TO THE RESCUE
“Oh!” Margot sprang to her feet. Indignation and fury were in her eyes
and in her voice. “Stella, they are hurting it!”
“What?” Stella, already half-turning in the direction of home, gave
reluctant ear.
“What, indeed! It’s a child, of course. Oh, I knew quite well there was
something up. Didn’t you hear those men mention the police? They’ve
stolen it, or something. Anyhow, it’s unhappy. _Listen!_”
“Well, we can’t do anything. Not against two great men. And some of the
gipsies are horrid. Margot, come on!”
“Come on, indeed!” said Margot, listening with might and main to the
pitiful sobs.
“Let’s go back home, then, and we’ll fetch father,” suggested Stella.
“Why, you said your own self that he would be out to tea!” returned the
downright Margot, quivering with rage. “_You_ can go home, if you like,
but I’m not coming. Why, before anyone gets back to help they might----”
Margot took a step in the direction of the tent.
“Oh, don’t be so stupid, Margot!” Stella seized her skirts. “They might
do--anything to you! Oh, I wish you wouldn’t be so--so Australian! It’s
not even sensible. One girl against two great gipsies! Even if you _did_
go inside, what would you do?”
“I’d not be--one girl, if you came too,” Margot informed her. “Here,
you’re right in one thing; we’d better get the men out of the tent,
first, and then go in! Only, how....”
“There’s no way. How could there be? I’m going home,” said Stella.
“Of all the _cowards_! That’s what _you_ are! I’d rather be--Australian,
as you call it, than a coward and leave a baby crying!” Stella’s guest
of the afternoon turned upon her hostess with flashing eyes. “And after
talking of winning the bravery shield!”
The mention of the shield certainly seemed to revive, to a slight
extent, Stella’s departing nerve.
“I’m not a coward, and if it’s for the shield----” She stopped. “Only,
how----? We’ll never get the shield if the gipsies kill us.”
“_Kill_ us! It’s better than killing the baby, anyhow. And they won’t
kill us. Look here!” Margot had been thinking rapidly. “There’s two of
us, and there’s two things to do. (Oh dear, _do_ listen to that baby!)
Stella, if I get the men out, will you go in? If they’re not there--only
the baby, you know--you couldn’t possibly be frightened, could you? And
you could rescue it while they are both away.”
“I wouldn’t mind rescuing a baby,” admitted Stella, with her mental eye
on the bravery shield, “so long as--I mean, so long as you’ll do
something to keep the men away from me all the time.”
“Leave that to me, then. You lie here--till I’ve done it. You absolutely
needn’t move till you see the gipsy men come out of the tent. Then,
well, they’ll not be back, I promise you, till you’ve had time to get
hold of the child. It sounds like a small one, anyway. I’m sure you can
carry it until I meet you.”
“But----” faltered Stella.
But, as the child’s cries broke out again, Margot darted from her side.
As she went, she tugged violently at the leather girdle of her
out-to-tea jumper frock.
“Stella, you remember that you’ve promised. Be sure----” panted Margot
as she ran.
Then she fled across the ridge to the grazing quarters of the two
seedy-looking steeds.
“Margot! Margot! Come back! Where _are_ you going?” screamed her hostess
after her.
But there was no recalling Margot, now. Having armed herself with the
leather girdle she proceeded, first of all, to untether the horses with
practised fingers, and then, emitting surprising yells, to whip the pair
of them into a canter which led away across the moor. Possibly, as she
herself hoped, the horses understood that she had no ill-feeling
whatever towards them, and that her banshee-like cries were not meant to
terrify them, but their masters, who had recently returned into the
tent. The said owners, whether attracted by the sound of galloping hoofs
or by the startling yells, were certainly not long before they issued
pell-mell and post-haste through the tent flap.
“Oh!” the amazed Stella gasped. “Oh! Isn’t she frightful! Oh, I suppose
I’ll simply _have_ to hurry up and go in before they get back.”
But Margot, true to her word, had certainly arranged that her companion
should have ample time for her part of the rescue, as well as the
easiest share of the enterprise. By this time the horses had been urged
into a gallop, and their owners’ voices were sounding but faintly over
the moor. Stella, though shaking in every limb, approached the flap of
the tent.
As she entered, the cries sounded louder than ever. There was certainly
a child in trouble there.
A little child, too; scarcely more than a baby, as its would-be rescuer
could faintly see. Stella prepared to perform her share of the act of
bravery as expeditiously as she could.
“Here, come along. Stop crying, do!” she remarked, picking up the baby
from the bed on which it lay, “or they’ll be back. You’re all right now;
they won’t hurt you any more. Or, at least, I suppose you are. I do hope
and trust you really _are_ a stolen baby, because, if not----”
Her remarks, as she held the child in her arms and proceeded to retrace
her steps through the semi-gloom to the entrance of the tent, were
suddenly interrupted.
