‘I amsoglad!’ said Kitty, with a deep-drawn sigh of relief.
As soon as dinner was over Emmeline set out for Chudstone, for it was from there that she meant to start on her expedition in search of Micky.
Kitty went with her as far as the station. She had pleaded to be allowed to do so, and Emmeline consented the more readily because she was glad just then to have other company than that of her own thoughts. The servants saw the two girls leaving the house together, but took it for granted that they were merely going to play in the wood, so no awkward questions were asked.
All the way to Chudstone Emmeline laughed and chattered eagerly. She was trying hard to pretend to herself that she was doing a right and matter-of-course thing in setting off to Eastwich to find her little brother, without saying a word to any of the elders; but, if she had really thought so at the bottom of her heart, she would not have gone out of her way to take the train at Chudstone.
‘I don’t quite know what time the 2.10 gets to Chudstone,’ she had remarked to Kitty, ‘but as it must be a few minutes later than the time it leaves Woodsleigh, it must be all right if I count it 2.10, just as usual.’ The Wednesday 2.10 was well known to Emmeline, for it was the special train run for the weekly half-day excursion to Eastwich, and Aunt Grace had sometimes travelled by it.
‘I do wish I was big, too, and could come with you, Emmeline!’ said Kitty, as she waited on Chudstone platform, while Emmeline leaned out of a carriage-window for those final words of parting, which are so necessary to all railway-travellers, and so inconvenient to the other people already established in the compartment. ‘It will be horribly dull all alone.’
‘You will have Punch, you know,’ Emmeline reminded her—Punch had not been brought with them, because his nervousness at railway-stations was apt to show itself in ways which made his friends nervous in their turn—‘and if you feel lonely without me, you’ll just have to think that I’m gone to fetch Micky home.’
The next moment the train was in motion, and Emmeline was sinking back into her seat with the echo of her own words ringing in her ears. How grand and grown-up it sounded to be going into Eastwich to fetch somebody home! Shecould not help glancing at her travelling companions—an elderly farmer’s wife, with a portly figure and a profusion of jet ornaments, and a flashy young woman who might be her daughter—to see whether they were duly impressed. But they seemed so much more interested in one another than in Emmeline, that a dreary sense of insignificance stole over her, and she began to find it harder and harder to think of herself as an important elder sister, instead of a lonely little girl doing what most people would consider a very naughty thing.
Half an hour’s journey in the train brought her to Eastwich Station, where she alighted, feeling strange and bewildered, and not quite sure what to do next. A harassed porter jostled her with an impatient ‘Ifyou please!’ An agitated old lady, whose luggage appeared to have somehow misbehaved, begged her to ‘get out of my way, little girl.’ Emmeline remembered the last time she had been on that platform, when she had been going to see Mary. For one moment she felt half inclined to go to Mary now, and pour out the story of all the troubles and mistakes and naughtinesses of the last two days to her old nurse. But then Mary would be so very much surprised and disappointed in Emmeline. No, shecouldnot go there while Micky was still lost in Green Ginger Land. Perhaps they would go to Marywhen once she had brought him safe out of the clutches of that dreadful Mother Grimes. It would be so much easier to set things in a fair light then.
Well, she supposed the first thing to do would be to ask her way to Green Ginger Land. She made the inquiry of a chance porter. ‘I’m sure I don’t know, miss. Ask a policeman,’ was his hurried and indifferent answer as he trundled away a great barrowful of trunks and boxes.
Policemen seemed scarce in Eastwich that day, and Emmeline had wandered some little way out of the station before she came across one.
‘Green Ginger Land!’ he repeated, looking at her oddly. ‘That’s not a fit place for a little lady like you to go all alone.’
‘I know—I mean I can’t help it,’ said Emmeline. ‘But oh,dotell me where it is!’
He gave her the direction, which was a difficult one, involving a formidable number of firsts to right and thirds to the left, and then repeated his warning. ‘But it really aren’t fit for the likes of you to go there alone by yourself. I’d go with you, only it’s out of my beat.’
‘Thank you; you are very kind,’ and Emmeline hurried on for fear of further remonstrance.
Ten minutes’ walking brought her into a part of Eastwich which was so strange to her and such a network of squalid streets that she soon grewconfused. No other policeman came in sight, and she began to feel worried as to what she should do. She had always been warned against speaking to strangers except those in uniform; and yet she dared not go any further without asking her way, for fear of losing herself.
Great was her relief when she saw a lady coming towards her who looked as though she might be a clergyman’s wife or a district visitor. Her appearance was so severely respectable that the rule of not speaking to strangers could not apply in this case; so Emmeline went up to the lady and asked timidly the way to Green Ginger Land.
‘Green Ginger Land?’ said the stranger, eyeing her severely. ‘You are surely not thinking of going there?’
‘I—I was thinking of going there,’ stammered Emmeline, confused and ashamed.
‘Well, it’smostunsuitable,’ said the stranger. ‘Green Ginger Land is not atalla nice street for a little girl like you to go to. Why, even policemen don’t walk there alone after dark! Whatever makes you think of going there?’
Now, the sensible thing for Emmeline to have done would have been to tell the simple truth, and to say that she was going to look for her little brother, but somehow the severe stranger’s manner, together with what she said aboutGreen Ginger Land being a dangerous place even for policemen, frightened her out of all presence of mind. At the moment Emmeline only felt in a confused way how very angry and shocked the lady would be if she guessed the truth, and it did not strike her until afterwards that in itself there was nothing in her little brother’s being in Green Ginger Land which implied that it was her fault.
‘I-I thought I’d like to,’ she faltered, turning very red.
‘Then you’re a very silly little girl,’ said the lady, even more severely than before. ‘Green Ginger Land is a dreadful street, and you certainly mustn’tthinkof going there’; and with that she went on her way.
For a moment Emmeline felt shaken in her purpose, but when the stranger’s straight back had disappeared round the corner, she plucked up courage. It was dreadful to think of going to Green Ginger Land after what she had been told, but it was still more dreadful that Micky should be there partly through her fault; so Emmeline resolved to make another effort to find the way.
This time it was a ragged little girl whom she asked. ‘Green Ginger Land? Just you turn by that there public-house at the corner. Then it’s the second on the right and the first on the left,’said the child glibly, as she gave Emmeline a cool stare of curiosity.
