Chapter XIII: Little Friend of All the World

“But I don’t think we can!” said Gerry, staring. “You see, we’re not allowed beyond this ridge. We’re--tracking.”

“‘Tracking,’ is it!” The lad’s face grew surlier. “Well, an’ it’s you, then, sure enough, as is the other young ladies, and my Dad arsks you to come along. If you’s tracking, you’s on the wrong scent, he’d have you know. An’ ’e’ll tell you so himself. You can jest come along an’ hear what ’e’s got to say if you’s them as tries to fix blame on folk as lives honest.”

“But--” began Gerry again.

“Well, if you likes to say ’ere and now as you’s not tracking, then it’s jest them two young ladies up there as is in it,” remarked the boy, softening a little at the amazed look on their faces.

“Gerry, he doesn’t understand,” began Betty. “Perhaps--” But Gerry broke in.

“We’re having a tracking practice. Not tracking people; at least, of course--” she broke off. “The others are only practising too.”

“That they _isn’t_.” The boy’s voice grew louder. “Following travelling folkses; that’s what they’s adoing, and picking up their travelling signs all unpolite, and arsking them about who stole cups and all!” There was no mistaking the outraged tone in the lad’s voice.

“Oh _dear_!” Gerry broke out in a distracted voice. She turned to Betty. “We’ll have to go. Perhaps we can explain. They’ve got into dreadful trouble evidently. We _must_!”

“All right,” agreed Betty, feeling her knees shaking under her.

But she felt that Gerry was right. They certainly must go, though the prospect was an uninviting, not to say a terrifying, one. The others had plainly got into some trouble with the gipsies of a caravan, that was certain, and they were being detained. Perhaps Gerry _would_ be able to explain if they went. And anyway, they could not leave Mona and Rene there alone. She got up as Gerry did, and followed her friend’s lead.

“It’s worse enough,” remarked the lad in a less surly tone as they did so, “bein’ looked down by the Romany folk what says they are the true folks of the road, and calls us non-such and mumpers. Mumpers belike we is, but we work fair an’ honest fer a living, and the police passes us civil and knows us for such. An’ when two young ladies comes after us callin’ and arsking ef we’s seen the silver cup what’s advertised up in Woodhurst Police Station as stolen--” he broke off in a mutter.

“Oh dear!” said Gerry again, but _sotto voce_ this time. Here was indeed a pickle.

“‘You can jest step back and track _them_ then, Andy!’ so my Dad ses, ‘an’ we’ll show ’em whether we’ve got stole cups on board. The other young ladies ses as there was two more of ’em a-tracking. Well, bring ’em along,’ ses Dad. ‘If so be as we’s got to turn this here caravan back to the police station we’ll do it, and face the young ladies, yes, wiv the troof. The police gives us a civil word when they meets us, which is more than some young ladies does!’”

“It’s perfectly dreadful,” remarked Gerry to Betty. “It’s quite plain what’s happened. They’ve hailed the caravaners and offended them. And--oh, why, here they all are!”

Just over the third ridge they came in sight of the moor road again where a caravan was standing. The horse between the shafts was munching grass unconcernedly; but the driver--a grizzled, middle-aged man--was standing in an aggressive attitude still eyeing a pair of rather woebegone maidens.

“I say, here you are!” began Mona indignantly, as the others arrived. “Has he brought you? I wish you would explain that----”

“It’s explainings _I_ wants,” burst out the owner of the caravan angrily. “Folks may be poor, but they’s honest too; and they’s got their feelings. And when two young ladies--” the plaint began again. “Mumpers we may be called by some, but we earns a living fair and square and honest in summer time by travelling. An’ the police treats us civil; and here we’s tracked down by young ladies what calls us up fer stolen cups!”

“They didn’t mean--” began Gerry.

But Mona’s angry protestations, and Rene’s tears, and Gerry’s beseechments were of little avail. As for Betty, she stood by feeling even more useless than the rest.

For it was evident that these were a party of proud and respectable working-people who had been wounded in their most vulnerable part by Mona’s and Rene’s suspicious-sounding inquiries. The burden of the older man’s speech was the same as that of his son’s. If they were accused of stealing silver cups by young ladies who had evidently come out on purpose of tracking, well, they would turn round and go straight back to the Woodhurst Police Station, taking the young ladies in tow! “To show as we’re fair and square and honest, and that the police there knows us fine and treats us civil,” repeated the man. “Not to say that the Weyhurst police knows us too, where we comes from!”

“‘Weyhurst!’” repeated Betty in a surprised squeak.

For Weyhurst was the town where she lived.

