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Title: What happened to Tad

Author: Mary E. Ropes

Release date: November 25, 2024 [eBook #74793]

Language: English

Original publication: London: The Religious Tract Society


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO TAD ***

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

[Illustration: "BOAT AHOY! WAKE UP THERE!"]



                         WHAT HAPPENED

                             TO TAD


                               BY

                         MARY E. ROPES

          _Author of "Karl Jansen's Find," "Caroline Street,"
                     "Two Brave Boys," etc., etc._



                             LONDON
                   THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
       4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard E.C.



                            CONTENTS

CHAPTER

     I. VERY HARD LINES

    II. PLANNING REVENGE

   III. GONE

    IV. ANOTHER STEP DOWN

     V. DRIVEN FORTH

    VI. AFLOAT

   VII. JEREMIAH JACKSON

  VIII. FOXY AND PHIL

    IX. A SLAVE INDEED

     X. WEAK YET SO STRONG

    XI. GOOD-BYE TO FOXY

   XII. A FRIEND AND AN ENEMY

  XIII. UNEXPECTED NEWS

   XIV. OLD MEMORIES AND A NEW IDEA

    XV. TURNING THE TABLES

   XVI. TAD HARDENS HIS HEART

  XVII. AGAINST THE PRICKS

 XVIII. JEREMIAH TO THE RESCUE

   XIX. FAITHFUL PHIL

    XX. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER



                     WHAT HAPPENED TO TAD

CHAPTER I

VERY HARD LINES

"NOW look here, boy! I ain't a-goin' to have no more words about it.
Your mother must—"

"She ain't my mother, nor I'll never call her so, never! Not if I live
a hundred year; so don't try to make me, dad."

"Well, I dare say it won't matter such a great deal to your stepmother
what you call her, so long as you do what you're told, Tad. But please
to understand, my lad, that if you kick up a rumpus here, and make
things unpleasant for my wife, you'll hear of it again from me, as sure
as my name's James Poole."

"But, dad," pursued the boy, "she ain't kind to the children, leastways
only to her own kid. She beats poor little Bert, and boxes Nell's ears
for the least thing."

"Tiresome spoilt brats! Serve 'em right!" retorted the man. "But
anyhow, Tad, it ain't your business. You may as well understand, once
for all, that I mean she shall be missis here, and manage the home
her own way. Now go along, will you! I've no more time to waste on
tale-tellin' and grumblin'."

"It's wicked! It's a shame!" muttered Teddie Poole (or Tadpole as his
friends had nicknamed him). "This has got to end somehow!"

But his father only growled under his breath, caught up his cap, and
left the house.

"Yes, it's too bad; everything's against me and them two poor chil'en.
Dad's number two—she don't care for 'em one little bit, though nothin's
too good for that great, thumpin', squealin' baby of hers. I'd take
Bert and Nell right off somewheres, only I couldn't keep 'em and look
after 'em—poor mites!"

Then with a heavy heart, Tad betook himself to his work. It was not
much of a place that the boy had got. He was only a grocer's lad at
four shillings a week, but it was better than nothing, and he did his
work willingly enough, though he was often footsore and weary with
running or standing about from morning till night.

There was a great deal of good in poor Tad. When his own mother died,
he tried to take care of his little brother and sister, and often
denied himself for their sake.

But when at last James Poole married again, the boy bitterly resented
his stepmother's harsh ways with her husband's children. And since her
own baby's birth, things at home had been worse than ever. She grudged
to Bert and Nell every moment of time that she was obliged to give
them, and even the very food they ate. She had no sympathy for their
childish troubles, no tender words or caresses for anyone but her own
baby boy; while towards Tad, who had from the first made no secret of
his feelings, she showed in return a dislike which had something almost
malignant about it.

Several times the lad had complained to his father, but his words had
produced no effect except still more to enrage his stepmother against
him. And now Tad had made another appeal, and had once again failed.

All day long, he turned the matter over in his mind as he ran his
errands or helped his master, Mr. Scales, to make up parcels in the
shop. Life at home was becoming unbearable—impossible—he told himself.
What was to be done?

Once the grocer glanced at him with a comical, puzzled smile on his
fat, good-natured face, but Tad never looked up, and presently his
master said:

"Before you put them little packets up in brown paper, Teddie, just see
if they are all right, will you?"

The lad obeyed, but as he began to look through his packets of grocery,
he flushed hotly.

"I can't think how I could have been so stupid, sir," he said
penitently; "why, here's sugar and salt got mixed somehow, and the
bacon rashers has gone and wrapped theirselves up with the yaller
soap. Oh my! And a pound of taller dips is broke loose all among the
currants, till they looks just like the hats of them 'ketch-'em-alive'
fellers. Oh, sir, I'm awful sorry."

The round face of Mr. Scales expanded into a grin of genuine amusement.

"It isn't often you make such mistakes, my boy," he said kindly, "so
I must forgive you this time. But it seems to me, Tad, that you've
something on your mind."

"Yes, sir, that's just it," answered Tad.

"Is it anything I can help you in?"

"No, sir, thank you, no one can't help me," replied the boy gloomily.

"Ah well, you think so now, but perhaps things will mend in a day or
two, and then you'll feel more hopeful."

Tad shook his head, but did not reply. He tried, however, to put his
troubles out of his mind for the present, and to give his undivided
attention to his work, so as to make no more mistakes. He did not
reach home that evening until eight, and his father and stepmother
were sitting at table. Bert, half undressed, was sobbing in a corner,
his face to the wall, and little Nell was wailing in her cot upstairs,
having been put to bed supperless for some childish offence.

"Late again, Tad!" exclaimed Mrs. Poole crossly. "Why can't you be home
in good time?"

"Mr. Scales kept me a bit later than common," replied Tad; "we was very
busy."

"I don't believe that's anything but a excuse," retorted the woman.
"It's a deal more likely as how you've been playin' round with them
rude street boys that you learns your pretty manners from."

Tad flushed scarlet with rage.

"I came straight home," said he; "I ran all the way to try and get back
quick. I don't tell lies, and I think you ought to believe me."

"Hark at that, now! Jim, just do hark at that! Ought to, forsooth!
Ain't there any other thing, if you please, that I ought to do?"

"Yes," shouted Tad, beside himself with passion—"lots of 'em!"

"Shut up, will you?" roared James Poole, bringing his heavy fist down
upon the table. "Am I never to have a minute's peace at home?"

"'Tain't my fault, dad," said the boy; "I ain't gone and done nothin'."

"No, everybody knows you never do nothin'," sneered his stepmother.
"You're just one of they poor critturs that's put upon all the time by
other folks, when you're as innercent as a angel."

Tad got up and pushed his plate away without having touched a mouthful.

"I can't eat, dad," he said to his father, "a bite or a sup would choke
me."

James Poole made no reply, but his wife laughed and said:

"So much the better! All the more left for us!"

"Bein' Saturday," said Tad, coming round to his father's side, "Mr.
Scales paid me as usual. Here's the money for you, dad!" and he put
down four shillings on the table.

"Give it to your mother, Tad, she does the providin'."

But Tad did not obey.

"Give that there money to me, do you hear?" cried Mrs. Poole.

But Tad appeared to take no notice of her.

"Won't you have the tin, father?" he said.

"No, my boy; I know I've took your wages till now, but I find your
mother—your stepmother—likes to have it herself, and it's all the same
to me."

Tad did not even glance at Mrs. Poole, but deliberately gathered up the
coins and pocketed them, saying:

"Then, since you don't want my earnin's, dad, I'll keep 'em, for from
to-day I'm a-goin' to feed myself."

And not waiting to hear any more, he went upstairs to his little garret
room, and bolted himself in to brood over his wrongs, and think out
some way of escape from the influences of a home that had grown so
hateful.



CHAPTER II

PLANNING REVENGE

NO sleep did Tad get that night, tired though he was. He was thinking
so hard that he could not close his eyes. Things had come to a climax
at last, and something must be done. His stepmother and he hated each
other cordially, and his efforts to stand up for the children only made
matters worse both for himself and them.

There were only two courses open to Tad now, and to one of these he
must commit himself on the following day. Either he must eat humble
pie, submit his will entirely to his stepmother, and have no choice
of his own in anything, or he must go quite away, away as far as he
could—and try to shift for himself.

The thought of remaining at home, to be sneered at, and scolded, and
abused by Mrs. Poole, was intolerable. The idea of submitting to her,
and thus acknowledging her authority, he put from him as altogether too
bitter a pill to be swallowed. There remained, then, only the other
alternative, and that was to cut adrift from all his belongings, and go
away.

The thing that troubled him most about this plan, next to leaving
little Bert and Nell, was that he knew it would be nothing but a
delight to Mrs. Poole to get rid of him, and he could not bear to give
her pleasure even by carrying out this plan of his own.

"I'd like oncommon to punish her—punish her well!" said the boy to
himself, as he tossed uneasily on his bed and stared before him into
the darkness. "I'd like to make her real unhappy as she's always makin'
us. Go away I'm bound to, but I must do something beside as 'll make
her laugh t'other side of her mouth."

For some moments Tad thought intently. At last, with a sudden bound, he
found himself, in his excitement, standing in the middle of the floor.

"I have it!" he chuckled. "I know what I'm a-goin' to do! That's
fine!"

And again he laughed to himself—a hard laugh that told a sad tale of its
own, and showed what a terrible power, even over the soft young heart of
early youth, have the stony influences of injustice and cruelty.


With the first dawn of Sunday morning, Tad rose and dressed himself
noiselessly. Into an old satchel-basket, that his master had given
him, he packed his clothes and his one spare pair of boots. His brush
and comb, and a very few other little matters, were added, and then he
covered all neatly with a sheet of newspaper, after which he put the
basket away in the cupboard till he should want it.

Tad knew his stepmother's Sunday habits and customs, and quite hoped
that he should presently have a chance to carry out the plans for
his own escape and for the accomplishing of the revenge which he had
promised himself.

The boy had eaten no supper, and had passed a sleepless night, and he
began to feel sick and faint by the time his little preparations were
completed, so that he was glad to lie down again.

About seven o'clock he heard his father's voice calling him, and he
jumped up and ran out of his room.

"Come and dress the children, Tad," said James Poole; "your stepmother
have got a headache, and means to stay quiet till near dinner time."

Tad smiled, well pleased. He knew that this was the usual Sunday
headache, which needed a long sleep and a plentiful dinner for its
cure, and he had reckoned upon it as a most important part of his
plans. He dressed Bert and Nell, and then the baby. But this last was
not an easy thing to do, for the child wriggled and squirmed like an
eel.

Meanwhile James Poole lighted the fire and got breakfast ready, and
presently all sat down but Tad.

"Come and have your breakfast, lad," said his father.

"No thank you, dad," replied the boy.

"And why not?"

"You heard what she said to me last night, dad, didn't you? After that
and what I answered her, I ain't goin' to eat nothin' more of her
providin'."

And Tad's face burned at the remembrance of the insulting words that
had brought him to this resolution. His heart was hot within him as
with a smouldering fire, while he said to himself, "Ah well—my turn's
comin'."

"Don't be such a fool, Tad," said his father; "here, take your tea, and
I'll cut you some bread and butter."

Tad was just longing for some food. He had not eaten a mouthful since
an early tea in Mr. Scales' little back parlour the day before. But
it was not for nothing that Mrs. Poole had often called him "the most
obstinatious little beast of a boy" she'd ever seen. And since he had
made up his mind not to eat again at his father's table, he stuck to
his resolution, rash and foolish as it was.

"No, dad, no," he said. "I'll make shift to get a bite somewheres or
other later on, but I ain't goin' to unsay what I said last night—not
for no one."

"You forget it's Sunday, lad, you can't buy any food," said James
Poole; "and besides, though you may be able to starve for a day, you
can't keep on doin' of it, so that sooner or later you're bound to
break your resolution. Now don't be an obstinate mule, but eat your
breakfast, or you'll be makin' yourself ill."

"I don't care," said Tad, feeling very wretched in mind and body.

Not to be shaken in his purpose, he set the baby on his father's knee,
and went to his room.

There, seeing his overcoat hanging up on a nail on the door, he
recalled to mind that, two days before, his master had given him some
broken biscuits that had remained behind after the whole ones were
sold. He had put them into the pocket of his light overcoat, just as he
was leaving the shop, and had not once thought of them till now. Very
thankful to be able to appease his ravenous hunger, the lad sat down
and ate up the biscuits to the very last crumb, washing down the dry,
stale morsels with a drink of water from his jug.

Then feeling much better for his meal, he went downstairs again,
cleared the breakfast table, and washed the crockery and spoons,
afterwards making up the fire and tidying the kitchen, all of this
being his accustomed Sunday work.

When all was in order, he dressed Bert and Nell for morning Sunday
School, and took them there, returning home quickly, for he knew he
should be called upon to mind the baby, and take him out; and this—for
reasons of his own—he did not mind doing to-day.

An hour later, while James Poole sat reading his paper and smoking
a pipe in the chimney corner, and while great, fat, lazy Mrs. Poole
turned in bed and commenced another nap to the accompaniment of some
terrific snores, Tadpole slipped away with the baby in his arms, and
the basket strapped to his waist.

He did not care to say good-bye to his father; had not James Poole
taken his wife's part when she was cruel and unjust? As for Bert and
Nell, Tad had given each of them a tearful embrace as he left them at
the school door—a long, loving kiss that would have set them wondering
and asking questions, had they been just a little older. But as it was,
they did not notice the difference in their brother's manner.

"Now comes my revenge!" muttered the lad. "My one bit of pleasure in
all this bad business. Oh, Mrs. P., you shall have a few jolly hours
to-day, if I can manage it for you."

And with a vindictive light in his eyes, Tad walked away, on and on,
till he left the town behind him, and came out into a country road
between hedges, with a meadow on one side, and a copse and plantation
on the other. Finding at last a gate to the meadow, he climbed over it,
nearly dropping the child in his scramble. Once over, he went further
into the field to be out of sight of anyone passing on the road, for he
had no wish, just as his little plan promised success, to be taken up
as a trespasser.

For some time he walked about with the child, till at last the little
fellow fell asleep. Then Tad laid him in a soft, sheltered place under
a tree, and spread a shawl, kept up by the handle of the basket, to
keep off the wind and the sun. Then he stood looking at the baby with a
malicious grin on his lips.

"It's all right so far," said he to himself. "When dinner time comes,
and no me nor no baby turns up, Mrs. P. will begin to have the lovely
time I've been wishin' her; and when I think she's had about enough of
it, I'll carry baby back, and leave him on the doorstep, or somewheres
handy, and then off I goes on my travels, like a prince in one of them
fairy tales."



CHAPTER III

GONE

THE baby awoke after awhile, and cried a little, but Tad was too good
and experienced a nurse not to have anticipated and arranged for what
the child would want. He quickly produced from the basket the little
one's feeding-bottle and some milk, and very soon the baby, quite
satisfied and happy, was creeping about on the grass and playing with
some flowers that Tad found for him. And when he wearied of this, the
boy rocked him to sleep again in his arms.

Then, wearied by his own sleepless night, he lay down beside the
child for a much-needed nap. His last feeling, before dropping into
dreamland, being one of grim rejoicing in the recollection that his
stepmother must already be in a "fine taking,"—as he would have
expressed it,—about her baby. Tad had made up his mind not to carry
the child back until dark, "for fear," he said to himself, "of being
nabbed." But already it was afternoon, and in these autumn days the
darkness came early.

When Tad awoke from a sound sleep of several hours, the twilight was
creeping over earth and sky. The quiet rest had much refreshed him, and
baby too had waked up in a happy mood, and looked so much less like his
mother than usual, that Tad felt fonder of the poor little fellow than
ever before, and even kissed his little round face when he picked him
up.

Carrying the basket on his arm, and the baby over his shoulder, Tad
walked across the meadow, and came to a stile leading out on to a
common, where was a gipsy encampment.

A couple of carts were drawn up near the hedge on one side of the
field, four or five stiff-legged, scraggy horses were grazing hungrily
on the short, stubbly grass, while not far from a fire, which blazed
merrily under a black pot, sat a little company of brown-skinned,
rough-looking men and women, and a few children played about around
them.

It helped to pass the time, watching the gipsies, so Tad, with the baby
in his arms, got over the stile, and drawing nearer to the picturesque
group, stood looking at the people, and hungrily sniffing the savoury
steam that rose from the cooking-pot.

Presently a young woman rose from among the little company, and came
towards Tad.

"You look hungry, lad; have a bite with us," she said.

Tad gladly consented, and as the air was growing chill, he joined the
group of gipsies as they gathered closer round the fire. The young
woman took the baby from him, and fondled and rocked it while Tad ate
his supper.

"'Tain't long since she lost her own child," said one of the men to
Tad, "and this little un ain't onlike him."

When the lad had finished his meal, he thought he had perhaps better
set off on a little spying expedition, to see if the coast was clear
for him to take the baby home; for he did not wish to be met by any
search parties coming to look for him and his little charge.

But to do his spying safely; he ought to leave the child here; and
turning to the young woman, who was walking to and fro with the baby,
crooning to it, and putting it to sleep in the usual motherly fashion,
he said:

"I've got a errand to run, missis, and maybe it'll take me a hour or
more. Would you have the goodness just to mind the little un for me
till I can come back for him? I'll be as quick as I can."

"It'll be all right," replied the woman, with an eager light in her
dark eyes. "I'll see to the baby. You needn't hurry, neither. He's
goin' off to sleep again, and there's no fear but what he'll be quite
quiet and content."

Thanking her warmly, away went the Tadpole, carrying his big head high,
and putting all possible speed into his slender body and thin legs.
He spent over an hour in dodging about and looking here and there for
possible pursuers. But he met no search parties, and feeling now more
sure than ever of being able to carry out his plan to the very end, he
came leisurely back to the common where he had left the gipsy camp.

It was quite dark now; he could just see the dull glow of the fire's
dying embers, but nothing else. As he came nearer, however, what were
his surprise and dismay to find that the place was deserted. Gone
were the carts, the horses, the people, and worst of all, gone too
was the baby. It was as if the whole encampment had melted into thin
air—vanished as utterly as the scenes of a dream.

