During the train journey Hal kept his face well hidden behind a newspaper. It wasn’t that he was interested in its contents, for he had turned only one page in half an hour. Teddy glanced at him occasionally. Funny! Why was it? Grown people seemed to enjoy themselves by being sad.
The train halted in a quiet station. An old farmer with screwed-up, merry eyes, white whiskers like a horse-collar about his neck, and creaking leather gaiters, approached them.
“Mornin’, mister. I was on the lookout for ’ee. I’ve brought the wagonette; it’s waitin’ outside. Jump in, while I get the luggage.” When he came back carrying the bags, his eyes winked meaningly both together at Teddy: “The little missie, she war that excited, I could scarce persuade her from comin’.”
He lumbered to his seat and tugged at the reins. The horse whisked its tail and set off at a jog-trot through the sleepy town. Houses grew fewer; the country swam up, spreading out between trees like a green swollen river.
As they passed by gates and over bridges, it was as though doors flew open on stealthy stretches of distance where shadows crouched like fantastic cattle.
Hal was speaking. He turned to him. “I was saying that we rather tricked you, Vashti and I. What did you think of us? We often wondered.”
Teddy laughed. “I was little then. I was angry. You see, I believed everything; and she said so positively that we were going to be married. I must have been a queer kid to have believed a thing like that.”
The old horse jogged on, whisking his tail. The farmer sat hunched, with the reins sagging. Hal felt for his case and drew out a cigarette. As he stooped to light it, he asked casually, “Do you ever think about her—ever wonder what’s become of her?”
The boy flushed. It was Vashti, always Vashti, when Hal spoke to him.
“I think of her only as a faery story. It’s silly of me. I don’t think about her more often than I can help.”
“Than you can help!” Hal leant forward with a strained expression. “You can’t help. You always remember. That’s the curse of it. The doors of the past won’t keep shut; they slam and they slam. They wake you up in the night; you can’t rest. You’re always creeping down the stairs and finding yourself in the rooms of old memories. Would you know her again if you saw her?”
Teddy looked up at the question. “I’d know her voice anywhere.” Then, with an excitement which he could not fathom, “Am I going to——?”
Hal shook his head. “I asked you because, if you do see her, you must send me word.”
They turned in at a gate off the highroad. It was scarcely more than a field-track that they followed. Ahead a wood grew up, which they entered. On the other side of it, remote from everything, lay a red farmhouse. A big yard was in front of it, with stacks standing yellow in the sun and horses wandering aimlessly about. Cocks were crowing and on the thatch, like flakes of snow, white fan-tails fluttered. At the sound of wheels, an old lady, in a large sunbonnet, came out and shaded her eyes, peering through her spectacles.
“Hulloa, Sarie!” cried the farmer. “Where’s the missie? We’ve brought ’er a young man.”
Sarie folded her hands beneath her apron. “She’s in the garden, as she always is, Joseph.”
Teddy entered the cool farmhouse, with its low rafters and spotlessness. Everything was old-fashioned, even the vague perfume of roses which hung about it.
Hal touched him on the arm. “Let’s go to her. She’ll be shy with you at first Even though we called, she wouldn’t come.”
He led the way through a passage into a garden at the back. It lay like a deep green well, wall-surrounded and content in the shade of fruit-trees. The trees were so twisted that they had to be held up like cripples on crutches. Paths, red-tiled and moss-grown, ran off in various directions. The borders of box had grown so high that they gave to the whole a mazelike aspect.
“She’s here somewhere,” Hal whispered, with suppressed excitement. “Step gently and don’t pretend you’re looking.”
They sauntered to and fro, halting now and then to listen. They came to a little brook that dived beneath the wall and ran through the garden chattering. Hal was beginning to look worried. “I wish she wouldn’t be like this. Perhaps she’s crept round us and got into the house without our knowing.”
At that moment, quite near them, they heard a sound of laughter. It was soft and elfin, and was followed by the clear voice of a child.
“You’re a darling. You’re more beautiful than any one in the world.”
A turn in the path brought them within sight of a ruined fountain. In the center, on a pedestal, stood the statue of a boy, emptying an urn from which nothing fell. In the gray stone basin that went about the pedestal was a pool of water, lying glassy and untroubled. Through a hole in the trees sunlight slanted. Kneeling beside the edge of the basin was a little girl, stooping to kiss her own reflection.
