FOLLOWED BY THE ENEMY.
"What will the fishers do,
When at the break of day
They seek the pretty boats they left
Moored in the quiet bay?
They seek the pretty boats,
And find that they are fled;
Alas! what will the fishers do?
How can they earn their bread?"
--"A."
After his talk with Darby, the dwarf thought long and anxiously as to
what would be their best route to Firgrove. Under ordinary circumstances
their simplest one would have been to start from Barchester, or else go
back to Engleton, then straight along by the canal to Firdale, thence to
Firgrove, which was only about a mile from the village. But Joe and Moll
would be sure to follow them, in order to make an attempt to recover
their captives. Several times before Joe had tried to kidnap an
attractive smart child whom he could train to be a sort of golden prop
upon which his laziness could lean, but hitherto he had always been
balked in his purpose. He would be furiously angry, Bambo knew, when he
discovered that, just when a life of ease and idleness such as he had
longed for seemed certain in the near future, he was as far as ever from
accomplishing his object.
So, in order to avoid the chance of being brought back and subjected to
greater cruelty than before, the dwarf decided to take a much longer way
than that by the canal. They would strike out across the common behind
Barchester, then double back a bit, and follow an unfrequented road
which also led to Firdale, winding through a long tract of hilly land,
laid out chiefly in runs for mountain cattle and hardy sheep, and
scarcely inhabited except by herds and shepherds.
They could, of course, have travelled by rail, but this mode did not
even occur to Bambo. For one thing, he was penniless, except for a few
coppers that had escaped Moll's covetous eyes and grasping fingers the
last time she rifled his pockets, when she supposed him to be asleep;
and for another, he was not used to railway journeys. He had never, in
fact, been inside a railway carriage in all his life, and he would have
hated and shrunk from the attention he would most assuredly have
attracted from all sorts of people--pity, horror, shrugs, smiles, grins,
jeers, and laughter. It was bad enough to be stared at in booths and
fairs when he was dressed up as a general in a shabby scarlet uniform
and plumed hat with Bruno by his side. That was different. That was the
only way he had ever hit upon by which he might honestly earn his food
and shelter, such as it was. But from choice the dwarf had always
avoided his fellow-creatures. Surrounded by the strong, the
self-satisfied, the handsome, the gay, the consciousness of his own
oddity and deformity was borne in upon his sensitive spirit in the
keenest manner; but in the woods and fields, by the roadside and the
hedgerows, he felt another person entirely. There Bambo forgot that he
was so unlike his fellows; and among the birds, the beasts, the trees,
the flowers, with God's wide heaven above and the green earth under
foot, this simple, large-souled child of nature dropped his burden, and
for the time being felt happy and at home.
He knew quite well the way along which he proposed to travel, for he had
footed it from Firdale to Barchester more than once when he was a boy.
In the scattered cottages and herdsmen's huts there were simple, kindly
souls, who would welcome any one from the outside world, and willingly
give them a bit of bread, a drink of milk, with maybe a shakedown by
their fireside for the night, without asking any awkward questions or
gazing too curiously at the odd little man and his charming companions.
They might get a lift, too, for a few miles now and again in a cart or
wagon going between one and another of the few farms along the route.
Bambo sincerely hoped they should, for Joan would not be able to walk
very far at once. Her feet were tender, and her shoes were thin. Bambo
knew she should have to be carried the greater part of the way, and his
great anxiety was lest his fund of strength, which had gradually grown
so sadly small, should fail him before he had completed his self-imposed
task. What would become of the little ones if he were forced to lie down
under the friendly shelter of some wayside hedge, utterly unable to drag
himself another step? Would Joe and Moll find them and force them back
to a life of lovelessness, hardship, and degradation? Oh, surely not!
and the dwarf's soul sank within him as he contemplated the bare
possibility of such failure and defeat.
For a while Bambo gave way to despondency and these by no means
unnatural fears. Soon, however, this mood passed away, banished as
swiftly as mist before sunshine, by the recollection of a promise--old
almost as the everlasting hills, yet new as the song which the redeemed
ones sing around the throne of God,--
"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I
will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee
with the right hand of my righteousness."
Like a whisper of sweetest music the peace of the words stole over the
dwarf's troubled spirit, soothing and fortifying him so that he felt
himself no longer a weakling, a pigmy, but a veritable giant to fight
and to endure. And with a smile upon his lips and a light not of earth
in his sunken eyes, Bambo and his charges slipped noiselessly away from
the bear, the monkey, and the caravan, and set out, not to _seek_ the
Happy Land, as Darby said with one of his quaint, grave glances, but
this time to _find_ it.