Five minutes more brought her to Green Ginger Land itself. It was certainly an unattractive place, but at first sight she was surprised not to find it more terrible. To be sure, it was dirtier and more smelly than any street to which Emmeline was used, and there were swarms of squalid children everywhere, and yet more squalid women who stood at their doors gossiping with arms akimbo; but still, she could not see that there was anything of which a policeman or even a little girl need feel afraid.
Her relief did not last very long. The women left off gossiping with one another and turned to stare after her, making remarks which she could not quite catch, but the general tone of which sounded unpleasant. Some of the children ceased their play and began to follow her, calling out, ‘My! Aren’t we a bloomin’ swell!’ and other sarcastic witticisms of the same order. Emmeline grew frightened again, and resolved to get her business over as quickly as might be.
‘Can you tell me where a Mrs. Grimes lives?’ she inquired timidly of a woman who looked a degree more respectable than most of the others.
The woman gave her a rude stare. ‘I’m sure I can’t say, my lady,’ she answered, with a mincing imitation of Emmeline’s tones whichproduced a loud and disagreeable laugh. ‘May I make so bold as to ask if you’re a friend of hers?’
‘No,’ said Emmeline, flushing hotly, ‘but I believe my little brother’s at her house, and I want to fetch him home.’
‘Oh, indeed! Well, I believe she resides somewhere down Paradise Court, just across the road there, but I can’t say as to the number, and I wouldn’t go there if I was you. Mrs. Grimes is a lady that don’t always like company.’ Again there was a roar of rude laughter from the people standing round.
Emmeline looked across the road to where the woman had pointed, and saw that what at a casual glance she had taken for a doorway was really an opening leading down steps into a long narrow court. Seen from where she stood, it did not look at all a nice place, but Emmeline screwed up her courage, and, crossing the road without another word, went cautiously down the dirty, broken steps into Paradise Court, still followed by her mob of jeering children.
If Green Ginger Land itself was smelly, Paradise Court in its dark narrowness was so foul that Emmeline might have covered her nose if she had not been too intent on avoiding the filthy, half-naked babies who were sprawling about everywhere to pay much heed to anythingelse. What she did notice, however, was that evil-looking men and lads were appearing at several of the doors.
Suddenly a stone came whizzing through the air from behind, almost, though not quite, hitting her. A great shout of cruel laughter burst from the mob of children—laughter in which more than one hoarse man’s voice joined.
‘O, God, help me to be brave! Help me not to run away!’ prayed Emmeline in desperate terror.
Another stone flew past her, and the shouts became louder. Hardly knowing what she did, she made blindly for a door, and thumped at it madly. After what seemed like an eternity, though it was really only a second or two, a woman’s face was poked out.
‘Oh, please,’ said Emmeline, ‘is this where Mrs. Grimes lives?’
‘No, it ain’t,’ said the woman sharply, and before Emmeline could get out anything more she slammed the door in her face.
Emmeline felt as though she were living through some horrible nightmare. In front of her was the closed door; behind her the jeering crowd of children seemed to her terrified senses to be a howling, murderous mob.
Another cruel stone which only just missed made her cower with her head between herhands. ‘Oh, help me not to run away!’ she prayed again.
‘What’s up? What are you doing of, you little varmints?’ called out a rough, but not unkindly voice close to her. Looking up, she saw a stout young man of truculent aspect standing at her side. ‘Just you leave this young lady alone, or I’ll break every bone in your bodies!’ he continued cheerfully.
Perhaps Emmeline’s tormentors knew by experience that the young man’s rough words were no mere figure of speech, for they slunk back, and one little boy who had just been to the road to pick up another stone thought better of it and dropped it on the pavement. ‘I’m bothered if Bully Ben ain’t turning a blooming saint!’ called out a bold spirit; and there were other remarks of the same kind, which did not, however, seem in the least to disturb Bully Ben’s serenity.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded of Emmeline. ‘You’d have had a rough time of it, I can tell you, if I hadn’t have come out.’
‘I know,’ said Emmeline, almost in tears—somehow it seemed harder not to break down now that the great danger appeared to be over—‘it was so very, very good of you, and I do thank you! But oh, can you tell me where a Mother Grimes lives? I believe my littlebrother’s at her house, and I’ve come to look for him.’
‘Mother Grimes?’ said the youth, ‘why, she’s a pal of mine. But what have your little brother gone there for? Judging by you, he won’t be the sort of lodger that’s much inherline.’
‘He ran away with a boy named Diamond Jubilee Jones, whom we’d—I mean, he’d come to stay with us for a day or two,’ explained Emmeline, rather confusedly. ‘I suppose you haven’t happened to see him anywhere?’
‘I seed him not an hour ago, and a little chap with him that must have been your brother,’ said Bully Ben promptly. ‘They told me they was off to the Fair, an’ wouldn’t be back till tea-time.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ cried Emmeline. ‘I’ll go there to find him, then.’
‘I reckon I’ll just see you safe out of these parts,’ said Bully Ben graciously—an offer which she was only too thankful to accept, for those dreadful children were still lingering about, as though waiting to renew the attack as soon as Bully Ben’s broad back should be turned.
Emmeline stole timid side-glances at her burly escort as they two left Paradise Court together, with a crowd of derisive children in the rear—ata safe distance. He looked an extremely rough type of lad, and Emmeline had just decided that he was like one of those burglars in stories, whose hearts are always touched by innocent and helpless children, when he asked her the time.
The question, though rather unexpected, sounded harmless enough, so Emmeline pulled out her beloved little gold watch, and politely gave him the information he required.
‘That’s a rare fine watch,’ he remarked. ‘Let’s have a look at that.’
It was impossible to refuse her brave rescuer such a trifling request, so she put the watch into one of his very grimy hands.
‘Much obliged to you!’ he said, with a good-natured laugh. ‘So long!’ and before Emmeline, in her amazement, had realised what was happening, he had slipped back into Paradise Court.
For an instant she gazed blankly, scarcely believing her own senses. Then a roar of laughter from the onlookers maddened her into recklessness, and she was just going to rush down the steps again in pursuit of Bully Ben, when someone caught her firmly by the sleeve and held her back.
‘Don’t you never go in there again,’ whispered a girl’s voice in her ear. ’Tisn’t safe. There was a preaching bloke got his head split open in thereonly last Sunday. Just you run away before there’s anything worse happens.’
