Chapter XI: To the Rescue

“Oh!” Margot sprang to her feet. Indignation and fury were in her eyes and in her voice. “Stella, they are hurting it!”

“What?” Stella, already half-turning in the direction of home, gave reluctant ear.

“What, indeed! It’s a child, of course. Oh, I knew quite well there was something up. Didn’t you hear those men mention the police? They’ve stolen it, or something. Anyhow, it’s unhappy. _Listen!_”

“Well, we can’t do anything. Not against two great men. And some of the gipsies are horrid. Margot, come on!”

“Come on, indeed!” said Margot, listening with might and main to the pitiful sobs.

“Let’s go back home, then, and we’ll fetch father,” suggested Stella.

“Why, you said your own self that he would be out to tea!” returned the downright Margot, quivering with rage. “_You_ can go home, if you like, but I’m not coming. Why, before anyone gets back to help they might----”

Margot took a step in the direction of the tent.

“Oh, don’t be so stupid, Margot!” Stella seized her skirts. “They might do--anything to you! Oh, I wish you wouldn’t be so--so Australian! It’s not even sensible. One girl against two great gipsies! Even if you _did_ go inside, what would you do?”

“I’d not be--one girl, if you came too,” Margot informed her. “Here, you’re right in one thing; we’d better get the men out of the tent, first, and then go in! Only, how....”

“There’s no way. How could there be? I’m going home,” said Stella.

“Of all the _cowards_! That’s what _you_ are! I’d rather be--Australian, as you call it, than a coward and leave a baby crying!” Stella’s guest of the afternoon turned upon her hostess with flashing eyes. “And after talking of winning the bravery shield!”

The mention of the shield certainly seemed to revive, to a slight extent, Stella’s departing nerve.

“I’m not a coward, and if it’s for the shield----” She stopped. “Only, how----? We’ll never get the shield if the gipsies kill us.”

“_Kill_ us! It’s better than killing the baby, anyhow. And they won’t kill us. Look here!” Margot had been thinking rapidly. “There’s two of us, and there’s two things to do. (Oh dear, _do_ listen to that baby!) Stella, if I get the men out, will you go in? If they’re not there--only the baby, you know--you couldn’t possibly be frightened, could you? And you could rescue it while they are both away.”

“I wouldn’t mind rescuing a baby,” admitted Stella, with her mental eye on the bravery shield, “so long as--I mean, so long as you’ll do something to keep the men away from me all the time.”

“Leave that to me, then. You lie here--till I’ve done it. You absolutely needn’t move till you see the gipsy men come out of the tent. Then, well, they’ll not be back, I promise you, till you’ve had time to get hold of the child. It sounds like a small one, anyway. I’m sure you can carry it until I meet you.”

“But----” faltered Stella.

But, as the child’s cries broke out again, Margot darted from her side. As she went, she tugged violently at the leather girdle of her out-to-tea jumper frock.

“Stella, you remember that you’ve promised. Be sure----” panted Margot as she ran.

Then she fled across the ridge to the grazing quarters of the two seedy-looking steeds.

“Margot! Margot! Come back! Where _are_ you going?” screamed her hostess after her.

But there was no recalling Margot, now. Having armed herself with the leather girdle she proceeded, first of all, to untether the horses with practised fingers, and then, emitting surprising yells, to whip the pair of them into a canter which led away across the moor. Possibly, as she herself hoped, the horses understood that she had no ill-feeling whatever towards them, and that her banshee-like cries were not meant to terrify them, but their masters, who had recently returned into the tent. The said owners, whether attracted by the sound of galloping hoofs or by the startling yells, were certainly not long before they issued pell-mell and post-haste through the tent flap.

“Oh!” the amazed Stella gasped. “Oh! Isn’t she frightful! Oh, I suppose I’ll simply _have_ to hurry up and go in before they get back.”

But Margot, true to her word, had certainly arranged that her companion should have ample time for her part of the rescue, as well as the easiest share of the enterprise. By this time the horses had been urged into a gallop, and their owners’ voices were sounding but faintly over the moor. Stella, though shaking in every limb, approached the flap of the tent.

As she entered, the cries sounded louder than ever. There was certainly a child in trouble there.

A little child, too; scarcely more than a baby, as its would-be rescuer could faintly see. Stella prepared to perform her share of the act of bravery as expeditiously as she could.

“Here, come along. Stop crying, do!” she remarked, picking up the baby from the bed on which it lay, “or they’ll be back. You’re all right now; they won’t hurt you any more. Or, at least, I suppose you are. I do hope and trust you really _are_ a stolen baby, because, if not----”

Her remarks, as she held the child in her arms and proceeded to retrace her steps through the semi-gloom to the entrance of the tent, were suddenly interrupted.