“Desire.”
She started to her feet with the swiftness of a wild thing. She would have escaped if Hal had not caught her. Across his shoulder she gazed indignantly at Teddy.
“He saw me do that,” she said slowly.
Teddy gazed back at her and smiled. He wanted to laugh, but he was stayed by her immense seriousness.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You’re not one bit,” she retorted.
She struggled down from Hal’s arms. “You may shake hands with me if you like.”
Very formally he shook hands with the little girl.
In the old garden Hal lost his sadness. It was late in the afternoon, when he was leaving, that she asked the question that brought it back, “When is mother coming?”
“Presently. Presently,” he said quickly.
As he climbed into the wagonette, he signed to Teddy.
Bending down he whispered: “If you should see her——You know whom I mean? I’ll be stopping at Orchid Lodge; you can reach me there.”
Next morning he was up so early that the farmhouse was still asleep when he tiptoed down the creaking stairs. As he opened the door into the orchard, a puppy squirmed from under the currant bushes and approached him with timid tail-waggings. He had the easily damped enthusiasm of most puppies; he was by no means certain that he might not be in disgrace for something. Nature had originally intended him for a bull-terrier; before finishing her work, she had changed her mind and decided that he should be a greyhound. The result was an ungainly object, white in color, too high on the legs, with red-rimmed eyes which blinked continually. Teddy knelt down and cuddled him, after which they were friends.
How still the world was! Now that no one was about, the garden seemed no longer a dumb thing, but a moving fluttering personality. Dew sparkled on the red-tiled paths. It glistened in spider-webs. It put tears into the eyes of flowers. A slow wind, cool with the memory of night, rustled the tree-tops; it sounded like an unseen woman turning languidly in bed. Through leaves the sunlight filtered and fell in patches. A sense of possession came upon the boy—it was all his, this early morning world.
The puppy kept lagging behind, collapsing on his awkward haunches, and turning his head to gaze back at the house. Teddy became curious to see what he wanted and let him choose the direction. Under a window in the thatch to which the roses climbed, he laid himself down.
“So you’re thinking of her, too?” he whispered.
They watched together. The sun climbed higher. Inside the farmhouse sounds began to stir.
When she appeared at breakfast, she chose to be haughty. After she had stalked away with Fanner Joseph, Mrs. Sarie explained to Teddy his breach of etiquette: he had failed to address her as “Princess.”
“She’s full o’ fancies,” said Mrs. Sarie, clearing away the dishes; “full o’ fancies. I’ve ’ad ten children in my time, but not one of ’em like ’er. She won’t let none of us be what we are; she makes us play every day that we’re something different. She’s a captive Princess to-day, and Joseph’s a giant and I’m a giantess.”
Peering through the curtain which hung before the window, he saw Desire, seated astride an ancient horse, which plodded round and round in the farmyard drawing water from a well.
He smiled. He knew little about feminine perversity. Picking up a book, he went into the orchard and threw himself down where the brook ran singing to itself.
Footsteps! She came walking sedately, pretending that she did not know that he was there. He buried his nose in his book. She went by, waited, came back. He heard a swishing sound behind him and glanced across his shoulder. She was standing with a twig in her hand, her face flushed with anger, striking at some scarlet poppies. “Hulloa! What are you doing?”
“They’re people who don’t love me. They’re beasts, and I’m cutting off their heads.”
“I wouldn’t do that. They’re so pretty, and they don’t have long to live, anyhow. Besides, you’re making the puppy frightened.”
The puppy was escaping, his tail quivering like an eel between his legs. Directly her attention was called to his terror, she threw the stick aside.
“Poor old Bones, she didn’t mean to frighten him. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt him for the world.”
She gathered him into her arms, and sat herself down beside the brook about a yard away from Teddy.
“Bones does love me; but some people don’t. We call him Bones ’cause he’s got hardly any flesh.”
She glanced shyly at Teddy to see whether he was taking her remarks impersonally or as addressed to himself.
He was smiling, so she edged a little nearer and smiled back.
“People aren’t kind to Bones,” she said; “they throw things at him. He’s such a coward; people only respect dogs when they bite. You shouldn’t be so nice; you really shouldn’t, Bones.” And then, significantly: “If you’re too nice to strangers at first, you aren’t valued.”