* * * * *
The first streaks of sunlight were lighting up the landscape before the
little party paused to take a rest, and to eat some of the food which
the dwarf's fore-thought had provided. Darby found a dry seat upon the
trunk of a fallen tree. Upon it they sat and ate their breakfast of cold
rabbit and dry bread, washed down by a draught of pure water carried in
a tin porringer from a spring which bubbled out of the bank hard by--a
spring that was half hidden by the feathery moss, trailing periwinkle,
and brown fern fronds with which it was surrounded. The children
breakfasted heartily, their early outing having sharpened their
appetites; but Bambo's eating was only a pretence, for he was not
hungry. Joan was a fairly solid weight for a girl of five, and he had
carried her in his arms nearly all the way from the encampment. He was
tired and exhausted in consequence; his hands burned, his lips were
parched, his brow fevered. He laved his face with the clear, cool water;
and after a long, deep drink from the porringer, which Joan held to his
lips with all the precision and gravity of a professional nurse, he felt
strengthened and refreshed.
By-and-by they set out again, and now Joan trotted by Bambo's side,
chattering gaily the while. The sunshine was warm and bright. The air
was alive with myriads of insects flitting and buzzing their brief life
away. Sparrows chirped and wrangled in the bare brown hedges, robins
piped their sweet, plaintive tune from every tree; film-like webs of
silvery gossamer decked the grass beneath their feet, and draped the
stunted furze bushes as with a bridal veil of rarest lace. It was all so
gladsome, so beautiful, so free, that Joan laughed and skipped for joy.
And was she not going back to Miss Carolina, and the cats, and baby, and
Auntie Alice, and Firgrove? Darby trudged more soberly by the dwarf's
side, and they chatted as they went. Bambo told tales of his boyhood. He
described to the children the tiny two-roomed cottage, long since swept
away to be replaced by a more sanitary habitation, where he and his
widowed mother lived with his grandfather and grandmother. He spoke of
his kind grandmother's death, and his mother's, almost immediately
after, from the same destroying fever. Thus Bambo was left practically
alone in the world. His grandfather was a sour, silent man, disappointed
first in his only son, who had never been anything but a ne'er-do-well
and a burden to his parents; then in his grandson, whose deformity and
helplessness the old man resented as a personal injury at the hand of
Providence. He could not tolerate the child as a baby--never set eyes
upon him, in fact, if he could help it. When the baby grew from infancy
to childhood, he quickly learned, guided by the unerring instinct
usually possessed by the young, to keep out of his grandfather's way and
to fear him, so that there was little love lost between them. After the
two women were gone the state of matters grew worse. Sore from a sense
of injustice, starved for want of affection, the boy was often sullen
and sometimes disobedient. Strife and even blows were the outcome, until
life in Moses Green's lodging--for he had quitted the cottage--became
unbearable to the wretched, misguided boy. Indeed, so unhappy did he
feel in those dark days after his mother's death, that he had been often
tempted to wonder why God had made him at all when he was not made as
others, when in all the big, wide world there seemed no fitting place
for such as he.
There were several kind, good people who, aware of the harsh, unnatural
feeling of the surly old gardener towards his grandson, were anxious to
befriend the orphan child--Squire Turner of Firgrove, the father of Aunt
Catharine and Auntie Alice, being among the number. But the first thing
they one and all proposed was that for a while he should be sent to
school, and to this the lad resolutely refused to submit. Did he not
know what strong, active boys who could leap, and run, and fight, and
play football were like out of school? They were his enemies, his
tormentors, who mocked, gibed, jeered, stoned him even, until he
sometimes felt he would like to wrap his long arms round their necks and
strangle the whole lot of them. And if they were cruel and unkind out of
school, when he could generally get away from them somehow, or hide,
what would they be in it where there should be no escape? School indeed!
Not likely! So in order to free himself from the attentions of those who
meant well enough, no doubt, but, in the dwarf's opinion, did not know
what they were talking about, Bambo did what many another boy has done
on the top of his temper before and since--he ran away, far, far away to
the big town of Barchester, upon which he and the children had just
turned their backs, tramping every step of the long, weary journey.
