Chapter VI: Part 6

On the next morning the entire household was enlisted in the service of the youngest-born. The father, coming upon Rosie as she was blacking his sturdy little Sunday boots, desired her to hand them over—he’d show her how to make ’em shine. And shine they certainly did when he had done with them, for, though he could with difficulty squeeze two of his great fingers into them, he polished them with as much energy as would have sufficed for full-sized Wellingtons.

Meanwhile Maggie was sedulously brushing the smart new sailor-suit, and the little pilot-coat with its two rows of brass buttons, while Mrs. Reed was carefully winding round her fingers the yellow curls which looked so much better when allowed to cluster freely about brow and neck, but which were now persuaded to assume the corkscrew shape dear to the village mother’s heart. She devoted particular time and care to the arrangement of a top-knot, which much resembled a small sausage-roll, and was poised immediately above Johnny’s right eye. At last the only son of the house stood arrayed in all his glory, while the admiring family gathered round.

“He do look a pictur’—I’ll say that for him,” remarked the father proudly. “There’ll not be his like at the Fair.”

“See and keep your coat buttoned, Johnny,” observed Mrs. Reed anxiously; “and don’t ’ee go for to take off your muffler, not if you be ever so warm.”

Johnny rolled his eyes towards his mother over the white woollen folds—which, indeed, very nearly came up to them—and then looked down to where the fringed ends showed beneath the bottom of his coat. The comforter was certainly uncomfortably warm, and the day was mild and sunny; but Johnny was in the mood to promise anything; therefore he gravely nodded.

Presently the sound of wheels was heard, and Jim Fry’s “trap” halted outside the little garden-gate. Jim himself looked very smart in his best clothes; his hat being set on at a knowing angle over his well-sleeked locks; a nosegay about the size of a saucer in his button-hole. There were flowers, too, at the horse’s ears, and the harness was polished to a nicety.

“Now, then, how had we best divide?” inquired Jim. “Suppose you sit next me, Maggie, and Rosie t’ other side of you? And if you’ll get up behind wi’ the little chap, Mr. Reed, you’ll just about balance us.”

John Reed stared a little, winked solemnly at his wife, and finally agreed; and the girls came tripping down the path, Maggie blushing as she clambered into the cart, while Rosie, with many giggles, ascended on the other side. Then little John waved his hand from his place beside his father, big John shouted “Right!” in a stentorian voice, Jim Fry cracked the whip, and they were off.

Oh, what a merry drive was that! The old horse hammering along briskly, up the hills as well as down, and covering the ground at a prodigious rate, constantly overtaking other parties of pleasure-seekers who were proceeding more soberly, some on waggons, some on foot, some in little donkey carts. Now the pretty village of Stourpaine was left behind; a few old folks came to their doors to look after the dashing equipage, and some children ran for a little way beside the horse; now they turned off by Steepleton, and for a while enjoyed the shade of the plantation farther on; and at last they drew near the scene of the Fair itself, being forced to proceed more slowly, for the road was well-nigh blocked with vehicles.

A mingled and extraordinary din greeted their ears as they approached. The shrieking music of the merry-go-rounds mingling with the shouting and laughter of many voices, the banging of the shooting-galleries, the hoarse cries intermingled with trumpet-blasts from proprietors of the different shows.

Johnny was at first disposed to be alarmed, and clutched his father’s hand somewhat tightly, but when the latter cheerily remarked that it was “rare sport” the little fellow strove to put away his fears, and to think it rare sport too.

Presently he was securely mounted on John Reed’s great shoulders, and watched the jumping of the horses, which were sent from all parts of the country for sale. It was exciting to see the dealers flap their crackling calico flags, and with strange, uncouth cries urge on the animal actually under inspection to show off his paces, and to leap an adjoining hedge—the latter feat being one not often accomplished; the rider indeed, much to the delight of the lookers-on, more frequently taking the fence than the horse. It was, however, a very amusing sight, and Johnny shouted and laughed and drummed on his father’s chest with his shining little boots, and stared about him at the seething mass of heads, and at the horses thundering past, and at those other horses tied up in pickets or rows, some of them plentifully bedecked with ribbons, while the manes and tails of others were curiously ornamented with straw. Over yonder were the booths and the tents and the waggons, and the red-and-yellow roundabouts and the swings and the shooting-galleries, and the crowds and crowds of merry folk. Johnny’s spirits rose more and more as the moments passed, and he presently found himself obliged not only to drum upon his father’s chest, but to jig up and down upon his shoulder, supporting himself by the crown of John Reed’s best Sunday hat.

“Hold hard!” cried his parent good-naturedly, when a more than usually ecstatic movement had well-nigh bonneted him. “Sit still, my lad. Where be climbin’ to, eh?”

“I’m lookin’ at the roundabouts,” chanted Johnny; “all the folks ridin’, and the harses goin’ up an’ down. There’s Maggie and Jim—and Rosie a-ridin’ behind! O-o-oh, Dada, do ’ee take I to ’em!”

“Well, a promise is a promise. I did say I’d take ’ee, didn’t I? Come along, then jump down! That’s the boy! Now we’ll go. Which shall it be? That great, big, red un?”—as the child pointed with his small forefinger. “We’ll make straight for he, then. Now, will ’ee ride in front o’ Dada, or will ’ee have a horse all to yourself?”

Johnny’s eyes were growing rounder and rounder, and his little hot hand clutched his father’s finger with almost feverish eagerness, as he answered stoutly that he’d like to ride all by his own self.

“Well done!” cried Reed admiringly. “You wouldn’t think the spirit of en,” he remarked to the red-faced proprietress of the merry-go-round as he paid the fare. “Ye’d think a little chap same as this ’ud be afeared to go alone. But no, not he. ‘I’d like to ride all by my own self,’ says he, as cool as a cucumber—an’ him but just turned four years old.”