The speaker was ragged and dirty, like everyone else in Green Ginger Land, and Emmeline was more than half-inclined to take her for an accomplice of Bully Ben’s, and to disregard the warning. She hesitated, equally unable to make up her mind to resign her watch, or to screw up her courage to plunge back into that terrible court, and as she wavered the children began to gather close again.
‘Just you run away,’ said the girl more urgently than before.
It is hard to say what would have happened if Emmeline had not just then felt something sting her cheek. It was only a piece of banana-peel, but such a yell of triumph rose from the spectators that she was seized with panic and fled headlong, pursued by the howling mob of children.
On and on she ran, still seeming to hear the shouts of her pursuers, till she had got far outside the borders of Green Ginger Land. Still she ran blindly on, till at last she was brought to a sudden standstill by bumping so violently against a fat old lady as almost to knock her down.
‘Well!’ ejaculated the old lady, as soon as she had regained her breath, ‘youarea rude little girl!’
‘I’m—so—sorry,’ panted Emmeline: ‘some people—are chasing me—with stones.’
‘There’s nobody chasing you,’ said the old lady severely, and when Emmeline looked round she saw that it was the truth. The Green Ginger children had all straggled back to their own land before this.
‘It’s just one of those rude games you children are always playing about the streets,’ grumbled the old lady. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what girls are coming to.’
Poor Emmeline! She had never in her life before been suspected of playing rude games in the streets, but she had not the heart to defend herself, so she walked on without another word. As she walked, the thought of her lost watch—that dear little watch which had been her mother’s very last gift—came back to her like a stab, and made her eyes fill with tears till everything became blurred, and she stumbled along not seeing where she was going.
But she was a plucky little soul at the bottom, not given to crying over spilt milk when there were more urgent things to be done, so, as her handkerchief had got lost in the course of her adventures, she wiped her eyes on the back of her glove.
‘After all, it’s only right you should havesomepunishment, for you oughtn’t to have come intoEastwich without leave,’ she told herself, with something of that stern sense of justice with which she had been wont to govern the twins. ‘And, anyhow, the thing that really matters is to find Micky, so what you’ve got to do now is to ask the way to the Fair.’
The two policemen at Chudstone were feeling extremely puzzled.
It seemed so impossible that a boy of eight, supposed to have left home only that morning with little or no money, could have gone very far, and yet how was it, if he were anywhere in the neighbourhood, that nobody had yet succeeded in finding him?
There were no rivers within several miles of Woodsleigh, and even the horse-ponds were shallow, so that Micky could not well have been drowned; if he had been run over by a motor-car his mangled body would surely have been discovered before now; and as to the possibility of his having been stolen by gipsies, a raid upon the Baddicomb van had made it clear that that theory, at least, was without foundation. Under the circumstances it seemed extraordinary, not to say magical, that the boy had so utterly and absolutely disappeared.
Now, as a matter of fact, there was nothingmagical or even extraordinary in the business. Micky had simply gone to Eastwich, and he had travelled there not on a broom-stick, but part of the way on his own legs, and the other part hanging on to the back of a cart, which was taking some noisily aggrieved pigs for their last sad drive to the pork butcher’s.
The real reason why nobody had managed to track him was twofold—firstly, he had had about twelve hours’ more start than his friends fancied, having left home not on Wednesday morning, but at half-past seven on Tuesday evening; and secondly, people were on the look out for one little gentleman, whereas it should have been for two little tramps!
‘Don’t I make a splendid beggar?’ Micky had demanded triumphantly, the evening before, when he had jumped out to join Diamond Jubilee, who was waiting just underneath his window—and the boast was no vain one. It is wonderful how a quick-witted boy can transform himself by dint of changing a neat sailor-suit for a ragged old coat and pair of knickers put away in the lumber-room, dispensing with collar, shoes, and stockings, and muddying his face and hands with flower-bed earth (‘you have to lick it to make it stick,’ Micky was careful to explain when he told the story afterwards); and all these things Micky had done, with the result that he looked every bit asmuch of a little tramp as Diamond Jubilee himself.
‘It isn’t many men who’d have thought of waiting quietly in bed till the servants were safe out of the house,’ Micky had remarked complacently, as he and Diamond Jubilee were setting out, ‘and I don’t suppose most people would have known how to disguise themselves so well. It’s really a beautifully managed adventure.’
In Diamond Jubilee’s eyes the adventure had needed only one improvement.
‘I could do with a bit of something to eat afore we starts,’ he had suggested.
‘But Jane said I wasn’t to have my proper supper to-night, and of course we can’t take anything, for that would be stealing,’ said Micky, not in the least meaning to lecture, but simply to state a matter of fact.
‘Youarea softy!’ said Diamond Jubilee, but he spoke in quite an affectionate tone and did not press the point further. It was strange how different he was when alone with Micky, from what he was when Emmeline was trying to improve him.
‘What have you done with your monkey-nuts?’ Micky had asked.
‘Oh, I just throwed ’em away. I were that sick of ’em, an’ they’d have been an awful fag to carry.’
‘Youarea slacker, Diamond Jubilee!’ said Micky. ‘Why, just look at me, carrying a whole suit besides my shoes and stockings!’ It had occurred to Micky that he had better take his discarded sailor-suit and shoes and stockings with him, as they would be the handiest things to sell in case he found himself in need of money. It really was, as he said, a beautifully managed adventure!
None of the little Boltons had worn shoes or stockings for the first six years of their lives, so that Micky’s feet were too thoroughly hardened to mind stones or anything else, and the children did the first two miles of their journey at a good swinging pace, the more so, that there are plenty of sign-posts in that part of the country, so they did not have to stop and ask the way. During the third mile Diamond Jubilee began to flag badly, and Micky was secretly repenting the foresight which had given him such a troublesome bundle to carry; and at the beginning of the fourth mile both boys agreed that they must rest somewhere for the night before going on any farther.
They were just at that moment passing a farmhouse, one of the outbuildings of which proved on inspection to be a barn with some straw in it. What better sleeping-place could have been desired? The boys went in, nestled down amongst the straw, and dozed off as soundly as a couple oflittle tops. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the lowing of the cows woke them up next morning before anyone had come in to find them, and they stole out again, feeling wonderfully refreshed and quite ready for the remaining nine miles of their walk. They had already gone one of those miles before Micky suddenly remembered that he had left the bundle of his suit and shoes and stockings behind in the barn. It did not seem worth while to go back and fetch them, however, especially as they were such a bother to carry.