"They must have crossed the common and come out into a road beyond,"
thought Tad.

And hoping to overtake them and get back the child, he started at a
quick run, often stumbling in the darkness, and once or twice falling
outright. After going some distance, he reached a place where four
roads met, leading off in various directions. Meanwhile the darkness
had deepened, no moon or stars lightened the gloom, and Tad began to
realise the hopelessness of trying to follow the gipsies, who, no
doubt, had employed their usual cunning to elude pursuit. Utterly
baffled and at fault in his search, and well-nigh stunned by the
misfortune that had come upon him, the lad stood still at the cross
roads, and tried to collect his thoughts.

His intention had been only to give his stepmother a thorough fright,
by way of paying her out for some of the unkindness he and Bertie and
Nell had received from her. But now the matter had been taken out of
his hands, and it looked very much as if, not only Mrs. Poole, but he
himself and the baby too, were likely to suffer from this revenge that
he had so carefully planned.

"What a mess I've got into, to be sure!" sighed Tad as he peered round
with weary eyes, vainly searching the thick darkness. "Whatever shall I
do?"

His first impulse was to run home, confess the whole story to his
father, and let him do what was best for the recovery of the baby.
Tad's conscience told him that this clearly would be the right thing
to do. But then, if he acted thus, it meant that he must face his
stepmother's fury, and give up, for the present, at least, his plan of
leaving home. He felt sure that Mrs. Poole would never believe that he
had not deliberately and wilfully deserted the baby. He was certain she
would never give him credit for his intention to bring her child safely
back when the purposes of his boyish vengeance had been fulfilled.

No—he did not feel he could muster courage enough to return home to
such a greeting as hers would be, and yielding to the whispers of his
cowardice, he determined to set out on his travels at once, without
seeing any of his home people again, and leaving the baby to take its
chance. Still, since his conscience gave him some sharp pricks as to
the fate of the child entrusted to his care, he resolved that on the
following day, he would send by post, from the first town or village
through which he passed, a letter to his father, telling him just how
it had happened that the little one was carried off by the gipsies who
had been encamped on the common outside the town. This resolve arrived
at, Tad felt a little comforted, and set out to walk to a place some
six miles distant, where he intended to pass the night.

In thus running away, he was conscious of only two causes of regret.
One was his separation from Bert and Nell, and the other that he was
obliged to give up his situation. He had feared to let Mr. Scales know
he was leaving home, lest he should be stopped. So now he could not
help thinking of the little ones crying because he did not come home to
put them to bed as usual; and also of what his kind master would say
when Monday morning came, but with it no boy to take the shutters down,
and sweep out the shop, and get everything ready for the business of
the day.

"Still—all said and done—at least I'm free!" said Tad to himself. "I've
shook off that horrid stepmother of mine, and it shan't be my fault if
I ever see her again."

So saying the lad drew himself up, and strode at a great pace along the
dark road, and tried hard to believe that he had never been so happy in
all his life.



CHAPTER IV

ANOTHER STEP DOWN

IT was late that night before Tad reached the village of Pine Hill and
approached the little, homely, old-fashioned inn which went by the name
of "The Traveller's Rest," this being the sign of the first inn ever
built in the place, hundreds of years before.

The house was kept by a very respectable man, called Anthony Robson,
and Tad had often heard his father speak of Tony Rob (as he called him)
in high terms as a thoroughly good fellow.

"Please can I have a bit of supper and a corner to lie down in?" asked
Tad, timidly addressing the landlord, whose burly form was resting in a
big armchair in the chimney corner.

Apparently he was having a little rest and a last pipe before locking
up his house for the night and going to bed.

Tony Robson stared at the lad for what seemed to Tad an age before he
replied. Then as he saw him cringe a little before the questioning gaze
fixed upon him, he said:

"Ain't you rather a whipper-snapper to be goin' journeyin' by yourself
at this time of night, and Sunday too? What's your name?"

Tad hesitated, with downcast eyes. If he gave his real name, the
landlord might prevent his going any further; for he knew James Poole,
and would guess that the boy was going away from his home without leave.

"No," thought Tad, "I must give another name."

Then as Tony, with his face growing a little stern and suspicious,
again asked the question, the boy replied with the first name he
could think of—Hal Barnes—this being the name of one of his former
school-fellows who was now a farmer's boy living some miles from
Ponderton.

"And where may you be goin', Hal Barnes?" asked Tony.

The second lie is always easier than the first, and to this question
Tad replied glibly enough:

"I'm a-goin' to Crest Mount, sir; goin' after a page's place up at
the squire's. I'm to see him at ten sharp to-morrow mornin', and I
couldn't do this unless I slept here to-night, for I comes from beyond
Ponderton. Else I don't care for takin the road Sunday, and wouldn't
have done it, if I could anyways manage different."

"Dear me!" said Tad to himself. "How nat'ral and easy all that pretty
little tale sounded!"

The landlord seemed to think so too, for his face lost its stern
expression, and he said:

"Oh, that's it, is it? But Crest Mount is a goodish way, even from
here; a matter of five mile or so."

"Oh, I don't mind a walk, sir," said Tad, "and I shall be rested by
to-morrow."

"Well now," said Tony Robson, "I take it you don't want nothin' very
expensive in the way of supper and bed, do you?"

"No, sir, I haven't got much money, and I can't afford anything but the
cheapest."

"It's too late to cook you anything, and the wife's gone to bed, but
you can have a slice of ham and a cut of the home-made loaf, and a pint
mug of milk. Will that do for supper?"

"Oh dear yes, sir, thank you," replied Tad.

"And as for a bed, what do you say to a good shakedown of clean hay in
the loft? It's sweet and wholesome, and you won't have to pay nothin'
for it, so that'll leave you able to afford a bit of breakfast in the
mornin'. My dame shall give you a good bowl of oatmeal and milk afore
you start off for Crest Mount."

"Thank you kindly, sir; I'm much obliged," said Tad.

And glad to get out of answering any more questions, and of being
forced to draw upon his imagination for his facts, he ate his supper
and then thankfully went to bed in the loft among the scented hay,
where, being very weary, he fell asleep at once, only coming back to
consciousness when the landlord's stable-boy came in for hay for the
horses of some early travellers.

Tad ate his porridge, paid his reckoning, and walked briskly on,
avoiding the busy high roads as much as possible, and taking short cuts
across fields and through copses, lest he should chance to meet some
one he knew.

Once, about three miles from Crest Mount, he got a lift in a baker's
cart, so it was only noon when he reached the place. There he bought at
the post-office, which was also a stationer's shop, a sheet of paper, a
pencil, an envelope, and a penny stamp, and carrying them to the Green
where there were some benches, he sat down and wrote to his father,
giving him an account of how the baby had been stolen, and adding that
as he did not dare to face his stepmother after what had happened, he
should not come home any more. He sent his best love to Bert and Nell,
expressed a hope that the baby might soon be found, and remained James
Poole's dutiful son, Tad.

When the letter was posted, the boy felt as though he had shaken off a
weight. Now he need stay no longer in Crest Mount; he would only just
buy himself a little loaf and a couple of apples for his dinner, and
then push on towards a small seaport called Upland Bay.

Though Ponderton—the place where he had lived all his life—was not very
far from the coast, Tad had never yet seen the sea. But he had read
wonderful things about it in the absurd penny dreadfuls that he had
got hold of now and again. His head was full of pirates, of marvellous
adventures on strange islands, of grand discoveries of countless
treasures in all sorts of unlikely places. Also he had a vague idea
that, somehow or other, the sea brought luck sure and certain, and that
if he could only manage to get to the shore, his fortune was as good as
made.

He walked on all day, only stopping now and again to ask his way, or to
beg a drink of water or buttermilk at the farms he passed. But it was
dark by the time he reached the little town of Upland Bay—a picturesque
place, perched high upon a bold cliff, while, on the inland side, a
wide reach of breezy downs and cornfields stretched away for miles, as
it seemed to Tad when he peered through the darkness.

As he trudged up the High Street, looking curiously about him, and
eagerly inhaling the cool, strong, salt air, he was suddenly brought to
a stand in front of the police-station. For there, in full glare of a
lamp, he saw a large written notice posted up. With blanched cheeks and
starting eyes he read these words:

   "Missing since yesterday morning, Sunday, September 2nd, Edward Poole
 of Ponderton, aged fourteen, having with him a baby boy about eight
 months old. When last seen was carrying the child and a basket through
 the streets of Ponderton. The lad has a big head and thin body, and was
 dressed in a dark grey suit with a cap of the same, and the baby in
 a red flannel dress and coat. A reward will be paid to anyone giving
 information that may lead to the finding of the lad and infant."

Here, at least, in this out-of-the-way place, Tad had thought to feel
himself safe; but even here the hue and cry was after him, and a reward
offered for his capture. Assuredly Mrs. Poole had lost no time. The
telegraph had been set to work, and probably at every little town and
village within twenty miles of Ponderton, a written notice had been
posted.



CHAPTER V

DRIVEN FORTH

LIKE one in a bad dream, Tad stood and stared at the placard. There was
something very ominous and startling, on coming for the first time into
this little town, to find his secret, his story there before him.

"Ay there it is!" he muttered. "My name and my clothes and all, so as
the perlice should be sure to catch me. Catch me? Ay, and so they may
yet."

At the thought, he shrank into the shadow of the wall.

"Why, here I am, with my big head, and thin body, and I'm wearin' of
that very grey suit and cap, and a bobby might just step out and nab me
this minute. Now what can I do," Tad asked himself, "to put the bobbies
off the scent and make 'em think there's no Edward Poole in the place?"

Musing intently, the lad had moved stealthily away, and turned down
a narrow, dark street, where he was less likely to be noticed. Once
round the corner, he quickened his pace until he came to a little
archway leading into some kind of a court. Here he undid his satchel,
produced from it an old snuff-coloured suit that he used to wear when
doing dirty work, and proceeded to exchange his tidy grey clothes for
the shabby brown, packing the former carefully away in the satchel.
He turned his cap inside out, and put it on well forward, shading his
eyes; then turning his frayed collar up round his throat, he emerged
from the sheltering archway.

The clouds had been gathering for the last hour or two, and now the
rain began to fall, the lamps were dim and blurred, and the lad's
courage revived. A big cookshop attracted him by its savoury odours,
which made the hungry boy's mouth water. While he was gazing in and
wondering which of all the good things he should choose if he could
afford a hearty supper, two men came up, and also paused for a look.

Tad, feeling fairly safe in his old brown clothes, did not move
away at once, and had not indeed taken much notice of them or their
conversation, until a sentence—a single sentence—of their talk, turned
him faint and sick with fear, and set him trembling all over.

"I say, Bill, they say there's more partic'lars now about that there
scoundrel of a boy. You know which I mean—the artful young chap what
run off with the baby; disappeared with his poor little half-brother."

Not daring to move lest he should be noticed, afraid almost to breathe,
Tad listened intently.

"No, is there, Fred?" said the man Bill.

"Yes," replied Fred; "it 'pears as if this lad Poole was a wonderful
jealous, spiteful sort of chap, and they're half afeared he may have
got rid of the baby somehow, just out of pure wickedness—and then run
away."

"Wouldn't I like to catch the young gallows-bird!" remarked Bill so
savagely that Tad would have turned and fled that minute, but that he
must have given himself away there and then by so doing. "I've got a
dear little un of my own," resumed Bill in a softened voice, "only
about eight months old too, and I know just how I'd feel to anyone as
tried to treat him unjust and unfair."

"Well," remarked the man Fred, "one comfort is that there's little
chance of the boy gettin' clear away. He's safe to be nabbed sooner or
later; I only wish I'd the doin' of it."

Then the two men went into the shop, and Tad, with a white, drawn face
and quaking limbs, moved away from the shop window.

After wandering about among the darkest and poorest streets in the
town, he found his way at last to the harbour, where several small
coasters and smacks were about to sail, for the wind was fair, and the
tide just on the turn.

"Please, sir, don't you want someone to help on board your boat?" asked
Tad of the skipper of the largest vessel.

The man turned, took his pipe out of his mouth, and eyed Tad from head
to foot.

The boy winced under the keen scrutiny, and repeated his question.

"Hum!" grunted the skipper. "And what do you know about the sea?"

"Oh, lots!" replied Tad, with vivid recollections of the sea-stories he
had read.

"Ever been to sea before?"

"No, but—"

"Is your father a sailor?"

"No, but—"

"But what?" questioned the man roughly.

"I've read lots about it, and always thought I'd like it of all things."

The skipper gave a little short laugh, which emboldened Tad to remark:

"What I'd like best to be, is a pirate."

"A what?" growled the man.

"A pirate, you know, sir; I've read all about them, and they has the
jolliest kind of a life, takin' treasure ships and hidin' away the
gold and di'monds on desert islands where there's no end of wonderful
things, and then I've—"

"Shut up!" roared the skipper. "Of all the precious young fools I ever
see, you're the biggest—far away. If them's the sort of yarns you spin,
you'd never do no good aboard of the 'Mariar-Ann.' So hold your noise
and be off with you. I'll be bound you're a runaway from home, and your
mother 'll be comin' along lookin' for you presently."

"I haven't got a mother, but it's true I want to get away out of this.
I'll do anything, everything you tell me if you'll take me to sea with
you."

"Now look here, youngster," said the man, "I ain't goin' to get myself
into a mess, not for nobody. Tell the truth—are you in hidin'?"

"Yes," said poor Tad.

"What have you been up to?"

"It's too long a story to tell here," replied the boy, peering about
him distrustfully into the darkness. "Take me on board and I'll tell
you all."

"Take you aboard and run the risk of bein' took up myself, for helpin'
you away? Not if I know it! And now I think of it—" he added half to
himself—"wasn't there some sort of notice up in the town about a lad
wanted by the police? Here, Tim," he called to a man who was at work on
the vessel. "What did you tell me you see wrote up at the station?" And
the skipper turned his head to hear his mate's reply.

"There—you see, you young scamp," said the skipper, when—his suspicions
confirmed—he turned once more to address Tad.

But to his surprise, he found himself talking into empty space. The
culprit at the bar had not waited for the verdict. Tad was gone.



CHAPTER VI

AFLOAT

WHEN the wind blew the clouds away about midnight, and the moon came
out, the cold white light falling upon a lonely high road revealed a
wretched figure toiling on with weary, dragging steps, his garments
heavy with rain.

This miserable tramp was Tad. He still carried his satchel, but that
too was drenched, and when he stopped and groped in it for some food
to stay the pangs of hunger, he pulled out only a squashy mess of
pulp which had once called itself a penny roll, but which now bore no
resemblance whatever—not even a family likeness—to that dainty.

With a sigh and a glance of disgust, Tad threw the sop into the ditch
at the side of the road, and plodded on, splashing recklessly through
the deep mud and puddles. The road, bounded on the right by cornfields,
had run along the cliff keeping close to the coastline. But now the way
cut straight across the shoulder of a promontory, and began to dip to a
gorge on the further side, between mighty jagged walls where some long
ago convulsion of nature had broken the cliff line of the shore.

This gully widened towards the beach, ending there, above high-water
mark, in soft, deep, white sand which gleamed like silver in the
moonlight.

To the heavy sleepful eyes of the traveller, the spot looked inviting
enough. Sheltered from the wind, dry under foot, and as lonely and
deserted as ever a fugitive and a vagabond could desire, this rocky,
sand-carpeted nook seemed a very haven of refuge to poor Tad. Slowly
and cautiously picking his way among the irregularities of the gorge,
the forlorn lad clambered down, and presently found himself in the
sandy corner which promised so welcome a refuge.

Here, by the white light of the moon, he crawled in and out among the
rocks till he found a deep bed of dry sand with large boulders all
round it, so that it was quite a sheltered nest, shutting out the keen
autumn wind, and screening him too from observation, had there been
anyone to see.

Here, then, nestling down among the rocks, and burrowing into the sand
like a rabbit, poor Tad, lulled by the quiet, monotonous wash of the
waves on the shingle lower down, fell sound asleep—so sound that he
heard nothing, saw nothing. Till in broad daylight, he awoke suddenly
with the feeling of something cold against his cheek. And starting up,
he found a little rough cur gazing inquisitively into his face, with
its comical head on one side. It was the little, chill, black nose of
the animal rubbing against his cheek that had waked him.

Tad sprang to his feet alarmed. The sun was high in the heavens; the
hour could not be far from noon. He had almost slept the clock round.
Only half awake still, he stared about him with frightened eyes.
Where there was a dog there might also be people—people who might
have heard his story, and would perhaps recognise him for the hunted
young scapegrace who was supposed to have done away with his little
half-brother.

Hither and thither, with panic-stricken gaze, peered poor Tad, but no
human form was in sight. He walked a few steps further to get a wider
view of the shore. Rounding a corner of rock, he spied, in the cleft
of a boulder, a gleam of colour. As he came nearer, he saw that the
gleam of colour was the corner of a red bandanna kerchief tied round
something, in the form of a bundle. But as the boy—cramped and stiff
with lying for twelve hours in damp things—stooped painfully to examine
the bundle, the dog leaped past him, and lay down by the rock with his
forepaws on the knot of the kerchief. Made bold by hunger, and feeling
sure the bundle contained food, Tad laid his hand upon it and tried
to lift it, but as he did so, the dog growled and showed his teeth.
Evidently the animal had been sent to guard the bundle, and the owner
of both would be back presently.

By this time the boy was perfectly ravenous with hunger, and ready to
do anything for a meal. He did not, however, wish to run the risk of
being bitten, and so he at first tried to divert the dog's attention
by throwing a stick towards the water for him to fetch. But the sharp
little cur saw through his design, and would not budge an inch.

Then Tad took up an ocean cat-o'-nine-tails of tough, leathery seaweed,
and tried to frighten the poor little beast away, but it only whined,
and crouched still closer to the rock.

Made quite desperate by the little animal's faithful resistance, Tad
at last dragged an old shirt out of his satchel, threw the clinging
folds over the dog's head and body, tied the sleeves together round
the little creature, and rolled it, struggling and snapping vainly,
into a long, bolster-like bundle. This he laid down on the sand, with
two large stones on the outer folds to keep the dog from extricating
itself. Then he snatched up the red kerchief and unknotted it. Oh joy!
What a delightful dinner met the glad eyes of the famished lad. Several
thick slices of bread and butter, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, part of
the heel of a Dutch cheese, and a solid-looking, brown-crusted, seed
loaf, together with a tin flask of cold coffee.