It was pleasant to see the pair circling to the sound of the diabolical music: the father perspiring with terror on the child’s account, with one great hand hovering over him, ready to support him at the smallest sign of wavering, his own huge form ridiculously out of proportion to his wooden steed, his long legs trailing; the son, very red in the face, clutching the wooden neck of his horse with strong, resolute little hands, his eyes bright with rapture, his smile growing broader and broader until at length he was forced to chuckle aloud for glee.

Well, they had two rides on the roundabout, and then they went on the switchback, and then they went in a swing, and then Reed bought a large flabby cake and a couple of very green apples, and while Johnny was munching these dainties they suddenly knocked up against an acquaintance whom his father had not seen for years. There was much greeting and hand-shaking and questioning—the two deep voices booming over the child’s head, which was now beginning to swim a little, partly as a result of much agitation, and partly, perhaps, because those very green apples began to make him feel rather uncomfortable.

He hung more and more heavily on his father’s hand, and at last, his short legs giving way beneath him, he fairly dropped on the ground.

“Gettin’ tired, eh?” said Reed, glancing down at him. “Come, we’ll look for Maggie and Rosie, and get ’em to take ’ee somewhere where ye can sit down and rest for a bit.”

Lifting him up, he threaded his way through the crowd, followed by his new acquaintance. Soon they came upon the two girls, who, provided with an admirer apiece, were gleefully “shying” at cocoanuts.

They readily agreed to take charge of Johnny, and their father, turning to Jim Fry, informed him that he intended to return home on foot, as he had met an old friend, and when they had finished with the Fair they would probably go to the village for a glass or two.

“Right, sir, right,” returned Jim amiably. “I’ll take care of the two young ladies, without Tom Davis there likes to get up at the back along of Rosie to keep the balance even.”

And here Jim grinned and winked knowingly.

“I d’ ’low he won’t have no objections,” returned Reed good-humouredly. “But ye must see and take ’em home afore dark, Jim, same as ye did promise the missus. And take good care o’ Johnny, maids, whatever ye do.”

Johnny had by this time stared his fill at the cocoanuts, and now came backing up against his father, turning suddenly as the latter was about to move away.

“I want to stop with Dada!” he cried. “Let me go with you, Dada?”

“Ah, he be ter’ble fond o’ Dada, that he be,” remarked John to his friend. “Never was such a chap for wantin’ to be al’ays at my heels. There, but ye must stop with sister now, Johnny—and Dada ’ull come back for ’ee by-and-bye.”

“You’ll not keep the child out late, Father, will ye?” inquired Maggie anxiously. “Ye’ll let him come home wi’ us.”

But he had already turned away.

Johnny was at first disposed to lament, but was somewhat consoled on being invited to try his luck with the cocoanuts; the sticks thrown by his small arm, however, fell wide of the mark, and presently his lip began to droop again and his eyes to roam wistfully,

“Why, you haven’t spent your money yet,” cried Rosie, catching him up. “Come, we’ll go to the stalls and find summat to buy.”

After Johnny was perambulated up and down the stuffy arcade between the rows of shouting, excited vendors of toys, sweet-stuff, and crockery, after he had paused irresolutely in front of several booths, and screwed and unscrewed his precious little squeaking box any number of times, he found himself unable to part with his threepenny-bit, and finally agreed, with a sigh of satisfaction, to follow Rosie’s advice and keep it for another day.

They went to a shooting-gallery next, and the noise made Johnny’s head ache; and then to a peep-show, which he didn’t understand; and then to watch an acrobatic performance, which failed to interest him.

The day was wearing on now, and he was becoming very tired. He dragged at his sister’s skirts as he walked beside her, and his head was ever turned backwards over his shoulder in the hope of descrying “Dada”. Big folk going past tumbled over him or pushed him to one side with curt admonitory remarks. “Now, then, my man!” “Out of the way, youngster!” “Look where you are going, can’t you, child?” Even Maggie and Rosie, who were themselves probably a little weary, began to lose patience with him, and when, under his despairing clutch, the gathers of the elder sister’s dress gave way, she shook him, not roughly, but irritably, and said sharply:—

“Bless me, Johnny, hold up a bit, can’t ’ee? Jist see what ye’ve a-done to my new dress.”

Thereupon all Johnny’s stoicism gave way, and he began to cry piteously. “I want Dada, I want Dada!”

“Why, he’s over there—see!” cried Jim Fry, who had found Johnny by no means a welcome addition to the party. “Look, Johnny, there’s Dada standin’ jist by that tent. He’ll be comin’ to fetch ’ee in a minute.”

Sure enough the stalwart form of the elder John was plainly discernible some fifty yards or so away.

“Let me go to him!” wailed the child. “I want to go to Dada—I _will_ go to Dada!”

And thrusting aside Maggie’s hand, he broke from the little group and ran at full speed towards the spot where his father was standing.

“Best let him go,” advised Jim, catching hold of Maggie as she was about to start in pursuit. “He’ll be twice so happy wi’ he, and you know your father did say he was a-comin’ back to fetch en.”

“That’s true,” assented she.

As they stood watching the little figure making its way among the groups of people, Tom Davis came up in great excitement, with Rosie on his arm.

“There’s a man over there as is eatin’ fire!” he called out. “I never see sich a thing in my life! He be a-swallerin’ yards of it. ’Tis a kind of a ribbon, and he do set a light to one end, and do put it in his mouth, and goes on a-swallerin’ and a-swallerin’! Ye never did see sich a thing! His cheeks—there, ye can very nigh look through them! Come quick, else it will be over. He’ve a-been doin’ all sorts o’ things—playin wi’ knives and a-pullin’ rolls and rolls o’ coloured ribbons out of his mouth. Dear heart alive, how he can keep all they things inside of him I can’t think! But come along quick—this way!”

