THE NEXT MORNING.
"Oh, my heart grows weak as a woman's,
And the fountain of feeling will flow
When I think of the paths, steep and stony,
That the feet of the dear ones must go.
"Oh, those truants from earth and from heaven,
They have made me more manly and mild;
And I know now how Jesus could liken
The kingdom of God to a child!"
CHARLES DICKENS.
Roughly the spell of the picture was broken by the loud voice of Joe
Harris.
"Hillao!" he cried, by way of general greeting to the troupe around the
fire.--"Any grub ready, Bambo?"
The dwarf glanced round from the pot which he was carefully stirring
with a long-handled wooden spoon, and then Darby noticed how gentle was
the expression of his deep-set eyes.
"Yes," he answered, in a curious, husky voice, thin and vibrating;
"supper has been ready an hour and more. It's done to rags by this time,
I'm afraid. We thought, from what you said, that you would have been
here long before now," he added, speaking more correctly than Mr. Harris
himself--differently, somehow, from what one would have expected from
his uncouth appearance.
"So we should, only we were delayed by business--_important_ business,"
said Mr. Harris grandly, "and a good stroke o't, I can tell you! See
what we've brought wi' us, Bambo--the missis an' me," he explained,
pointing to the children, who were seated side by side upon the grass,
for Moll had retired within the caravan. Joan was awake now and sobbing
wildly, while Darby was doing his utmost to soothe her by every artifice
of which he was master.
"Who are these children, and why have you brought them here?" demanded
the dwarf sternly, as he left his stew-pot and came over beside the
frightened little creatures, who clung to each other as if for dear
life. "Have you been at your thieving tricks again, Joe Harris?" he
asked angrily, yet there was an expression of keen anxiety in the kindly
gaze he bent upon the captives.
"Come, now, none o' your cheek!" growled the ruffian savagely, though
his eye fell before the dwarf's straight look and meaning tone. "Who are
they, you're askin'?" he went on in a milder voice. "Why, jest two
beggar brats we found wanderin' on the hillside. As to _what_ they are,
you'll see by-an'-by," he added, with a satisfied chuckle. "Look ee here
now, Bambo," he continued, trying to be conciliatory, "there's no use in
turnin' crusty. Haven't I learned you long ago that Joe Harris isn't the
man to put up wi' no nonsense? All right, that's settled, then. Now,
don't you think we've run this company on narrow lines long enough?
Anyway I do, an' we're goin' to widen them--to strike out on fresh ones.
What would you say to a tight-rope dancer an' a trapeze performer added
to the attractions o' the troupe, eh?"
But the dwarf made no reply; he only continued to watch the
pathetic-looking little pair, as with kisses and caresses they bravely
strove to comfort one another.
"Wouldn't that boy be the very thing for it?" resumed Joe, after a
moment's pause. "Isn't he jest the cut for an aeronaut, an' the right
age to train as an acrobat? An' the gel! Look ee here!" and roughly
snatching Joan from her seat at Darby's side, Joe swung her over to
where the big furry bundle, which was the bear, and the mimic
soldier--tired probably from their recent gambols--lay huddled in a heap
together, and dropped her down on the grass beside them.
"Here, Bruno, get up," he shouted, giving the creature a heavy kick with
his coarse boot. "Rise, sir, an' salute your new playfellow."
The bear growled, stirred, and with a lazy stretch of his big body
slowly rose upon his hind legs and approached his master; while the
monkey climbed, chattering and jabbering, to the roof of the caravan.
Darby and the dwarf had followed close at Joe's heel; and when the boy
saw the huge beast, with sparkling eyes and slavering mouth, tower right
above his little sister and heard her screams of terror, he felt, just
for a moment, sick with fear.
"You brute!" exclaimed the dwarf, in his thin, hoarse voice, as he
reached up his long arms and firmly gripped Bruno by the leather collar
which was round his neck. But whether he addressed the man or the beast
was not quite clear, and certainly Joe Harris did not care to inquire.
Joan had flung herself in her panic on Darby's shoulder, with her small,
wet face buried in the bosom of his old velveteen blouse. The awful
faint feeling passed from him at the touch of those clinging arms around
his neck, and with indignant eyes and flushed cheeks he turned and faced
the great, ugly bully, who only laughed, as if enjoying the sight of
their distress.