Teddy laughed softly. “So that was why you bit me this morning, Princess, after I’d got up so early and waited for you?”
She tossed her curls and lowered her eyes. “Did I bite? For the fun of it, I’m always being cross like that. I’m even cross to my mother—my beautiful mother. She’s the darlingest mother in the world.”
Teddy closed his book and leant out, bridging the distance. “Is she? Where is she now?”
“I don’t know, only—only I know I want her. Don’t get afraid; I never cry. P’raps she’s in America. He says that she’ll come to me here, but I don’t believe him.” Suddenly with a gesture that was all tenderness, she slipped out her hand. “I was so lonely till you came. Together we may find her. I’m going to have a little girl myself one day, and I know I should cry and cry if I lost her.”
“You’d have to get married first. When I was very little, I once——”
She interrupted. “Oh, no! Ladies don’t have to. When they want babies, they speak to God about it. I know because—— Is your mother married?”
“Yes, my mother’s married. My father paints pictures.”
“Is it nice to have a father?”
“Very nice. Just as nice as to have a mother, only in another way.”
“Do—do all boys have fathers?”
“Why, yes. And all girls.”
“They don’t. I’ve asked my beautiful mother about it so often, because I——”
She fell silent, gazing straight before her with the cloud of thought in her eyes. Bones, sprawling across her lap, licked her hand to attract her attention; she drew her hand away, but took no other notice. The brook bubbled past her feet; its murmurous monologue emphasized her silence. Through lichened trees the farmhouse glowed red. In and out the shadows the sunshine danced like a gold-haired child.
“If fathers are really nice,” she sighed wistfully, “p’raps I ought to have a father for my little girl. When we’re both growed up, I might ask you. Would you be her father, per—perhaps?”
Stretched at her side, he glanced up to see the mischief creep about the edges of her mouth. But her face was no longer elfin; it was earnest and troubled with things beyond her knowledge. When she looked like that she seemed older than twelve—almost the same age as himself; there were so many things that he, too, could not understand. He reflected that they both were very like Bones with their easily damped enthusiasm. A wave of pity swept through him; she was so slight, so dainty, so unprotected. He forgot his pigeons; he forgot everything that had happened before meeting her. He felt that of all things in the world, were he given the choice, he would ask that she might be his sister. Stooping his head, he kissed the white petal of a hand where it lay unfolded in the grass.
She looked down at him quietly. “My darling mother would say, ’You mustn’t let boys do that.’ But I expect she would let you do it. Do you—do you think I’m an odd child? Every one says I am.”
He laughed with a thrill of excitement; she made him feel so much younger than his yesterday self. “I couldn’t tell you, Princess. I’ve never known any girls. But you’re beautiful, and you’re dear, and you’re——”
“Let’s be tremenjous friends,” she whispered.
Through the long summer days that followed they lived in a world of self-created magic—a world which, because they had made it, belonged wholly to themselves. Its chief delight was that they alone could see it. No one else knew that the brook was a girl and that the mountain-ash that grew beside it was her lover. The boy turned back from his dreams of manhood to meet the childhood of the little girl; it was one last glorious flash of innocence before the curtain fell But in the presence of Farmer Joseph and Sarie, and of Hal when he came to visit them, he was shy of his friendship with Desire.
“You’re ashamed of me because I’m a girl and little,” she said. “But I know more than you do about—oh, lots of things!”
She did. She knew that gentlemen when they were in love with ladies, gave their ladies flowers. She knew much about lovers’ secret ways. When asked how she knew, she shook her curls and looked exceedingly wise. She could be impishly coquettish when she liked. There were times when she refused to let Teddy touch her because she would become ordinary to him, if it were always allowed. And there were times when she would creep into his breast like a little tired bird, and let him tell her stories by the hour. She tried to tantalize him into jealousy; Bones was usually the rival for her affections. When she did that, she only amused him, making him remember that he was older than herself. But when he made her feel that he was older, she would stamp her feet with rage. “You’ll be sorry when I wear long frocks,” she would threaten. “I shall pretend to despise you. I shall walk past you with my head held high.”