Maggie turned her head for a last look at Johnny, who was by this time but a few yards away from the tent near which John Reed was standing; and then, deciding in her own mind that he was now quite safe, hastened away with the others.

But Johnny was not quite safe: though so close to his father that two or three of the latter’s strides would have covered the space between them, he was not destined to reach his side that day.

Lo! just as he was preparing to uplift his shrill little voice and call ecstatically on his parent, there was a sudden stampede among the crowd, and Johnny found himself lifted off his feet. One of the colts exposed for sale had broken loose, and, excited by the strange medley of sights and sounds around him, was galloping madly hither and thither, snorting and lashing out with his heels. A big, bearded farmer had caught up the little chap in his arms and ran with him out of harm’s way. In a few moments he halted breathless, and set the child upon his feet.

“They’ve caught en, I see,” he said; “no fear now. There, give over hollerin’, my boy; nobody wants to hurt ’ee. If I hadn’t a-catched ’ee up ye’d ha’ been run over.”

Johnny gave one scared look at the kind red face, shook off the hand upon his shoulder, and then made off as fast as his tired little legs would carry him in the direction of the tent where he had last seen his father standing. But alas! no father was to be seen, and the poor little fellow, wailing aloud, began a fruitless search for him amid the throng.

He did not find him; perhaps because the elder John had already left the Fair, perhaps because the younger, though he imagined himself to be covering a large area, was in reality wandering round and round about the same place. Nobody noticed his continuous cry—there were many tired children at Shroton Fair that day—and now that the dusk was beginning to fall the heads of families were too busy gathering together their own belongings to take heed of a fretful stranger. So Johnny stumbled wearily along, and at last, being thoroughly worn out, climbed into a wicker chair which formed part of a large assortment of basket wares, and resolved to wait until “Dada” came by.

Here he crouched with his legs tucked beneath him, his cap far back on his dishevelled yellow locks, big tears hanging on his eyelashes, and one little forefinger between his lips—the picture of childish woe.

Every now and then he would fancy he descried the burly figure of his father advancing towards him, and would crane his head with an eager cry; but when the figure drew near it would always prove to be that of a stranger, and then Johnny would sob, and sink back again—a mere little heap of misery.

After long waiting and fruitless watching, Johnny’s little head began to droop, and his heavy lids closed gradually over his blue eyes; he sank backwards in the low chair, and presently forgot all his troubles in sleep.

It was quite dark when he was suddenly startled into consciousness by the pressure of a heavy hand upon his shoulder, and the sound of a rough voice in his ear.

“Hullo—what’s this? What be you a-doin’ in my chair?”

Silverlocks herself could not have been more bewildered by the advent of the Three Bears than was Johnny as he sat up, blinking at what seemed to him a gigantic form dimly outlined in the dusk: he was positively voiceless with terror.

“Who gave ’ee leave to go to sleep in my chair, ye rascal?” continued the new-comer, and in another moment the little fellow’s seat was lifted up, and his own small person was sent sprawling on the ground.

Uttering a choked wail, the child scrambled to his feet and gazed about him; all was strange, dark, and terrifying; undefined shapes loomed through the dusk; the lights flashing out here and there intensified the prevailing gloom; a babel of voices intermingled with shouts and laughter sounded in the distance. Two or three unknown figures now drew near to him, and one stretched out its hand.

“Now, then, little man, who may you be?” said a thick voice which he had never heard before.

Johnny started back, gasped, and then, terror lending him wings, darted swiftly from the group and fled away into the darkness.

* * * * *

When the time came for the young folks to return home, they were much surprised to find that Reed did not appear to restore Johnny to their care. After long waiting and searching in the crowd, they decided that the little fellow must have prevailed upon his sire to allow him to remain with him.

“Be hoped he’ll not keep out the child too long,” said Maggie as she mounted the cart. “Mother ’ull be awful upset at our goin’ back wi’out him.”

“She will—jist about!” agreed Rosie gloomily, from the back seat. “I’m sure I don’t know however he’ll manage to get en home, without he carries en all the way, and he’s a pretty good weight, Johnny is.”

“Somebody ’ull give ’em a lift, you mid be sure,” said optimistic Tom, from his place next Rosie. “’Tis wonderful how things do fall out. There now, d’ye see, I never looked for gettin’ a ride in sich pleasant company.”

And he leered at Rosie in so meaning a manner that she tossed her head and forgot all about her little brother.

Mrs. Reed’s indignation and anxiety knew no bounds, and she was far from satisfied with the girls’ explanation. Indeed, she rated them both soundly, refused to hear any details of their doings, and dismissed them in dudgeon to their little attic room, where, infected by her alarm, they lay quaking as the hours passed without bringing their father.

Midnight had been proclaimed by the asthmatic cuckoo-clock, and one had struck before the sound of heavy footsteps on the path without awoke Maggie from the uneasy doze into which she had at length fallen.

“’Tis Father,” she cried, sitting up in her bed. “Lard! how he do fumble wi’ the latch. He do seem to be a bit drinky, and he can’t have been druv, after all. He must ha’ carried Johnny all the way. ’Tis a mercy if he haven’t dropped him.”

They could hear their mother unbolting the house door, her voice raised in querulous reproach.

“’Tis a shame for ’ee, John, to keep out the child to this time o’ night.” Then a sudden cry. “For mercy’s sake, what ha’ ye done wi’ him? Where be he?”