"How dare you frighten my sister so?" he demanded haughtily. "Why did
you bring us here if you only wanted to be rude to us? You are cruel,
and a coward as well; for my father says that only cowards would try to
frighten children or helpless things. Wait until I go home," said the
little fellow boldly, forgetting in his excitement that he had
deliberately left home for altogether, "and I shall tell him about you.
Then you'll be punished as you deserve," he added loftily.
But as Darby uttered this threat a wave of memory swept over him with an
overwhelming rush. Father! what could _he_ do to help or deliver them,
away in Africa, or maybe lying dead somewhere? Joe and Moll might
ill-treat them as they chose before father should be able to interfere.
And mother! Father in Africa or killed, mother in heaven! and with one
bitter, thrilling cry the boy's brave spirit gave way, and he sank
unconscious at Joe Harris's feet.
Mr. Harris gave expression to his amusement in a whistle.
"That's capital!" he cried; "the best piece o' actin' I've seed this
many's the day! Eh, Bambo, what do you think o' _that_ for an amatoor?
Why, it 'ud bring down the house, I declare!"
But Bambo did not answer, not by so much as a single glance. He was
crouching on the grass beside the boy.
Then Joe shoved the sobbing Joan aside, stooped over the limp figure of
the child, and satisfied himself that he had only fainted. Afterwards he
followed his wife within the caravan, whistling gaily as he went.
Tonio, the negro lad, slid near the group, and with wide, rolling eyes
stared at Darby's motionless form and white face. Bruno had rolled
himself up again comfortably, and was preparing to resume his nap just
where he had left off when his master so rudely aroused him. Joan had
hushed her sobs, although now and again a long, shuddering sigh shook
her little body from head to foot, as with small, smudgy fingers she
gently stroked her brother's cheek. Puck, the monkey, had skipped nimbly
from his perch on the chimney of the caravan and found another more to
his mind on top of Tonio's woolly head, where he sat glowering and
grinning at the group, as if he wanted to ask, only he couldn't in
words, "What's the matter, friends? what's to do?"
Bambo raised the boy from the grass, pillowed the drooping head against
his own broad shoulder, chafed his hands, and put some water to his
lips, which Tonio carried from the spring that bubbled up from out the
mossy ground beneath the fir trees. Soon he recovered, and was able to
sit up in the dwarf's arms and look about him.
Then he remembered everything--where he was, what had happened--and his
face grew white again.
"There, there, sonny, don't fret any more; and don't cry, either of
you," added Bambo, gently laying one long, lean arm around Joan's
shoulder. "If you do you'll make the master angry, and maybe he'll beat
you. You needn't be afraid of Bruno; he's perfectly quiet, except when
he's angered: besides, he's chained."
"Are you quite, quite sure?" asked Joan timidly, glancing nervously in
the direction of the bear.
"Certain, positive!" answered Bambo, smiling into the eager faces raised
so confidingly to his, while an odd, unaccustomed thrill stirred his
pulse and warmed his heart. "If you look you'll see where the chain
that's attached to his collar is fastened to the back of the caravan."
"And will the monkey bite us?" again asked the little one.
"Puck! Puck bite! Why no, bless your heart!" and this time the dwarf
actually laughed. "Puck's about as old as Methuselah, and hasn't got a
tooth in his head! He'll maybe pull your hair if he takes the notion,
and that's the worst Puck 'll do to you.
"Hark! there's master calling," cried Bambo, shuffling to his feet as a
roar resounded from the caravan like the growling of a lion near
feeding-time. "Sit there, and I'll bring you some of my stew. It's made
of pheasant and partridge, and very nice, I assure you."
"There, fellow, that'll do," shouted Joe, standing on the steps of the
caravan; "you've palavered plenty over them brats. Leave them to howl
theirselves to sleep if they like, but bring me my supper," he commanded
angrily--for Mr. Harris was hungry, and somebody who knows about such
things says that "a hungry man is an angry man"--then with a bang of the
door and an ugly word he disappeared again. And as the dwarf dished up
the supper he muttered to himself,--
"God help you, poor innocents! You have fallen into bad hands when you
fell into the clutches of Moll Harris and Thieving Joe!"
He carried a plateful of dainty morsels out of his stew to where the
children waited far back beyond the firelight and the limit of the
bear's chain. He sat on the grass beside them, coaxing and scolding them
by turns, until they forgot their fears and made a hearty supper,
finished off by a draught of sparkling water from the spring.