It could not have been more than about five o’clock when the boys set out again, but they made most of the remainder of their journey in so leisurely a fashion that it was past three in the afternoon before they were well into Eastwich, and they would have been later still had it not been for the secret lift which they obtained by hanging on to the pigs’ cart for the last two miles of the way. What they had been doing all the time it would have been hard to say; they had begged their breakfast at one farm and their lunch at another—neither meal was more than a drink of water and a hunch of bread each, but the bread tasted delicious, eaten under the hedge, after that long, hungry walk; they had played about; Micky had had such a successful fight with a little boy who had called after them, that Diamond Jubilee held out hopes that he might eventually developinto the same kind of person as a certain friend of his, who had, he said, ‘been in quod fifteen times for fighting, and would knock a chap down sooner than look at him’; and they had passed the time of day with most of the animals they met; but still, even allowing for all this, it must be owned that their progress was decidedly slow.
‘I reckon,’ remarked Diamond Jubilee, when at last they did find themselves strolling through the streets of Eastwich—it was at just about same time that Emmeline was making her way to Green Ginger Land—‘I reckon we’d better get some money afore we go to Mother Grimes’. She aren’t pleased if you come in without money, or wipes, or such, and sometimes she beat you something awful.’
Micky had not the slightest idea what ‘wipes’ might be, but he was not going to give himself away by asking.
‘Does she ever go on beating you till you bleed?’ he inquired with interest. He had never been beaten in his life, and was not in the least dismayed at the prospect, as a more experienced little boy might have been. On the contrary, he regarded it as adding just that touch of danger without which no adventure is complete.
‘I’ve bled whole basins’ full before now!’ boasted Diamond Jubilee. ‘It aren’t much of a treat, I can tell you, when once Mother Grimesstarts a good old set-to, so I reckon we’ll go to the Fair for a bit and do coach-wheels for the folks to throw us money before we go home.’
This plan exactly suited Micky, and to the Fair they accordingly went.
So it came about that Micky presently found himself once more in the midst of all that delightful noise and bustle which made up Eastwich Fair. He would turn his very best coach-wheels, he decided, and earn quantities of pennies for motor-rides and ice-cream (last time Emmeline wouldn’t let them have any because people had to lick it out of glasses, as there were no spoons) and cocoanut-shies, and visits to the elephants.Hewasn’t going to give all his money to that old Mother Grimes, whatever Diamond Jubilee might do.
To all appearance that young gentleman was in no great hurry to do anything, for he would keep loitering about in an idle way long after Micky had begun turning coach-wheels. Micky told him he was a slacker, but it made no difference.
Quite a little crowd gathered to watch Micky.
‘Don’t the little chap do it well?’ ‘Just look at the poor lamb’s bare feet?’ ‘He’d be a real pretty child if his face weren’t so dirty.’ ‘Don’t he thank you pretty?’
Those were some of the remarks people madeas they threw down their halfpence, and for each coin Micky said, ‘Thank you very much, ma’am!’ or ‘Thank you very much, sir!’ with the utmost politeness, whichever way up he happened to be.
He had earned a small harvest of halfpence, and the little exhibition was still going on as merrily as a marriage-bell, when the dreadful thing happened.
‘Yes, I’ve been keeping my eye on you two young rascals. I know your little game!’ said a stern, startling voice.
Micky spun himself right way up in double-quick time, and what was his surprise and horror to see Diamond Jubilee struggling in the grip of a tall policeman!
‘Please, sir, I’d only just picked it up to give it back to the lady,’ Diamond Jubilee was whimpering. ‘She’d dropped it on the ground, please sir.’
‘There’s no use telling any lies about it,’ said the policeman, ‘for I saw you take the handkerchief out of the lady’s pocket with my own eyes. You’ll just come along of me—and you too,’ he added, suddenly using his free hand to seize hold of the astonished Micky.
‘It’s all a mistake,’ gasped Micky. ‘On my word and honour as a gentleman we weren’t doing anything—I mean we were only turning coach-wheels—at least——’
‘Yes, I saw you turning coach-wheels to take off attention from what your friend was doing,’ was the gruff answer. ‘I know the dodge. It’s just the way you little thieves always work.’
Micky’s face turned very white under its dirt.
‘We’re not thieves!’ he began hotly, but suddenly broke off. He could not say truthfully that Diamond Jubilee was not a thief, and it would be sneakish to stand up for himself at Diamond Jubilee’s expense. So Micky pressed his lips tightly together, and tried hard to keep them from quivering. He was not going to cry like a baby before all these people.
‘I shall have to take down your name and address, ma’am,’ said the policeman to a frightened-looking lady who was standing near, and whom Micky now noticed for the first time, ‘for you’ll be wanted to prosecute these boys.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to be hard on such children, especially as I’ve got the handkerchief back,’ she answered nervously.
‘It will be the best possible thing for them,’ he answered in a low voice; ‘they belong to a regular thieves’ school, and we’ve been watching long enough for an opportunity of breaking it up. Will you kindly hold the boys while I write the address?’ he added aloud to a stout young man.
The stout young man came forward willingly enough and took hold of an arm of each boy witha firm grip from which Diamond Jubilee tried vainly to wriggle away. As for Micky, he stood as still as a little statue, and held his head high.
It only took a moment for the policeman to write down the address in a notebook which he whipped out of his pocket; and then with a peremptory ‘Make way there, please!’ to the bystanders, he took the two boys from the young man who was holding them and began marching them out of the Fair ground, followed by a large crowd.
Neither child made any attempt now to struggle away, but Micky’s childish face had a look of set misery which went to the hearts of all the mothers who saw it, and presently struck even Diamond Jubilee.
Now Diamond Jubilee, though a very naughty boy, was not altogether a hardened one, and that expression on Micky’s face made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. Micky had been a great softy not to stand up for himself—Diamond Jubilee, or any other sensible kid, would have jolly soon thrown the blame on the other chap if there had been the least chance of being believed—but some folks were born softies, and couldn’t help it. Anyhow, Diamond Jubilee liked Micky, and couldn’t abide his looking like that.
‘Please, sir, the other boy didn’t have nothing to do with it; he were only doing coach-wheels soas folks should throw him halfpennies,’ broke out Diamond Jubilee all of a sudden.