“Where be what?” returned the father good-humouredly, if a little thickly. “Johnny? Why he be at home and abed hours ago. I left en wi’ the maids. They be come home, sure?”

Maggie’s heart seemed to stand still; in a moment she had thrown a shawl over her nightgown, and was pattering down the narrow stairs, Rosie following and sobbing aloud. They burst into the kitchen. John Reed’s tall figure was standing in the open doorway, and though his wife, voiceless with terror, was clutching him by the arm, actually shaking him in her anxiety, he was smiling stupidly down at her, quite unconscious of the effect produced by his announcement.

“’Ees,” he repeated, “I left en wi’ the maids, and they must ha’ started long afore I. I’ll tell ye all about it—I did meet Charl’ Pollen—”

“Father!” shrieked Maggie, “ye don’t mean to say ye haven’t got Johnny! He wasn’t with us! He ran off to you late in the afternoon. I saw en close aside o’ you. Lard save us, what’s to be done! The child’s lost!”

“Lost!” repeated Reed, sobered in a minute. “Lost!”

He rushed towards the girls, his face working, his eyes bloodshot. “If you’ve been and lost that child I’ll be the death o’ you.”

His voice was harsh, absolutely unlike itself; he could scarcely articulate in his frenzy of rage and terror.

“I told ’ee,” he cried, “I told ’ee to look after en—my last words was, ‘Take care o’ Johnny, whatever ye do’. Don’t dare tell me ye’ve been and lost en!”

“Oh, Father, Father!” wailed Maggie, who had retreated to the farthest end of the room, and now stood gazing at him with eyes that seemed ready to start from her pallid face. “Oh, Father, you did say you was a-comin’ back for en, and he was a-cryin’ for you, and when he catched sight o’ you he wouldn’t be kept back all us could say. And we stood and watched en till he was close aside of ’ee. How could we but think he was safe!”

“Ye shouldn’t ha’ let go of en for a minute,” thundered the father. “I never set eyes on en, I tell ’ee. My God! the child’s lost, sure enough!”

He sank down on the nearest chair, covering his face with his hands, while the women stood huddled together with ghastly faces, weeping and lamenting. Suddenly he sprang up again, turning on them savagely:—

“How could ye be sich fools as to think I’d keep him out till this hour? D’ye fancy I’d no thought for en? D’ye really think I—I could go for to do anything as mid hurt en? Lard, to think on it! Keep them maids o’ yourn out of my sight, Missus, or upon my word I’ll be the death of ’em.”

Mrs. Reed’s very soul was pierced by the cruelty of the words “Them maids o’ yours,” which not only implied her responsibility for the catastrophe, but seemed to portend a kind of dissolution of partnership; but, nevertheless, she alone of all the family retained a remnant of self-possession.

“Let’s see,” she said tremulously, “what time was it when you see him last, maids?”

“Six o’clock, I think,” gasped Maggie.

“Six o’clock,” repeated Reed, dropping his voice suddenly to a despairing note. “Six o’clock and it’s nigh upon two now! That’s eight hours since he was seen or heard of.”

“Maybe he’s there yet,” cried the mother, still striving to be hopeful. “Don’t let’s lose another moment, Father—let’s go and look for en straight off. Maybe he’s crope into one o’ the tents and fell asleep, or maybe somebody’s found en and is a-taken care of en. I don’t believe,” added the poor woman wistfully, “I don’t believe as any one could find it in their hearts for to hurt a little chap like him—so pretty as he did look too! Oh, dear!”

Her face changed, and she caught her breath with a sudden gasp. Her lip began to tremble, and she pressed her finger to it to still it.

“He be too pretty,” she said falteringly; “that’s the worst on it! There be so many gipsy folk about, and play-actors, and all sorts.”

“Oh, Mother,” cried Maggie and Rosie together, “ye don’t think as anybody ’ud want to steal en?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she returned almost inarticulately; “there, maybe they wouldn’t, but they do tell sich tales, and Johnny did look sich a pictur’, ye know; we was a-sayin’ it ourselves.”

John Reed uttered such a heart-rending groan upon this that the girls, forgetful of their terror, ran towards him.

“Keep off, I say!” he cried savagely, springing from his chair. “Keep off!—keep out of my sight—I don’t know what I mid do to you.”

“There, my dears,” interposed their mother, in a tremulous aside, “best not anger him. He’s not himself, d’ye see. Run upstairs and get your things on, and see if ye can rouse up any of the neighbours to come and help look for the child.”

“I’ll not wait for nobody’s help!” growled her husband, catching at the words. “I be goin’ to look for my child myself. I’m not a-goin’ to take none o’ you wi’ me—ye don’t deserve it. Ye didn’t, none o’ ye, vally that child as ye did ought to ha’ vallyed him, and now he be lost, and ye don’t none o’ ye deserve to find en.”

The women-folk gazed at each other aghast, but before they could remonstrate he was gone.

* * * * *

Day was dawning in all the cool glamour of fine September; a milky sky, that would presently become brilliant blue, a dew-drenched landscape; trees and pasture alike silver-besprent. Robins were already singing in the boughs, and the sparrows had long been awake and busy, when a party of workmen, each with spade and pick on shoulder, sauntered across the fields to the scene of their daily labours. As they walked they could hear the stir and bustle at Shroton—no great distance away. The Fair had ended on the preceding night, and the travelling folk were busily collecting their gear, and preparing for the road. Many shows and gipsy vans had, indeed, departed long before it was light, and from time to time the clatter of a traction-engine, the shriek of a steam-whistle, a column of noisome smoke poisoning the air above the green-gold line of hedge which bordered the highway, indicated the retirement of some unusually important merry-go-round or switchback.