Not by the arrival of a panting Margot, however, but by the entry of a
hastening gipsy woman.
“What’s this! And where’s ’er dada, eh? What! You ’ere; and what be
_you_ doing, whoever you be, in honest folkses homes?”
“It’s----” Stella turned, with shaking knees, to face the speaker.
“Speak up, now! How did you get in, I’d like to know; with me on’y away
at doctor’s to arsk ’im to step up. An’ leaving the baby’s dada in
charge, an’ all. And now--what’s this? ’Ere, give the baby to me!”
“I didn’t want to, I’m sure! And--I’m the rector’s daughter, if you want
to know,” added Stella grandly. “And the baby was crying horribly. We
just.... Is it crying because it’s _ill_?” she suddenly inquired.
“Rector’s daughter, eh? I’m sure I begs yer pardon, miss.” The gipsy was
evidently impressed. “An’ if so be as you stopped to quieten the baby,
I’m sure you’re kindly welcome. But what with these ’ere spots coming
out all over it, an’ it being so fretful, and the police being that
keerful on account of all the scarling fever what’s about--coming round
the camp, they did, an’ tellin’ us as we was to notify ’em if it
starts--well, we dursn’t go on to Rowsley Fair, we dursn’t, without the
doctor said we might. An’ there’s three times this blessed day as I’ve
bin down to doctor’s. An’ now he’s on his way up, an’ he ses that sure
as fate it’s the scarling fever. What with the ’orspital for the baby;
and the men ’aving lorsted Rowsley Fair with it all----”
The woman began to weep.
“What!” yelled Stella.
It was the last word that she uttered within the gipsy tent. The next
was addressed to Margot, whom she met returning speedily over the moor
in the direction of the camp.
“The men have got the horses back all right,” she shouted. “I
say--_What!_ d’you mean to say you haven’t got the baby?” she finished
up angrily.
Her questions were interrupted by the torrents of Stella’s wrath.
“It’s your fault! I’m sure I didn’t want to go in! I tried to make you
go home. You can’t say I didn’t. If you hadn’t kept talking about the
shield, I would never----”
Stella burst into furious crying.
“And now, scarlet fever! And I lifted it up and carried it. And it’s got
spots. And that stuffy tent! And ... I’ve never had scarlet fever!”
“Do you mean to say that the baby wasn’t--being hurt, or anything?”
inquired Margot slowly.
“Oh!” Stella was sobbing outright. She could answer no question with
regard to the baby. “And I’ll miss the match, even if I don’t get fever.
For I’m sure I’ll have to be in quarantine for ages. Oh, come home to
mother quick! Oh!” finished up Stella, too miserable to remember points
of etiquette, “I _wish_ I hadn’t asked you to tea!”
Margot, also, wished the same wish, as, miserably conscious of her
shortcomings, she faced a scandalized Mrs. Hill and listened to Stella’s
sobbing account of the recent escapade, while she mentally agreed with
Stella that it certainly was all her own (Margot’s) fault. She wished
the same wish all the way back to school, whither she was instantly
dispatched. “For you had better not stay here, and not come near Stella,
since she’s probably caught it already, you see. What? You’ve had it?
Well, of course, that is very fortunate for you; but for poor Stella
there will certainly be ten days’ quarantine at _least_! Go straight to
Miss Slater,” continued the harassed Mrs. Hill, “and tell
her--everything. What it must be to be a head mistress when even a
beautiful thing like a prize for bravery can put such dreadful mischief
into children’s heads, I _don’t_ know!” concluded the rector’s wife.
“It wasn’t--because of the bravery prize that I did it. I’d have done
it--if there hadn’t ever been a bravery prize,” blurted out Margot; “and
I’m most dreadfully sorry. And if there’s anything I can do?”
_Do!_ She had done enough already. Mrs. Hill hurried indoors without
delay to find carbolic, and hardly heard the last strains of Margot’s
fervent apologies.
There was carbolic, too, for Margot, when she reached the Cliff School
with her confession. Also a week-end of nights spent in the fastness of
the San. But first of all an interview with Miss Slater.
“You, yourself, Margot, have not run any risk whatever, I think and
hope; under the circumstances, though, we will take certain precautions.
But Stella certainly must not return for ten days; though I hope she
will _not_ miss the match.” The head mistress looked at Margot’s
flushed and unhappy face.
“Poor Mrs. Hill, and poor Stella!” said the head mistress quietly.
“Margot, you must really try to conform to English ways.”
That was all.
“Only----” as Margot confided to Gretta later on, “Gretta, what else
could I have done? You see, I truly thought the baby _was_ unhappy, so
what else _could_ I do?”