‘Do you mean to say he didn’t know what you were up to?’ asked the policeman in an incredulous voice.
That question spoilt it. To own that he himself had been up to anything was more than could be expected of Diamond Jubilee’s generosity. ‘I weren’t up to nothing,’ he whined; ‘I’m sure I never took the wipe. All I done were to pick it up to give the lady.’
‘Now, there’s no use in going back to that silly lie,’ said the policeman sharply, ‘for I saw you pull it out myself.’ For an instant his belief in Micky’s being an accomplice had been somewhat shaken—though the boy would surely have joined in defending himself if his conscience had been clear—but this last untruth made him set Diamond Jubilee down as an inveterate little liar whose testimony was worth nothing at all. When the child began to repeat the assertion that the other boy anyhow had had nothing to do with it, he was silenced at once with a stern ‘I can’t believe anything you say.’
As to Micky, he said not a word, partly out of a sense of chivalry towards Diamond Jubilee—if it would have been sneakish before to leave him to bear all the blame, it would be far worse now that he had been so decent—and partly because hewas too proud to stand up for himself when he was sure to be disbelieved.
As the two boys and the policeman walked along more and more people kept rushing out from side streets to see what was happening, until it seemed to poor Micky that all Eastwich must be there to witness his disgrace. Well, as soon as ever he was free again, he should flee the country, he resolved fiercely. It would be unbearable to live any longer in a land where such thousands of people—Micky felt sure there must be thousands at least—where such thousands of people came to stare at you being taken to prison.
Before they had gone far, the policeman stopped at the door of a tall grim building with many windows, some of which had bars. Into this grim building he took the boys.
The crowd of gazers was just beginning to scatter, when a white-faced little girl, whose eyes were wide open with terror and dismay, came running up breathlessly from the opposite direction from the one in which the Fair lay. She looked about her distractedly as if she were hoping against hope to see somebody, and then leaned heavily against the wall of the tall grim building as though trying to steady herself.
‘Well, it’s a lesson what happens to bad boys,’a voice was saying—to the white-faced little girl it seemed to come from somewhere a long, long way off—‘How would you like to go to prison, Jemmy?’
Prison! Oh, then the awful, unbelievable thinghadhappened! That tall grim house was a prison. It was to prison that she had seen the policeman taking Micky and Diamond Jubilee. ‘Those two little boys who’ve just gone in—in there,’ Emmeline (for she it was) heard herself saying jerkily to the voice which sounded so far away—‘what had they been doing?’
The owner of the voice, a careworn lad who was standing with his little brother almost at her elbow, turned round and stared at Emmeline’s pale, scared face. ‘They were caught at the Fair picking pockets,’ he told her bluntly. It did not occur to him that there was any need to speak with caution of two little street-urchins who could have no possible connection with this well-dressed child.
Emmeline found herself running madly through the streets of Eastwich in the direction of Mary’s house; running as she might have run if Micky had been drowning, or she had been bound on some other errand of life or death. What she expected Mary to be able to do she could not have told—even grown-ups could not rescuepeople from prison—but the blind instinct of going to her old friend for help in this terrible trouble made her rush on, panting and sobbing, heedless of the many people against whom she knocked and who turned to stare after her in indignant or pitying surprise. She began crossing a road without noticing a tradesman’s cart which was galloping out of a side street; neither did she hear the driver’s horrified shout of ‘Hi!’ as he tried vainly to pull up his horse in time. All she was conscious of was of suddenly being thrown to the ground, and then of a blow on her head and a frightful pain in her arm. Afterwards everything became dark, and she knew no more.
Emmeline opened her eyes again to find herself half sitting, half lying across the seat of a cab. A strange lady with a grave, kind face was kneeling by her side, holding her arm.
‘Where—’ began Emmeline faintly, breaking off with a groan as the cab gave a jolt and she felt a sudden shoot of pain rather like having a tooth out, only it was much worse, and in her arm, not her mouth.
‘We are going to the Infirmary,’ said the lady gently; ‘they’ll soon make you well.’
‘Can’t we go to Mary?’ said Emmeline, so feebly that the lady could not quite catch the words.
‘You shall go home as soon as ever the doctor has put your arm right,’ she promised.
After that the pain grew so bad that there was nothing for it but just to lie back on the seat and squeeze her lips tightly together so as to keep from screaming. At that moment she did not care where she was going if only she got theresoon, and this dreadful jolting drive came to an end.
After a few minutes that seemed almost like as many hours the cab stopped, and then somebody came and lifted her out with strong, careful arms. She must have fainted again after that, for the next thing she knew was that she was lying on a bed in a strange room, and that a doctor was leaning over her, hurting her horribly by feeling her arm.
‘Only a simple fracture,’ he remarked cheerfully. ‘We shall soon set that to rights.’
It was all very well for the doctor to speak cheerfully, but the process of having her arm set gave Emmeline the sharpest pain she had ever known. One agonised ‘Oh!’ did burst from her, but except for that she lay quite still and quiet, only breathing harder than usual.
‘Well, you’re one of the pluckiest little things I’ve ever had to do with,’ said the doctor warmly, when he had finished his work.
‘Yes, indeed she is,’ agreed the Nurse who had helped to bind up the arm.
Emmeline gave a wan little smile. ‘One must be—game,’ she remarked. ‘Game’ was one of Micky’s words which she would never have used if she had been quite herself.
‘Well, you have been very game!’ said the doctor smiling as he left her.
Afterwards the Nurse began to undress her. Emmeline had a dreamy impression that the proceeding was a strange one, and that there was something very important she ought to have been doing, but she could not remember what it was, and she felt so tired and so much disinclined to argue that she just submitted without a word.
‘Now, dear, can you tell me your name and where you live?’ asked the Nurse, as she put Emmeline into the narrow spring-bed on which she had lain to have her arm set.
‘My name’s Emmeline Bolton,’ was the prompt answer, ‘and I live——’ She hesitated, frowned with perplexity, and then broke into a weak little laugh. ‘Why, how funny! I can’t remember the name of the place.’
‘Don’t you live in Eastwich, then?’ asked the Nurse.
‘No, I don’t think we live there now,’ said Emmeline in a puzzled way. ‘Mary does, though,’ she added as an afterthought.