The men had all paid a visit to the fair on one or other of the two days previous, and were discussing with some eagerness and occasional bursts of laughter the various frolics in which each had taken part, when they arrived at their goal.

Their task, unusual enough in itself, did not seem strange to them. They were removing soil and rubbish from the recently discovered remains of a Roman villa.

Roman remains were common enough in that neighbourhood; antiquarians had even gloated over traces of still earlier times. Thigh-bones, which were recognised to be of Danish origin, skulls of ancient Britons, had been found and treasured; there were undeniable traces, not far from this particular spot, of a hamlet once occupied by some almost prehistoric race. No wonder, therefore, that the excavation of a mere Roman villa was an event comparatively unimportant!

Yet when the foremost workman reached the spot and looked down at the scene of his previous labours, he uttered a long, shrill whistle, and, turning to his comrades, exclaimed:—

“Well, I’m blowed!”

“What’s up?” cried another, pressing forward in his turn.

The rest hastened after him, and soon all were bending forward looking into the pit, the depth of which varied from five to six feet. What was it that had called forth their astonishment? The ancient walls, which each day’s toil exposed more fully, had now become familiar to them; they had often noticed the lines of colour traced by some alien hand so many centuries before, yet still bright and distinct where the sunshine caught them: they were not prone to marvel at these things at any time, and certainly not now when the modern wonders at the Fair were still fresh in their memory.

“Why, how ever did he get there?” cried the first speaker, pointing downwards with his thumb as the long-dead proprietor of those ancient walls might once have pointed at some doomed gladiator.

There, amid the relics of a bygone civilisation, lay the chubby form of a little nineteenth-century child—an extremely modern little Briton in a sailor-suit, with a mop of yellow curls tumbling over his sleeping face.

Yes, there lay Johnny! While his distracted father was scouring the roads; while his mother and sisters, frantic with grief, had passed the night in wandering from house to house beating up search-parties, Johnny was sleeping the sweet, sound sleep of the tired child, on a heap of soft earth at the bottom of the Roman villa.

On hearing the strange voices he sat up, and looked about him, rosy and dewy after his slumbers. The night had been mild, and he had rolled himself up so tightly that he had contrived to keep warm. He blinked in bewilderment at the bright sunshine and at the strange bearded faces. Then, with returning consciousness, the thought which had been last present to his mind before sleep had overtaken him leaped back to it.

“I want Dada,” said Johnny.

“Why, how in the name o’ fortun’ did you get here?” cried one of the men, swinging himself over the side, and taking the child up in his arms. “Have you been here all night?”

“Looks like it,” cried another. “What’s your name, little man?”

“Johnny,” said the child.

“How did ye come here, eh?”

“I thought the man was arter me, and I couldn’t find Dada,” said Johnny. “I looked and looked, an’ it was dark, and I was running, and I falled down here and I couldn’t get out again.”

“Well, what a tale! The little chap’s lost hisself, d’ye see, mates? There’s somebody in trouble about this ’ere, you mid be sure! Somebody’s lost en at the Fair.”

“Ah, he don’t look as if he belonged to any o’ the gipsy folk, or the shows, or sich as them,” said somebody. “Seems as if he did belong to decent folks. They be lookin’ for en at Shroton most like—we’d best take en back there. He don’t belong to nobody about here, that’s plain. Where d’ye live, Johnny?”

“Next door to Mrs. Short,” returned the child promptly.

“That’s tellin’ nothin’. What’s the name o’ the place?”

Johnny, who was chary of speech at all times, and was besides slightly alarmed at being interrogated by so many strangers, returned no answer to this query, and announced instead loudly, and with a hint of not far distant tears in his voice, that he wanted “_Dada_”.

“There, best take en to the Fair at once,” said the man who held him in his arms. “There’s sure to be some of his folks about. Come along, Johnny—we’ll go and look for Dada.”

He hoisted up the child to one of his comrades, clambered himself to the higher level, and, taking him again in his arms, set off for the scene of the Fair, the others looking after him curiously for a moment or two, and then leisurely setting about their work.

Johnny did not say much during the transit; he sat very upright, staring about him with all his eyes in his anxiety to catch the first glimpse of his father.

As they entered the field where the Fair had taken place, and where were still many groups of busy people, a sudden outcry sounded from the neighbourhood of one of the large gipsy-vans which stood horsed and ready for further progress. A great red-bearded man, with a white face and wild, bloodshot eyes, was struggling in the midst of the little crowd which had closed about him, while the proprietor of the van, a swarthy, thick-set fellow, was evidently denouncing him.

“That’s Dada!” cried Johnny eagerly. “There he is! What are they doing to en? Why are they holdin’ en? Dada!” he cried in a shrill scream. “Dada!”

Amid all his frenzy, aye, even amid the din about him, John Reed distinguished the little voice, and suddenly became as a lamb.

“’Tis him,” he cried brokenly. “’Tis Johnny! That’s him yonder,” and slipping from the loosened grasp of the hands which had been laid upon him, he staggered forward, paused, wavered, and then dropping to the ground burst into tears.

Johnny, having been set on his legs, ran gleefully to his father, and flung his arms about his neck; and John fondled him with one big trembling hand, and sobbed on, his broad shoulders heaving, the tears trickling through the brown fingers with which he sought to hide his face.

People who had been most ready to condemn him now gathered round, full of sympathy; even the policemen, fathers of families themselves, looked down with benign compassion. Only the van-proprietor stood aloof, indignantly surveying the tattered collar of his own rusty jacket, which seemed, indeed, to have recently sustained severe handling.

“He was near the death o’ me, I know that,” he remarked. “He’d no need to come assaultin’ and a-batterin’ of me, if he had a-lost his child.”