Tad's first impulse was to sit right down, then and there, and gorge
himself with the food. But fear for his safety mastered even the
impulse of his hunger, and he remembered that the owner of the dog and
the red bundle would certainly be returning soon.

Looking about him, uncertain what to do for the best, the lad espied a
little boat, moored to a rock in shallow water, not very far from the
place where he was standing. And the idea occurred to him that he might
get to the boat by wading, row off to a little rocky islet about half a
mile out to sea, and—

"Then," said he to himself, "I shall be safe, and I'll have time to
think what to do next."

Another swift look round to see that no one was coming yet—then the boy
ran down the beach, waded into the water, scrambled into a boat, and at
once cast off the loop of string which held her to a jutting point of
the rock.

The tide had turned, and away slipped the boat on a receding wave, into
deeper water. For a few minutes Tad, in his great hunger, was so busy
discussing the contents of the red bundle, that he was conscious of
nothing else. But, as the first sharp pangs of famine were assuaged, he
glanced about him, and seeing that the tide and current were carrying
him away from the island, he threw down the remnants of his stolen
meal, so as to take up the oars, which he had not thought of before.

What were the boy's feelings when he found that there were no oars in
the boat at all; they must have been left on shore, together with the
sail and the boat-hook.

With an exclamation of fear and horror, Tad turned his eyes
despairingly towards the beach, hoping to see someone who would come in
another boat to his rescue, for his little craft, borne swiftly on the
ebb of the tide, was drifting steadily out to sea. But no—not a soul
was in sight anywhere on land, and not a fishing-smack upon the water,
far as the eye could reach.

Overwhelmed with despair at this new misfortune that had befallen
him, and perceiving dimly that this, like the others, was clearly the
outcome of his own wrong-doings, the poor lad in despair threw himself
down in the bottom of his drifting boat, sobbing and crying till he
fell asleep again from exhaustion; fell asleep rocked by the swaying
and heaving of the waters; hushed into a deep and dreamless rest by
their wash and whisper.



CHAPTER VII

JEREMIAH JACKSON

"BOAT ahoy! Wake up there! Or is it dead you are?"

With these words ringing in his ears, Tad sprang to his feet, nearly
upsetting the little boat. The sun had gone down, the soft twilight was
stealing over sea and sky, and close to him was a vessel, a good-sized
schooner, laden with timber; even her decks were piled with it.

The skipper, a fat, red-headed, freckled man, with kind, blue eyes and
a big voice, was looking over the ship's side at the poor solitary
waif, in the oarless, sail-less boat, while another man threw a rope to
Tad and called to him to catch hold. The boy had just sense enough to
obey, and the sailor drew the boat close, and in a minute or two Tad
was safe on the deck of the schooner.

"Where did you come from, shrimp?" asked the fellow who had thrown the
rope.

"And how do you come to be making a voyage all by yourself?" cried a
second sailor.

"What's up with your parents, I'd like to know," remarked a third,
"that they lot you go to sea in a cockleshell?"

"Shut up, boys, and hold your noise, all of you!" said the red-haired
man in a voice like a speaking-trumpet. "Time enough for all that later
on. Can't you see, you three blind bats, that the lad's half dead with
cold and hunger and fear? Here, Frank," he called to a tall boy who
appeared just then from the cuddy with a big metal teapot in his hand,
"take the youngster to your place, and let him have a wash and a warm,
and then give him some tea and cold corned beef, and afterwards bring
him below to me."

So, an hour later, poor Tad, clean and comfortable, and with his
appetite satisfied, was ushered into the trim cabin, where the skipper
sat finishing his own meal.

"Now then, my young voyager," said he, as Tad stood silently before
him, "give an account of yourself! How did you happen to be floatin'
round in the sea, as I found you?"

"Afore I say anything, sir," replied Tad, "what do you mean to do with
me?"

"We're bound for Granville with Norwegian pine," said the skipper; "and
as I can't alter my course for you, you've got to go along of me."

"And please, sir, where may Granville be? Is it in Wales or maybe
Scotland?"

"No, my lad, it's in France," rejoined the man.

"France!" exclaimed Tad, aghast. "But I don't want to go to France."

"Then I don't see but what we must stop the ship, and put you aboard
your small boat—as we're towin' at this present moment—and let you
drift; then, as sure as my name's Jeremiah Jackson, you'll go to the
bottom of the sea the first breeze that comes. If you like that better
than France, I'll give the orders at once." And the big skipper laughed.

"Well, sir," said Tad, after a minute's reflection, "maybe, arter all,
it won't be such a bad thing for me to go to France, considerin'—"

"Considerin' what, boy? Now then, make a clean breast of it and tell
the truth."

"Considerin' as how the bobbies is arter me," replied Tad reluctantly.

The captain gave a low whistle, and a quick glance at the lad's
downcast face, then he said:

"What are they after you for? What have you been and done?"

"Well sir—to tell the truth, there's several things I done, but the
perlice ain't arter me for them. It's for the things I ain't done that
they're arter me."

"It seems to me you must be clean off your head, child, to tell me such
nonsense," remarked the skipper. "Now then, try and give me something I
can believe."

So plucking up courage, and seeing real kindness in the fat skipper's
face, Tad told his story, beginning with the home miseries and his
longing to revenge himself on his stepmother; then his making off
with his little half-brother, and the disappearance of the child with
the gipsies; his subsequent adventures and escapes, his thefts and
dodges and lies, and the misfortune that had followed him all the way
through—all this Tad told without keeping back anything.

Jeremiah Jackson listened attentively, only interrupting the boy's
narrative now and again to ask a question, if Tad's hesitating speech
did not succeed in making his meaning clear.

But when the lad paused at last, adding only, "That's all, sir," the
skipper said:

"So you feel as if you'd been unlucky, do you?"

"Yes, sir," rejoined Tad; "everything's gone agen me from the first; I
can't think why."

"Shall I tell you?" asked Jeremiah, a kind, pitying look coming into
his blue eyes, and making his big broad face almost beautiful; "it is
hard for thee to kick against the pricks." Then, seeing that Tad did
not understand, he added, "When we set out on a wrong and dangerous
road, lad, we can scarce wonder—it seems to me—if we meets with ill
luck. S'posin' now, that instead of gettin' out my chart and studyin'
my course, careful and sure, I just let the ship drive afore the wind,
whose fault would it be, think you, Teddie Poole, if we run slap up
agen a rock and come to be a wreck? But judgin' from what you've been
tellin' me, that's very like what you done."

Tad was silent. Deep down in his heart, where his conscience was
awakening, he felt the truth of what the skipper said.

Jeremiah Jackson went on:

"I know it's been very hard for you, my poor boy. I don't wonder you
wanted to run away from home, nor I don't blame you for doin' it—things
bein' as they was. But the trick you played on your stepmother was a
mean thing, and it's out of this wrong-doin' that all the rest of the
bad things has come, makin' of you a thief and a vagabond."

"Yes, sir, that's so, but what am I to do now?"

"Well," said the skipper, "maybe you won't relish what I'm goin' to
say, but if I was you I'd ask this here old Jeremiah Jackson to carry
me back to England when he sails from Granville in a week's time for
Southampton. And then, lad, I'd make the best of my way home again—even
if I had to tramp it; and I'd tell the bobbies and my dad too the whole
truth, and take brave and patient anything as comes after, whether it
be the lock-up or a good hidin'. No, Teddie Poole, don't look at me so!
That would be the straight, right, manly thing to do, and what's more,
it would be the Christian thing too."

Tad hung his head. Jeremiah Jackson had asked a hard thing, a very
hard thing. And yet the good man's words had touched him; he felt the
skipper was right. But he shrank from all that he felt sure awaited him
at home. The thought of his stepmother's relentless wrath daunted him.
He could almost see her frowning, hateful face, and hear his father's
stern voice and hard words. All that he must do and suffer if he took
the course suggested to him, came to his mind now, and overwhelmed him
with dread.

"Think it out, lad, to-night," said Jeremiah, "and ask the good Lord
Who ain't far—so the Scripture says—from anyone of us, to help you to
do the right, and leave the rest with Him."



CHAPTER VIII

FOXY AND PHIL

THE "Stormy Petrel," as Jeremiah Jackson's vessel was called, remained
nearly a week at Granville, discharging her cargo, and loading again
with various goods for Southampton.

During these days Tad was in a miserably uncertain state of mind. At
one time he would almost resolve to take the good skipper's advice,
and go home to face bravely anything that might happen. At another, he
shrank from the thought of returning, and felt as though he could far
more easily brave any amount of unknown dangers, than go back to the
home troubles that he knew so well.

On the afternoon of the day before the schooner was to sail, Tad was
standing about on the wharf feeling very unhappy, and very uncertain
as to what course to take. While he wandered listlessly round, he met
a boy about twelve years of age, with a monkey in his arms. A small
organ was strapped across the lad's shoulders, and when he turned the
handle of the instrument, it ground out a horrible parody of a popular
French tune, and the monkey, leaping from its bearer's arms, danced a
queer kind of hornpipe on the top of the organ, tossing its little red
cap in the air, and pretending to be in the best of good spirits. What
a feeble pretence this was, however, even Tad could see, for the poor
little beast had a face almost as pinched and woebegone as that of the
organ boy, and that was saying a great deal.

As it happened, Tad was still mooning over the second half of his
dinner, so much absorbed was he in perplexing thought. All on board
the schooner had been too busy that day to have a proper dinner set
out, and Tad had received his rations of bread and salt pork, and a
substantial baked apple dumpling, and had been told to go on shore and
eat it there. The bread and meat had been eaten, and the first hunger
being appeased, Tad had once more fallen into a brown study, out of
which he was roused only when the poor little organ lad and his monkey
had come quite near, and were casting longing glances upon the dumpling
which Tad held—only half folded in paper—in his hand.

The mute language of want is one which the eyes speak very plainly. At
least this language is plain enough to those who have suffered from
hunger, and Tad knew only too well what it was to be hungry. So when
he saw the longing look in the eyes both of boy and beast, he promptly
handed over his dumpling, and for a while forgot his own troubles in
the delight with which his bounty was received.

The organ boy broke off a generous piece first for his little charge,
then sitting down in a quiet corner of the wharf, he began to eat his
own share, gratefully smiling and nodding his thanks to Tad, but not
saying a word.

"The little chap's a Frenchman, for sure," said Tad to himself, "and
can't speak no English, and he sees plain enough as how I ain't a
countryman of his. That's why he don't try to talk to me. Still he may
have learned a few words of English while he carried his organ round;
I'll try him and see if he understands me."

"Look here," said Tad, laying a hand on the little lad's shoulder to
arrest his attention, "are you a French boy, or what?"

The child shook his head, but whether this meant that he was not a
French boy or that he did not understand what was being said to him,
Tad could not tell.

"I do wish I knowed if you can understand what I says to you," said
Tad; "I'd like to have a talk with you if you do but understand and
speak a little bit of English. Now, what's your name?"

The organ boy looked full in Tad's face, then glanced round timidly,
and said:

"Hush, not so loud! I'm English, like you; my name's Phil Bates, but
I've a French master, and he's forbidden me to speak to any of my own
people, and if he catches me at it, don't he beat me just!"

His tone and manner were quiet and restrained, and his language more
refined than might have been expected in a boy of his appearance and
employment.

"And how do you come to be with a French master?" inquired Tad.

"Oh, my aunt, (her I lived with after father and mother died) she sort
of sold me to old Foxy. She was poor and had some children of her own,
and was glad to be rid of me, and so Foxy (Renard is his name) gave a
half sov for me, and he's got me, worse luck!"

"Was you sold here in France?" asked Tad.

"No, Foxy went over to England for something or other. We was livin'
not far from Southampton, and he happened to see me standin' at
auntie's cottage door, and her close by. And says he to her in that
wonderful lingo of his, 'Mine good womans, is dis so pretty boy your
own cheaild?'

"And says auntie, 'No, he ain't, he's only a nevvy.'"

"So then Foxy says, 'It is for such boy dat I am looking, good madame;
dis one will be quaite suit for my work, and I will give truly gold for
him, one piece of ten shilling for the cheaild, and wat you call half
crown for his clothes—all dat he have. So den mine good womans, is dis
one bargain?'

"Them was his very words!"

"Why, he reg'lar bought you!" cried Tad.

"Yes, in course he did. Well—my aunt she says 'No' when he asks her
if that was a bargain, and she cried a bit and said somethin' about
her poor dead sister's child, and cried again and said 'Yes' to Foxy,
and—well—here I am!"

And the boy stuffed the last remnant of the apple dumpling into his
mouth, and getting up, slung the organ over his shoulder, and took the
monkey in his arms again. He was just moving away, when a harsh, hoarse
voice behind Tad said angrily:

"And wat is dis dat I hear? Can it be dat de boy Anglais wat am in
my care to learn de French language have once again disobey, and is
speaking his mudder tongue? Ah, mine cheaild, you did not tink dat over
dere, hiding and watching 'mong de rubbidge on de water side, was your
master! But now who am you?" went on Renard, addressing himself to Tad,
"and how come you to dis country?"

"I came on that schooner," replied the lad, pointing towards the
"Stormy Petrel."

"You look not like a sailor," remarked Renard, eyeing the boy
suspiciously.

"I ain't one neither," said Tad.

"Den widout doubt you shall return to Angleterre in dis same boat?"
suggested the man.

"I don't know that I shall," rejoined Tad, his face clouding over again.

"La France is a lov'ly country, mon cher," remarked Renard. "It shall
be better for you to stay here; go not back across de sea."

"But I ain't got nothin' to do here," said Tad. "No country's lovely
when a chap's starvin'."

"But have you not over de sea in Angleterre some peoples dat waits for
you?"

"No," replied Tad.

"Good! Den hark at me!" said Foxy, laying one brown, claw-like hand on
Tad's shoulder, and fixing his yellow-green eyes on the boy's face.
"Let sail away dat ship, and you take service wid me. Philipe here, and
his so lov'ly monkey shall your camarades be, and we weel go togedder
about, and all so gay happy be—eh?"

Tad did not answer. Here again was an offer which he did not find it
easy either to accept or refuse. Instinctively, he shrank from this
cat-eyed man, with his repulsive face and his strange lingo. And yet,
would he be worse off with him than with his home people? For all Tad's
lessons—hard though they had been—had not yet taught him that to choose
the right—however unpromising—was the only safe way. He was still on
the lookout for the easiest and pleasantest path through life, and had
no thought of seeking first the kingdom of heaven and the righteousness
of God.

Renard waited quietly for a minute or two, furtively watching the
boy's face. Tad glanced round and saw him, and recoiled from him as
from some poisonous reptile. Indeed his fear of the man was so real
that he hesitated to say the words which would pledge him to this new
and strange service. Perhaps after all he would have decided to return
with Jeremiah Jackson to England, had not Phil, the organ boy, gazed
wistfully up into Tad's eyes, whispering "Do—do join us! I'm that
lonely and desp'rate as I don't know how to bear myself."

"You really want me?" said Tad, to whom—after all his many
experiences—the thought of being wanted by some one was very sweet.

"I do, dreffully," replied the child.

"That settles it, then!" said Tad. "All right, mister," he added,
turning to Renard, "I don't mind working for you, only what about
wages?"

"Ah, mine good friend, we shall talk of dat leetle affairs later. And
for de present, will you not fetch your tings from de boat?" suggested
Foxy with a leer that showed a line of black, ragged stumps of teeth.

"I've got nothin' save a very few clothes," answered Tad, "but I'll
bring 'em at once, and say good-bye to Jeremiah Jackson at the same
time."

"Jeremie Jacqueson?" repeated Foxy. "Say you dat he is de man wat
sailed you to la France?"

"Yes; what's the matter?" inquired Tad.

"De matter is dat you shall not make your adieu to Jeremie," replied
Foxy with a threatening look. "He is enemy of me, and he weel hold you
back and not suffer you to come wid me."

"Nonsense, mister," said Tad, "he's got no right to interfere; I can do
as I please."

Foxy shook his head.

"Fetch dose tings of your, but say not one leetle word to Jeremie of
old Renard; so den all will go well, and when de ship sail, you shall
be far from here, and Jeremie, my enemy, finds you not."

Once more Tad hesitated. This secrecy did not please him; and besides,
it seemed ungrateful to leave the good skipper without a word of
acknowledgment and farewell.

The wily Frenchman saw the hesitation, and determined to clinch the
matter once for all.

"Ma foi, mine boy!" said he roughly. "If it like you not to do wat I
tell you, go—go to your Jeremie, and come not back. I shall find oders
dat weel be enchante to work for good, kind, old Renard," and the man
took little Phil by the arm and began to walk away.

"Stop, stop, mister!" cried Tad. "Wait for me. I'll just run on board
for my things, and I'll be with you in a minute. I promise I won't tell
the skipper nothin', as you say he ain't no friend of yours."

Tad kept his word, and in three minutes he had joined the Frenchman
and little Phil, and thereby started on a new and perilous road in his
journey of life.



CHAPTER IX

A SLAVE INDEED

OLD Renard, as Tad soon found, was a Jack-of-all-trades. He could
turn his hand to most things, though he did no sort of work well or
thoroughly. But he was a bit of a tinker, a basket-maker, and mender;
he could do a bit of rough cobbling for any villager who wanted a pair
of boots mended; he could put a passable patch in a pair of trousers;
and he could even play the dentist after a fashion of his own, and take
out teeth, often getting a sound tooth by mistake, and very cheerfully
giving any amount of pain for his fee.

Then, too, he was a bit of a pedlar, and generally carried about with
him a box of cheap jewellery, relics, and knick-knacks, on which, by
aid of his glib tongue, he made a fair profit. He also sold patent
pills and ointments and quack remedies to the ignorant folk, besides
earning many a dishonest penny by the telling of their fortunes. But it
was by the lads in his employ that he made the most regular part of his
income, and Tad soon found that his new work was by no means a bed of
roses, and that old Foxy was quite as fully bent upon making him serve
with rigour, as were the old Egyptian task-masters with their Israelite
bondsmen.