‘Do you remember Mary’s address and what her surname is?’
Emmeline frowned again.
‘It’s very odd,’ she said after a moment. ‘I don’t seem able to remember anything to-day.’
‘Never mind,’ said the Nurse, ‘it’ll all come back to you soon enough.’ She went out of theroom and returned presently with a glass of warm milk. ‘Drink this,’ she said, ‘and then go to sleep like a good child.’
Emmeline drained the glass obediently, after which she dropped her head back on to the pillow, and in another minute she had fallen sound asleep.
‘Poor little thing!’ said the Nurse to herself as she went away. ‘She’s still dazed with the blow on her head. Well, it can’t have been a very bad one, or she wouldn’t have remembered as much as she did, so I dare say she’ll be pretty well all right by to-morrow. For to-night all we can do is to give notice at the police-station that she is here.’
Emmeline awoke the next morning to find the sunlight pouring full into the room where she was lying—a strange room with three empty beds in it instead of Kitty’s, and none of the familiar pictures nor furniture. Her first feeling was one of bewilderment as to where she was, and why one of her arms felt so funny. Then she remembered that this was Eastwich Infirmary, and that she had been brought there in a cab to have her arm put to rights.
What had she been doing in Eastwich? For a moment she could not think. Then suddenly all the events of the last few days flashed back upon her, up to the time when she had beenstanding talking to the stranger boy outside the tall grim house, into which the policeman had just led Micky and Diamond Jubilee!
When the Nurse came in to attend to her a few minutes later, there was nothing to be seen of Emmeline but a restless lump, heaving about stormily underneath the bedclothes.
‘It’s very bad for the child to lie with her head covered up like that,’ thought the Nurse, and, going up to the bed, she tried gently to pull down the clothes. For a moment Emmeline held on fiercely, and when she did let her face be uncovered it was tear-stained and flushed.
‘Well, how are you feeling this morning?’ asked the Nurse kindly, ignoring the marks of tears. She was quite used to patients being miserably shy and homesick just at first.
‘Better, thank you—I mean quite well,’ said Emmeline. ‘Please, I can’t stay here,’ she went on. ‘There’s something dreadfully important I must tell my friends. I can’t think how I came to forget it last night. I must dress and go to them now, at once. You don’t know how frightfully it matters!’
‘Don’t be so unhappy,’ said Nurse. ‘We’ll send for your friend, and I daresay she’ll be here almost as soon as you’ve finished your breakfast.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ said Emmeline, as much relieved as she could be just then. ‘It’s MissMary Bell I want to see, and her address is 14, East Parade.’
‘I know,’ said the Nurse. ‘Her brother was round late last night inquiring after you. They had found out at the police-station where you were, and were very anxious about you, so mind you eat a good breakfast and look as well as possible when your friend comes, so as to set her mind at rest,’ and Nurse went away with a merry smile which poor Emmeline felt quite incapable of returning.
Events turned out even better than Nurse’s word. Emmeline was still struggling with her basin of arrowroot, when the sound of a voice in the passage outside made her flush and tremble all over. Then the door opened, and Nurse entered, followed by Mary, who hobbled in looking anxious and worried, but otherwise so much her motherly self that there would have been comfort in the very sight of her if Emmeline had been less taken up with the thought of the terrible news she must tell.
‘Well, my poor darling, you have been through a lot!’ said Mary, coming close to the bed and bending down to kiss Emmeline’s quivering face.
The kindly tone was too much for Emmeline, and she burst into tears.
‘You won’t want to k-kiss me when you’veheard what dreadful things have happened all through m-me!’ she sobbed.
‘There, there, my darling. Don’t take on so!’ said Mary, kissing her again. ‘Things aren’t so bad as what you think. Master Micky have been found.’
‘But, Mary,’ she broke out desperately, ‘he’s inprison. I saw a policeman take him there yesterday afternoon.’
‘Oh no, dear,’ Mary hastened to explain, ‘not to prison, only to the police-station. People can’t be sent to prison till they have been tried in court, you know. Micky didn’t stay long even at the police-station, for as soon as he gave his name and address they knew he must be the boy who was missing, and sent for me to take him away.’
‘And is that really all that will happen,’ cried Emmeline.
‘Well, he’s had to go to the police-court this morning to be questioned by the magistrate,’ Mary was forced to admit. ‘But I quite hope he will get on all right. Nobody could talk to him without seeing what an honest little boy he is really, and that he didn’t a bit understand what that Diamond Jubilee was up to. That Diamond Jubilee is a real bad boy, if ever there was one!’
‘I’m afraid he is,’ said Emmeline sorrowfully. ‘It’s a dreadful pity Micky ever got mixed up with him. And oh, Mary, it’s all my fault that heever did! That’s what I was going to tell you about.’
‘I think Master Micky has told me,’ said Mary. ‘You mean about adopting that boy unbeknown to Miss Bolton. I must say I was surprised to hear it ofyou, Miss Emmeline. I should never have thought you would have done anything so silly—to say nothing of its being very naughty to do such a thing without leave.’
‘You see,’ faltered Emmeline, ‘I knew Aunt Grace wouldn’t understand or sympathise with us trying to do a good work.’
‘And I don’t blame her either,’ said Mary. ‘Not good works of that kind. They’re not suitable to children.’
Poor Emmeline felt as though her one friend had gone over to the enemy. Mary’s remark was almost exactly what Aunt Grace had said last Sunday, when Emmeline had been so indignant with her for not appreciating that charitable little Kathleen.
‘But, Mary,’ she said piteously. ‘Youdidsay yourself that guileless children could do more good to sinners than anybody else, and I’m sure Diamond Jubilee is a sinner!’
Mary looked as much taken aback as people usually do when their own theories are put by others into inconvenient practice.
‘I wasn’t thinking of adoption when I saidthat,’ she explained rather lamely. ‘Specially not a nasty, dirty little boy like that, who isn’t at all fit company for little ladies and gentlemen. But there, my darling, I don’t want to scold you, for I’m sure you meant well, and anyhow, you’ve been punished more than enough already, both for adopting the boy, and also for running away to find Micky, which is another thing you would never have done if you had stopped to think how dreadfully anxious and unhappy it would make everybody.’
‘Did it?’ and Emmeline looked self-reproachful; ‘but there wasn’t anyone at home who would mind much. It isn’t as if Jane and Cook cared for us as you do, Mary.’