“He didn’t know what he was a-doin’,” returned a sympathetic bystander. “He’ve a-bin all night runnin’ after vans and sich, thinkin’ they’d a-carried off the little chap. Somebody went and told en there was a little kid wi’ yaller curls among your folks, and he made sure ’twas his, d’ye see?”

“Well, an’ if we do have a kid wi’ yaller curls, what’s that to he?” grumbled the other. “Us have got brats enough of our own wi’out wantin’ strangers. I’ll have compensation for this. I bain’t a-goin’ to be assaulted and a-battered for nothin’.”

The nearest policeman, a portly personage, and jealous of his prerogative, now turning in a dignified manner, informed the malcontent that he didn’t know nothin’ o’ what he was talkin’ of—compensation didn’t apply to no such case as this, and finally ordered him sternly to move on.

Meanwhile Reed had somewhat recovered, and was looking about him with red, swollen eyes, and explaining huskily to the crowd as he hugged Johnny in his arms:—

“I thought I’d lost en, d’ye see?—that’s it. I thought I’d lost en.”

Rising presently, he prepared to leave the field, Johnny’s whilom protector walking beside him, relating over and over again how he had come upon the child, how surprised he had been, how he had said to his mates that there was sure to be somebody in trouble about this, and how he had thought it best to come to the Fair at once. Reed, listening in a dazed kind of way, folded his arms tighter about Johnny, and stumbled along almost like a man in a dream.

“Shall I carry him?” said the other suddenly. “Ye do seem that upset I reckon ye’d get along easier.”

And then John woke up.

“Nay,” he said, “nay, sir. I thank ’ee kindly—I thank ’ee from my heart for findin’ en and all—but I can’t let go of en. I must have the feel of en, ye see.”

As they turned out of the gate a sudden rattle of wheels was heard and a trap came in sight, the horse proceeding at a kind of hobbling canter, and one of the occupants of the little vehicle actually standing upright and supporting herself by the shoulder of the driver.

“’Tis Mammy, I do believe,” said Reed. “See, Johnny—and there’s Maggie and Rosie at back. Call out to ’em, Sonny! Holler loud. I don’t know what’s come to me, I can’t seem to get my voice out.”

Johnny duly raised his shrill pipe, and in another moment, with a joyful whoop, Jim Fry had thrown the reins on the horse’s back, and the whole party had tumbled into the road.

Mrs. Reed and Rosie were beside Dada and his precious burden almost immediately, but Maggie hung back, looking at her father with piteous, appealing eyes.

“Come here, Maidy,” he said huskily, “come—all’s forgive and forgot—there be summat to forgive and forget on all sides. I were a bit rough to ’ee last night, but there, d’ye see, I were very nigh out o’ my mind.”

Maggie made a clutch at the nearest available portion of Johnny’s person, which happened to be a sturdy little mottled leg—for he was positively swamped by the caresses of his family—stooped, kissed it, and burst into tears.

Rosie followed suit, the mother had been long ago weeping, and now John Reed himself began to gulp and make contortions of the face as though in preparation for a fresh outburst of emotion.

Poor little Johnny looked from one to the other, utterly bewildered. The sight of his whole family simultaneously in tears was too much for him, and, lifting up his voice, he gave vent to his feelings in a volume of sound which left no doubt as to the unimpaired condition of his lungs even after a night under the stars.

Jim Fry had been circling round the group scratching his head, rubbing his nose, and screwing up his mouth in token of dissatisfaction. At this juncture he thought it was time to interfere.

“Well, I never,” he remarked irritably, “I never did see sich folk. Here we’ve all been a-trapesing over the county lookin’ for the child, and thinkin’ him dead or stole, or hurted some way; and now we’ve a-found en safe and sound, wi’out so much as a scratch on en, and ye must all begin a-cryin’ and a-sobbin’ enough to frighten en out of his wits. ’Tisn’t what ye’d like, be it, Johnny?”

“No,” said Johnny, with such a heave of his little chest that it very nearly lifted him out of his father’s arms. Again he looked from one to the other with tearful, bewildered eyes, and again the sense of his injuries was too much for him. “I’d like—summat—to eat!” he announced in a bellow of wrath and woe.

And thereupon the whole simple family fell a-laughing; and once again Johnny was hugged all round, and though eyes were still wet, and every now and then there would be a little catch in the voice of one or other speaker, the general equanimity was restored, and the party fell to discussing the little boy’s practical suggestion.

It was a very happy family that presently sat down to breakfast in a neighbouring cottage, Johnny being handed with respectful tenderness from one to the other, and being disposed before the meal was out to look upon himself quite in the light of a hero. And Maggie sat between her father and Jim Fry, and was perhaps the happiest of all.

THE ROUT OF THE CONQUEROR.

THE log fire burnt cheerily on the wide hearth, hissing and crackling every now and then, and sending showers of sparks dancing up the chimney; casting flickering shadows on the low ceiling, and sportively throwing little dots and rims of light from one to the other of Betty Sibley’s cherished treasures of crockery ware. But Betty herself looked very serious as she sat leaning forward in her arm-chair, her bony elbows resting on her knees, her pointed chin supported by her hands, her beady black eyes roving from one to the other of her two visitors.

They sat on the opposite side of the hearth. One a portly, middle-aged woman with a white apron much in evidence, and a little shawl crossed over her shoulders. The strings of her very flat straw bonnet were untied and thrown back, an infallible token of perturbation of mind in the class to which she belonged, her large fat hands tightly clasped together on the top of her apron, her woebegone face with its lack-lustre eyes and loosely-dropping lower lip, the very picture of helpless despondency. Close beside her, on the extreme edge of his chair, sat a young man sufficiently like her to be recognisable as her son, but with considerably more intelligence in his face—intelligence dashed at this moment by a marked expression of sullenness.