It was quickly made plain to him, however, that most of the lads who
loafed about the Barchester street corners were curiously similar to the
boys of Firdale in their love of teasing and making a mock of any
creature weaker than themselves, any one whose appearance or
peculiarities presented a fair butt for their rough ridicule, and
gradually the dwarf grew to cherish a rooted hatred to his race.
The days went on. He had arrived in Barchester with only a
long-treasured threepenny piece in his pocket. Rapidly it melted away;
for a few pence do not last very long, even when one buys only a
halfpenny worth of bread a day and sleeps on a doorstep. He was almost
famished and worn to a shadow when, by good luck or ill, he fell in with
the proprietor of the Satellite Circus Company and his troupe, as Joe so
grandly called the occupants of the huge yellow caravan. They were just
starting on tour--the phrase is Joe's--for the summer. Joe eagerly
invited the dwarf to accompany them, being on the lookout at the time
for a fresh sensation, and seeing in the extraordinary-looking lad, with
the huge head, stunted legs, and sprawling feet, a novel addition to his
party at the cost merely of some scraps and a shelter, when a shelter
was available and not required for any other purpose.
The boy on his part jumped at the man's offer, for was he not starving?
Besides, he was overjoyed at the prospect of the freedom and the outdoor
life held out to him by the proposal that he should become part and
parcel of the constantly-moving caravan. And what a fine way of escape
from his persecutors! So there and then the dwarf was enrolled as a
regular member of the Satellite Circus Company. His real name--plain
Jimmy Green--was scornfully cast aside. Mr. Harris voted it slow and
commonplace. After a good deal of thought and much indecision, he
substituted the more catchy one of Bambo as being both novel and
appropriate to the profession--Bambo, the musical dwarf; though why he
was dubbed musical was always a puzzle to the poor little man, because
nobody had ever known him to sing a note in his life. Sing! why, with
his hoarse, croaky voice he could no more make music than a frog in a
marsh. The absurdity of it amused him at first every time he saw his
name flaring in big red and yellow letters from placards and hoardings.
Bambo was all right; he rather liked the change. And Bambo he had
remained ever since, until, like Darby and Joan, the dwarf had almost
forgotten his claim to any other name.
From year to year he stayed on with Joe and Moll. Other members of the
company came and went, but still the dwarf remained--now cuffed and
kicked, when he did not by his grotesque antics and claptrap tricks
bring in as many pence as his patrons believed he might; again let alone
when he had been lucky, and they were in a good humour with themselves
and all the world. He acted as bear-leader and buffoon, villain and
hero, alternately in public; while in private he was cook, drudge,
messman, and menagerie manager for the rest of the party, for animals of
some sort invariably formed part of the attractions of the troupe. Now
it was a performing poodle, picked up somewhere in Mr. Harris's own
ingenious way of finding things which had never been lost; again it was
a cage of white mice; at another time a wonderful parrot, with always a
monkey, and generally a bear. Bambo had a great way with these
creatures, and often succeeded in teaching them tricks when Joe had
failed. His methods were few and simple, based chiefly upon kindness and
perseverance; whereas Joe's one idea of imparting instruction was by
threats and chastisement in some form, dealt out impartially to each and
all, and more than one valuable animal had come to grief on the system.
It was a hard life, and after a time became very monotonous to the
dwarf, who was often heartsick of it all. But what else was there for
him to do? Nothing that he knew of, so he stayed on.
One after another the changing seasons slipped swiftly away, and in
their passing brought to the Satellite Circus Company reverses and bad
times. They found it impossible to keep pace with the ever-growing craze
for something fresh, a new excitement, and in consequence had slowly but
surely been losing their place in public favour. Then the company was
broken up. The Swedish giantess went over to an opposition troupe; the
German ventriloquist and conjurer had died of apoplexy; their leading
lady, who so airily executed the tight-rope performances as well, went
off one fine day without saying good-bye, and married the clown, with
whom she had serious thoughts of setting up a select show on her own
account. The roomy, comfortable caravan was sold, and an old lumbering
machine hired each summer instead; while in winter the party lived from
hand to mouth on their wits, putting up here, there, and anyhow. The
animals had all died or been disposed of except the horses--a pair of
broken-down yet intelligent piebalds--Puck, and Bruno, the bear that
Bambo had trained from a cub, and tamed until he was as gentle as a
lamb with every one but Joe, towards whom he seemed to entertain a
dislike both deep and savage.
