minutes--not more than five probably, though it seemed more like five hours--had pa.s.sed the silence and strain grew unbearable to Duke. He peeped at Pamela; her eyes were closed, she looked so dreadfully white!--his heart gave such a thump that he looked round for a moment in terror, it seemed to him such a loud noise,--what could make her look so? Could the fear and the pain have killed her?

"Pamela," he whispered, in what he meant to be a very low whisper indeed; "Oh, sister, are you dead?"

Her eyelids fluttered a little, and she half opened them.

"No, bruvver; at least I don't fink so," she said, and her whisper was very faint without her trying to make it so, for she was really quite exhausted. "I wasn't sure a minute ago, but I fink now I'm only dying.

But don't speak, for the snakes might hear."

"They're asleep, he said," returned Duke, with a sob of anguish at Pamela's words.

"But some might be awake. If it wasn't for that, oh, bruvver, you might run away, and perhaps you'd get safe home. Couldn't you _try_, bruvver?"

and Pamela half raised herself on her arm.

"And leave _you_, sister!" cried Duke indignantly, forgetting to whisper; "how could you think I'd ever do such a thing? If I could _carry_ you--oh what a pity it is I'm not much bigger than you!" "You couldn't carry _me_," said Pamela feebly, and her head sank back again; "and the snakes would hear us and catch us. But oh, bruvver, I'm afraid I'll be quite dead before the man comes back again, and yet I don't want him to come."