‘It isn’t likely they should, but for all that they were nearly frightened out of their wits, poor things,’ said Mary, ‘specially after Miss Miller had got out of Kitty that you’d gone to Green Ginger Land to look for Master Micky.’
‘How do you know all this?’ asked Emmeline.
‘I had a letter from Jane this morning, and a telegram from Miss Miller yesterday evening,’ answered Mary.
There was a moment’s silence.
‘Yes, I see now that I oughtn’t to have gone off like that,’ said Emmeline sadly. ‘But I was so dreadfully unhappy about Micky that nothing seemed to matter except finding him.’
Mary was too kind to point out to Emmeline that Micky would have been found just as soon if she had never made her expedition.
‘Yes, poor darling, I can just fancy what you must have been feeling!’ she said, ‘George would have left a message for you last night about Master Micky, only while he’s in this trouble it seems best not to make any more talk than can be helped, so I thought I’d come round and tell you first thing this morning instead, and see how you were at the same time. How did you come to get run over?’
‘I can’t remember anything about it, it seems just wiped out of my mind,’ said Emmeline; ‘it’s very funny, for I remember the early part of the afternoon so well. Oh, Mary, it was just like a dreadful dream!’
Then she went on to tell of her adventures in Green Ginger Land.
Mary shuddered as she listened, for she knew far better than Emmeline herself what a risk the child had run.
‘Thank God nothing worse happened than your watch being stolen!’ she exclaimed from the bottom of her heart when she had heard the whole story. ‘That’s very grieving, though. But maybe the police will be able to get it back for you.’
‘Do you really think the police will get me back my watch?’ cried Emmeline.
‘Well, you mustn’t reckon on it, but I can’t help hoping they may,’ said Mary. ‘And now, my darling, I must be going, for Master Micky’s case will be getting over, and I must go and hear how the poor lamb got on.’
‘You’ll come back and tell me as soon as ever you know anything, won’t you?’ pleaded Emmeline.
‘I expect your aunt will want to come herself, dear, but if she doesn’t, I certainly will,’ answered Mary.
‘Aunt Grace!’ exclaimed Emmeline. ‘Why, she isn’t here. She’s in London!’
‘She’s here now,’ said Mary. ‘Miss Miller telegraphed for her yesterday evening, and when she reached home, about two o’clock this morning, she found a telegram from George to say that both you and Micky were at Eastwich, and that you had had an accident. So she came back here by the seven o’clock train.’
‘How dreadfully tired she must be!’ exclaimed Emmeline. ‘And how could she leave her friend?’
‘The poor lady died yesterday afternoon,’ said Mary in a low voice. ‘The end came much more suddenly than anyone expected.’
‘Oh, Mary, I wish it hadn’t all happened just yesterday!’ said Emmeline, with tears in her eyes.
‘So do I, dear,’ said Mary. ‘But it’s no use crying over spilt milk. The only thing for youto do now is to tell your Aunt Grace how very sorry you are. You’ll find she’ll understand.’
Emmeline heaved herself round and buried her face in the pillow.
‘No, she won’t,’ she muttered. ‘Nobody could, and besides, she never really cared for me. She’ll hate me after this, I expect.’
‘Miss Emmeline, you mustn’t talk of your aunt like that,’ said Mary gently. ‘She loves you all dearly—I never knew how dearly till I saw her this morning, tired to death with the journey and all the worry and anxiety following so quick on her grief at losing her friend, and yet comforting poor little Micky as if she’d been his mother. Now that it is all over, and I shall never misjudge her so again, perhaps there’s no harm in telling you that there was a time when I had my doubts as to how your living with her would turn out, what with her being so young and pretty, and more used to a gay London life than to bringing up children; but I’ve reproached myself many a time this morning for ever having had such uncharitable thoughts, for a better Christian or a more loving-hearted young lady doesn’t walk the earth.’
Poor dear Mary! She little thought that Emmeline had all along been quite aware of those misgivings of hers, which she had been too loyal and good a woman ever to express in words, orthat it is far easier to suggest doubts than to put trust and confidence in their place. Emmeline said nothing, but she none the less looked forward with dread to the possible visit from Aunt Grace. Even Mary thought she had done very wrong, dear kind Mary, who always took the best view of things, and as to Aunt Grace, she would never really forgive her, or believe how very sorry she was.
Emmeline’s heart sank when, about half an hour afterwards, Aunt Grace herself arrived. She was looking so ill and sad that a dreadful fear came over Emmeline lest Micky might, after all, have been sent to prison, and she could only look at Aunt Grace in dumb suspense. Fortunately, her aunt understood at once, and hastened to set her mind at rest.
‘It’s all right, Emmeline,’ she said; ‘Micky has come out of the affair all right, and is quite cleared of the charge of helping the other boy to thieve. Micky stood up before the magistrate like a little hero, and answered every question so frankly and pluckily that no one could doubt that he was telling the truth. Then it came to the other boy’s turn, and though he whimpered, and altogether did not cut nearly such a good figure as Micky, he was quite ready to own that Micky had known nothing of his meaning to pick the lady’s pocket. I dare say poor Diamond Jubileeis a very naughty little boy, but I shall always have a kindly feeling towards him, for being so anxious as he certainly was to clear Micky’s character. The end of it all was that Micky was acquitted. I’m not altogether sorry he had the fright, as a punishment for his naughtiness in running away. As to the other poor child, he was sentenced to have six strokes of the birch.’
‘Then evenhewon’t be sent to prison?’ asked Emmeline.
‘Oh no, they would never think of sending such a child to prison,’ Aunt Grace assured her. ‘You poor little Emmeline, I don’t wonder you looked so white and frightened just now, if you were expecting to hear of Micky’s being sent to prison! But now your mind is easy about him, I want you to tell me what’s been happening toyou, my poor child.’
Something in the unexpected gentleness of the question brought the tears into Emmeline’s eyes again. ‘Oh, Aunt Grace,’ she said, ‘I am so very, very sorry!’
Aunt Grace bent over her suddenly, and gave her one of her rare kisses. ‘I know you are, darling,’ she said—she had never called Emmeline ‘darling’ before—‘tell me all about it. Of course I know a good deal from what Micky has told me, but I want to hear it from you too. Tell mefrom the very beginning. What made you first think of adopting Diamond Jubilee?’