Just at first the tiny man with the long arms, pale, sad face, and queer
croaking voice had alarmed the little ones, because they had never seen
any one the least like Bambo before. But when they discovered how gentle
was the touch of those thin hands and bony arms, how kind and soothing
the tones of that croaky voice, all their fears vanished. Darby
determined that he would never again listen to unkind remarks about
deformed persons, and Joan cuddled close beside her new friend in a most
confiding fashion.
"Why has you taken no goody supper?" she asked him when all had
finished, and the fire had sunk to a glow of red embers mixed with
feathery flakes of ash. "Isn't you hungry? or did you take too big a
tea?"
"Well, little one, I don't think I did. I'm just not hungry to-night.
Grown-up folks don't usually be so keen-set as youngsters, you know,"
replied Bambo, looking down into the blue eyes that scanned him so
curiously.
"But _you_ isn't a grown-up," cried the child, in an amused tone.
"You're just 'bout as big as Darby, only with a queer man-face an'
grown-up arms. Does you call yourself a boy or a man?" she asked
seriously, and without a hint of mockery. She merely desired
information.
"Joan!" said Darby, in a distressed whisper, at the same time giving her
a dig with his elbow, almost pushing her over.
Joan was going to make a fuss, when Bambo put in quickly, "Hush, missy!
you mustn't do that, or Moll will hear you. Let me try to answer your
question, although I hardly know how. I'm only a boy in size, as you
say--a small boy; yet in years I am a man, for I was four-and-twenty
last May, the tenth of May," he added thoughtfully. "But I'm not a man
as other men.--And you need not mind your sister saying that I'm not
grown up," he continued, laying a thin hand on Darby's dark head, "for
neither I am--leastways not like other folks.--I'm a dwarf, dearies--a
poor, stunted bit of a thing like yon fir over yonder that has grown
this way, that way, and every way except straight up and down like the
rest of the trees about it. I'm Bambo the dwarf, Joe Harris's musical
dwarf," and the little man laughed whimsically.
"Maybe I'll be different in the next world," he continued, after a
moment's silence, which the children did not break, as they could think
of nothing suitable to say, therefore tactfully held their peace. "I
hope I shall, I _believe_ I shall," he added, with a far-away look in
his eyes, as if he had become unconscious of his audience; "for has not
the blessed Lord Himself said, 'Behold, I make all things new'?"
Here he was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which shook his poor
frame sadly, and left him panting and spent.
"You's got a werry bad cold," said Joan, with a pretty air of concern.
"Can't you take some nashty medicine or sticky sweeties or cough drops
to make you better?"
"Our nurse or our aunt always rubs us with stuff called 'lyptus, and
sometimes puts a poultice on when we've got cold," Darby remarked. "I
don't s'pose they'll have any 'lyptus in the caravan; but wouldn't you
try the poultice?"
"Ay, sonny; only it wouldn't do me any good. I never was used with
physic or poulticing; and I'll be better soon without anything,"
answered the dwarf, trying to stifle another fit of coughing lest it
should distress the little ones. "I'll be quite well, in fact--before
long, too," he added softly, with his shrunken face raised to the sky
whence, with shining, sleepless eyes, the stars looked down upon the odd
little group as if they were God's sentinels guarding the outposts where
danger lurked.
"P'raps you shouldn't sit on the grass; it's usually damp at night,"
said Darby, in that quaint, old-world way of his which always attracted
people greatly even when it most amused them. "Nurse doesn't allow us to
sit on the grass when we're not well.--Sure she doesn't, Joan?"
"Never, never!" Joan affirmed solemnly, shaking her tangled golden head.
The dwarf got to his feet.
"Very well; I'll have to obey, I suppose," he said with a smile. "Now, I
must find out where you two are to be put up for the night. It's high
time you were under shelter. This sort of thing," he went on, waving his
hand towards the open space, the caravan, the dying fire, and the
chained bear, "is not what you're used to; anybody with half an eye
could see that--even Joe, although it suits his purpose to pretend he
doesn't. To-morrow you'll tell me all about your home and your people,
and how you wandered this way, and everything. Then we'll see what's to
be done next," he added under his breath.
