Mrs. Molesworth

“ But when Tim even—great grown-up, twelve years old Tim—knelt down to admire the tiny feet at Pamela's call, Duke condescended to count the toes one by one for himself, and to say what a pity it was Toby was not here—baby could ride so nicely on Toby's back, couldn't she? This idea, expressed with the greatest gravity, set Peter and his wife off laughing, and all five, or six if baby is to be included, were soon the best friends in the world.
"How nice it is here," said Pamela; "I'm not frightened now, Tim; only I wish Diana could have come. It's so much nicer than in the waggon. ”

“ Diana hesitated. A small fine rain—or perhaps it was only mist—was beginning to fall; but in spite of that she would probably have let them out a little had not Mick just then come forward.
"They want out a bit," she said. "They're tired like with being mewed up in there all day and never a breath of air—no wonder," and she made as if she were going to lift Pamela down the steps. ”

“ That'll help to make you eat hearty."
"Her's very kind," said Duke; but as he spoke he laid down the coarse two-pronged fork Diana had given him to eat with, and seemed glad of an excuse to rest in his labours for a while. "But I can't eat this, can you, sister?"
Pamela looked up—she had got a small bone in her fingers, at which she was trying to nibble.
"I'm pretending to be Toby eating a bone," she said gravely. "Sometimes it makes it seem nicer."
"I don't think so," said Duke. "It only makes it worser to think of Toby," and his voice grew very doleful, as if he were going to cry. ”

“ But at last, just as he was beginning to feel he must cry mercy, she slackened her pace and began to look about her.
"He should be somewhere near," she said, more as if speaking to herself than to the children, and just then, with a sort of whoop, out tumbled Tim from the other side of a low hedge, where there was a dry ditch in which he had been comfortably lying.
"Hush!" said Diana, glancing round her.
"There's no need," said Tim; "there's not a soul within hearing. ”

“ Duke slowly collected his ideas. He did not speak, but he stood up on the bench and peeped out of the window.
"It must be that big place where there's a fair," he said. "Look, sister, there's lots and lots of carts and peoples. And over there do you see there's rows of little shops—that must be the fair."
He seemed rather excited, but Pamela, after one peep, would not look any more.
"No, no, bruvver," she said. "I am frightened. If it is the fair, that man will be coming that Diana told us about, and perhaps he'll take us before Diana and Tim can help us to run away. I'm too frightened." ”

“ All was, of course, very tidy, but so much neater and, above all, cleaner than the gipsies' van that Duke and Pamela thought it delightful. The boat had been newly repaired and painted, and besides this, Peter's wife—though she could neither read nor write and had spent all her life on a canal boat—was quite a wonder in her love of tidiness and cleanliness.
"I'd like to live here always," said Pamela, whose spirits rose still higher when she had had some nice fresh milk and bread. ”

“ A low deep sigh escaped poor Duke. Pamela, so worn out by the pain as well as fatigue she had suffered that she could no longer keep up, was already fast asleep again.
"When it's quite, quite dark," continued Duke, "and when Mick and them all are asleep, don't you think us might run away, Tim?"
Tim shook his head.
"Missy can't walk; and she's dead tired out, let alone her poor foot," he said. "You must wait a bit till she can walk anyway. Try to go to sleep, and to-morrow we'll see." ”

“ Duke and Pamela tried to choke down their sobs.
"Will you try to help us to run away, then, if us is very good—Tim, dear Tim, oh do," they said piteously. And Tim tried to soothe them with kind words and promises to do his best.
Poor fellow, he was only too ready to run away for his own sake as well as theirs. The feelings which had been stirred and reawakened by the children's companionship had not slumbered again; on the contrary, they seemed to gain strength every day. Every day he felt more and more loathing for his present life ”