Every morning, early, Phil and Tad were sent out into the streets of
any town in which they happened to be. Phil had his little organ and
monkey Jacko, and Tad was obliged to carry a much larger and noisier
instrument, which sent forth a hoarse mingling of howl and screech when
he turned the stiff handle, eliciting much bad language from people
condemned to listen to it.

Every day the lads were compelled to give their master a certain sum.
Sometimes they earned a little more, sometimes less, but not a sou did
he ever abate of the sum to be paid to him; and if the required amount
were not forthcoming every night on their return, the boys met with
punishment more or less severe, according to the state of intoxication
reached at the time by their master. For Renard was a heavy drinker,
though seldom helplessly drunk. His was a head accustomed to alcohol,
and he could take a great deal without other results than to make him
quarrelsome and violent. But in the later stages of his drinking bouts,
he became utterly unreasonable and a perfect savage, beating the lads
unmercifully, and using horrible language.

It was only when he was tired out, exhausted with his own violence,
that he fell into a deep sleep, and then the two English boys dared
to talk freely after they lay down to rest, exchanging confidences,
telling their respective stories, and giving each other the sympathy
which was now their only comfort.

To ensure that his little slaves did not run away from him, Renard
had taken from them everything that belonged to them save the poor
clothes they wore. He had sold their little possessions and pocketed
the proceeds; and now he chuckled with an evil triumph as they left
him in the morning, for he well knew that even if they tried to escape
from the bondage in which he held them, they could not get far. Without
money, or articles which they could turn into money, and also without
friends—what could they do in a foreign land? Even the so-called
musical instruments they carried were worthless, and no pawnbroker in
his senses would have advanced ten centimes upon them.

So passed the days and weeks, and autumn merged into winter. Frost and
sleet and bitter winds made the lives of the poor boys yet harder to
bear.

Scantily fed, yet more scantily clothed, housed like dogs, their
suffering was great, while old Foxy appeared to take a malicious
pleasure in their misery, and taunted them cruelly when he saw them
especially downhearted and sad.

At first Tad bore all these new troubles with a kind of dogged,
stubborn patience. Even such a life as this, he told himself, was
better than that he had led at home, and as he had made up his mind to
rough it, rough it he would.

But after a while the growing brutality of Renard roused the lad's
hatred and instinct of retaliation, and the man himself would have
shrunk in startled horror, had he guessed what dark and murderous
thoughts began to fill the brain of this poor, ill-used drudge of his.

But it never occurred to old Foxy that there might be danger to
himself resulting from his treatment of the lads if he drove them to
desperation. He had no notion of their doing anything worse than trying
to run away, or possibly robbing him of food or a few sous; and if they
did either of these things, he thought he knew how to deal with them.

Time went on, and now Christmas was close at hand: at least it wanted
only ten days to the twenty-fifth, a festive season for many, but not
for poor Phil and Tad. Poor gentle little Phil was sadder than ever
now, for the great cold had killed Jacko, and the boy, who had dearly
loved his little companion, grieved sorely over his loss, and clung the
more closely to Tad as his only friend and sole comforter.

One day Renard and the lads were tramping along a high road, on their
way to a place some miles away. Stopping to rest awhile and eat their
poor dinner, they were joined by two men who were evidently known to
Renard.

The newcomers, after a little talk, drew old Foxy away from the
spot where the boys were seated munching their crusts and drinking
cold barley coffee out of a bottle. Here the men were quite out of
earshot, and a whispered conversation commenced, which seemed, from
the mysterious faces and gestures of the speakers, to be of the utmost
interest and importance.

Presently it appeared that the two men were to accompany Renard and his
boys on their journey, for when dinner was over, all rose and walked
together towards the town, which was reached about nightfall.

The lads slept on straw in a shed in the suburbs that night, and would
have been thankful to rest undisturbed till morning, for they were very
weary. But they were roused about midnight by their master's hissing
whisper:

"Rise and come wid me, bote of you!"

Tad sat up staring straight before him, only half awake, while Phil
rubbed his heavy eyes and groaned.

"Why," said Tad, "surely it's the middle of the night, master; what do
you want with us? We are both tired and need to sleep."

"Hold dat tongue of yours, and get you up," replied Foxy sharply; "dat
is all you have to do. And be queek if you would not haf the steek."

So very weary, and full of fear and foreboding, the boys rose and
followed Foxy out into the road, where, much to their surprise, a light
spring cart and good horse were awaiting them, the two strange men
sitting in front.

"Now then, Renard," said Paul, the one who held the reins, "in with the
children and yourself! The luggage is in already, you say? Good! Now
are you ready?"

"They are all in, Paul," said Jean, his companion; "drive on, my
friend; anyway it will be one o'clock before we get there."

Paul drew the whip across the horse's flanks, the animal sprang
forward, fell into a spanking trot, and soon left the little town far
behind.



CHAPTER X

WEAK YET SO STRONG

THE lads dared not exchange even so much as a whisper during their
drive, for old Foxy was close beside them in the back of the cart.
But both Phil and Tad felt that they had cause for dread now if never
before. Anything so unusual as a midnight drive, in the company, too,
of strangers, had never happened before, and the poor boys, as they
thought over everything, realised that a crisis of some sort was at
hand.

Of the two, Tad was the more miserable. With him, hitherto, temptation
had invariably meant yielding, had brought fresh sin and new troubles.
And now he feared lest once more he should fall and sink yet deeper in
the mire.

Since Phil and he had been constant companions, Tad's conscience had
once more awakened. He felt that Phil was a far better boy than he
was himself, for in all the trials, the troubles, the miseries that
had befallen this poor orphan child, he had not lost his honesty, his
truthfulness, nor his simple faith in God.

Tad was conscious of this, and aware, too, for the first time for
years, of a longing now and again to be a better lad, more like
pure-hearted, gentle little Phil; for there was growing up in his heart
for this friend and fellow-sufferer of his, a great love such as he had
not hitherto thought he could feel for anyone.

The truest of all books tells us that even a child is known by his
doings, whether they be pure and whether they be right; and Tad, so
strong in his self-will, and so weak in temptation, had taken knowledge
of his little friend, and had come to know that in this frail boy there
was a certain moral strength wanting in himself.

And now an occasional glance at Phil's small, pale face as the white
moonlight fell upon it set Tad wondering why this child was so
different from himself, and whether the events of this night would
bring to them both serious consequences, or leave them as they found
them.

He was still deep in thought when the cart stopped. For some time it
had been driven across what looked like a common, a wide open space,
with no buildings of any sort upon it; but now the halt was made at a
little gate, almost hidden by the bushy growth of underwood and young
trees forming a copse, which began where the common ended, and which,
though bare and leafless now, cast a deep shadow over the road.

In silence the driver and his companion got down from the front seat,
and Renard and the boys from the back. Tad noticed that the man Paul
took from under the seat a small canvas bag, in which some things
rattled, and also a little parcel which he slipped into his coat
pocket. The boys looked at each other, a vague horror and fear dawning
in their faces—a foreboding of danger.

Summoning up his sinking courage, Tad touched Renard on the arm, and
said in a whisper:

"Master, where may this path lead, and what are we goin' to do?"

Renard turned upon him sharply.

"Dat's not you beezness," he replied. "You keep wid me and speak not."
And taking the boys by the arm, one on each side, he strode on behind
the driver and his mate, their feet making no sound on the moss-grown
pathways along the deep shadows of which Paul now and again turned the
light of a lantern, so that the little party could see where they were
going.

Presently the copse ended in another gateway which led into a garden,
and here, with flower-beds and ornamental trees all round it, in a
situation which, in summer time, must have been beautiful indeed, stood
an old-fashioned, quaint, two-storeyed house. A wing, on the right of
the building, extended as far as what apparently was a stable yard, for
it was divided from the garden by a wall and a high gate. As the men
and lads stood—still within the shadow of the trees—looking about them,
the deep growl and bark of a large dog sounded from the further side of
the wall.

"Hark at that!" whispered Renard to Paul. "It must cease or our journey
is fruitless."

"It shall cease," replied the man; "have I not come prepared?"

And he drew the parcel from his pocket, and out of it a piece of red,
raw meat.

Slipping off his shoes, and signing to his companions to follow his
example, he trod noiselessly across the gravel-walk, and reaching the
gate in a few strides, flung the meat over.

There was a little fierce rush and growl, a savage snap of powerful
jaws and click of hungry teeth, then a muffled, choking howl, a
smothered groan, and silence.

After waiting a minute or two, Paul stole back to the little group
still standing in the deep shadow.

"That one will bark no more," remarked he. "Now come—there is nothing
to fear. The monsieur and his lady are quite old, and there are only
women servants in the place. Follow me."

And Paul led the way round the house to the back, where a little
scullery or wash-house was built out into the garden, with the kitchen
apparently behind it. In the wall of the scullery, a small window was
open.

Paul now whispered a few words in Renard's ear. And the latter nodded
and said, "Oui, parfaitement," then turned to the boys, who stood by
wondering what was coming next.

For a minute or so, old Foxy looked first at one of the lads, then at
the other, then back at the window, as though measuring with his eye
the available space. At last, making up his mind, he leaned forward,
and spoke in Phil's ear:

"Philipe, you shall go in dere, and tro' de house, and you weel for us
open de big door or a weendow if de door be deeficult. Hear you?"

Phil did not answer.

Tad's scared eyes were fixed upon his friend's face, and he saw the
thin cheeks blanch, but the boy's gaze, fixed upon Foxy, was clear and
steadfast, and his pale lips were resolute.

"Ma foi! Why answer you not, Philipe?" said his master, after a
moment's silence. "Hear you?"

"Yes, master, I hear," replied the boy, in a low, firm voice that
somehow thrilled Tad to the heart.

"Den do wat I tell. Go in dere!" And Renard pointed a crooked
forefinger at the window. "Queek, queek!" added he, as Phil did not
stir, "or you weel be sorry." And a threatening look in the man's dark,
evil face gave emphasis to his words.

Tad held his breath with a strange, mingled feeling of horror, wonder,
and admiration, as he saw his little companion draw himself up, and
look straight and unfaltering into Foxy's green eyes. Another moment,
and the childish voice said firmly:

"No, master, I will not go."

"Wat is dat you say? You weel not?" said Foxy in an angry whisper. "But
wait a leetle, it am you dat shall pay later, when old Renard give you
de steek." Then he turned to Tad and said: "You did hear me wat I say
to Philipe; well now I tell you same. Go you in dere and open to us,
Edouard."

Tad met his cruel master's wicked, green eyes, then glanced at Paul
and Jean, who were impatiently waiting. The lad's courage was a poor
one at best, and though he well knew that the crime of burglary was
intended, and that he was required to help the burglars, he would never
have found strength to withstand the pressure put upon him, had not
Phil just at that moment laid his little, frail hand on his friend's
shoulder and said:

"Brave it out, Tad! Don't give in!" And then Tad heard the boy add
under his breath: "O Lord, please help us, and save us from being
wicked."

"Wed you go in dere?" hissed Foxy again.

"Will I?" repeated Tad, shamed out of his cowardice by Phil's example.
"Will I, master? No, then—I just won't, so there!"



CHAPTER XI

GOOD-BYE TO FOXY

RENARD turned in a white rage towards the men, Paul and Jean, who were
standing impatiently waiting for the result of the parley with the two
lads.

"What can I do?" he whispered, his utterance thick with passion. "One
cannot use force; there might be an outcry which would rouse the whole
house. What then is to be done?"

Paul advanced a step and pushed him aside.

"Since you have failed, Renard, in your half of the bargain," said he,
"you cannot expect to share in the profits. Go away now, you and these
useless boys of yours."

"But Paul," exclaimed Foxy, "did I not—"

"No," interrupted Paul, "I will hear nothing."

And Jean added:

"Enough, Renard; go without more words. Your belongings which are in
the cart we will leave at No. 9 in the village to-morrow. There—that is
all we have to say to you—now go."

With a snarl of savage disappointment and rage, Renard, taking the boys
by the arm, led them away down the dark, shady walk by which they had
come, and out once more into the road, where, under the shadow of two
great trees, stood the cart and the patient horse.

"Oh, but you weel pay for dis, mine sweet boys!" muttered Renard, as
he dragged the reluctant lads along. "Yes, you weel pay for dis—as
de English say—tro' de nose. Dis night you have make me lose lot of
moneys, and old Renard, he forgives not; dat you shall remember for
effer. Amen."

A village well-known to Foxy was not far distant, and towards this he
now led the two boys, muttering awful threats in mingled French and
English, and swearing horribly under his breath. When they hung back,
or for a moment struggled to free themselves, his cruel clutches forced
them on.

In this fashion the village was reached, a place which at this hour
looked like a little city of the dead, for there was not a light in the
one straggling street of which the hamlet consisted. But Renard went
straight to a small house standing back a few paces from the crooked
thoroughfare in a narrow strip of weed-grown garden. Here he knocked
in a peculiar way—not at the door, but at the window, and in a minute
or two the door was opened to him. A few words passed between him and
the man who opened the door, then Renard and the boys were shown into a
room on the ground floor, where were two straw mattresses and a couple
a three-legged stools and a table.

Setting down the candle which the owner of the house had given him,
Foxy locked the door, and pulled off his rusty overcoat, first drawing
from one of the pockets a coil of stout cord. Then sitting down on one
of the stools, he proceeded to twist and knot this cord, until he had
fashioned out of it a kind of rough cat-o'-nine-tails or scourge. But
he glanced up now and again, and the malignant look on his ugly face—a
mingling of frown and leer, full of evil triumph and covert menace—sent
a shudder of fearful expectation through the chilled forms of the two
lads huddled together on one of the straw mattresses.

In a few minutes the instrument of punishment was completed, and
Renard, getting up from his seat, came towards the bed, and brandishing
his scourge, said to Tad:

"Now, Edouard, hark to me! You shall take this wiep and you weel beat
Philipe teel I tell you assez—enough. And as for you, Philipe, put off
your coat, dat do wiep may work well. So! Allons! Begeen, and forget
not dat you master is—"

"What!" cried Tad, aghast. "What, master! You want me to set upon this
poor little chap and flog him? You don't mean it—you can't!"

"Mais certainement I mean it!" replied Foxy, showing his teeth. "Take
dis wiep of cords and beat well Philips, or—" and the man's face
assumed a yet more evil and threatening aspect.

"Don't anger him no more, dear Tad," said Phil in a whisper. "Do as he
tells you. I can bear it. I ain't afeared of a thrashin' that I haven't
deserved. There, I'm quite ready, and you'll see I won't cry nor make a
sound."

But Tad that night had learned a great lesson while he stood with the
burglars outside the little window of the outhouse. He had seen this
gentle little lad brave the utmost that three villains could do to
him, rather than commit a crime in obedience to their commands—a crime
of which, but for Phil's example, Tad felt that he himself should
certainly have been guilty.

And now—could he inflict pain upon this brave child, for fear of
anything Renard could do? No—the lesson had not been lost upon the lad.
True he had been on the downward track ever since he ran away from
home, but here was the chance for a step up. Once more a chance lay
before him, and his resolve was taken.

Pulling himself together, he rose and faced Renard, looking full in the
cruel green eyes without flinching.

"Master," said he firmly, "Phil is little, and I'm big, and what's
more, he haven't done nothin' wrong, and I ain't a-goin' to lay a
finger on him—not for you nor no one. I won't—no matter what you say
nor what you do."

For a minute old Foxy stared at the lad, hardly able to believe his own
ears. But when Tad repeated: "I wouldn't do master, not if it were ever
so," the man raised his sinewy right arm and with a blasphemous oath
struck him down upon the mattress where Phil was lying. Then snatching
up the scourge which he had dropped for a moment in the surprise of
Tad's refusal to obey him, he began to use it upon both the boys,
Tad managing to cover his little friend, now and again, with his own
broader back, thus shielding him from many a blow.

The flogging went on till Renard's arm was tired and weak. Then he
flung the instrument of torture aside, and going back to the corner
where he had thrown his coat, he drew out of one of its capacious
pockets a bottle of spirit, and sitting down upon the second mattress,
began to drink, muttering ominously the while.

We have said that, as a rule, Foxy only became more excited and furious
the more he took, and that he managed to stop short of the helpless
stage. But this night, either because he was more weary than usual, or
that he had a greater craving for the stimulant in which he habitually
indulged, he went on drinking steadily until he passed from the raving
and excited stage into a drunken stupor, and at last rolled over on the
straw couch quite unconscious, the now empty bottle escaping from his
listless hand.

For a little while Tad and Phil lay still. Sore and aching all over,
they had eagerly watched their master in the various stages of his
intoxication, and now they half feared lest he should be only shamming,
to see what they would do.

But at last his stertorous breathing convinced the lads that he was in
a stupor. Tad was the first to sit up, and Phil, glancing at him, was
frightened at the expression of his friend's face. The eyes were hard
and sullen, the mouth rigid, and a dogged scowl was sot deep between
the brows.

"Now at last," said Tad with a gasp, "we can take some kind of revenge
upon that brute for all he's made us suffer. I'd like to kill him—I
would; he deserves it. But I suppose we must be content with robbin'
him. Where does he keep the tin, Phil?"

The younger lad caught Tad's arm with a look of fear and horror. "Are
you crazy, Tad?" he whispered. "Do you want to be as wicked as he is?
After standin' out agen bein' burglars, are we goin' to be common
thieves! Think, Tad—only think a moment! You must be well-nigh off your
head, dear old boy, to speak of such a thing."

"But we may never have such a chance again, Phil," said Tad.

"Yes, that's true; and so let's clear out, and run away from Foxy.
Better starve or die of cold alone and out in the open than live longer
with this brute. Come, Tad—come quick, afore he wakes up."

"But we can't get out," whispered the elder lad. "Foxy locked the door,
and the key's in his right trouser pocket, and he's lyin' on that side;
we can't get it nohow."

"Then we'll get out at the winder," replied Phil. "See, it opens down
the middle, and we can just squeeze through. Be quick, Tad; Foxy's
snorin' like a hog now, but he may wake at any time."