“Well, Aunt Betty, if you can’t help us, I’m sure I can’t think whatever we be to do. You was always so clever—they do say down yonder in village there bain’t nothing as Betty Sibley haven’t got some way o’ gettin’ round. She can very nigh make the dead alive again.”

“Nay now, I never went so far as that,” said old Betty, throwing herself back in her chair. “But I’ve brought back them as has gone to the New House just for a minute like to ax a question. Sometimes the end comes so suddent there bain’t no time for things to get settled as they should be settled, and as them as is gone ud’ wish to have them settled—well, then, there’s ways o’ makin’ them come back.”

“Lor!” ejaculated Kate Hardy under her breath, looking in awe at her distinguished relative.

“’Ees, my dear, you mid be sure o’ that. D’ye mind when poor Jane Arnold was took off wi’ an impression on her chest—not so much time as to say where she’d like to be buried? Well, ye know, her daughter Mary was terrible upset. She know’d her mother had a lovely set o’ silver spoons put away safe somewhere, what was to be hers as she did tell her many a time when she was livin’, but not so much as one o’ them could she find; and Tom, the brother—a very rough fellow was Tom—gived her a week to put all to rights in the house and to pack up and go. Him and his missus didn’t get on at all with Mary. So poor Mary did come to I, the tears a-streaming down her face. ‘Mrs. Sibley,’ says she, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without you’ll help me. I’ve lost my dear mother,’ she says, a-sobbin’ and a-cryin’ fit to break her heart, ‘and now it do really seem as if I was to lose the spoons too.”

“Eh—h—h, dear, dear,” groaned Mrs. Hardy sympathetically.

“’E—es, my dear, it ’ud ha’ melted a heart o’ stone I do assure ye. So, I gived her summat and I did tell her what to say—”

Here the young man who had been sitting moodily twirling his thumbs, only changing his position once or twice to kick the burning logs with the heel of his hob-nailed boot when the flames sunk low, looked up suddenly with an expression of interest.

“What did ’ee give her?” he asked.

“Never you mind, Jim. It bain’t for nothin’ o’ that kind as you and your mother be come here this evenin’: ’tis the livin’ as you wants to deal wi’.”

“Maybe if I had my will it ’ud be the dead,” said Jim, kicking savagely at the log.

“Sh—sh—sh,” said his mother reprovingly. “Don’t ’ee take no notice of him, Aunt Betty; ’tis the best hearted bwoy in the world, but there, he be druv’ very nigh distracted at the present time!”

“Well, Kate, my dear, as I was a-sayin’,” pursued the sibyl, pointedly addressing herself to the elder of her visitors, “I did give the poor creatur’ summat, and that very night about twelve o’clock she did set the charm to work.”

Jim kicked at the log again, a little nervously, and Kate drew forward her chair with a grating sound on the tiled floor.

“Jist as the clock did strike one,” went on Betty, in a sepulchral tone, “the flame o’ the candle did jump up and then drop down again, and Mary did hear her mother’s step on the floor.”

Murmurs of admiration mingled with trepidation from Mrs. Hardy, and a sudden rigidity on Jim’s part.

“There she was, jist as she mid ha’ been in life, in her Sunday dress an’ little brooch an’ all, Mary said, an’ a nice clean apron, an’ wi’ a beautiful fresh colour in her cheeks. She looked at Mary so reproachful like, the very same, Mary did say, as if she was axin’ her, ‘Why have ye brought me back?’ Poor Mary did go all white and twittery, an’ she did say: ‘Oh, Mother dear, I’d never ha’ brought you back from your rest, but just to ax ’ee the one thing: _where did ’ee put the spoons_?’ Well, the figure did stand lookin’ at her so solemn, and then all at once did rise its hand like this.”

Here Betty pointed upwards, and a dramatic pause ensued.

“Ah,” groaned Mrs. Hardy, “meanin’ to say as now she’d gone up’ards to glory she couldn’t be expected to be took up wi’ spoons an’ sich like.”

“’Twas the very thing as Mary did think herself, Kate my dear,” responded Betty solemnly. “She come to I next mornin’, an’ she did say them very words, but I knowed better; I knowed that there charm what I gived her was one as never failed. ‘Not at all, Mary,’ says I. ‘Your mother’s sperrit warn’t a-tellin’ ’ee nought o’ the kind. It p’inted up’ards, ye say? Well then, take my advice an’ go straight home and _search the thatch_.’”

“Well, to be sure!” ejaculated her listeners; even the taciturn Jim was constrained to express some interest.

“Did she find ’em?” he asked quickly.

“I should think she did find ’em, Jim. She did find every one as safe as anything, tied up in an old stocking, jist in the very spot what her mother had p’inted out.”

This climax seemed to impress Jim even more than his mother; he leaned forward, his great red hands twitching as they rested one on each knee.

“I d’ ’low, Aunt Betty, if ye could do that, you could do anythin’. Can’t ye gi’ me summat as ’ll get the better o’ this here chap?”

“Well, Jim, I could give ’ee a love charm, but as you do tell I there’s no gettin’ near your young lady, I don’t see how you be to indooce her to wear it.”

“That’s true!” put in Jim’s mother dolefully. “There, I will say it do seem cruel hard. They were as good friends I do assure ’ee as a young man and a young lady need be. They’ve a-bin walkin’—how long have you an’ Chrissy bin a-walkin’, Jim?”

“Fifteen month,” growled Jim gloomily.