It was very odd; all the morning Emmeline had been dreading more than anything else having to tell her story to Aunt Grace, and yet, now, almost before she knew what she was doing, she found herself pouring it all out as freely and fully as if Aunt Grace had been her most intimate friend. She began by speaking of the Meeting in the Village School, and of how much it had made her want to do good to the poor. Then came the history of the day they had gone to the Fair alone—‘and I knew all the time you wouldn’t like us to go alone, though I pretended to myself that you wouldn’t mind,’ Emmeline confessed—and of the encounter with Diamond Jubilee, and of how it had almost seemed ‘meant’ that they should adopt him when his dire need of being plucked as a brand from the burning was brought home to them so forcibly.
‘I thought how b-beautiful it would be to bring him up to be a m-missionary!’ said Emmeline, with two little sobs at the remembrance of the woeful way in which Diamond Jubilee had disappointed her.
‘I shouldn’t have thought myself he was quite cut out for a missionary,’ said Aunt Grace gravely, though her eyes could not help twinkling a little, ‘but go on.’
Emmeline went on to tell of all the plans for Diamond Jubilee’s welfare, of the Feudal Castle where he was to dwell, and the chocolate and monkey-nuts on which he was to live, and of all their plots and contrivances. Once or twice she noticed that her listener looked away quickly, but she did not pay much attention to this, and was continuing her tale quite gravely and sorrowfully, when all at once Aunt Grace broke into one of those clear, ringing laughs which Emmeline had been wont to consider so frivolous and unsuitable for an aunt. For a moment Emmeline stared at her, puzzled and half offended; then suddenly it struck her for the first time that the whole affair really was rather funny, and she too laughed, though a little doubtfully.
‘I’m so sorry, Emmeline,’ said Aunt Grace; ‘I didn’t mean to laugh, but you raised such an absurd picture in my mind that I simply couldn’t help it!’
‘I don’t mind at all,’ said Emmeline, and it was the truth, though a week ago she would have been greatly displeased at anyone’s venturing to be amused at her.
‘Well, go on with your story,’ said Aunt Grace, and Emmeline began to relate the troubles and adventures of yesterday. Aunt Grace listened so sympathetically that it must be owned that her niece quite enjoyed giving a graphic descriptionof the past perils of Green Ginger Land and of her horror at seeing Micky in the hands of the policeman. It was only when she had come to the end of her tale and Aunt Grace remained silent that she remembered it had really been in the nature of a confession.
‘Are you going to scold me, Aunt Grace?’ she asked at the end, a little uneasily.
There was a moment’s pause before Aunt Grace answered: ‘No, I don’t think I will scold you. Of course, it was very wrong to adopt the child without leave, but I think what has happened has taught you just how wrong and foolish it was better than anything I could say. And in itself it was a good and beautiful thing to want to help poor little Diamond Jubilee to a better life.’
Again there was a silence. Then Emmeline said timidly: ‘Do you know, Aunt Grace, I always thought you didn’t care about such things.’
‘What made you think I didn’t?’ asked Aunt Grace, who did not seem at all offended.
‘Because—because’—Emmeline stammered and turned rather red, ‘you seemed almost to dislike that wonderful little girl Mr. Faulkner told us about—I mean the one who was so very good to the poor children.’
‘I’m sure she was a little prig,’ said Aunt Grace, quickly, ‘and, anyhow, she wasn’t worthy of all the fuss Mr. Faulkner was making about her. But itdoesn’t follow, because I don’t think very much of that particular little girl, that I don’t like other little girls trying to do unselfish things, even if they make mistakes sometimes, for I do’; and once more she bent down and kissed Emmeline. A sudden recollection stung Emmeline.
‘You wouldn’t think nearly so well of me if you knew everything,’ she blurted out; ‘there’s something ever so much worse I was forgetting to tell you. We had spent all our money that day we went to the Fair, and—and I thought we might use the extra money-box money to buy Diamond Jubilee’s food with. You see wehadcollected it for children like him.’ She broke off, not knowing how to tell the rest.
‘You had collected it on the understanding that it was for the Home, not to buy chocolates and monkey-nuts for any ragged little boy you chanced to come across,’ said Aunt Grace gently, ‘so I’m afraid you’ll have to pay it back gradually out of your pocket-money. By the way, did you buy your railway ticket out of the extra money-box fund?’
‘Oh no, I borrowed that from the chickens’ money, and I did mean to pay it back next Saturday. But that isn’t all I was going to tell you’—she turned away her head—‘I as good as told a story about the extra money-box money afterwards’—her voice grew choky—‘Jane foundout it was empty, like the prying old thing she is, and said she was sure Alice had taken the money, as she had been doing my room.’
‘And you didn’t tell her you’d taken it yourself?’ said Aunt Grace quietly, as Emmeline hid her face in the pillow.
A stifled sound that could just be distinguished as ‘No!’ came from the depths of the pillow.
‘Well, I’m very sorry indeed about this,’ said Aunt Grace, ‘far more sorry than about anything else that’s happened. But I’m glad you’ve told me. You’ll have to tell Jane as soon as you get home.’
Emmeline hated the idea of telling Jane, but she saw that it was the only honourable thing to be done, and resolved to do it on the first possible opportunity; a resolution which she bravely carried out when the right time came.
That was all Aunt Grace said in the way of reproof. For the rest of the visit she spoke chiefly of Miss King, telling Emmeline about the last few hours of her life as though she found comfort in the child’s sympathy.
‘I can’t grieve very much,’ she said simply. ‘For years we had been dreading the end, and when it really came she suffered so very little. Of course, there must always be one’s selfish sorrow at the loss, but I can’t feel she is at all far off.’
A few minutes later Aunt Grace went away, and for the rest of the morning Emmeline was left alone except for a short visit from the Doctor. She did not feel at all dull or lonely, however, for there seemed so much to think and wonder over.
‘It’s very odd how different people are from what you expect them to be,’ was the upshot of her reflections. ‘Mary was dear and kind, as she always is, but she didn’t understand a bit. It was Aunt Grace who understood that adopting Diamond Jubilee wasn’tallnaughtiness. Well, that plan’s been a great failure, and I don’t suppose we shall ever see him again, but anyhow, there’s one good thing come of it. If it hadn’t been for Diamond Jubilee I might never have known how good and nice Aunt Grace really is!’