Picking up their coats and caps, the boys opened the window, and just
managed to get through, though for Tad it was a pretty tight fit.

Then away they went, lame, battered, and sore with their recent blows,
but running at their best pace down the dark, crooked street, pausing
not even to take breath, until they found themselves well outside the
village, with miles of quiet open country stretching away before them,
and a faint dawn just streaking the far-off east.



CHAPTER XII

A FRIEND AND AN ENEMY

"THERE'S one thing I wish we'd been able to do," said Phil, as soon as
he could get breath enough to speak.

"And what's that?" asked Tad.

"Warn the people at that house we went to rob, and let 'em know there
was burglars about," replied Phil. "I never thought of it till now, but
we might have set up a screech or a loud whistle just to wake folks,
and maybe frighten Paul and Jean and Foxy."

"Why, you silly, we'd only have been murdered if we'd done that," said
Tad.

"All the same," rejoined Phil the uncompromising, "I think we ought to
have done it."

"Well, we can't help ourselves now," remarked Tad, with a sigh of
relief, for his was not a martyr's spirit, and it had never occurred to
him to reproach himself until Phil suggested that they had neglected
their duty.

"No," he repeated, "we can't help ourselves now; it's hours since we
left them fellows, and any mischief as was to be done has been done
already. So it's no good goin' back, to say nothin' of our bein' sure
to meet Foxy."

Phil shuddered.

"We mustn't get into his hands no more, whatever happens," said he;
"but he'll try and catch us, you may be sure, Tad."

"Yes," assented Tad, "we know too much about him not to be dangerous
now we've run away. So of course he'll want to find us, and we'll have
to look out."

"We'd better not keep to the high roads in the daytime," said Phil; "if
we do, he's sure to track us sooner or later."

"The thing is, what can we do? Where can we go?" muttered Tad more to
himself than to his companion. "Have you any money, Phil?"

"Not a sou, Tad."

"Nor I. And how we're to get food and shelter, or find work to keep us,
goodness knows."

"God knows," corrected Phil gravely, "and it's a comfort He does know.
But now come on, Tad; we must put some miles between us and old Foxy
afore the next few hours is over."

For another half-hour they trudged along the road, talking busily, and
trying to form some plan of action for the future. By this time the sun
was rising, and the tardy winter morn had begun.

"We must take to the fields now," said Phil. "We mustn't be seen on the
road by any folks goin' to market, for old Foxy will be sure to ask
everybody he meets if they've seen us, and if they had, why, it would
end in our bein' nabbed. Come along, Tad!"

So the boys left the highway, and clambering over a gate, walked along
a strip of low marsh-land, which was, however, dry now with the frost.

Here, sheltered from view by the hedge, they followed the windings of
the road for some distance, feeling quite safe. But as the morning
advanced, and the excitement of their escape subsided, the pangs of
hunger and thirst became almost intolerable. And when they spied in the
distance a little house standing among trees, they resolved to go there
and beg for something to eat.

As they approached nearer, they saw that the house was not an ordinary
cottage, but a substantial and neatly built, though small, building of
two storeys. It had a stable and coach-house at the back, and a little
yard where cocks and hens were crowing and clucking over a feed of
grain just thrown out to them.

A pale, dark-eyed, sad-faced woman answered the timid knock at the door
which Tad gave.

"What would you, my children?" she asked gently. "You look weary and
ill. What ails you? Tell me!" And her kind eyes rested with a wondering
pity upon Phil, whose thin, patient, white little face appealed to her
motherly heart.

"We are starving, madame," said Tad, in the queer French he had picked
up during his short stay in France; "and we have not a sou to buy
bread. Will you, of your goodness, give us something to eat, that we
may have strength to pursue our journey?"

"Oui, certainement," replied the woman kindly. "Come into my kitchen,
children; there sit down by the hearth, and warm yourselves, while I
make ready for you."

Soon a plentiful meal of hot milk and bread, and thick pancakes of
buckwheat flour, was put before them. As the famished lads ate and
drank their fill, their hospitable hostess paused now and again in
her work, to smile at them approvingly, and heap their plates, and
replenish their cups with a fresh supply of food and drink.

At last the cravings of appetite were satisfied, and seeing how weary
and sleepy the boys looked, the good woman said:

"Listen, my children; I can see that you need rest; indeed one would
think you had had no sleep all night. Now there is clean straw laid on
the floor of my apple room, at the back of the house. Would you not
like to lie down there and rest—both of you—for a few hours?"

"Ah yes, indeed we should, madame!" cried Tad.

"And thank you, oh, thank you for your goodness!" said Phil, glancing
up gratefully with wistful, moistened eyes. For after all that the boys
had known of late of hardship, privation, and above all of cruelty—they
could hardly accept without tears, the motherly kindness of this
gentle-hearted stranger.

She led them to the back of the house, and opening a door, ushered
them into the little room where the winter fruit stores were kept. On
shelves round the walls were arranged, in tidy rows, on clean paper,
rosy-cheeked apples, and hard, sound, brownish-green baking pears,
while on the straw in one corner reposed several enormous golden
pumpkins. Dried herbs of many kinds hung in bunches from strings
carried across the room just below the rafters of the low roof, and
little lath boxes of various seeds had a small shelf all to themselves.
But on the floor, at the corner of the room furthest from the door, was
a thick mass of fresh straw and hay, dry and fragrant, and to this the
woman pointed.

"Lie down there, my children," she said, "and sleep as long as you
will."

As they crept thankfully into their cosy bed, she went and fetched
a horse-blanket and covered them carefully with such sweet, womanly
tenderness, that Phil caught her hand and kissed it, and Tad looked
up into the kind, sad face, his own softened and made beautiful by
gratitude. Then with a gentle "Sleep well, my children!" their new
friend left them to their repose.

The boys must have slept about eight hours, for when they awoke it
seemed to be late in the afternoon. The sun was no longer shining
in through the slats of the shutter window; indeed the daylight
appeared already to be on the wane. Moreover, a voice which somehow
was familiar, and dreamily associated in their minds with something
distinctly unpleasant, sounded in their ears, and presently roused them
to full consciousness.

"Hark!" whispered Tad. "What's that?"

And the boy sat up, the old, fearful, hunted look coming back into the
face just lately so serene in sleep.

"It's someone talkin' with the woman, ain't it?" said Phil.

"Yes—but don't you know the voice?" gasped Tad. "It's that man Paul,
one of them burglars."

"What shall we do?" cried Phil. "Has he come after us?"

"No, no," rejoined Tad; "but p'raps this is where he lives, and maybe
he's just got home. Listen, Phil; we'd better be quite sure it's he,
and if the woman's told him anything, afore we makes up our mind what
to do."

Still as mice, the lads lay buried in the straw under the blanket, and
listened breathlessly. Part of the talk they could not hear, only a low
murmur of two voices reaching their ears.

But at last the man's voice said distinctly:

"Enough, Claudine; why waste my time and patience with those
everlasting remonstrances of thine? See here, could all thy industry or
mine, year in, year out, win such a pretty bauble as this?"

Here there was a pause, as though the man were showing the woman
something. Then he went on:

"Let me put it about thy neck, my dear! Why dost thou draw back? It is
but a plain gold cross and chain such as any woman may wear; take it!"

"Never, Paul," replied the woman's voice passionately. "Never will I
wear stolen goods. Oh, my husband!—" And here her voice broke, and she
went on sobbingly, "thou art breaking my heart and spoiling my life
and thine own. Think how happy we were only a short time ago, before
the evil days of thy friendship with Jean Michel and his companions!
Why not be content with honest labour, instead of living in fear and
remorse as we must? For this is now the third time that thou hast
returned from a bad night's work, bringing me gifts which I can but
refuse as accursed things."

Paul laughed a little hard laugh.

"The things I bring home are but a little love-token for thee,
Claudine. The rest of our booty finds its way to the smelting-pot
of our Hebrew friends in the town, and thenceforth tells no tales.
And as for my safety, wife, no fears. We work in crape masks, and we
cover our tracks with skill. The only danger is now and then from our
accomplices."

"And how so?" questioned Claudine.

Then the man told his wife how he and Jean had been joined by Renard
and his lads on the previous night, and how, at the last moment, the
boys had refused to do their master's bidding, so that Renard and they
had been ordered off as worse than useless for the job they had in hand.

"And the danger is," added Paul, "lest that dirty old rascal or one of
the brats should carry some story about us to the police, just out of
spite. As it was, we had a great deal of needless trouble. Had the boys
been content to enter and open to us, all would have been so simple,
so easy. But since they refused, we were forced to break in, and this
made noise, and some of the household were roused, so that we could not
get all we had hoped; and this, after our precautions, and our clever
poisoning of the dog, was too bad! Ah!" added Paul fiercely. "Could
I but lay hands on those two little rascals, I would teach them to
disobey again!"

"Did they then refuse to enter and open to thee and thy companions,
Paul?" asked the woman.

"Yes, they said they would not go, and even the threats of their master
availed not; and we could not use force for fear of an outcry."

"Tell me, what like were the lads?" inquired Claudine. "Were they small
or big? French or—"

"Why, wife, what makes then so curious about a matter that, of a
truth, concerns thee not?" said Paul suspiciously. "Thou art never
likely to set eyes upon the young miscreants. That greedy old
bag-of-bones—Renard, the thief, mountebank, tailor, tinker, and what
not—has got the lads, body and soul, and he is not likely to let them
out of his sight."

"Are they French?" asked Claudine again.

"No, certainly not. With their master they spoke the English tongue,
and a hard, jaw-breaking, cursed language it is too. One of the boys
was little with a pale face, and the other taller, with a big round
head like one of thine own pumpkins, Claudine. Ah, let me but catch
them, the young monkeys! And in the space of ten minutes, no one should
know them for the same children."

To this the woman made no reply that the lads could hear; but they had
heard enough to make them look at each other in renewed fear and horror.

"We can't stay here another moment, Phil," whispered Tad. "We must go."

The slatted, wooden shutter which served as a window was only fastened
by a hook on one side. Tad stole across the straw-covered floor,
slipped the hook out of the ring, and the shutter swung open. Swiftly
and noiselessly the boys got out, and found themselves in a small back
garden communicating by a gate with the yard, and divided only by a low
fence from a lane, the tall, bare trees of which they could see rising
above the fence. To clamber over, and drop down into the lane on the
other side, was the work of a moment. Then away—away, in the fading
light, as though flying for their lives—sped the two poor lads, once
more fugitives and vagabonds in a strange land.



CHAPTER XIII

UNEXPECTED NEWS

THE plentiful meal and long sleep obtained through Claudine's
hospitality and kindness, had done the lads good service. And when they
recovered from their excitement and first dread of pursuit, and found
themselves clear of the neighbourhood of the house, they felt strong
enough to push on at a fair pace. The darkness was coming so rapidly,
that the boys thought they might with perfect safety keep to the road.
Along the road accordingly they trudged, looking carefully about them,
however, and ready to hide under a hedge or crouch in a ditch, or dodge
behind a tree at the wayside, at the least sound or threatening of
danger.

It was about eight o'clock, and they were beginning to think of making
a halt for a rest of half an hour or so, when a slow, heavy rumbling of
wheels along the highway made them look round.

"Why, Phil," said Tad, "it's some of them travellin' carts the tramps
and gipsies use, ain't it?"

"Looks like 'em," replied Phil. "I wonder if the people would give us a
lift just to the next town or wherever it is they're goin'!"

"Let's ask 'em," said Tad. "See, there's the first cart quite near."

"Shall we go and speak to that man walkin' at the horse's head?" asked
Phil.

"You go, Phil. You speak their lingo best," rejoined Tad.

Phil accordingly left his companion's side, and stepping into the
middle of the road, bade the man a very courteous good evening, adding:

"My friend and I are very weary, monsieur, having come far. Would you
have the goodness to suffer us to ride in one of your carts for a
little way?"

"Certainly, my child, with pleasure," replied the old fellow kindly.
"Get in here. My wife Sophie and a friend of hers are inside, but there
is still plenty of room. The carts coming behind are for the most part
full of children and the things we are taking to sell at a fair."

So saying, the old man stopped the horse, and the lads clambered into
the cart, where they were kindly received by the two women, who were
busily employed weaving rush baskets by the light of a little oil lamp.

"Sit down there, my children," said Sophie, pointing to a sort of
bench which extended the whole length of the cart, like the seat of an
omnibus.

"Maybe the boys are hungry," suggested the other woman, "and we cannot
get supper till we find a good place for camping out."

"Give them some bread to stay their hunger till then, Pelagie,"
answered Sophie.

And presently the lads were each munching away at a substantial hunch
of bread sprinkled with salt.

On jolted the cart, followed by three others, but it was ten o'clock
that night before the caravan came to a place suitable for an
encampment. Tad and Phil, grateful for the kindness shown them, and
delighted to make themselves useful, helped to unharness the horses,
and tether them to stakes which they drove into the ground. They
brought water from a little stream, and gathered together, from under
the trees by the roadside, a quantity of dead wood for a fire.

The spot that had been chosen for camping out, was a tract of waste
land between two hills of limestone rock. The place was strewn with
stones, but was quite dry, and the fire blazed up merrily, shedding a
welcome warmth, for the night was cold.

Over this fire, as soon as it burned clear and hot, the huge soup-pot
was hung. Into it had been put a big lump of the prepared spiced and
salted lard (a mixture of beef and hog's fat clarified and cured) of
which the Norman peasantry make their usual soup.

Then as the grease melted in the pot, vegetables of several sorts were
added, but chiefly potatoes, onions, and winter cabbage, with all the
stale crusts and odds and ends of food remaining over from the day's
rations. The pot was then filled up with water, a handful of salt mixed
with peppercorns being thrown in. And soon this wonderful mixture was
simmering musically over the fire, emitting a very savoury odour.

While waiting for supper to be ready, some of the grown-up people
belonging to the caravan drew to the fire, and sat down on the short,
dry stubble.

The children were already asleep in the waggons. A few of the women
took out their knitting and worked their long needles rapidly, the
bright steel gleaming in the fitful flare of the firelight. The men fed
their horses, for there was not grass enough for their food, and went
round looking for more wood to feed the fire, or sat in the circle,
shaping garden sticks and broom-handles to sell at the fair.

As for Tad and Phil, when there seemed to be nothing further for them
to do, they came and joined the cosy party round the fire, seating
themselves between kind old Sophie and Pelagie.

At first there was a great deal of jabbering going on, but nothing to
arrest the attention of the lads.

But suddenly Phil caught Tad's arm, and whispered, "Listen, Tad! What's
the woman saying?"

Tad listened accordingly, and having learned enough now of the
Normandy patois French to understand what was said, when he paid close
attention, he at once became interested. For a woman of the party had
said to old Sophie:

"I forgot to ask thee, Sophie, did a letter reach thee from Angleterre,
from thy daughter, as we passed through the town?"

"Yes, Dieu merci, it did, and it was a letter that made my old heart
glad."

"And how so, Sophie, if one may ask?"

"Ay, tell us!" cried another voice. "Thou knowest well, good mother,
that all that interests thee has interest also for us."

"After the last letter that came, I told you, did I not, my friends,"
said the old woman, "how unhappy my poor child was?"

"Yes, but not wherefore she was so vexed in spirit," replied Bernadine,
a big woman with a baby in her arms. "Was that English gipsy husband of
hers unkind to her?"

"No, no, Bernadine; from the time that Jake the gipsy saw and loved my
Marie when she was in service over there, he has been as kind as any
husband could be, and for love of him she is more than half English
already; but—"

"Ay, good mother, tell us! What?"

But what the good mother had to tell we must leave to the next chapter.



CHAPTER XIV

OLD MEMORIES AND A NEW IDEA

"SHE lost her little one when it was six months old," answered the old
woman, "and she was grieving and pining, and well-nigh heart-broken,
when one day le bon Dieu sent her, in a strange, unlooked-for way,
another child!"

"How so, Sophie? Tell us, good mother!"

The old woman went on:

"It was like this, my friends. The gipsy troupe into which my daughter
Marie married, were encamped one day on a common, and thither came a
lad with an infant in his arms. Towards evening, he sauntered up to the
camp and met Marie, and asked her if she would take care of the baby
for a while, he having business elsewhere. Marie gladly took the child,
having no thought then but to give it back when its young guardian
returned.

"But night came on, and the old gipsy chief gave the word to move on,
and the boy had not returned. And then arose the great longing in
Marie's heart to keep the baby boy—did I say it was a boy?—to comfort
her for the loss of her own infant. She yielded to the temptation, and
the troupe left the neighbourhood that night, the stranger child with
them, and Marie's sore heart has healed now she has a little one in her
arms again. Albeit she writes me that she cannot but think sometimes of
the child's mother, who may be sorrowing even yet over the loss of her
baby."

During the story Tad clutched Phil's arm.

"Only think of that," he whispered. "Ain't it just wonderful?"

"Hush," said Phil, "let's hear it out."

"Said thy daughter nought of coming over to France to see thee?" asked
the big Bernadine.

"Pardon; yes she did say that she and her husband were trying to scrape
together money enough to bring her over, for it is three full years
since she left with the English family, and she is a dutiful daughter,
God be thanked, and would fain see her old parents again."

"And will it be soon, thinkest thou, good mother?"

"I cannot tell for sure, but it may be soon. The troupe are near
Southampton now, and thence, I have heard, sail many English vessels
for la France. But who knows if Marie will get the money for her
voyage?"

"Knowest thou, mother Sophie," said a man who had not hitherto spoken a
word, "that if Marie be caught by the police of the country, she could
be severely punished for stealing that child?"

"Ah, sayest thou so, Pierre?"

"Yes, it is a dangerous thing to do, and I wonder much that she has
escaped till now."

"She wrote me that, for safety's sake, she burned all the little boy's
clothes, and dressed him in her own baby's things. And also, for the
first month, she coloured his skin and hair with walnut juice and
water, to make him dark like her own child. After that the troupe moved
so far away, that she thought all danger was past."

"Without doubt she was right," said Pierre; "indeed it has proved so,
since—but stay—who is that approaching us across the open, from the
road?"

"It is a man—a stranger," said Bernadine.

"An old man he looks, by the light of the moon," said Sophie.