Moll carried the children off to the caravan, where Mr. Harris was
already sleeping the sound sleep which is generally supposed to be the
outcome of an easy conscience. She was about to bundle them, clothes and
all, into a bed hastily spread upon what to Darby looked like a narrow
shelf. He was too sleepy to offer any objections to the arrangement; but
Joan stoutly resisted, declaring that she never went to bed without
being undressed and saying her prayers.
"Boo-oo!" she wailed, putting her knuckles into her eyes. "I wants a
nightgown, and I wants to say my p'ayers," she persisted.
"Shut up, will you!" ordered Moll, giving the little girl a rude shake.
She would have slapped her, only she dared not disturb her better half,
for then the blows might have gone round. "I ha'n't got no nightgownd
for ee," she went on, in an angry undertone; "but ee can take off yer
frock an' wrap the shawl roun' ee." Which Joan proceeded to do,
although she felt that nurse's old tartan shoulder-shawl was but a sorry
substitute for a nightgown.
"Now I's goin' to say my p'ayers," she said, kneeling on the bare floor
at this prayerless woman's knee, with closed eyes and piously-folded
hands--a pathetic little figure in her comical attire. "You'll say the
big words and join in the 'amen.' That's what nurse does. Is you ready?
Now--
"Gentle Jesus, meek'n mild,
Look upon a ickle child,
Pity my--'I can't say it!'--
Suffer me to come to Thee.
"Fain I would to Thee be brought;
Dea'est Lord, forbid it not;
In the kin'dom of Thy gwace
Give a ickle Joan a place. Amen!"
After the "amen" Joan opened her big blue eyes and looked steadily at
Moll without rising from her knees. The woman fidgeted on her seat,
toyed with the amber beads on her neck, but she would not meet the pure
gaze fixed upon her; for there was a tremulousness about her lips, a
moisture in her eyes, a sense of ashamedness all over her which she did
not wish the child to see.
But Joan _did_ see, and vaguely understood that here there was somewhat
amiss, and forthwith proceeded to offer her sympathy after her own
fashion, which, when all is said, is about the oldest and sweetest form
that sympathy can take. Silently she got to her feet, climbed on Moll's
lap, and laid a kiss--light as a snowflake, holy as a benediction,
pregnant as a prayer--upon the woman's broad, sunburnt brow. Then she
tumbled on to the shelf beside Darby, and soon both were wrapped in the
deep, dreamless sleep of wearied childhood.
A few hours afterwards quite an air of stir and bustle pervaded the
encampment. The crossbars for the support of pots and pans were taken
down; scattered utensils were gathered up and stowed away; Bruno was
driven into his cage under the body of the van; the wandering horses
were caught, harnessed, and put in their places; and soon the Satellite
Circus Company was on the move once more. For Joe and Moll had not
failed to observe the dwarf's openly-evinced interest in their captives;
and fearing that he might take it into his head to decamp during the
night, carrying the children along with him, they quickly made up their
minds to push on and put as many miles as the horses could cover between
them and the possibility of escape, pursuit, or capture before daylight
the next morning.
The little ones slept soundly side by side on their narrow shelf; the
bear snarled uneasily behind his iron bars, with only an inch of plank
between his hairy embrace and their soft young bodies; the monkey curled
closer into the warmth of Tonio's black breast; the dwarf sat on his
perch above the plodding piebalds, watching the stars and speculating
about the pretty children--who they were, whence they came, and what
would be their fate if left to the tender mercies of Thieving Joe and
his bold wife Moll.
It was broad daylight when Darby and Joan awoke and sat up to look about
them. For a few minutes they remembered nothing of what had occurred,
and could not make out where they were. Oh yes, of course, Darby at
length understood. They were in a caravan where they had sheltered all
night, not very far from the foot of that hill over whose summit lay the
entrance to the country which they had set out to seek.
He slid cautiously off the shelf, helped Joan to put on her frock and
tie her shawl round her again; then they opened the door, stole down the
steps, and there they paused in dismay. The caravan had come to a
standstill, and been drawn up on the edge of a stretch of dreary common;
the horses were unyoked, and grazing near by. Along the further
boundary of the common wound a broad, level highway, bordered by a wide
footpath; and in the distance, from the valley front, rose the towers,
spires, and smoking chimneys of a large-sized town. But Firgrove, Hill
Difficulty, and the Happy Land all lay behind--far, far away!