“Ah, fifteen month, Aunt Betty. An’ Chrissy have a nice bit of money laid by, mind ye. Her father was as pleasant as could be about it, an’ quite friendly, an’ the mother too. She did say to I not above a month ago, I d’ ’low,’ says she, ‘we may be expectin’ to hear banns give out soon,’ she says. Well, an now this young good-for-nothin’ chap must come and whip her up from under my Jim’s very nose. What she can see in him I can’t think, without it be his _korky_ jacket. _Trooper_ Willcocks, as he calls himself—I’d troop him if I had my way. Why didn’t he stay out at the war then, if he be so set up about it?”

“Ah, he’s a soldier, is he?” commented Aunt Betty. “A soldier. Ah, my dear, Jim’s young lady bain’t the first to run after a red coat.”

“But he han’t got no more a red coat nor you have—nothin’ but what they do call korky—as ugly a colour as ever I see. An’ he bain’t a-goin’ to stop in the army neither. He bain’t a proper soldier at all—jist a common chap as they picked up somewhere and clapped on a horse and sent out.”

“He’s in the yeomanry,” explained Jim. “He don’t even come from these parts; he’s home on sick leave, an’ is here visitin’ his uncle, along of his own ’ome bein’ in town and not so healthy. But he’s no more sick than I am. I’d like to make him a bit sicker, I know. Couldn’t ’ee give me a charm for that, Aunt Betty?”

Betty rubbed her shrivelled hands together, and fixed her beady eyes meditatively on her great-nephew.

“There mid be things as can be done what mid be things a body midn’t like doin’,” she said oracularly. “You know the wax image—but there, I wouldn’t go for to advise such a thing. The power as is give us is give us for good, that’s what I do say. There’s a cure for everything in natur’, if one but knowed how to find it. Now with herbs—I’ve often found out wonderful things with herbs—folks as is troubled wi’ warts and corns could cure them in a minute if they knowed the right thing. The worst wart as ever was can be cured by a bit o’ milkwort. Pull it up, root an’ all, d’ye see, and give ’em a bit every day, pounded wi’ a drop o’ new milk, an’ when the time comes round that the plant, if it was growin’ outside, ’ud be dyin’ down, the wart ’ull just wither away—that’s my _notion_, d’ye see?”

“But the image,” persevered Jim. “Did you ever try that? It seems a silly kind o’ thing too,” he added tentatively. “How could a dumb image do anything good or ill?”

“Hush—sh—sh, my dear, ye don’t know nothin’ about them things,” put in Mrs. Hardy with apologetic haste. “But they was known an’ tried by others afore ye was born. Ye make an image in the likeness of the person as you know is trying to do you harm, and ye put it down to roast at a slow fire. Dear yes, I’ve often heard of it.”

“Well, then ye don’t seem to have heard the rights on it,” interposed Aunt Betty, indignant at this encroachment on her peculiar province. “There’s a deal more to be done than just set it down to roast same’s a chicken.”

“Then what must ye do?” inquired Kate in awe-struck tones. “Ah,” seized by a sudden thought, “I can mind it now. Ye must stick the image full of pins first.”

“That’s it?” said old Betty, nodding reluctantly. “But there’s more than that too. There’s summat as must be _said_.”

“I never heerd tell o’ nothin bein’ said, an’ I can mind my cousin Lizzie castin’ a spell over her step-mother wi’ an image like that, an’ she were took wi’ the rheumatiz the next week an’ never looked up arter.”

“’Twarn’t on account of the spell then if she didn’t say nothin’,” retorted Betty contemptuously. “No spell would ever work wi’out the words. Why, did ye never hear tell o’ saying the Lard’s Prayer back’ards, beginnin’ with Amen?”

“Lard no! that I didn’t! An’ it bain’t what I’d like to be doin’, Aunt Betty.”

“Neither should I, my dear—’tis just what I be a-tellin’ ’ee. But charm won’t work wi’out ye do.”

A pause ensued, after which Kate, rising disconsolately and crooking her arm into her heavy market-basket, remarked that it was time to be goin’. Jim rose too, and stood dismally facing his great-aunt.

“If ye like to come back in a few days I’ll get that love charm ready,” she remarked compassionately. “Bain’t there no maid as knows her as ye could get to sew it somewhere about her clothes?”

“No,” retorted Jim sullenly. “I’ll not try no love charms. I’ll try my hand at gettin’ rid o’ _him_ first.”

Mother and son trudged away together in gloomy silence. The early dusk had closed in upon the autumnal landscape. In the little town they had left behind, lights were beginning to gleam forth, but before them there was only the dim glimmer of the wet road to guide them on their way. Now and then a van passed them, jogging downwards to the town, or a heavily-laden waggon with the carter slouching alongside, and growling out Good-night as he went by.

All at once Jim nudged his mother, and pointed with a trembling finger.

“It’s him,” he whispered hoarsely. Against the uncertain grey background of the road a broad-shouldered young figure came swinging into sight, the outline of the broad-brimmed cavalier hat which marked the yeoman being plainly perceptible. As he drew near to the couple he paused, peering through the dusk.

“Hullo, Jim Hardy!” he cried gaily, “any message for Chrissy? I’m glad to see you walking with a lady—I’ll tell her you’ve picked up another sweetheart.”

“Get out with ’ee, do!” cried Mrs. Hardy, further relieving her lacerated feelings by making a swoop at him with the market-basket.

Jim, however, pushed past her, and making a sudden dart at his supplanter, endeavoured to knock the picturesque hat from his head. But the yeoman was too quick for him: stepping swiftly to one side he allowed his assailant’s blow to expend itself on the empty air, and then closing with him, tripped him up and laid him neatly on his back in the miry road.

“Good trick that, ain’t it?” he inquired pleasantly over his shoulder as he pursued his way. “Picked it up from the Lancashires.”