As the years rolled round, Bambo became reconciled to his lot, and in
course of time more than reconciled, even happy. For in the many
solitary hours he passed perched above the horses upon the box of the
caravan, when the soft summer wind fanned his face, or in dark, dewy
midnights, when in the shelter of some leafy forest glade he felt
himself alone with nature, long-forgotten words he had heard from his
mother's lips, prayers she had taught him, hymns she had crooned beside
his bed, came back to his memory--not quickly or clearly all at once,
but slowly, hazily. He eagerly welcomed these memories, and hungrily
held them close. At first they represented to him his mother--gentle,
pitiful, loving--come back from the dead, and the friendless youth felt
no longer desolate. Then he began to ponder the meaning of the thoughts
that filled his heart and brain; and God, by His silent lessons,
conveyed through every bird that flies, every insect that crawls, each
flower that raises its smiling beauty to the sun, helped him to
understand. He had learned to read, in an imperfect sort of way, during
his early years. He bought a Bible with clear type in the next village
they stopped at, and, by dint of frequent practice, he was soon able to
read it easily. The Book became his constant comfort and delight.
Henceforth existence ceased to be a burden to the despised dwarf; each
day brought a fresh message of hope, and held a sweeter significance of
love for this hitherto hopeless, loveless creature, because the Lord had
discovered to him the real meaning of life, and he knew himself--mean,
unworthy though he was--at his true value: no longer only a log, a
spectacle, an offence, but an immortal soul for whom the dear Christ
Jesus had esteemed it no shame to die! He was sure that he was wanted in
the world, that there was a use for him, a something which he alone
could do, and he patiently awaited the Lord's orders. Now he knew that
his special work had been put ready to his hand--the deliverance of
these two little ones. And although the call to action did not sound
until his sands of life were well-nigh run, the answer "Ready!" rang
none the less cheerily and promptly.
* * * * *
At midday, which Bambo was able to guess pretty nearly by the sun, the
fugitives halted to have their dinner. Joan said it was not dinner at
all, only breakfast over again; for it consisted of some more cold
rabbit, a slice of bread each, with a drink of water. And very good it
tasted to these hungry little people, who many a time at Firgrove had
discontentedly turned up their noses at much more dainty fare. Then Joan
fell asleep, cradled comfortably in the dwarf's long arms, and Darby
dozed at his side.
When they awoke it was well on in the afternoon. The sun was no longer
visible; a chilling wind had sprung up from the east; dull gray clouds
hung loweringly overhead; a close mist, as of coming rain, wrapped the
landscape as in a mantle. Bambo felt that they must push on, and, if
possible, find somewhere to shelter in for the night. It would never do
for these tenderly-nurtured children to be exposed to a drenching. About
himself the dwarf had no anxiety. A shower more or less could not matter
much, he thought, as a more severe fit of coughing than usual shook his
frail, thin body and tore at his poor, raw chest. Nothing mattered now,
he told himself, except that he should accomplish the work his Master
had given him to do, and along with the work he believed that he should
also be granted a sufficiency of strength. After that--why, he would be
quite ready and eager for the next call upon him, whenever it came.
But there was not a house or cottage within sight, only a long stretch
of barren land, half heather, partly coarse grass, over which some
small, horned sheep and half-grown cattle had been turned out to
pasture. About three miles off, at a place called Hanleigh Heath, there
was a farm with a solitary wayside dwelling attached--a big, bare barn
of a place, part of which the farmer had utilized as a sort of rude
hostelry. The dwarf knew it well. It was called the Traveller's Delight.
He had put up there with the Harrises one night several years before.
The landlord and Joe seemed the best of friends--as "thick as thieves,"
in fact. Therefore Bambo felt that he dared not venture within the
hostelry with his charges--it would not be safe; besides, they had no
money to pay for lodging. Nevertheless, they must make for it with all
speed. The rain was coming on, and soon too. The Traveller's Delight
held out their only chance of refuge from the wet and the darkness, and
the dwarf hoped that in some of its straggling outhouses they should
find shelter for the night.