When she showed him how she would do it, creating the picture by puckering her nose and mincing her steps, she would only increase his merriment Then suddenly her wounded vanity would break and she would fly at him with all her puny strength. “You shan’t laugh at me. You shan’t I can’t bear it Oh, please say you forgive me and like me.”
In the lumber-room, which was across the passage from where she slept, they spent most of their rainy days. It was dirty and it was dusty, but it had something which compensated for dust and dirt—a box full of old-fashioned clothes and largely flowered muslins. Nothing pleased her better than to dress herself up and perform, while he played audience. She would go through passionate scenes, making up a tune and singing words. At the end of them she would explain, “My mamma does that.” And then: “Oh, I wish she would come. When I ask him, he always says, ’Presently. Presently.’ Can’t you take me to her, Teddy?”
It was in the lumber-room that she confided to Teddy how she came to leave America. “It was one day when mother was out. He came. He hadn’t come for a long while before that. He was very fond of me and brought me things; so I was very glad. We drove about all day and when it was time for me to go home to bed, he took me to a big ship—oh, a most ’normous ship. Next day, when I woke up, it was all water everywhere and he said I’d see my mamma when we got to land. But we got to land, and I didn’t. And then he said I’d see her here; but I didn’t. And now he says, ‘Presently. Presently.’ Oh, Teddy, you won’t leave me? I may never see her again.” And then, after he had quieted her: “If we stay here till we’re quite growed up, you’ll escape with me, won’t you, and help me to find her?”
She invariably spoke of Hal ashe; she never gave him a name. Teddy felt that it would not be honorable to question her, but he kept his eyes wide for any clew that would solve the mystery. In Hal’s absence he would become bitter towards him, because he had dared to hurt Desire. But when he came to the farm with his arms full of presents, so hungry to win her love, he felt that somewhere there had been a big mistake and that whoever had been cruel, Hal was not the person.
It was Hal who, having heard them speak of knights and sorcerers, brought themThe Idylls of the King. Many a golden day they spent reading aloud, while the sunlight dripped from leaves overhead, dappling the pages.
“I like Sir Launcelot best.”
-“But you mustn’t,” said Teddy; “King Arthur was the good one. If Sir Launcelot hadn’t done wrong, everything would have been happy always.”
“Yes, but if everything had been happy always, there wouldn’t have been any story,” she objected. She made bars of her fingers before her mischievous eyes; it was a warning that she was going to be impish. “I expect, when I grow up, I shall be like that story; very interesting and very bad.”
Teddy’s shocked appearance surpassed her expectations. Gapping her hands, she rose into a kneeling position and mocked him. “Teddy doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like my loving Sir Launcelot best. And I know why. It’s because he’s a King Arthur himself.”
All that day she irritated him by calling him King Arthur. They had quarreled hopelessly by supper-time. She went to bed without saying “Good-night,” and he wandered out into the dusky silence. He felt angry with her. Why had he ever liked her? So girls could be spite-full The worst of it was that it was true what she had said. Hewasa proper person. He would always be a proper person; and proper persons weren’t exciting. He felt like doing something desperate just to prove that he could be bad. Then his superiority in years came to his consolation. Why should he worry himself about a little girl who was younger than himself? When next Hal came to the farm, he would tell him that he was leaving.
It was in his bedroom, where the moonlight fell softly, that memories of her sweetness tiptoed back. He remembered the provocative tenderness of her laughter, the velvet softness of her tiny hands, and the way she had wreathed him with flowers, pretending that he was her knight. Life would never be the same without her. Romance walked into his day only when she had passed down the stairs. Not having had a sister, he supposed that these were the emotions of all brothers. She had conquered him at last: though he was in the right, he would ask her forgiveness to-morrow. She had been trying to make him do that from the first morning when he had failed to call her “Princess”—trying to make him bow to her prerogative of forgiving for having done wrong herself. He fell asleep smiling, but he was not happy.
He awoke with a start The house was still as death. The moon hung snared in a tree; his window was in shadow. Between the long intervals of silence he heard the sound of stifled sobbing.
“Who are you? What is it?” he whispered.
In the doorway he made out a blur of whiteness. Slipping from his bed, he stole towards it. Stooping, he touched it.
“You!”
Her arms flew up and tugged at him passionately. Her tears were on his cheeks. For the first time she kissed him.
“You’re cold, darling little girl.”
And then for the first time he kissed her mouth.