"Perhaps he is cold and hungry," suggested old Jacques, Sophie's
husband. "If so, he is welcome to a share of our fire and our supper."

But just then Tad glanced in the direction of the newcomer, and gave a
smothered gasp.

"Oh look, Phil, look!" he said.

And Phil looked and rose instantly to his feet, followed by Tad. The
younger boy turned to Sophie.

"Good mother, we thank and bless you for your goodness to us, poor
stranger boys," he said, "and we ask of you one more favour. This man
who now is coming towards us is a wicked, cruel master, from whom,
after sore treatment, we have only just escaped. If he catches us, he
will surely kill us. So we must go away at once, and we entreat you,
betray us not. Say not that two boys were here but now. He cannot have
seen us yet; so far we are safe; so, for the love of heaven, tell him
naught."

"Fear not, my poor children, he shall know nothing from me, nor indeed
from any of us; eh, my friends?"

"That is so, good mother."

"Then good-night, my boys, and may God guard you!"

The next moment the two lads, parting from the circle round the dancing
firelight, had vanished into the darkness.

As the poor lads fled once more from the approach of the old enemy,
they were at first almost in despair. And no wonder; for they had
believed themselves out of reach of pursuit at last. And now to see
that wicked old Foxy apparently tracking them like a sleuthhound, was a
dreadful thing.

But as their fear gradually subsided, they began to feel that Renard's
appearance among the French gipsies was no indication what over of his
knowing where they (Tad and Phil) were; and that, had he seen them
sitting with their hospitable entertainers round the fire, he would
probably have been to the full as much surprised as they had been to
see him.

But it gave the lads a renewed sense of danger to have caught sight,
even for a moment, of the man who had shown himself so treacherous a
companion, so cruel a master, and it was not strange that Tad presently
said despondingly:

"It's no go, Phil, we'll never be safe till we're out of France."

"Out of France? That's easier said than done," rejoined Phil. "And how
are we to get out of this country?"

"I don't know, I'm sure! That's the worst of it. We seem headed off
all round. But I did hear that this road leads to St. Malo, and that
English vessels is always comin' in and out of there. There may p'r'aps
be some chance for us, Phil, if we get to St. Malo."

"That's just what old Foxy's reckonin' upon our thinkin'," replied
Phil, "and that's why he's come along this road after us, I should say.
And he'll have a much better chance to nab us down at St. Malo than
he's had here in the country, where there's always places to hide in.
It's risky, and just think how long we might have to stay in the town
before we'd a chance of crossin' over to England—if ever the chance
came at all."

"Ay, I didn't think of that," answered Tad. "I wish we was back in
Granville, I do; I'd like to turn in our tracks this minute and go
right back there. Renard would never think of our doin' that, and would
go on to St. Malo lookin' for us. At Granville, p'raps we might see
Captain Jeremiah Jackson again with his schooner; he that picked me up
when I was floatin' about in a open boat."

"But dare you think of goin' back to England at all?" asked Phil.
"After what you've told me, I shouldn't think you'd want to go home.
Think of your stepmother, Tad, and the police that was after you for
takin' away your little brother!"

In his longing to get away from the dangers and troubles that beset
him in France, Tad had forgotten those that drove him from his native
place, and were still awaiting him there. Now he was silent for some
time, turning things over in his mind. What Phil said was true, only
too true. Hard as things had been for him in France, they would be
worse still in England, unless indeed he could do something to deserve
and ensure a welcome at home, and also prove to the police that he had
not been guilty of any crime with regard to his little brother.

"You're right enough, Phil," he said at last. "There's one thing, and
only one, that would make it possible for me to go home."

"And what's that?" asked Phil.

"Just this, kidnappin' that child again, and carryin' of him home to
his mother."

Phil shook his head.

"That's a hard nut to crack," said he. "And I don't see much chance
myself of your goin' to England now or ever, if it hangs on gettin'
hold of the baby again. Oh Tad, what a pity you didn't begin your
runnin' away from home quite by yourself; it's havin' had that baby for
the one day, as has made all the mischief."

Again Tad was silent. Phil's words were quite true; he knew now how
very dearly he had paid for that bit of revenge upon his stepmother.
Once more he was thinking things over, and going back to the very
beginning—to the wrong start he had made on that Sunday which now
seemed so very long ago. The events of the last few days had worked a
change in the boy. He was beginning dimly to see how, from first to
last, he had been his own enemy, and how he had himself to thank for
the worst of his misfortunes.

Phil's influence and example too had shown him, more clearly than he
had ever perceived it before, the difference between right and wrong,
while it strengthened the affection which he felt for this child, the
reverence that he could not withhold, when he thought of the courageous
soul in so frail a form.

By contrasting what he was beginning to know of himself with the
estimate he had made of Phil's character, he could not help feeling
what a cowardly, selfish, contemptible sort of a fellow he had been
throughout.

"It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks," Jeremiah Jackson had
said, and Tad had proved to his cost how true these words were. Just
as some kinds of blindness can only be cured by the surgeon's knife,
so there are some forms of blindness of the soul, for which the Great
Physician has to use sharp remedies, ere it can see itself as it is,
and turn repenting to Him Who alone giveth sight to the spiritually
blind.

"I'm a bad lot, I am, Phil!" said the boy at length, after a long
silence, during which he was taking stock of what he was worth, and
finding how little it amounted to. "Yes, I'm a bad lot, Phil, more's
the pity!"

"You've been awfully good and kind to me, Tad," replied Phil, turning
towards him affectionately, and putting a confiding hand through his
arm. "Yes, you've been like a brother to me, ever since that day at
Granville when you give me and the monkey your baked dumplin'. What's
that you're sayin', Tad dear? Do I love you? Rather! Of course I love
you true and faithful, dear old man."

Tad gulped down a sob.

"I don't deserve it, Phil, and that's the truth," he said humbly; "but
if you'll keep on doin' of it, I'll try to deserve it. There! That's a
bargain!"

"Let's try and help each other to be good!" said Phil simply. "Mother
used to tell me as how, if we chose, we might always have the Lord on
our side. And if we did have Him, we was more than a match for any
enemy. Do you remember that story in the Bible, Tad, about 'Lisha,
when his enemies came and got all round the place where he was? There
was chariots and horsemen and a great host—all sent to take that one
poor feller. No wonder his servant was frightened and said, 'Alas, my
master, how shall we do?' For thinks he to hisself, 'Here we are—the
two of us—all by our lone; no one to care for us, nor no one to help
us, and the enemy down there a-spreadin' hisself like a green baize.'
Do you call to mind the story, Tad?"

"No; go on, Phil."

"Well," said Phil, "then what does 'Lisha do but pray to God to open
the servant's eyes, and the answer to that there prayer must have come
mighty quick, for all of a sudden, the man saw plain enough what he'd
never thought of afore—that the mountain was full of chariots and
horsemen of fire, round about 'Lisha; and that there was more friends
than enemies; many more for than agen them. But as mother said," added
Phil, "God's host were there afore the servant's eyes were opened, only
he didn't know it. And that's how it is with us sometimes. We think
we're all alone, because we don't see the chariots and horsemen of fire
round about us, and we don't understand how much we may be helped, if
we will, nor how ready the Lord is to hear and answer if we pray."

"I shouldn't wonder if you was right, Phil," said Tad; "howsumdever
there ain't no 'Lisha nowadays, nor no chariots and horsemen of fire
to come between old Foxy or Paul and us poor lads—worse luck! And when
we can't see nothin', it's hard to believe that help's near. But now,
Phil, I've got a idea, so just you listen and tell me what you think of
it. Other things bein' equal, we'd like to leave France and get back to
England, eh?"

"Yes," replied Phil, "I s'pose so."

"Right so far, then. But you see I can't go back unless I can take the
kid home with me."

"Ay, that's clear enough," assented Phil.

"Well then, here's what I'm a-goin' to propose. Let's go back to them
tramps, or gipsies, or whatever they are, and ask if they'll let us
live with them for the present. They're kind people, and if we help
them all we can, it'll go hard but we'll earn our board and lodgin'."

"Well?" said Phil, feeling that the most important of what Tad had set
out to say, was unsaid as yet.

"Well," repeated Tad, "my idea was this, that we should stay on with
them, movin' when and where they did, and livin' their life until—"

"Ah, I see what you mean!" cried Phil. "Until Sophie's daughter, Marie,
came with the baby, and then—"

"Yes, that's it! Steal the baby again, and cut away," said Tad, "and
trust to chance for gettin' across the Channel."

But Phil shook his head.

"No," said he firmly, "no more stealin' of babies, nor of nothin' else!
It would be a wicked and ongrateful thing to do to them, as had been
good to us, and beside I don't hold with bein' so secret and sly."

"But we want to get hold of the child," argued Tad, "and we can't get
him onless we take him like that."

"I don't know; maybe we can," replied Phil; "anyway I'd try fair means
first. And besides, Marie might remember your face, and know you again,
and then she'd be extra careful not to give you a chance to steal the
baby."

"I'd not thought of that," said Tad. "Well, Phil, say that we go back
to old Sophie and Jacques and their people, and live with them, if
they'll have us, and anyway, if Marie and the baby come or not, we'll
have time to look about us and think what we'll do next."

"Yes, that's a good plan," replied Phil; "we can't do better as I knows
of. But while we're talkin' of goin' back to the caravan, here we are
walkin' on, and gettin' further away every minute."

"That's true; come, let's turn now and go back; but as we may chance to
meet old Foxy, we'd better crawl along in the shadow of the hedge, one
behind the other, and not talk at all."

This was slow progress, but the only safe course, as they proved very
soon. For they heard steps approaching along the road, when they had
gone a part of their return journey, and in the darkness they heard old
Renard's heavy, shuffling step, and the low muttering in which—like
Saul of Tarsus, before his conversion—he seemed to be breathing out
threatening and slaughter, thus pleasantly beguiling the loneliness
of the way. That he had other and yet more dangerous consolation too,
was proved beyond all doubt; for almost opposite to the boys, as they
crouched trembling under the hedge, Renard paused, and they heard a
cork taken from a bottle, and then deep swallows of drink; probably the
stimulant in which his soul chiefly delighted; the new and fiery cognac
which is reckoned among the worst and most harmful of intoxicants.

Having drunk deeply, Foxy passed on.

But it was not until his footfall had ceased to sound upon the hard
road, that the lads dared to creep from their hiding-place, and resume
their journey back to the camp.



CHAPTER XV

TURNING THE TABLES

IT is said, and with truth, that all, or nearly all, wandering races
are rich in the grace of hospitality, and these French gipsies, or
rather tramps of a mixed race, had kind hearts, as Tad and Phil proved.

Poor, outcast, homeless creatures as they were, strangers in a strange
land, these good people had asked of them but few questions, but made
the boys heartily welcome, giving them permission to continue with the
troupe so long as it suited them to do so.

Old Jacques had said, furthermore, when he yielded to the earnest
entreaty of the lads, "Yes, my children, and I accept your offer of
service. We are not rich, and we cannot afford to keep anyone in
idleness. You will therefore work as we do, and be one with us in all
things, subject also to the laws that govern us. For we have our own
rules which we strictly enforce, and punishment is inflicted upon all
those who break them."

The boys had readily promised obedience. Any rule, any yoke of service,
would be light, and even pleasant, after the miseries of their late
servitude, and now they gladly resolved to be docile, industrious,
and helpful. Very soon they found they were taken at their word, and
that there was no want of employment for anyone willing and able. They
learned the art of basket-making, Phil's slender hands being specially
clever in this. They made flower-sticks, clothes-pegs, twig-brooms,
and broom-handles. They caned chairs, mended kitchen furniture for the
poor people, and did a little rough tinkering. Phil, too, soon proved
himself a good hand at weaving big rush hats for farm labourers, and
very proud he was when he could hand over into good mother Sophie's
care a handful of coppers, the wages of his industry.

Tad, on the other hand, was just as useful in the heavier and rougher
work, and in the daily routine duties of the camp. He felt it no
indignity to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water to the kind people
who had extended towards him and Phil so generous a helping hand in
their dire distress and destitution.

Ready in all things else to do the gipsies' bidding, the boys had
begged that they should never be sent on errands that necessitated
their going any distance alone. They had told Jacques and Sophie
enough of their story to bespeak the sympathy and protection of the
good old couple, and to show them that a meeting with Renard, Paul,
or Jean might prove dangerous to their freedom, and possibly even to
their lives. So the lads were kept to duties within the precincts
of the camp; and in the busy, out-of-door life which they led, they
lost, after a while, all fear of the evil men, the dread of whose
reappearance had hitherto haunted them like evil phantoms.

For some time they heard nothing more about Marie and her plans. But
one day Sophie and Jacques were talking together, and Tad heard what
was said. The gipsies had decided to go on the next day to St. Malo,
and encamp in a piece of waste ground about half a mile out of the town.

"At the town post-office, a letter from our daughter will probably be
awaiting us," Sophie had said, "and let us hope she will soon follow
it, coming by one of the steamers that bring passengers to this port."

The next day the little procession of gipsy vans passed through the
town, not stopping, however, anywhere until it reached the open space
where the troupe could encamp without fear of disturbing anyone, or
being themselves molested.

One morning Tad and Phil were busy helping Sophie and Pelagie with the
noonday meal. It was not often these gipsies had meat or poultry of any
kind, but to-day one of the party had bought from a farmer's man, for a
mere trifle, an antiquated rooster of venerable aspect, and the whole
company were in high glee at the thought of adding this dainty to the
usual soup.

But first old chanticleer must be plucked and cleaned, and Tad was set
to work at this, while Phil helped to wash turnips and carrots, and
peel onions and potatoes for the pot-au-feu.

Jacques and one or two of the men had gone into the town to call at
the post-office and make some necessary purchases, and the rest of the
troupe were employed about the camp in various ways.

It was one of those mild mornings in March which come sometimes,
closely following a storm of wind and rain, and which give, in their
balmy freshness and sweetness, promise of the yet fairer time at hand.

Light-hearted as the birds, the boys were chattering over their work,
breaking out, now and again, into some fragment of English song, when
a voice behind them said, "Bon jour, mine cheeldren! So I you have
found at de last, you were naughty boys. Oh unkind and tankless to run
yourselves away from de good, kind master, from dis poor old Renard dat
did lofe you so moche!"

The boys started and turned. Tad, in his horror, almost tumbled the
ancient fowl—now partially denuded of his scant feathers—into the fire,
and Phil overturned the big basin of water into which he was putting
his peeled vegetables.

"Ah, mine leetle dears!" went on Renard with his evil, sneering smile.
"You am agitate. It is widout doubt from de joy to see once more you
dear old master. Ah, truly yes. Well now we am discover one anoder,
you shall bote come back to me, and all weel be as before, but steel
better. Oh yes, believe me, mine dears, so moche better."

The lads, paralysed with terror, still said nothing, and just at that
moment, up came old Sophie and Pelagie to see if the provisions in hand
were ready yet for the big pot which they had filled at the brook. As
Sophie approached, Tad made a spring, and falling on his knees before
her, caught her gown.

"Oh dear mother, good mother Sophie, here is this dreadful man!" he
cried. "It is he—our master of whom we told you! Give us not up to him!
For God's sake suffer him not to take us away with him!"

Phil said nothing, but he too had come near, and with pleading eyes
fixed on the old woman's face, awaited her answer.

She put a motherly hand upon each of the boys, and turning to Renard
said:

"Surely, monsieur, I have seen you before! Did you not come to us some
nights ago, on the other side of St. Malo?"

"Madame, you are right," replied Renard, doffing his greasy cap and
making a low bow which had about it an insulting air of mockery.

"And on that occasion," went on Sophie, "you made inquiry respecting
two lads?"

"I did so, madame; once more you are entirely right."

"Are these the lads then, monsieur?"

"These are they, madame, sans doute. The eye of love—such love as I
have for these dear petits garcons—" and Foxy showed his teeth—"is not
to be deceived."

"What then do you want, monsieur, now you have found them?" asked
Mother Sophie.

"Madame, you are a stranger to me!" cried Foxy. "You know not—how
should you?—this heart of mine, or you would not make such an inquiry.
Unworthy, ungrateful as these children are, I am ready (such is my
magnanimous nature!) to forgive and receive them back into my affection
and my service."

"Hein, monsieur! Eh bien!" cried the strident voice of Pelagie, who
had hitherto stood silent. "But what say the boys to this? You say you
are willing to have them back; now the question is, are they ready to
return to you? For there should be two sides to a bargain, monsieur, as
all the world knows."

"You have reason, Pelagie," said Sophie quietly. "What say you, my
children?" and the old woman's voice softened, and her face grew tender
and pitiful, as the lads clung to her in their fear and distress. "What
say you, will you go with Monsieur Renard, your former master?"

"No, no, good mother, never! Never again!" cried both boys at once.

Old Sophie turned once more to Foxy.

"You see, monsieur, that these lads do not wish to avail themselves of
the kindness you offer them, so there is nothing more to be said, and I
will wish you bon jour, Monsieur Renard."

Renard's face at this lost its mocking grin, and became dark and
louring.

"And know you not, you stupid gipsy woman," he shrieked, "that I—Jules
Renard—have a right to these children? And I swear to you—ugly old hag
that you are—if you give them not up to me this very minute, I will
bring the police from, the town, and then, not only will the lads have
to come with me, but you will be punished for detaining them."

"Ah, Monsieur Renard, if it comes to talk of police, perchance you
are not the only one who may have somewhat to say," remarked a deep,
stern voice behind Foxy. And good old Jacques, backed by two of the
troupe—stalwart nephews of his—appeared on the scene. "Listen, my
friend; we have information that you, and two worthy companions of
yours, were more or less concerned in a burglary not very far from
here, and their names and the home of one of them are known to us. We
are quiet people, Monsieur Renard, and we seek no quarrel with any; but
another word from you, another threat against us or these children, and
at once we give in our information at headquarters at St. Malo. And
as for your treatment of the boys—there is a law in France to protect
them, and to punish those who sin against them. Look to yourself, you
fox by name and fox by nature. Seek not to meddle with these lads, or
you may find yourself where you would rather not be."

