It was still very, very early in the morning, and the gipsy folk, tired
from their march on the preceding day, slept. There stood the conical,
queer-shaped tents, four in number; at a little distance off grazed the
donkeys and a couple of rough mules; at the door of the tents lay
stretched out in profound repose two or three dogs.
Annie dreaded the barking of the dogs, although she guessed that if they
set up a noise, and a gipsy wife or man put out their heads in
consequence, they would only desire the gipsy child to lie down and keep
quiet.
She stood still for a moment--she was very anxious to prowl around the
place and examine the ground while the gipsies still slept, but the
watchful dogs deterred her. She stood perfectly quiet behind the
hedge-row, thinking hard. Should she trust to a charm she knew she
possessed, and venture into the encampment? Annie had almost as great a
fascination over dogs and cats as she had over children. As a little
child going to visit with her mother at strange houses, the watch-dogs
never barked at her; on the contrary, they yielded to the charm which
seemed to come from her little fingers as she patted their great heads.
Slowly their tails would move backwards and forwards as she petted them,
and even the most ferocious would look at her with affection.
Annie wondered if the gipsy dogs would now allow her to approach without
barking. She felt that the chances were in her favour; she was dressed
in gipsy garments, there would be nothing strange in her appearance, and
if she could get near one of the dogs she knew that she could exercise
the magic of her touch.
Her object, then, was to approach one of the tents very, very quietly--
so softly that even the dog's ears should not detect the light footfall.
If she could approach close enough to put her hand on the dog's neck
all would be well. She pulled off the gipsy maid's rough shoes, hid
them in the grass where she could find them again, and came gingerly,
step by step, nearer and nearer the principal tent. At its entrance lay
a ferocious-looking half-bred bull-dog. Annie possessed that necessary
accompaniment to courage--great outward calm; the greater the danger,
the more cool and self-possessed did she become. She was within a step
or two of the tent when she trod accidentally on a small twig: it
cracked, giving her foot a sharp pain, and, very slight as the sound
was, causing the bull-dog to awake. He raised his wicked face, saw the
figure like his own people, and yet unlike, but a step or two away, and,
uttering a low growl, sprang forward.
In the ordinary course of things this growl would have risen in volume
and would have terminated in a volley of barking; but Annie was
prepared: she went down on her knees, held out her arms, said, "Poor
fellow!" in her own seductive voice, and the bull-dog fawned at her
feet. He licked one of her hands while she patted him gently with the
other.
"Come, poor fellow," she said then in a gentle tone, and Annie and the
dog began to perambulate round the tents.
The other dogs raised sleepy eyes, but seeing Tiger and the girl
together, took no notice whatever, except by a thwack or two of their
stumpy tails. Annie was now looking not only at the tents, but for
something else which Zillah, her nurse, had told her might be found near
to many gipsy encampments. This was a small subterranean passage, which
generally led into a long-disused underground Danish fort. Zillah had
told her what uses the gipsies liked to make of these underground
passages, and how they often chose those which had two entrances. She
told her that in this way they eluded the police, and were enabled
successfully to hide the goods which they stole. She had also described
to her their great ingenuity in hiding the entrances to these
underground retreats.
Annie's idea now was that little Nan was hidden in one of these vaults,
and she determined first to make sure of its existence, and then to
venture herself into this underground region in search of the lost
child.
She had made a decided conquest in the person of Tiger, who followed her
round and round the tents, and when the gipsies at last began to stir
and Annie crept into the hedge-row, the dog crouched by her side. Tiger
was the favourite dog of the camp, and presently one of the men called
to him; he rose unwillingly, looked back with longing eyes at Annie, and
trotted off, to return in the space of about five minutes with a great
bunch of broken bread in his mouth. This was his breakfast, and he
meant to share it with his new friend. Annie was too hungry to be
fastidious, and she also knew the necessity of keeping up her strength.
She crept still farther under the hedge, and the dog and girl shared the
broken bread between them.
Presently the tents were all astir; the gipsy children began to swarm
about, the women lit fires in the open air, and the smell of very
appetising breakfasts filled the atmosphere. The men also lounged into
view, standing lazily at the doors of their tents, and smoking great
pipes of tobacco. Annie lay quiet. She could see from her hiding-place
without being seen. Suddenly--and her eyes began to dilate, and she
found her heart beating strangely--she laid her hand on Tiger, who was
quivering all over.
"Stay with me, dear dog," she said.
There was a great commotion and excitement in the gipsy camp; the
children screamed and ran into the tents, the women paused in their
preparation for breakfast, the men took their short pipes out of their
mouths; every dog, with the exception of Tiger, barked ferociously.
Tiger and Annie alone were motionless.
The cause of all this uproar was a body of police, about six in number,
who came boldly into the field, and demanded instantly to search the
tents.
"We want a woman who calls herself Mother Rachel," they said. "She
belongs to this encampment. We know her: let her come forward at once;
we wish to question her."
The men stood about; the women came near; the children crept out of
their tents, placing their fingers to their frightened lips, and staring
at the men who represented those horrors to their unsophisticated minds
called Law and Order.
"We must search the tents. We won't stir from the spot until we have
had an interview with Mother Rachel," said the principal member of the
police force.
The men answered respectfully that the gipsy mother was not yet up; but
if the gentlemen would wait a moment she would soon come and speak to
them.
The officers expressed their willingness to wait, and collected round
the tents.
Just at this instant, under the hedge-row, Tiger raised his head.
Annie's watchful eyes accompanied the dog's. He was gazing after a tiny
gipsy maid who was skulking along the hedge, and who presently
disappeared through a very small opening into the neighbouring field.
Quick as thought Annie, holding Tiger's collar, darted after her. The
little maid heard the footsteps: but seeing another gipsy girl, and
their own dog, Tiger, she took no further notice, but ran openly and
very swiftly across the field until she came to a broken wall. Here she
tugged and tugged at some loose stones, managed to push one away, and
then called down into the ground--
"Mother Rachel!"
"Come, Tiger," said Annie. She flew to a hedge not far off, and once
more the dog and she hid themselves. The small girl was too excited to
notice either their coming or going; she went on calling anxiously into
the ground--
"Mother Rachel! Mother Rachel!"
Presently a black head and a pair of brawny shoulders appeared, and the
tall woman whose face and figure Annie knew so well stepped up out of
the ground, pushed back the stones into their place, and, taking the
gipsy child into her arms, ran swiftly across the field in the direction
of the tents.