“Oh, I don’t want you to think that I’m bad. I’m not bad, Teddy. And I like you to be King Arthur or Sir Launcelot, or—or anybody.”
He fetched his counterpane and wrapt it round her, coaxing, her just inside the doorway so that they might not be heard. Together, crouched against the wall, with their arms about each other’s necks, they huddled in the darkness.
“I didn’t mind—not really.” Since she had kissed him, he was fully persuaded of the untruth himself. “I shouldn’t really mind whatever you called me. Little Desire, I thought you never cried. You do believe me, don’t you?”
“Oh, I do want my mother so,” she whispered, drawing deep sobs between her words. “If you was to help me to escape to your mother, I’m sure we could find her. And then, you could come and stay with us, and I could come and stay with you. And we should be always and always together.”
In defiance of Hal, he promised to help her at the first opportunity. To-morrow? Perhaps. He saw her safely back to her room, kissing her in the darkness on the threshold.
But to-morrow held its own surprise.
Farmer Joseph’s place was empty at breakfast next morning. It was market-day, and he had made an early start for town. Teddy pressed Desire’s foot beneath the table; when Mrs. Sarie wasn’t looking, he nodded towards the window and his lips formed the word, “To-day.”
The opportunity had come sooner than he had expected. It was quite necessary that, when he helped her to escape, Fanner Joseph’s back should be turned. The old man with’ the merry screwed-up eyes and the white horse-collar of whiskers round his neck, was always watching. He seemed to know by instinct every time that they wandered out of sight of the farmhouse. Sooner or later, as they sat in a field reading or telling stories, his face would peer above the hedge.
In the passage he caught Desire’s hand. “Run upstairs. Get your hat and jacket.—No, wait Mrs. Sarie might see them. Drop them out of the window to me in the garden.” He felt immensely excited. If he could get her to the station undetected, they would travel up to London. When it was evening he would smuggle her past Orchid Lodge, and then—— He supposed she would spend the night at his father’s, and all the other days and nights till her mother was found. But why had Hal stolen her? “Here, catch.”
The hat and jacket tumbled down. He caught a glimpse of the laughing face in the thatch. It was going to be a tremendous lark—almost as good as a King Arthur legend. The next moment she rejoined him.
“Sir Teddy, what are we going to do now?” She clung to his arm, jumping with excitement.
“Hulloa!” he exclaimed, “the babies have come into your eyes.” He told her that the babies came into her eyes when they became especially gray and round.
They tiptoed out of the garden into the passage of the house. All the downstair rooms were quiet; Mrs. Sarie’s footsteps overhead and the smacks she gave the pillow were the only sounds. They crossed the farmyard, walking unhurriedly as though nothing were the matter. From the gateway they glanced back. The white fan-tails fluttered and cooed on the thatch. The curtains blew in and out the open windows. Gaining the path which led across the meadows, they ran—ran till they were breathless.
Across the fields, with his nose to the ground, came another fugitive. As he caught sight of them, he expressed his joy in a series of sharp yaps.
“I say, this’ll never do. He’ll give us away before we know it Go back, bad dog. Go back.”
Bones came a little nearer, crawling on his stomach, making abject apologies, but positively refusing to go back.
They walked on together, the white cur following at their heels till lapse of time should have made him certain that his permission to follow was irrevocable.
They had been walking along the main-road, on the alert to scramble into the hedge at the first sign of any one approaching. It was just such a day as the one on which he had arrived, only dog-roses were fuller blown and blackberries were growing ripe. The wheat was yellowing to a deeper gold and the misty fragrance of meadow-sweet was in the air.
“Ha! Here’s one at last.”
It was a post with three fingers pointing.
“Yes, we’re all right. This one, sticking out the way we’re going, says To Ware; but it says that it’s nine miles. D’you think, with those little legs, you can manage it, Princess?”
She lowered her head, looking up through her lashes.
“They’re very strong little legs, and if you talk to me and talk to me, so that I forget—— If I get very tired, I’ll let you carry me.”
They struck into fields again, clambering through hedges and over gates, judging their direction by the road. Teddy was afraid to keep to the road lest they should meet Farmer Joseph coming back from market, or lest Mrs. Sarie, when she missed them, should send some one driving after them to bring them back.