The stern, uncompromising manner and words of the old gipsy seemed to
make an impression on Renard, who cowered and cringed as the man was
speaking. But he turned it off lightly, only saying as he turned away:

"That is all nonsense; you could not hurt me if you would. But of
course I will not press this matter of the boys, if they do not wish to
return to me. Keep them, if you like to do so, and I wish you joy of
your bargain. You will repent it some day."

Once more bowing low, cap in hand, and a sardonic leer on his thin
lips, Renard bade the gipsies good day, while, watching him till out
of sight on the St. Malo road, Tad and Phil at last dared to breathe
freely once more.



CHAPTER XVI

TAD HARDENS HIS HEART

"PHIL, Phil, they're just comin'. I'm first, 'cause I ran on before;
but they're—"

"Who, Tad?" inquired Phil, who was sitting under the shelter of Mother
Sophie's cart, very busy finishing a huge hat.

"Why, who should it be but Marie and the baby?"

"You don't say!" cried Phil, jumping up.

"You know I went with Father Jacques to St. Malo, this morning,"
explained Tad. "Well, the chap at the little place on the quay said
the passengers by the boat 'Princess,' had arrived, and was now in the
Custom House.

"And says Father Jacques to me, 'My daughter Marie was to come in the
"Princess." Wait here a moment while I go up to the Custom House.'

"So I waited, and sure enough, the Customs door opened, and out comes
the woman, and on her arm the little un, growed into quite a big boy,
and lookin' as though he could run alone as well as me or you."

"Did she see you, Tad?" asked Phil.

"No, I turned sort of sideways so as not to look her in the face.

"But Father Jacques, he calls out to me, 'Here, Edouard, run back to
the camp and tell the mother we come.'

"So off I goes like a shot, and here I am."

"You've told Mother Sophie?"

"Oh yes, and she and Pelagie set to work to make coffee for Marie. It
would be tea if we was in England. My eye! Shouldn't I like a good cup
of tea again!"

"Well now," said Phil, sitting down again to his work, "what do you
think of doin' about that child?"

"I give it up; ask me another," replied Tad, half vexed, half laughing.
"Blest if I know what to do! I want to get back to England, and yet I
can't go home without the child, and—"

"But you won't steal him, will you, Tad?" questioned Phil very
earnestly.

"I don't know about that," replied Tad, "can't promise. 'Taint likely
Marie 'll give up the little chap of her own free will, just when
she's got used to him and all. No, Phil, nor I don't see no great harm
neither, in takin' him away. He ain't no property of hers. She stole
him, and it would only be givin' her tit for tat."

"My mother used to say two wrongs don't make a right, Tad, and after
all it wasn't Marie who stole him first of all. It was you."

"But I never meant to keep him, you see; I was a-goin' to take him home
when I'd given his mother one for herself."

"Tad, listen to me," said Phil; "you've been so nice and good and dear
this long while now, and always done things I asked you, even when they
was hard. Now do promise me, dear old chap, that you won't do nothin'
but what's quite straightforward and honest." And Phil looked up in the
elder boy's face with that wistful entreaty in his eyes which Tad had
always found it hard to resist.

But he was in a perverse mood to-day. One of his unreasonable, restless
fits was upon him too, and the thought of some wild, lawless adventure
was sweet to him. Some lessons Tad had learned from the teachings of
adversity and from Phil's influence and example, but in many ways he
was the old self-willed Tad still. No—assuredly he would not allow
himself to be persuaded into making this promise, for if he did, he
must keep it, and then—why then some good chance might slip by, and he
might never get back to England at all.

"No, Phil," he said. "I won't promise; how can I tell what may turn up?
And I ain't goin' to tie myself in a hard knot for you nor no one. So
there!"

Phil said no more, but turned away sighing.

The recognition which Tad had tried to avoid was bound to come some
time, and come it did the very next morning. Marie was strolling about
the camp field with the child toddling beside her, when she met Tad
face to face. He cast down his eyes and would have passed on, but she
stopped him.

"Where have I seen you before, my boy?" she asked in French. But
suddenly her face changed, she snatched the baby up, and held
him close. "Ah," she added, "I remember now; yet it seems almost
impossible."

Still Tad said nothing, and there was a dead silence between them for
what seemed like a very long while.

"You are English?" said the woman at length.

"Yes, missis," replied Tad.

"Have you met me before?"

"Yes, missis, when—when you stole that there child as you've got in
your arms. He's my little brother, he is."

"I don't believe it," said Marie, speaking now in English. "If he'd
been your brother, you wouldn't have trusted him to a stranger like me,
or you'd have come back sooner to fetch him."

"Well, anyhow he's my half-brother," said Tad, "and how was I to know
you was goin' to run off with him? You looked honest enough, and I
thought you was so."

"Does anyone here know about your bein' the boy that I—I—?"

"No—only my chum, Phil Bates. He knows all about me."

"Not my father and mother?"

"No, no one else."

"Good? Then hold your tongue about it still, and I'll make it worth
your while," said Marie. "I love the child and he loves me, and I mean
to bring him up as my own. Has he got a mother livin'?"

"He had, seven months ago," replied Tad, "and I s'pose she ain't dead
yet. That sort in general makes out to live," added the lad with a
sniff of disgust.

"And you—how came you here?"

"That story's too long to tell," replied Tad, not over civilly, for he
was chafed at the woman's manner, and the attitude she had assumed as
regarded the child.

"And when are you goin' away?" asked Marie.

"Don't know, missis," said Tad, "and what's more I must get to my work
now." And he turned away and joined Mother Sophie, helping her to scour
some pots and pans down by the brookside.

The foregoing conversation Tad repeated to Phil that night, adding,
"Now you see, Phil, what I said was true. A woman like that won't part
with the little 'un willin' and free, and I'll never get him at all
unless I take him and French leave at one and the same time. After this
talk as have passed betwixt me and Marie, what say you now?"

"Just what I said afore, Tad. It's no use doin' wrong to bring about
what we want to happen. Cheatin' and story-tellin' and stealin' and
deceivin' is wicked, and sooner or later people gets paid out that does
them things, no matter what the reason is."

"There you go again!" grunted Tad.

"Tad, dear, don't turn away lookin' so vexed. I want to help you; I
will help you, if you'll let me. Let me have a talk with Marie and
tell her your story, and how you've been hunted about just because of
the child. I can't help thinkin' she'll be sorry for you, and let you
have the little 'un, or what would be better, let you go with her on
the steamer when she starts for Southampton to go back to her husband.
Shall I tell—?"

"It's no use, Phil!" cried Tad. "If you'd seen her face to-day when she
spoke of the baby, you'd never believe she could change."

"Well," persisted Phil, "s'posin' she won't listen to us, still maybe
Father Jacques and Mother Sophie would. We did a foolish thing, Tad,
not to say all we knowed, when we heard the old folks tellin' what
Marie had written in her letter. If we'd spoke of it there and then,
and they'd heard your story, they'd have been on our side now—maybe."

"Well, well," said Tad impatiently, "that's bygones—that is! What's the
use of thinkin' about it?"

"If Marie don't give up the baby here, she could be made to in
England," said Phil. "Why don't you write to your dad, as soon as we
know when she's goin' back? Tell him she's got the child, and he'll
take care of the rest."

"How stoopid you are, Phil! That ain't all I'm after," said Tad
crossly. "The baby ain't everything; I want to go back to England
myself. If Dad got the baby home, he wouldn't care a straw what became
of me; and that old cat of a stepmother of mine would be glad enough if
nothin' was never heard of me no more. So you see I might stay here all
my life. I must take the child myself or be here for good and all."

"Well, if Marie will let you have him, that's all right," said Phil;
"but Tad, dear, don't do nothin' you'll be sorry for after. Remember
how you told me of such a many things you'd had to make a choice of,
and you said you'd chose what you thought you'd like best, or what
seemed easiest, and only see what have come of it! And it was only when
we made up our minds not to do wrong, that God sort of opened up the
way afore us, and got us clean away out of old Foxy's clutches. Tad,
dear, them as tries to do the right thing God always helps, but no one
can't expect help from Him if he does wrong."

"Shut up with your preachin', Phil!" cried Tad impatiently. "If you was
a parson and me the congregation, stuck fast in the pews, I'd be bound
to listen; but you ain't, and I ain't, so hold your noise. The baby's
my half-brother, not yours; he wasn't stole from you—was he? So it's
none of your business. I'll do as I choose—I will—so there!"

Tad had never before spoken harshly to his companion, and even as he
uttered the words, his heart and conscience smote him.

He saw Phil's head droop suddenly, and the thin cheek flush and pale
again. He even thought he heard a half-suppressed sob, when the little
fellow turned away without another word.

But like Pharaoh of old, he hardened his heart, muttering, "What if he
be hurt a bit! Sarve him right for meddlin' with what don't consarn
him."

Then he went off to his work of hobbling the horses for the night, at
the other end of the field, and nothing more passed between him and
Phil, nor did they see each other again till morning.



CHAPTER XVII

AGAINST THE PRICKS

SOME days passed, and meanwhile Tad's idea of running off with the
child secretly was so much in his mind, unresisted, unchecked, that
at last it became a distinct purpose for which he began once more to
plot and plan. The foolishness and the utter recklessness of such a
proceeding were lost sight of in his great desire to accomplish what
he had at heart, namely his return to England and the restoration of
the baby to its mother, by way of securing safety and a welcome for
himself. The difficulties and dangers he did not take into account
because he would not. Obstinately bent upon carrying out his idea, he
made everything else yield; he was even prepared to part from Phil,
rather than give up his purpose.

We have seen that during the time of the worst of the troubles that
had befallen the boys, Tad's heart had softened, his character had
improved. But the great change by which all things are made new, had
not yet come into the boy's soul. Self-will still ruled there, and it
would need a yet sharper lesson ere the altar of this idol could be
thrown down, and its sceptre broken.

Since the day when Phil's remonstrance and appeal had called forth
those cruel words from Tad, the younger boy had not ventured to mention
the subject. But he had gone about with a heavy heart and a sad face,
for he loved Tad dearly, and the estrangement between them hurt him
sorely.

He was anxious, too, for he could see plainly enough by the sullen,
brooding look in Tad's face, that he had by no means relinquished
his idea, but was only considering how best to work it out. Phil did
not know what to do. He could not bear the thought of acting the
tale-bearer, of going to Marie and warning her against his friend.
Still less could he entertain the idea of saying anything to Jacques
and Sophie. So that, between disloyalty to Tad on the one hand, and
disloyalty to their kind friends on the other, Phil was indeed in
straits—and very sore straits for a child of his years. He could only
hope that the time of Marie's departure would come soon, and that
meanwhile Tad would have no chance to carry off Baby Victor, as his
gipsy mother called him.

One morning about a week later, Marie received a letter from her
husband, who announced his intention of coming over to fetch her. He
said he should be sailing in a little vessel belonging to a friend, and
he hoped to be at St. Malo shortly. He intended, he said, to spend a
day or two with his father and mother-in-law, and then take his wife
and the child back to England in the same boat that had brought him.

"I must go to meet my husband to-night, mother," said Marie, two days
later; "the boat is sure to be in."

"I will go with thee," replied Sophie, "and thou, Jacques?"

"I go too, of course," said the old man.

"Wilt thou take the child, Marie?" inquired Sophie.

"No, mother, I hardly think it would be well to do so. Poor Victor has
seemed very feverish and languid these last days, and the night air
would be bad for him. I will put him to bed before I go, and he will
then sleep, I hope, and so will not miss me."

"Pelagie will attend to him should he cry," said Sophie, "but I daresay
he will sleep soundly till thy return."

Phil did not overhear this conversation, but Tad happened to be at work
close by, and heard every word.

"This is goin' to be my chance!" he said to himself. "For once in a way
I'm in luck, but I'll not tell Phil or he'd spoil all the fun."

During the time that had gone by since first he meditated flight with
the baby, Tad had contrived to scrape together a little money. Now
and again, when in the town with Jacques, he had earned a sou or two,
holding horses or carrying boxes and parcels from the wharf, or running
errands, and the coppers he received Jacques allowed him to keep for
himself. So that he had about a franc and twenty-five centimes, as
nearly as possible one shilling of our money.

At dinner that day he asked for more bread, and hid a big hunch away
in his pocket. This was all the preparation that he could make for his
journey, and blindly, obstinately, set upon his own way he must indeed
have been, to think of undertaking it so poorly equipped. But there is
no limit to the foolhardiness of self-will, when once it has, like a
runaway horse, got the bit between its teeth; and so was it now with
poor Tad's besetting sin.

As evening approached, circumstances favoured the lad's design, for
Phil was called by one of the men to accompany him to a neighbouring
hamlet with baskets to sell, and Pelagie occupied herself with
preparing supper contained in the usual big pot, into which she was
shredding herbs of many kinds. For now the wild green plants were
coming up with tender shoots, and none knew better than the gipsy woman
which of them lent an appetising flavour to the soup.

"Here, Edouard," said she to Tad, who was loafing about and watching
his chance. "Step into Marie's waggon, will you, and look at the child.
If he seems restless or uneasy, take him up and rock him gently in your
arms till he is quiet. You can stay with him, for I do not need your
help here. Go then at once; I shall be more at ease if I know you are
with him."

Tad, with an eagerness which he tried to hide, turned to obey. He
entered the waggon where his little half-brother was fast asleep, and
stood looking at him a moment by the light of a tiny lamp fixed into a
brass socket on one of the walls of the cart.

The little fellow's cheeks were scarlet, and through the parted lips
the breath came in a quick, irregular way which was not natural.

"Ought I to take him when he ain't quite well?" thought Tad; but once
more his great desire conquered all conscientious scruples. "It's now
or never," he muttered.

And having made up his mind, he looked all round for some warm wrap in
which to enfold the little fellow. Presently he saw a large, dark cloak
of Marie's hanging from a nail. This he reached down, lifted the baby
very cautiously, and throwing the cloak over him, even covering the
face, he stepped out of the cart, peering round suspiciously for fear
someone might be watching.

It was already dusk, and another of the waggons stood between him and
Pelagie, screening him from view. The rest of the troupe were scattered
in various directions. No one was near but Pelagie, and she was
preoccupied with her cooking.

A few long, stealthy strides and Tad had reached the road. Here he
paused a moment, looking this way and that, screened by some bushes;
but no one was in sight.

"Now for Granville and England!" he said to himself, and gathering the
living bundle closer in his arms, he set off at a quick walk in an
opposite direction from that which led to St. Malo. He had before him a
long tramp, he knew, for Granville was nearly sixteen miles away.

What he was to do when he got there was not very easy to determine, but
what he hoped for was to find Jeremiah Jackson and his "Stormy Petrel,"
and get a free passage over to Southampton. He had no idea, however,
how often the skipper made his voyages, and therefore he knew he might
have to wait a long time. But he had not considered how the baby and he
were to live while thus waiting. Self-will is generally short-sighted,
and does not take into account possible consequences, when following
its own headlong course.

The baby's weight, Tad soon found, was far greater now than it had
been on that memorable Sunday nearly seven months ago. And the pace
at which the runaway started to-night from the gipsy camp slowed down
perforce after a while. By this time the night had closed in, and Tad
was thankful for the darkness which hid this last evil deed of his.
For now that the first excitement was over, he was beginning to feel
that the deed was indeed evil. And as he trudged along, carrying the
thrice-kidnapped child, he gradually realised to some extent what he
was doing, and what a heavy price he was paying for his own way.

Again before him, in the mirror of memory, rose the earnest, patient
face of little Phil whom he had so disloyally deserted. Again he saw
the look of pain which his own cruel words had called into those
wistful eyes, those sensitive lips. Yes, he had lost Phil, dearly
though they had loved each other, bitterly though they had suffered
together. Then too, how had he requited dear old Mother Sophie and
Father Jacques for all their kindness? Yes—they too were now among the
losses which he had that night sustained. These true friends lost; and
all for what?

Poor Tad was obliged to confess to himself that he had precious little
to show in exchange. True he had gratified his self-will, but so far
the gratification was of a decidedly qualified character. He was
growing very tired, and so hungry that he was obliged to stop and take
out his piece of bread to munch as he went along. Then, too, the child
had begun to wail piteously in a hoarse voice that frightened him, and
Granville was still nine miles off.

But for the demon Pride which kept whispering in his ear, the lad
would have turned back even now to the camp; but he told himself that
he could not bear to return to his friends confessing himself in the
wrong. No, he felt he must go on now, having, by this last act of his,
cut himself adrift from all who had befriended him.

All night Tad walked on, but in the morning he got a lift in a light
cart that was going in to an early market at Granville. Worn and jaded
and utterly disheartened, he and his now slumbering charge were driven
into the town.

"The brat is a-goin' to be ill, I do believe," said Tad, peering down
into the little flushed face lying against his shoulder. "Just like my
luck!"

"Had you not better take him to a doctor?" said the driver of the cart.
"There is one living in this street, and he is very kind to the poor;
he is sure not to charge you anything."

"Thank you; then I will," replied Tad.

And the man set him down at the doctor's door. Early as was the hour,
quite a number of people were waiting to see the doctor, so it was some
time before Tad's turn came. But it came at last, and the baby was
unwrapped and examined.

"Monsieur the doctor," said Tad, "will you please tell me if the child
will be all right directly, for I want to take him to England very
soon."

The doctor looked up incredulously.

"To England?" he repeated. "No indeed, my boy, he must go no further
than Granville Hospital. I tell you the little one is very ill; he has
got inflammation of the lungs, and you may be very thankful if he pulls
through at all!"



CHAPTER XVIII

JEREMIAH TO THE RESCUE

"THEN all that I've done is wuss than lost," said Tad to himself as
he walked slowly away from the hospital where he had left his little
brother. "I've run away on the sly and walked all night; I've carried
off a sick child as can't be no good to me; I've broke with Phil and
with the gipsies; and all for what? To stay here and starve in the
streets while maybe the child dies in the hospital, and if he do die,
why then good-bye to any home-goin' at all. Just my luck I can't seem
to compass nothing at all, I can't."