“ It was too much—not only to have to leave the dear little master and missy, but to have to say good-bye to all his beautiful plans and hopes—of learning to be a good and respectable boy—of leading a settled and decent life such as mother—"poor mother"—could look down upon with pleasure from her home up there somewhere near the sun, in the heaven about which her child knew so little, but in which he still most fervently believed. ”

“ Early the next morning they would be at Monkhaven. The children were fast asleep; so were Peter and his wife and baby. Only Tim was awake. He had asked to stay on deck, as he was quite warm with a rug which Mrs. Peter lent him, and the cabin was full enough. It was a lovely night, and the boy lay looking at the stars overhead thinking, with rather a heavy heart. The nearer they got to the children's home the more anxious he became, not on their account but on his own. ”

“ I think it would be like little pigs to eat more than they want. Little pigs would go on eating all day just 'cos they're too silly, and they've got nothing else to do."
"But," objected Pamela, "us haven't eaten as much as us can, Duke, for you know downstairs us could eat Grandmamma's treat. I could—I could snap it up in a minute, and the tea too, and yet I can't eat any more bread and milk!" and she gazed at the bowl with a puzzled as well as doleful expression. ”

“ If you want to be good—and I think you are good, Diana—you can't help praying to God. For all the good comes from Him. That's what Grandmamma told us. And He puts little bits of His good into us."
Diana looked puzzled.
"Yes," persisted Pamela, nodding her head. [Pg 166] "There's like a little voice that speaks inside us—that tells us when we're" (Pamela could use the word "we," as correctly as possible when speaking in general, not merely of Duke and herself) "naughty and when we're good." ”

“ I'm sure us might run away now—there's nobody looking after us."
"And where would we run to?" said Tim. "There's not a mortal house nor a tree even to be seen. Run away, indeed! We'd be cotched—cotched afore we'd run half a mile. And yet it's the very first time you've bin let run about a little. I'm ready enough to run away, but no good running away to be cotched again—it 'ud be worser nor ever."
"Then is us never to run away? Is us never to see Grandpapa, and Grandmamma, and Dymock, and Biddy, and Nurse, and Toby—oh, dear Toby!—and the garden, and the nursery, and our little beds, again?" ”

“ And still the two followed him—through the coppice, across one or two ploughed [Pg 65] fields, down a bit of lane where they had never been before, plunging at last into a wood where the trees grew thick and dark—a forest of gloom it seemed to Duke and Pamela—and all this time they never met a creature, or passed any little cottage such as they were accustomed to see on the cheerful Sandlingham road. The pedlar knew the country, and had chosen the least frequented way. ”

“ Now and then they halted for a few hours if they came to any village or small town where it seemed likely that they could do a little business, either in selling their crockery or cheap cutlery, baskets, and suchlike, or perhaps in fortune-telling, and no doubt wherever they stopped the farm-yards and poultry-yards in the neighbourhood were none the better for it. At such times Duke and Pamela were always hidden away deep in the recesses of one of the waggons, so there was nothing they dreaded more than when they saw signs of making a halt. ”

“ Maybe to that place we're going to, where the fair's to be. I once went a bit of a way on a canal—that was afore I was with Mick and his lot. There was a boy and his mother as was very good to me. I wish I could see them again, I do."
"But what is a canal, Tim," said Pamela. "Us has never seen one, and that down there looks like a silver thread—it shines like water."
"So it is water, missie—a canal's a sort of a river, only it goes along always quite straight. It doesn't go bending in and out like a real river, sometimes bigger and sometimes littler like." ”

“ For the voice inside us is very hard to silence or deceive—I think sometimes indeed it never is silenced, but that our ears grow deaf to it—that we make them so. But this is very grave talk for you, my dear children—too grave and difficult perhaps. I am getting so old that I suppose I sometimes forget how very young you are! And here come your own little cups and saucers, nicely rinsed out, and waiting to be wiped dry." [Pg 39]
"Thank you, Grandmamma," said Duke.
"Fank you, Grandmamma," said Pamela. ”