It was pleasant in the fields. Rambling along, they almost lost their sense of danger and forgot they were escaping. Everything living seemed so friendly. Crickets in the grass chirped cheerily. Birds jumped out of their houses, leaving their doors wide open, Teddy said, to see them pass. He invented stories about the things they saw to prevent the little legs from thinking of their tiredness. Only the cows suspected them of escaping; they whisked their tails and blinked their eyes disapprovingly, like grandmothers who had had too many calves to be deceived by a pair of children.
Lunch time came and they grew hungry, but to buy food at a farmhouse was too risky.. They quenched their thirst at a stream and pictured to themselves the enormous meal they would eat when they got to London.
“Tired?”
“No. I’m not tired.”
“Let’s pretend I’m your war-horse,” he suggested.
The finger went up to her mouth. “That’ll be just playing; it won’t be the same as saying that I’m tired.”
He assured her that it wouldn’t; so she consented to straddle his neck, clasping his forehead with her sticky little hands while he held her legs to help her keep her balance.
Bones ran ahead with his ridiculous red tongue flapping, barking at whatever interested him and paying no attention when he was told to stop. Towards evening, as the sun’s rays were shortening and trees were lengthening their shadows, he made the great discovery of his puppyhood. It was in a field of long grass, the other side of a gate, well ahead of the children. With quick excited yelps and pawings, springing back in fear and jumping forward with clumsy boldness, he commenced to advertise his adventure.
Desire, riding shoulder-high, could see further than Teddy. “Oh, hurry. Be quick. He’s killing something. Let me down.”
When they had climbed the gate, they found themselves in a narrow pasture, hedge-surrounded, at the far end of which the road ran. Bones was rolling a cage over and over, in which a bird fluttered. It was a decoy placed there by bird-catchers, for in a net near by wild birds struggled. They dragged the puppy off and cuffed him. He slunk into the background and squatted, blinking reproachfully with his red-rimmed eyes. His noblest intentions perpetually ended in misunderstandings.
“Oh, the poor darlings! How cruel! Teddy, you do it; they peck my fingers.”
Teddy looked across the field growing vague with shadows. No one was in sight. Going down on his knees, with Desire bending eagerly across his shoulder, he set to work to free the prisoners.
They were so engrossed that they did not notice a rough-looking man who crept towards them. The first thing they knew was the howl of Bones as he shot up, lifted by a heavy boot; the next, when Desire was grabbed from behind and her mouth was silenced against a dirty coat.
Teddy sprang to his feet, clenching his fists. “You put her down.” His voice was low and unsteady.
“And wot abart my burds?” retorted the man, in jeering anger. “Yer’ll ’ave ter pay me for every damned one of ’em before I lets ’er go. I don’t know as I’ll let her go then—taken a kind o’ fancy to ’er, I ’ave. I’ll put ’er in a cage and keep ’er, that’s wot I’ll do. Now then, all yer money. ’And over that watch. Fork h’out.”
“Put her down.”
He looked round wildly. Hal’s warnings of danger then, they hadn’t been all inventions! Far off, at the end of the field, he-saw the real culprit, Bones, slipping through the hedge into the road. Along the road something was passing; he made out the top of a cart above the brambles. He thought of shouting; if he did, the man might kill Desire. At that moment she freed her mouth: “Teddy! Oh, Teddy!”
He threw himself upon the ruffian, kicking and punching. The man let her go and turned upon the boy.
“Yer’ve brought this on yerself, my son, and now yer go in’ ter ’ave it.”
He stepped up furiously, his hand stretched out to seize him by the throat. The fingers were on the point of touching; there was a thud. The thick arm hesitated and fell limply. On the man’s forehead a red wound spread.
“My-Gawd!”
His body crumpled. It sank into the grass and lay without a motion. “Is he dead?” Desire whispered.
“No fear. It ’ud take more than a stone to kill him. Come on, you kids, let’s run for it.”
They turned. Standing behind them in the evening quiet was a Puck-like figure. He was broad, and short, and grinning, and cocky. He wore a midshipman’s suit with brass buttons, which looked dusty and spotty. He had red hair, and was a miniature edition of Mrs. Sheerug.
“Why, Ruddy,” gasped Teddy, “where did you spring from?”
“Where didn’t I spring from? Ha! Get away from him and I’ll tell you. He’s stirring.”