That night he slept under an old boat which was turned on its side
awaiting repairs on the shore, above high-water mark. A more unhappy
lad it would have been hard to find under God's great canopy of sky
than Tad when he awoke next morning, cold, hungry, with a remorseful
conscience and an anxious heart. After buying a small loaf of bread
which was to last him all day, he walked down to the quay, which he had
good cause to remember, for it was here he had first met Renard. But
the thought of old Foxy was not uppermost in his mind as he sauntered
round, looking idly about him at the varied shipping, and at the busy
crowd loading and unloading the vessels. His wretched experiences
with his late master seemed to him now something very remote, almost
forgotten in the nearness of his more recent troubles.

So much absorbed was Tad in his own miserable reflections, and the
utter collapse of every plan he had made, that he started like one
awakened out of sleep, when a long, claw-like hand grasped his arm,
and a well-known, hateful voice said almost in his ear, "Ah, bon jour,
mine dear cheeile! So I you have found at de last!" And a grin of evil
triumph made even uglier and more repulsive than ever Renard's wicked
face. Tad started as though from some noxious reptile. All the memories
of his sufferings and those of Phil at the hands of this man rushed
upon him with overwhelming force, and he gazed into Renard's green
eyes, fascinated and speechless.

"Ah, ma foi!" chuckled Foxy. "Only to tink! Dis dear boy is so please
to see his old master, dat he find not word to speak."

"It's a lie! I ain't pleased!" cried Tad, finding voice at last. "You
know very well I'm nothin' of the kind. I hate you, that I do! Let me
go!" And he tried to wrench his arm from old Foxy's clutch.

"Oh fie! Fie! Wat naughty tempers have dis dear cheeile!" sighed Renard
as he tightened his hold. "Come wid me, mine friend; you shall once
again be educate in de college of Monsieur Renard. Widout doubt your
jours de fête—wat you call holiday—find demselves too long. Now you
weel work."

And old Foxy began to drag his unwilling prisoner along, trying to get
him away from the quay and into the town.

Tad did what he could to free himself from the man's hold, but all to
no purpose. As well might a fly try to win clear when a spider has hold
of him.

The people they met took no heed of him. It was nothing uncommon to see
a struggle or even a fight going on here, and nobody interfered; so Tad
was almost in despair, when suddenly he caught sight of something that
gave him energy and courage.

There, standing on the deck of a trim little vessel drawn close
up to the quay, was a burly form surmounted by a bluff; honest,
weather-beaten face and a shaggy mass of red hair and beard.

"Oh, Captain Jackson!" shrieked the lad. "Save me! Save me! Foxy's got
me again!" And he stretched out his one free arm in passionate entreaty.

The worthy Jeremiah leaped on shore and met Renard face to face.
"What's up?" said he. "What's the matter?"

"De matter, Monsieur Jeremie," replied Renard in honeyed tones, "is dat
dis poor boy did run away from his kind master, and now he come back,
and all weel be well again."

"Never, never!" cried Tad. "Don't believe him, please, captain! He's
the awfullest liar that ever was. Please, sir, look at me; don't you
call to mind a boy you picked up in a open boat at sea, and how good
you was to me? You wanted me to go back with you to England, and I'd
near made up my mind to it, when old Foxy here come down with Phil
Bates, and coaxed me into goin' along of him. And after that, me and my
chum was starved and beaten and ill-treated, and at last, roust of all,
we—"

"Weel you be quaite, Edouard?" hissed Renard, giving the boy's arm a
violent jerk. "If you hold not your peace," he added in a whisper, "I
weel keel you."

"I remember you very well, Teddie Poole," said Jeremiah. "So you don't
want to return to the man's service, eh?"

"No, sir, no indeed!" cried Tad. "Save me from him! Do save me,
captain!"

The bluff, good-humoured face looked very grave and stern as Jeremiah
Jackson turned once more to Renard.

"Unhand that lad, Renard!" he said.

"Ma foi! And why, Monsieur Jeremie?" inquired Foxy. "You have not de
right to say, 'Do dis and dat.'"

"It's no use bullyin' and blusterin', you parley-vooin' scoundrel!"
said Jackson stoutly. "Unhand that lad, or I'll tell the world here
what I know. If once all Granville heard that you—"

"Enough! Hush, oh hush, Monsieur Jeremie, mine good, dear friend!"
whispered Renard, looking round furtively to see if Jackson's rather
too plain speaking had been overheard. "It is one leetle joke; say
notting more. I am only delight to do you oblige, and if you desire
dat I let go dis cheeile, behold I cede heem widout unpleasant. Good
morning, Edouard; bon jour to you too, Monsieur Jeremie."

And loosening his hold on Tad, the Frenchman bowed low, cap in hand,
and shuffled off towards the town.



CHAPTER XIX

FAITHFUL PHIL

"COME you down into my cabin and tell me what's happened since you
bolted from the 'Stormy Petrel' with that sneakin' rascal." And the
honest sailor shook his huge fist at the retreating form of old Renard.

Then Tad followed the skipper into the tiny cabin, and there over
a good breakfast told his story; told it exactly as things had
happened—the whole truth without reserve. It was a relief now to
disburden his heavy heart of what was oppressing him so sorely, and to
ask for the advice and help of which he stood so urgently in need.

"You want to know what I think you'd best do?" asked Jeremiah as Tad
finished his narrative.

"Yes, sir, and whatever you says now, I promise to do it," replied poor
Tad. "All along I've been tryin' to choose and to get what I liked
best, and I've done nothin' but kick agen pricks, just as you said to
me. You see, I haven't forgot, sir."

"Well, Teddie Poole, things bein' as they are, and you in a pretty bad
fix, my counsel to you is to send word by letter to the woman you call
Marie that the kid is in hospital here, and also to write to your chum
Phil as how you're sorry and all that, for what you done. And then—"

"Please, is this boat the 'Stormy Petrel,' and is Captain Jeremiah
Jackson here?" called a sweet boyish voice down the companion way.

"Why, if that ain't Phil hisself!" cried Tad. "I'd know his voice in
a thousand!" And jumping from his seat, he scrambled up on deck, and
rushed straight into Phil's arms.

"Oh Phil, dear Phil, is it really you? And can you ever forgive me—me
that have been so bad?" whispered Tad brokenly.

"Hush, dear old man; I know the temptation was a big one to you, and
what you done's all forgiven—be sure of that."

"But how did you find me?" inquired Tad.

"Oh, I knowed what you'd always thought of doin'," answered Phil, "and
so we come straight here to Granville in one of the house-waggons, and
I ran down to the quay to see if I could find the 'Stormy Petrel,'
feelin' sure you'd make for her if she was in port. But Tad," continued
Phil, "where's baby Victor? Is he down in the cabin? Marie's here, half
mad at losin' him."

Tad's face fell.

"He's very ill, Phil; he's had to be took to the hospital; his chest is
awful bad, I'm afeared."

At this Phil turned away from his friend, and stepped off the boat on
to the quay to tell Marie this sad news, for she was standing there
waiting to hear about the child. The tears welled up in her dark eyes
as Phil spoke, but she said nothing, only glancing reproachfully
towards Tad ere she turned and went into the town, bending her steps
towards the hospital where the little one was lying.

While Tad stood sadly watching her out of sight, he presently saw
coming slowly along by the water side good old Mother Sophie. Leaping
on shore, he ran to meet her.

"Dear Mother Sophie," he cried, "I have been the most wicked, thankless
boy that ever lived, to leave you as I did, after all your goodness.
But I am sorry, and oh, I—"

"If you are sorry for having made us so anxious, child, I pardon you.
But tell me, Edouard, where is baby Victor?"

"He is in the hospital, and his life is in danger I fear, dear mother."

"My poor Marie!" sighed the old woman. "She loves Victor so well, and
her heart would break were he to die. It will be hard enough anyway to
part from him, even if he gets well."

Tad turned in amazement to Phil, who had followed him as he went to
meet Mother Sophie.

"Part from him—if he gets well?" said he. "What does that mean, Phil?"

"Only that I have told Marie, and Father Jacques, and Mother Sophie the
whole story," replied Phil, "so now they all know the truth about you
and baby. Marie didn't want to give up the child, if once she managed
to get him back from you, but her parents wouldn't hear of her keepin'
him, after what I'd told them, so if he gets better, you and he and
Marie 'll go back to England together if you like."

Tad was silent for a minute.

"Then maybe if I'd told the whole truth to the good people at the
beginning, as you begged me to, Phil," he said at last, "I might have
got my way without runnin' off with the child at all, and p'raps he
wouldn't have been so ill neither."

Phil made no answer to this. What indeed could he say?

But Tad went on, "I say, Phil, what a fool I've been for my pains!
Captain Jackson was right about kickin' agen the pricks, for here I've
took lots of trouble to go crooked, just to find myself wuss off than
if I'd gone straight, to say nothin' of makin' no end of bother for
others."

"But now, Edouard," put in Mother Sophie, who understood no English,
and had no idea what Tad was talking about, "now, Edouard, what do you
intend to do? Will you return with your friend the captain this voyage,
or—"

"No, no, dear Mother Sophie," answered Tad, "I will not go until baby
is better and can go too. You know I couldn't go home without him."

"Here you, Teddie Poole!" called Jeremiah from the deck of his
schooner. "I want to speak to you!"

And Tad ran back quickly.

"Will you go home with us in a few days' time, boy?" inquired the
captain. "Or would you rather wait till I come again? I expect to be
back here in about three weeks, if all be well, and I'll take you and
your friends over then if you like. No, don't thank me, my lad!" he
added, as Tad gratefully accepted his second offer. "No need for more
words about it. It's only my dooty as a man and a Christian, and it's a
pleasure into the bargain. And, praise the Lord, the boat's my own, and
I've no one's leave to ask."



CHAPTER XX

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER

THE days passed, and Marie returned from her daily visits to the
hospital, bringing no better reports.

"But for that long night of exposure to the cold, damp air, baby Victor
would never have been so ill," she had said reproachfully to Tad; "and
now, through you and your headstrong folly, this precious little life
will most likely be lost. You do not deserve to have a brother."

Tad did not resent Marie's hard words. He knew he merited them richly,
and he did not attempt to excuse or defend himself. Truly repentant and
humble as he had become, he could not undo the grievous consequences of
his sin. So he meekly listened to the woman's reproaches, which he felt
came from a very sore heart, and were none the less sharp and bitter
for that.

At last there came a time when the doctors said that the little one's
life hung, as it were, on a thread, and there was hardly a chance that
he could recover. And when poor Marie brought back this news, Tad felt
that now his cup of misery and of punishment was full indeed.

If the child died, he would feel, all his life long, like a murderer,
and go through the world as with the brand of Cain upon his brow.

Towards evening of that day, Phil found him sitting in an
out-of-the-way corner, quite overwhelmed with trouble.

"I can't bear it, Phil!" he sobbed. "For baby to be took and me left is
too dreadful; me, too, that nobody cares for and nobody wants!"

For all answer Phil nestled close to his friend, and passed a loving
arm round his neck. He felt that such trouble as this could not be
comforted by mere words, but he also felt that for every burdened heart
comfort might be found where he—Phil—had often found it before during
his sad young life.

The place where the lads were sitting was quiet and solitary enough,
and the darkness was fast stealing on, softly shadowing earth and sky.

By his friend's side Phil knelt, still with an arm round Tad's neck,
and then the boy's tender sympathy and loving pity found a voice in
fervent prayer to Him Who on earth healed the sick with a word or a
touch, and raised the dead, and forgave the sins of those who had gone
astray.

For the little life now trembling in the balance, Phil wrestled with
cries and tears. For forgiveness for the past, for help in time to
come, for strength to do the right whatever might happen—the childish
voice, broken by sobs, rose in passionate supplication, thrilling
Tad's heart through and through with the consciousness of some unseen
Presence, and bringing back to his memory words long forgotten,
"'Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.'"

With hands close clasped, and streaming eyes lifted towards the sky,
the awe-struck lad gazed and gazed, half fearing to see, half expecting
some visible sign to appear in the dark heavens above him, in answer to
that urgent cry for help.

Once more the sweet, plaintive voice broke, sending forth sobbingly the
words, so touching in their simplicity,—

   "Dear Lord, Thou knows all we want to say and can't. Do it for us; Thou
 can, and Thou art willin', that we know, cos Thou said so. Send us a
 answer of peace, for Thy own sake, Amen."

Then there was silence; both boys felt that the place whereon they
knelt was holy ground, and neither could bear to break the solemn hush.
Hand in hand, and nearer in heart than they had ever been before, the
lads went back to the cart.

The matron of the children's ward in the hospital at Granville, seeing
Marie's great anxiety, had allowed her to have access to the child
whenever she liked. And when the boys returned to the house-waggon,
they found that she had not yet got back from her evening visit.

In almost unbearable suspense they sat there on the short turf, waiting
for the news which they so dreaded and yet longed for. Not a word had
been spoken between them as yet. Tad was seated leaning eagerly forward
to catch the first glimpse of Marie on her way home. Phil lay at full
length, as though exhausted, his pale face upturned, his eyes closed.
Suddenly he sat up, his eyes radiant in the moonlight, a smile upon his
lips.

"He heard us, Tad! He heard us!" whispered the boy. "It's all right!
Hark! There she comes!"

Tad listened, and heard a light, quick step speeding along, joyful
relief in every footfall. II was Marie returning. Both lads sprang to
their feet, and ran to meet her.

"All is well, thank God!" cried the woman as she saw them. "The doctors
say he will live."

And she passed on to the van to awaken her mother with the joyful
tidings, while the boys, left together, crept away, and from glad
hearts sent up to heaven the voice of praise and thanksgiving.

With the young, recovery is often a very rapid thing, and that of
Marie's adopted child was no exception to this rule.

By the time the "Stormy Petrel" returned to Granville, the little one
was well enough to be out for hours in the warm, bright sun, and to
bear the voyage home.

Jacques and Sophie would have been glad to keep Phil with them always,
for he had greatly endeared himself to them by his unselfishness and
gentle ways. But Tad and he could not bear to be parted, and Jeremiah
Jackson had held out a hope to the boys that he might give them both
a berth on board of his vessel, if they found, on their return to
England, that they could find nothing better to do.

So one lovely afternoon, in full spring, Marie and the baby, Tad, and
Phil, took leave of the kind gipsies, and going on board the trim
little schooner, glided out into the crimson sunset, with a fair wind
and all sail set.

Marie's husband had gone back to England two weeks before, being unable
to wait till the baby was well enough to travel. A letter had been
written to James Poole, and sent to the address of Tad's former home,
whence it had been forwarded to the new house, near Southampton, to
which the Pooles had recently moved. To this letter Tad's father had
sent a kind reply, promising to meet the voyagers on arrival.

Marie had at first intended herself to take the baby to his home,
accompanying Tad thither. But on learning that James Poole was to
meet his children, and remembering, too, that in stealing the baby on
that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday evening, all those months ago, she
had exposed herself to a serious risk, and indeed to the certainty of
punishment by English law, she thought she had better not show herself
at all to the child's father, but find her way to her husband's people
as quickly as possible.

Of the parting between Marie and her adopted child we need not
say much, but sad as it was, she went through it with courage and
determination.

James Poole, as was expected, met the voyagers at Southampton, and Tad
was surprised to see how much softened and how gentle his father's face
and manner had become. When Tad introduced Phil, James Poole greeted
the boy very kindly, and cordially invited him home.

The Pooles had a nice roomy cottage just out of town, and on the way
there, Tad's father told him that Mrs. Poole had been a great invalid
for four months and more, and quite unable to do any work about the
house, so that life had been very hard for all. He said that Nell and
Bert were well, and good children on the whole, but running rather
wild for want of looking after, and that Mr. Scales the grocer, Tad's
former employer, had quite recently written to inquire after his late
shop-boy, saying that since Tad left, he had been unable to find a lad
to suit him.

On reaching home, it was a sad sight to see Mrs. Poole lying on a couch
quite helpless, dependent upon an old woman who came every morning to
do the work of the house. But on seeing her baby boy and receiving him
into her arms again, the poor mother was so full of joy and content and
thankfulness, that the look of suffering passed from her face, and Tad
thought he should not be surprised if she got well after all.

In the general rejoicing, no one thought of scolding or blaming the
runaway lad, and all listened eagerly while he told his adventures.

Phil too was made much of, and when, in relating his story, Tad told
also not sparing nor excusing himself—how Phil had been his good angel,
his loving, faithful friend, ever since they had first met, there
was not a dry eye in all that little company. And James Poole wrung
the little slender hand in his strong palm, Nell and Bert hugged him
round the neck, and Mrs. Poole patted his head and called him a dear
good lad, till he felt quite shy, for he had never been used to much
kindness or attention.

Presently, when the little ones had gone to bed, Mrs. Poole asked Tad
to come and sit down by her, and when he did so, she said:

"Tad, dear, God has taught me a many lessons since you left home all
them months ago. First there was losin' my baby, and afterwards this
illness that came of a fall. But Tad, it wasn't until I began to miss
my little one, that I called to mind how you and Nell and Bert had
never ceased to miss your mother, and how I never so much as tried to
fill her place. And it wasn't till I was laid aside, and needed to have
people tender and patient with me, that I remembered I'd never been
tender and patient with the poor chil'en I was stepmother to. But now,
dear boy, you've come home again, and me and your father we'll both try
and make it real home to you, so as it shan't never no more come into
your head and heart to run away. Kiss me, Tad, and call me mother, for
that's what—God helpin' me—I mean to be to you always."


And now we can say good-bye to Tad the kidnapper, feeling quite sure
that never again will he deserve this name.

How he went back to his duties at the grocer's shop, living in Mr.
Scales' house all the week, and returning home for Sunday; how he
gradually rose in his employer's confidence to a position of trust and
of usefulness; how Phil, after a short sojourn with the Pooles, began
to pine for something to do, and accepted Jeremiah Jackson's offer of
a berth as cabin boy aboard the "Stormy Petrel"; how Marie, by special
invitation, came every now and then to see baby Victor, (as she still
called him); and how God sent her at last a little baby boy of her very
own to comfort her heart; all this we need only just mention, for our
story has been told to show that the getting of our own way does not
always mean happiness or prosperity.

And since poor Tad Poole had learned this lesson, perhaps we who have
followed him step by step in his adventurous career have learned it too.



Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO., Edinburgh







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