CHAPTER XIX—THE HIGH HORSE OF ROMANCE

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.