The bird-catcher was struggling into a sitting position. He glared evilly at the children. “You just wait till I get yer,” he muttered. “Skin yer, that’s wot I’ll do. Boil yer. Tear every——”
They didn’t wait to hear more of what he would do. Each taking a hand of the little girl, they started to run—ran on and on across twilit meadows, till the staggering figure of the man who followed and the sound of his threats had utterly died out.
You’re a kind of Bible boy, aren’t you?
They were resting on the edge of a wood, half hidden in bracken, recovering their breath. Oak-trees, overhanging them, made an archway. Behind, down green fern-carpeted aisles, mysterious paths led into the unknown. In front a vague sea of meadows stretched, with wild flowers for foam and wheat-fields for sands. In the misty distance the window of a cottage caught the sunset and glowed like the red lamp of a ship which rode at anchor.
“A Bible boy! Not if I know it.” Ruddy grinned, and frowned, and scratched his leg. He was embarrassed in the presence of feminine beauty. If anything but feminine beauty had called him “a Bible boy,” he would certainly have punched its head. “Not if I know it,” he said. “I’m no little Samuel-Here-Am-I, praying all over the shop in a white night-shirt.”
Again he scratched his leg; he wished that feminine beauty didn’t make him itch so.
The little girl rested her white petal of a hand on his grubby paw. “I didn’t mean anything horrid, only—just that it was so like David and Goliath, the way you made the stone sink into his forehead.”
“Yah!” He swelled with a sense of valor, now that his prowess was acknowledged. “I did catch ’em a whopper, didn’t I? If I hadn’t, you kids would be dead.”
Desire drew herself up with childish dignity. “It was nice of you, Boy; Teddy and I both thank you. But—but you mustn’t call me ’kid.’ Teddy always calls me ’Princess.’”
Ruddy’s good-humored, freckled face grew puzzled. “Princess? But, look here, are you?”
Teddy was wondering whether he ought to confide in Ruddy, when Desire took the matter out of his hands. “I expect I am. I’m a little girl who was stolen from America. We were ’scaping when you found us.—What’s in that box you’re carrying?”
Her eyes had been on it from the first. It was full of holes; inside something live kept moving.
“Teddy knows. It’s one of Pa’s pigeons. Didn’t think I’d get home to-night when I came to look for you, so I brought it to let ’em know not to expect me.”
“When you came to look for us!” Teddy leant forward. “Did you come to look for us? Who sent you?”
Ruddy winked knowingly. He was enjoying the mystery, and prolonged the ecstasy of suspense. Pulling a packet of Wild Woodbines from his pocket, he lit one and offered one to Teddy; but Teddy shook his head.
“Ma doesn’t know I do it,” he explained. “I chew parsley and peppermints so she shan’t smell my breath. Bible kids don’t do that. I’m a real bad boy—a detective.”
“But tell us—tell us. Did you know we were here? Did you come by accident?”
Ruddy pushed his midshipman’s cap back from his forehead. “It wasn’t by accident,” he said solemnly. “Since Hal’s come home, he’s been funny. It’s been worryin’ Ma; I’ve heard her talk about it. He’s brought dolls and silly things like that; and then he’s gone away with the dolls, without saying where he was going, and come back without ’em. He’s been acting kind o’ stealthy; we wouldn’t even have known they were dolls except for Harriet She looked among his socks and found ’em. I read ha’penny-bloods about detectives; one day I’m goin’ to be the greatest detective in the world. So I said to myself, ’I’ll clear up this mystingry and put Ma’s mind at rest’ I looked in Hal’s pockets and found a letter from a Farmer Joseph, posted at Ware. There you are! All the rest was easy.”
“But what were you doing on the road?”
Ruddy blew a cloud of smoke through his nose to let Desire see that he could do it. “Pooh! It was Farmer Joseph’s cart that I was following when the dog came running through the hedge.” He threw away his cigarette. “Going to toss up the pigeon while there’s some light left.”
To Desire this was the crowning marvel—that a boy could tie a message to a bird and tell it where to go. She watched Ruddy scrawl on the thin slip of paper and tiptoed to see the slate-blue wings beat high and higher towards the clouds. When it was no more than a speck, the Pucklike figure started laughing.