Not by the arrival of a panting Margot, however, but by the entry of a hastening gipsy woman.

“What’s this! And where’s ’er dada, eh? What! You ’ere; and what be _you_ doing, whoever you be, in honest folkses homes?”

“It’s----” Stella turned, with shaking knees, to face the speaker.

“Speak up, now! How did you get in, I’d like to know; with me on’y away at doctor’s to arsk ’im to step up. An’ leaving the baby’s dada in charge, an’ all. And now--what’s this? ’Ere, give the baby to me!”

“I didn’t want to, I’m sure! And--I’m the rector’s daughter, if you want to know,” added Stella grandly. “And the baby was crying horribly. We just.... Is it crying because it’s _ill_?” she suddenly inquired.

“Rector’s daughter, eh? I’m sure I begs yer pardon, miss.” The gipsy was evidently impressed. “An’ if so be as you stopped to quieten the baby, I’m sure you’re kindly welcome. But what with these ’ere spots coming out all over it, an’ it being so fretful, and the police being that keerful on account of all the scarling fever what’s about--coming round the camp, they did, an’ tellin’ us as we was to notify ’em if it starts--well, we dursn’t go on to Rowsley Fair, we dursn’t, without the doctor said we might. An’ there’s three times this blessed day as I’ve bin down to doctor’s. An’ now he’s on his way up, an’ he ses that sure as fate it’s the scarling fever. What with the ’orspital for the baby; and the men ’aving lorsted Rowsley Fair with it all----”

The woman began to weep.

“What!” yelled Stella.

It was the last word that she uttered within the gipsy tent. The next was addressed to Margot, whom she met returning speedily over the moor in the direction of the camp.

“The men have got the horses back all right,” she shouted. “I say--_What!_ d’you mean to say you haven’t got the baby?” she finished up angrily.

Her questions were interrupted by the torrents of Stella’s wrath.

“It’s your fault! I’m sure I didn’t want to go in! I tried to make you go home. You can’t say I didn’t. If you hadn’t kept talking about the shield, I would never----”

Stella burst into furious crying.

“And now, scarlet fever! And I lifted it up and carried it. And it’s got spots. And that stuffy tent! And ... I’ve never had scarlet fever!”

“Do you mean to say that the baby wasn’t--being hurt, or anything?” inquired Margot slowly.

“Oh!” Stella was sobbing outright. She could answer no question with regard to the baby. “And I’ll miss the match, even if I don’t get fever. For I’m sure I’ll have to be in quarantine for ages. Oh, come home to mother quick! Oh!” finished up Stella, too miserable to remember points of etiquette, “I _wish_ I hadn’t asked you to tea!”

Margot, also, wished the same wish, as, miserably conscious of her shortcomings, she faced a scandalized Mrs. Hill and listened to Stella’s sobbing account of the recent escapade, while she mentally agreed with Stella that it certainly was all her own (Margot’s) fault. She wished the same wish all the way back to school, whither she was instantly dispatched. “For you had better not stay here, and not come near Stella, since she’s probably caught it already, you see. What? You’ve had it? Well, of course, that is very fortunate for you; but for poor Stella there will certainly be ten days’ quarantine at _least_! Go straight to Miss Slater,” continued the harassed Mrs. Hill, “and tell her--everything. What it must be to be a head mistress when even a beautiful thing like a prize for bravery can put such dreadful mischief into children’s heads, I _don’t_ know!” concluded the rector’s wife.

“It wasn’t--because of the bravery prize that I did it. I’d have done it--if there hadn’t ever been a bravery prize,” blurted out Margot; “and I’m most dreadfully sorry. And if there’s anything I can do?”

_Do!_ She had done enough already. Mrs. Hill hurried indoors without delay to find carbolic, and hardly heard the last strains of Margot’s fervent apologies.

There was carbolic, too, for Margot, when she reached the Cliff School with her confession. Also a week-end of nights spent in the fastness of the San. But first of all an interview with Miss Slater.

“You, yourself, Margot, have not run any risk whatever, I think and hope; under the circumstances, though, we will take certain precautions. But Stella certainly must not return for ten days; though I hope she will _not_ miss the match.” The head mistress looked at Margot’s flushed and unhappy face.

“Poor Mrs. Hill, and poor Stella!” said the head mistress quietly. “Margot, you must really try to conform to English ways.”

That was all.

“Only----” as Margot confided to Gretta later on, “Gretta, what else could I have done? You see, I truly thought the baby _was_ unhappy, so what else _could_ I do?”