“ Duke was quite content, but Pamela still hung back a little.
"Us has never been in a boat," she said.
"Come on," called out Peter, and the young woman with the baby came forward with a smile.
"You must look sharp," said Peter, in what was meant to be an encouraging tone. "The morning's getting on, you know," he added to Tim, "and if those folk down yonder took it in their heads to come this way it'd be awk'ard."
"I know," said Tim, and lifting Duke in his arms he handed him over to Peter, thinking Pamela would be sure to follow. ”

“ You see how foolish and weak I am growing, Barbara. I want every day to be over, and yet I cannot bear to have the days pass and to say to myself that the chances of any tidings are lessening and lessening. ”

“ The stile was hard for their short legs to climb, but they had a great dislike to the idea of his touching them, and would not ask for help. And once he had got them on the other side of it he seemed to feel he had them in his power, and did not take much notice of them, but strode on through the rough brushwood—for they were by this time in a sort of little coppice—as if he cared for nothing but to get over the ground as fast as possible. ”

“ Broken words and sobs and kisses and tears and blessings all together, and Pamela's little soft high voice sounding above all as she cried—
"Oh, dear Grandmamma, us is so glad you are not dead. Duke was so afraid you might be." [Pg 237]
And Tim—where was he?—standing outside in the porch, but smiling to himself—not afraid of being forgotten, for he had a trustful nature.
"It's easy to see as the old gentleman and lady is terrible fond of master and missy," he thought. ”

“ Barbara's heart by this time was completely melted, and Duke's and Pam's tears were flowing. [Pg 231]
"Tim, dear Tim, you must come with us," they said. "Oh, Barbara, do tell him he's to come. Why, even Toby sees how good Tim is; he's not barking a bit, and he's sniffing at him to show he's a friend." ”

“ Twiss knew that Duke and Pam would be terribly against the idea of going back to the town and to the police office. And she herself had no wish to do so—she was not without some distrust of the officers of the law herself, and it would, too, have grieved her sadly not to have been the one to restore the lost children to their friends. Besides, Farmer Carson would be waiting for her at the cross roads, for "if by any chance I don't come back before, you may be sure I'll be there on Friday, next market-day," she had said to him at parting.
"You don't think they'll put Tim in prison, do you?" ”

“ When us goes in, sister, us'll get Grandmamma's picture-Bible and look"—but suddenly his voice fell, his eager expression faded. In the interest of the little discussion he had forgotten where they were, how far away from Grandmamma and her picture-Bible, how uncertain if ever they should see her or it again! Pamela understood.
"I wish Jesus would come and help us now," she said softly. "I'm sure us needs him quite as much as those men he was so kind to. Tell us about the canal, Tim."
"It's boats," replied Tim. "Long boats made just the right shape. ”

“ She seemed to see the two tiny creatures gradually—very gradually—growing plump and rosy in the sweet fresh English air, the look of unnatural old age that one sometimes sees in very delicate babies by degrees fading away as the thin little faces grew round and even dimpled ”

“ I've promised Diana we'd act handsome by her."
"Of course, of course," said the other, with a sneer. "Sure to be handsome doings where you and me's concerned, friend Mick. But where are the creatures? You're not playing me a trick after all, are you?" he went on, looking round as if he [Pg 171] expected to see the children start up from the earth or drop down from the sky.
"This way," said Diana, more civilly than she had yet spoken, "follow me if you please—they're close by." ”

“ They've all sorts of things they take about from one place to another—wood often and coal. But that wasn't a coal boat—it was nice and clean that one. And there's hosses as walks along the side of the canals, pullin' of the boats with ropes. It's a pleasant life enough, to my thinking—that's to say when they're tidy, civil-like folk. Some of them's awful rough—as rough as Mick and the Missus and all o' them."
Duke and Pamela listened with the greatest interest. They quite forgot to cry any more about their home in listening to what Tim told them. ”