It was almost dark when Darby and the dwarf saw a light twinkling a
short way off, like a bright, friendly eye from out the gloom. Oh, how
thankful they were! for both were weary beyond the power of moving many
yards further. Darby was staggering from giddiness and stumbling at
every step. His little legs dragged one after the other as if each foot
were weighted with lead. Bambo spoke no word, for speech was now hardly
possible to him, his throat was so sore, his breath so laboured, his
chest so torn by the deep, grating cough, which, in spite of all his
efforts, he could not suppress. The instant the rain actually began to
fall he had taken off his jacket to wrap around Joan, who was sound
asleep in his arms, and his vest he had put upon Darby. It hung about
the boy's slim shoulders and over his knees somewhat like a sack. It had
saved him from a wetting, however; while Bambo, thus stripped of his
outer garments, was soaked to the skin.
He carefully laid the still sleeping Joan under the shelter of a hayrick
in the stackyard behind the inn; and charging Darby neither to make a
noise nor leave her alone, no matter what might happen, the dwarf crept
cautiously forward--stealthy in his movements as a cat stalking a
mouse--to ascertain whether there was any safe cover to which he could
convey the children.
From the front of the inn the lamplight streamed through the uncurtained
windows, shining cheerily on the wet cobble-stones of the sloppy
courtyard, and now and again a shrill voice pierced the silence of the
night as a woman's figure moved to and fro within the warmly-glowing
kitchen. But outside there was no sign of life; all was still except for
the occasional shuffling of the horses' feet in the stable, the slow,
deep breathing of the cows in an adjacent shed; and Bambo became bolder.
He peeped in at this window, he peered within that door, until at length
he found what he wanted--an empty house with plenty of clean, dry straw
strewn upon its floor.
In summer it had probably been used for housing the calves which were
now wandering at will over the wide, wet pasture-lands, having arrived
at an age when they could be promoted to share the privations without
enjoying any of the comforts of the grown-up creatures belonging to the
establishment. No one was likely to have an errand there now that its
former occupants were away. In any case, nobody would be about before
morning, Bambo reasoned, and by day-dawn he and his charges would have
once more taken the road for Firgrove.
Gently and carefully he raised Joan from her bed beside the haystack,
fearing that if she awoke she might make a noise. She did awake,
however, sat up, looked all round in a frightened fashion, then began to
whimper. Drawing a fold of shawl across her mouth and whispering to
Darby to keep close, the dwarf carried her as swiftly and silently as
possible to the shelter which he had discovered. There, snugly curled up
among the clean, dry straw like kittens in a basket, the little ones
were both soon sound asleep.
But Bambo could not sleep, although his weakness and weariness amounted
almost to pain. He was strangely wakeful, and eagerly on the alert for
the slightest sound which might indicate either disturbance or danger.
By-and-by, however, his head began to droop on his chest; his eyes were
closed, his long arms lay limply by his side. The present faded away
from him; he drifted back into the past again. Once more he was a child
at his mother's knee; his brow was bent upon her lap, his hands were
folded as she bade him fold them when he said his evening prayer--a
simple petition which in all his wanderings the dwarf never forgot, and
of late years never omitted to repeat each night--in perfect faith and
childlike confidence that his words would be heard, his requests
granted:--
"I lay my body down to sleep,
And pray that God my soul will keep;
And if I die before I wake,
I pray that God my soul will take. Amen."
For a while all was still within the calf-house. Darby and Joan slept
the profound, dreamless sleep of tired childhood; the dwarf was buried
in an oblivion which was as much the stupor of weakness as the
blissfulness of sleep. About an hour he remained sunk in sweet
forgetfulness of present danger and future difficulties. Then his big
head began to bob uneasily up and down, from one side to another, until
it fell upon his shoulder with a sudden jerk which only partially
aroused him. He opened his eyes with an effort. Where was he, and where
was his mother? Surely that was not her voice which broke in so coarsely
through the closed door and the hole in the wall? That harsh laugh never
burst from her mouth; those ugly words never soiled her pure lips! All
at once Bambo started upright, thoroughly awake and trembling with
terror. He remembered everything, and for a minute his brave, loving
heart died within him as he recognized the voices in the court outside
of Thieving Joe and his wife Moll, wrangling with the sleepy landlord
for admittance at that unseemly hour to the shelter and comfort of the
Traveller's Delight.
The dwarf put his ear to a chink in the door and listened intently. He
could not make out what they said, however, but that they were there in
hot pursuit of himself and the children Bambo felt not an atom of doubt.
Some one must have taken note of the runaways, given Joe and Moll
warning, and here they were already on their trail. They would question
the landlord; next, search every corner and cranny about the inn for the
fugitives. At any moment their hiding-place might be discovered.