“What’s the matter?” asked Teddy.
“I was picturing Ma’s face when Pa comes in and shows her.”
“What did you write?”
“That I wouldn’t be home and that I’d found Hal’s princess.”
“But you didn’t tell her where we are, or anything like that?”
“I gave her Farmer Joseph’s address; it was written on the cart.”
“You ass! Hal may catch us because of that.”
Ruddy looked crestfallen; then he brightened. “No fear. Ma won’t tell Hal till she’s come to see for herself.”
Desire had sunk back upon the bed of bracken. “Oh, dear, I’m so hungry. My shoes is full of stockings and I can’t go any further. Poor Teddy’s tired, too; and I wouldn’t let a strange boy carry me. It wouldn’t be modest.”
Her escort drew away to consult in whispers as to what was to be done for her.
“Good egg!” Ruddy tossed his cap into the air. “I’ve got it. I’ve always wanted to do it. It’s a warm night and it won’t hint her. Let’s camp out. I’ll go and buy some grub—be back inside of an hour.”
Desire clapped her hands. “Just like knights and fair ladies in a forest! Oh, Teddy, it’ll be grand!”
There was nothing else to do. Farmer Joseph would soon be out searching. Ware seemed an interminable distance. The boys counted their money, and the red-headed rescuer tramped off sturdily to purchase food. Long after he had disappeared, they could hear his jaunty whistling.
“Teddy, let me cuddle closer. You weren’t jealous, were you?”
“Jealous!”
“Of the boy who threw the stone.”
“Of course I wasn’t.”
She laughed secretly, and pressed her face against his shoulder. “Oh, you! You were, just the same as you were jealous of Bones.”
“Bones was a dog. How silly you are, Princess.”
“Not silly.” Her voice sounded far away and elfin. “You want me to like only you. You wish he hadn’t come; now don’t you?”
It was Teddy’s turn to laugh. Was it true? He didn’t know. “It is nicer, isn’t it, to be just by our two selves?”
“Heaps nicer,” she whispered. “But, oh, I am hungry. Let’s talk to make me forget.”
“You talk,” he said. “Tell me about your mother. She must be very good to have a little girl like you.”
“My beautiful mother!” She clasped her hands against her throat.
From across misty fields came a low whistle. A stumpy dwarf-like figure crawled through the hedge and darted forward, crouching beneath the twilight and glancing back for an enemy in the most approved penny-dreadful manner. Rabbits, nibbling at the cool wet turf, sat up and stared before they scattered, mistaking him at first for an enlarged edition of themselves.
“My eye,” he panted, “but they’re looking for you.”
“Really or just pretence?” asked Teddy.
Ruddy scratched his red head. “More than pretence. I met Fanner Joseph on the road, and he stopped his horse and questioned me. Come on. Catch hold of some of the grub. Let’s be runaway slaves with bloodhounds after us.”
They waded through bracken dew-wet, clinging and shoulder-high. Above them trees grew gnarled and dense, shutting out the sky. At each step the world grew more hushed and quiet. The sleepy calling of birds faded on the night Dank fragrances of earth and moss and bark made the air heavy. Little hands touched them; the hands of foxgloves and ferns and trailing vines. They seemed to pat them more in welcome than affright.
In a narrow space where a tree had fallen, they lit a fire and nestled. As the flames leapt up, they revealed the whole wood moving, tiptoeing nearer, so that trees and foxgloves and ferns sprang back every time the flames jumped higher.
A green moon-drenched, imaginative night! As they sat round the sparkling embers and munched, they spoke in whispers. What were they not? They were never themselves for one moment. They were sailors, marooned on a. desert island. They were Robin Hoods. Ruddy’s fancies proved too violent for Desire—they savored too much of blood; so at last it was agreed that they should be knights from Camelot and that Desire should be the great lady they had rescued.
“I’m so cosy,” she whispered. “So happy. You won’t let anything bad get me, will you, Teddy?”
He put his arms about her. “Nothing.”
He thought she had drowsed off, when she drew his head down to her. “I forgot. I haven’t said my prayers.”
The sleepier she grew, the more she seemed a dear little weary bird. Her caprice went from her, her fine airs and her love of being admired. Even when her eyes were fast locked and her breath was coming softly, her fingers twitched and tightened about her boy-protector’s hand.