_Anything is worth what it costs; if it be only as a schooling in
resolution, energy, and devotedness; regrets are the sole admission
of a fruitless business; they show the bad tree._
--G. MEREDITH.
That day could not dawn too early for Mousie. She lay, after
Freedom’s whisper had ceased, staring upon the darkness with wide
lids. Her stay among the gipsies had deepened her nature in some
measure. Before this the course of her being had been like that of
a little burn, full of kinks and babblings, frothing round some
obstructing but tiny stone, now conveying a straw as importantly as
it had been a three-decker, now leaping in the sunshine doing nothing
at all. But she had moments now of much thinking, and had gained
some of that self-control, that comes to those who have faced the
realities of life.
Soon the camp was stirring, and she rose from her box-bed. She saw a
look in Robin’s face that had not been there yesterday, and her heart
gave a great throb.
“Where are the childer?” screamed the old Granny, who was always at
her crossest in the morning, spoiling the shining hours with her
rasping old tongue.
“Where be the childer? Off with yer! off with yer, I tell ’ee; and
if ’ee don’t fetch the water in double-quick time, it’s Granny
Petulengro that ’ull know it, and make _you_ know it, ye lazy,
loitering varmints, yer good-for-nothing brats! Now then get off wid
’ee, I tell ’ee; get off wid ’ee, ye brazen everlastin’ nuisance.
I’ll come after ye, I will!” She stood and shook her fist, muttering
angrily.
Robin and Mousie took up the pitcher and ran swiftly. They climbed
over the little fence and bent their steps towards the brook, then
hardly exchanging a word between them, they set the pitcher down, and
crossing to the other bank, they sped up the rough hillside. How far
off the hill looked--it seemed to recede before them. They ran and
ran, till at last they had to slacken their pace, but now the mill
seemed nearer. O, how thankful they were when they came up to it,
and heard the clank and lumber of the great sails going round in the
fresh wind.
They flung themselves against the door that was to shelter them; they
battered in their eagerness. And then the door opened, and Jasper
Ford appeared. He drew them in with kind broad hands, that seemed
full of pity and protection, and Mousie fell sobbing against his
shoulder. The mill seemed full of people, about six pairs of eyes
were looking on, expressing various degrees of sympathy.
Mousie and Robin were given something to eat, but every footstep
outside was a terror. Then Jasper told them what was about to happen,
that Freedom and he together had planned their escape. There was to
be no time lost in getting the stain off, the hour of their departure
was close at hand. Only Jasper required one thing of them--implicit
obedience; and they were to trust him through all. Even if it seemed
sometimes long, and as if he’d forgotten them, they must still trust
him, and wherever and however they found themselves, they were to
wait patiently and still.
Of course both children said “Yes,” and Mousie hugged Jasper, and
thought how good his mealy coat smelt, and said “yes” a hundred
times more.
And then Jasper took out two sacks and tied the children up in them,
and in half-an-hour’s time they were placed with about twenty other
sacks in a long waggon, that came to the mill.
So once more they were upon the road driving. And Mousie and Robin
spent the next hours learning to weave that garment of the soul
called Patience, that hardly any children, and very few people, know
anything about.
In the afternoon of that same day they reached Downham Market, and
here Jasper was to deposit his empty sacks and return next day with
them replenished, to Mousehold Mill. But in the meantime he must find
a sure retreat for the lost pair, for it was thought Bill would come
seeking them; but if once beyond a certain point, they might consider
themselves safe.
Jasper’s first duty was to go to the Inn, where they kept
post-chaises, and hire a messenger mounted on horseback, to take a
note. He had money for this--the good people at Mousehold Mill had
provided it when he told them the case. This mounted messenger was
to ride straight to the town of Woodstock, taking with him a small
packet, neatly sewn in canvas to be safe. This parcel contained
Mousie’s head kerchief, and one of Robin’s little shoes--two things
that had been stored away by Freedom all this time. On a slip of
paper were written the words:--
“That which was lost is found.
Apply to Master Larkynge,
The Wheatsheaf, Ely.”
When the messenger had mounted his grey, and was well upon the road,
Jasper had a difficult matter to settle. He had to decide the means
to get them farther on their way towards Ely, for he himself had to
return in the early morning to Mousehold Heath. And to do this he
decided to hire a cart and drive them far on into the night, till he
reached a turnpike cottage. Here an old hunchback lived to whom he
had shown kindness. This turnpike cottage was on the public road, and
the carriers’ carts passed it. He intended hiding the children with
the hunchback, and commissioning him to put them into the carrier’s
van on the morrow, with the message that they were to be left at
Master Larkynge, till called for, at the “Wheatsheaf Inn.”
It was a lovely September night when Jasper drove the children from
Downham Market in the hired gig. The moon rose large and full above
them, but Mousie didn’t see it, for she was sound asleep at Jasper’s
feet on a warm sheepskin.
Robin sat beside Jasper and counted the glow-worms till his eyelids
began to droop.
And as they drove along the silver’d highway, the gorse bushes black
against the grey Down, and the woods lying like great dark mantles
thrown across the wold, Jasper sang. Surely a stanza of Freedom’s
song, Robin thought. And the words of his song were these:--
“Full many a day, have I found my way,
Where the long road winds round the hill.
Where the wind blows free, on a Juniper lea,
To the tune, and the clank of a mill.
For the miller’s a man who must work while he can,
With the rye, and the barley growing,
While the slow wheels churn, and the great sails turn,
To the fresh wind blowing.”
At last they arrived at the turnpike cottage. The steam from the
heated horse rose in clouds upon the night air, and the cart moved to
his flanks heaving.
Jasper roused Mousie, and the door opened to his knock. A little
bent old man with a great hunch on his back appeared with a lantern,
a lantern that served more to blind every one than to help them to
see, as he held it up inquiringly into their faces, narrowing his own
eyes, to make out what manner of folk these were. Then Jasper carried
the children in, dazed and sleepy, to the tiny room. And soon they
were sound asleep in a bed in a corner of the cottage, for there was
no upstairs whatever.
Mousie woke just enough to feel happy all over, with the comfortable
knowledge that Jasper had really come and taken them away. So
thankful did she feel that she tried with drowsy nodding head, not to
forget her prayers.
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless this bed that I lie on.
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels at my head,
One to watch, one to pray,
And two to bear all fears away.”
And they blest it, for she slept profoundly. She dreamed she was
playing with a white kid, on the lawn at Blenheim.
And it was daylight when she woke.