“‘Weyhurst!’ I ses and means,” said the older man severely, evidently scenting further suspicions in Betty’s surprised squeak. “They knows me fair and square there, from Weyhurst. And if we’s being tracked, I’ll show every one of you, down Woodhurst here, w’ere we passed through this morning, and was treated civil by the police, whether Andrew Grimes--licensed travelling broom-seller--ain’t respected by all atween Weyhurst and Woodhurst, him an’ his wife Anna Grimes too, wot is travelling in this here caravan at this very minute.”

The said Anna Grimes put a tidy head through the caravan door as though to prove the truth of her husband’s remarks. She was a decent middle-aged woman, but her face was set in angry lines.

“An’ as I ses, to be sure,” she broke out, “we’s enough trouble to make an honest living these days without young ladies a-tracking us down, and then going back, perhaps, an’ sending police after us for cups. As I ses--” She broke off suddenly with a cry of surprise. “Dad, who’ve you got _’ere_?” she called out in a different voice. “Why----!”

“Why--!” remarked Betty, too, at that instant.

For something in the look of Anna Grimes’s face was familiar, though what the familiarity consisted in she could not for a minute or two find out. The woman’s face was somehow connected in her mind with home; and something unpleasant; and--oh yes, with a _baby_!

It was at this instant that the woman, who had disappeared inside the caravan for a moment after uttering the exclamation, appeared in view again, panting, and made her way down the steps carrying a small child in her arms.

“Dad! Well, I never, Dad!” she called excitedly, addressing her surprised husband, but keeping her eyes on the still more surprised Betty. “Sure this is the little young lady wot I’s always told you of wot came running into doctor’s waiting-room and kisses the baby. Brought him luck, too, she did, as I’ve always said; seeing as he got through the fever so easy, and--” The angry lines of her face were all smoothed away. She wore a comfortable smile as she approached the girls.

The “fever!” At that word Betty remembered everything. The woman, Mrs. Grimes, whose home her husband had said was at Weyhurst, was the very woman who had brought the screaming baby into Dad’s waiting-room, and to whose aid she had hurried unasked in a fit of zeal, only to earn for herself and the twins a legacy of the said fever for which, as Dad had discovered, the child had been sickening at the time. The action had seemed to be fraught with unmitigated disaster at the time, but now----!

The whole caravan atmosphere had changed; smiles took the place of frowns. “It’s a mistake, Dad, that’s what it is, Dad,” said the woman. “You’ve been too ’asty-like. Sure, the doctor’s young lady wot kissed the baby she wouldn’t go for to----”

“Then what for do the rest of ’em--?” began Mr. Grimes, but in a very different tone of voice.

“Explain, Betty. He’ll listen to you,” urged Mona.

Thus adjured, the Mascot, feeling at the moment how very little she really knew about Guiding, did try to explain. “Yes, I’m Betty Carlyle, and I do remember the baby, and I’m very glad he got well,” she said shyly; “and I wouldn’t, and not one of us would, ever think you’d taken our Cup. We’re Guides, and we’re friends of all the world, you see--at least we’d like to be--and if we’ve done anything un-Guidy, we’re very sorry,” she finished up.

“It was us that did; not you and Gerry. And we are awfully sorry,” put in Mona, addressing Mr. Grimes.

“Well, you can’t say no more than that same. And it’s only fair and square to take your word,” remarked the caravan owner, extending a horny fist.

In ten minutes the entire party were the best of friends. Apologies had been exchanged between Mona and Rene and the Grimes family; kisses had been exchanged between the Guides and the baby. (“There’s not a mite of risk, little Miss Carlyle, dear, not this time anyways; an’ you can tell the doctor, your Dada, with our duty, as how you met us an’ the baby was doing fine; fer a true friend he’s been!”) The caravan started again upon its way, while the Guides, still waving in response to salutations with a whip, turned their course towards the arranged meeting-place with the head girl.

“I say, we’ve got to tell Sybil,” remarked Mona. “And we’ll deserve anything for letting down the Guides.” They marched gravely along four abreast without saying a word for a while.

It was Rene who suddenly, as they reached the last ridge, voiced the thoughts of herself and Mona. “I say, it was wonderful about you and the baby,” she remarked, turning to Betty. “If it hadn’t been that you’d been so friend-to-all-the-worldy, you know--and even before you’d ever heard of Guides, too!--we might have had a much worse time!”

“Yes,” agreed Mona.

Betty said nothing, but her heart gave a jump of joy.

“She’s proved that she’s a real true Mascot anyway, hasn’t she?” remarked Gerry loyally.

“Rather,” agreed the others.

Betty’s heart suddenly felt lighter than it had felt for days.