CHAPTER XVIII—ESCAPING

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.