"Well, to be sure, poor little thing," said Mother Rodesia, "she must be a bit off her head, but she"s a fine little spirited thing for all that. I think she would just about do. You come along here for a minute, Jack, and let me talk to you."
The man called Jack moved a few steps away, and Mother Rodesia followed him. They began to talk together in low and earnest voices.
At first the man shook his head as he listened to Mother Rodesia, but by degrees he began to agree with some suggestion she was making, and finally he nodded emphatically, and at last was heard to say:
"It shall be done."
Meanwhile Diana, with one arm clasped protectingly round Orion"s waist, was partaking of the soup which old Mother Bridget had ladled into a little bowl. Orion was provided with a similar bowl of the very excellent liquid. The soup contained meat and vegetables, pieces of bread and quant.i.ties of good gravy, and, as Diana and Orion were very hungry indeed, they ate up their portions, while the gypsy children cl.u.s.tered round them, coming closer and closer each minute. Diana"s eyes, however, were as black as theirs, and her manner twice as spirited. She would not allow them to approach too close.
"You had best not take lib"ties," she said. "I is a gweat lady; I is Diana, the biggest shot in all the world."
"Oh, lawk! hark to her," cried one of the boys. "I wonder if you could shoot me, little miss?"
"Shoot you, boy?" cried Diana. "That I could. You would be shotted down dead if I was to take up my bow and use my arrow."
At last the children had finished the contents of their bowls, and rose solemnly to their feet.
"Now," said Diana, going up to Mother Bridget, "I are vedy obliged to you; you has been kind; you has gived us good supper. We"ll "scuse "bout the stwawberries and k"eam and the milk and cake, "cos you didn"t know that the other big woman told lots of lies. And now, p"ease, we are going home. We isn"t glad to go home, but we is going.
P"ease tell the man to put pony to cart, and dwive us home as fast as he can."
"Yes, indeed, my little dear," said Mother Bridget; "there aint one moment to be lost. You just come inside the tent, though, first for a minute."
"I don"t want to go inside that dirty tent," said Diana; "I don"t like dirt. You had best not twy to take lib"ties. I is Diana, and this is Orion, and we is both very big peoples indeed."
At that moment Mother Rodesia came forward.
"They need not go into the tent," she said to the old woman; "I can manage better than that. Just you help lift "em into the cart; it"s a dark night, and there"ll be no stars, and we can get off as far as----" Here she dropped her voice, and Diana could not hear the next words.
"I"m going with them," she continued, "and Jack will drive. They are exactly the kind of children Ben wants. Now then, little missy, jump in. Ah, here you are! You"ll be glad of the drive, won"t you?"
"When will we get back to Wectory?" asked Diana.
"In about an hour, missy."
"Come "long, Orion," said Diana, "you sit next me. Hold my hand, poor little boy, case you is fwightened. Diana never was fwightened; that isn"t her."
Orion scrambled also into the cart, and the two children huddled up close together. Mother Rodesia got in with them, and sat down at the opposite side, with her knees huddled up close to her chin. The man called Jack mounted the driver"s seat, whacked the pony with two or three hard touches of his whip and away they bounded.
The night was very dark, and the cart rattled roughly, and jolted and banged the children about, but Orion felt comforted and contented after his good supper, and Diana"s fat little arm felt warm round his neck, and soon his head rested on her shoulder and he was sound asleep. Not so little Diana. She sat wide awake and gazed hard at the woman, whose dark eyes were seen to flash now and then as the party jolted over the roads.
"Tell him to go k"icker," said Diana. "I must get home afore Uncle William goes to bed. Aunt Jane might beat me again, and I don"t want to be beated. Tell him to go k"icker, Mother "Odesia."
CHAPTER XVI.
UNCLE BEN.
Mother Rodesia was most kind and obliging. The pony was whipped up, and now it seemed to Diana"s excited fancy that they quite flew over the road. She felt for her broken bow, which she had laid by her side, then she cuddled up closer to Orion, and whispered to herself:
"Mother "Odesia"s a good woman when all"s said, done. She has gived us supper and soon we"ll be home; and Uncle William won"t be in bed, and he won"t let c"uel Aunt Jane beat me. It"s all wight; I may just as well go to s"eep, "cos I is drefful s"eepy, and it"s late. I wonder if the night will be starful, and if I"ll see Orion up in the sky.
Anyhow, there"s no stars at pwesent, and I had best go to s"eep."
So the little girl cuddled herself up close to her brother, and soon the big dark eyes were shut, and she was happy in the land of dreams.
When this happened, Mother Rodesia softly and stealthily changed her position. She stretched out her hand and touched Jack on his arm. This seemed to have been an arranged signal, for he drew up the pony at once.
They were still under the shelter of the great woods which extended for miles over that part of the country.
"We had best begin to change their clothes now," said Mother Rodesia.
"They are both as sound as nails, and I don"t want the clothes to be seen by Ben, for he"s safe to p.a.w.n "em, and if he p.a.w.ns "em the police may get "em, and then the children may be traced, and we may get into hot water."
"But, mother," said Jack, "do you dare to disturb them now when they are asleep? That young "un with the black eyes is such a fury; seemed to me as if she was never goin" off."
"She"s all right now," said Mother Rodesia. "She"s just dead tired. Of course, if I had had my way, I"d have put a little of that syrup into their soup--Mother Winslow"s Syrup--but Mother Bridget wouldn"t have it. She took quite a fancy to the little gal, and all on account of her firing up and calling her names."
Jack laughed.
"I never seed sech a little "un," he said, "sech a sparky little piece. Ben"s in rare luck. I"d like to keep her for a sort of little sister of my own--she"d amuse me fine."
"Well, well, you aint a-goin" to have her," said Mother Rodesia. "I"m goin" to ask thirty shillin"s for her and thirty shillin"s for the boy. That"ll be three pund--not a bad night"s work; eh, Jack?"
"No," replied Jack; but then he continued after a pause, "You"ll tell him, won"t you, mother, to be good to the children. I wouldn"t like to think that little "un was treated cruel, and her sperit broke--she has got a fine sperit, bless her; I wouldn"t like it to be broke. I don"t care for the little boy. There"s nothing in "im."
"Well, stop talking now," said Mother Rodesia. "They must be missed at the Rectory by this time, and they"ll be sendin" people out to look for "em. It"s a rare stroke of luck that n.o.body knows that we are camping in the Fairy Dell, for if they did they would be sure to come straight to us, knowin" that poor gypsies is always _supposed_ to kidnap children. Now, Jack, you just hold the pony as still as you can, and I"ll slip the clothes off the pair of "em."
Little Diana, in her deep sleep, was not at all disturbed when stout hands lifted her away from Orion, and when she lay stretched out flat on a large lap. One by one her clothes were untied and slipped off her pretty little body, and some very ugly, sack-like garments subst.i.tuted in their place. Diana had only a dim feeling in her dreams that mother was back again, and was undressing her, and that she was very glad to get into bed. And when the same process of undressing took place on little Orion, he was still sounder asleep and still more indifferent to the fact that he was turned sometimes over on his face, and sometimes on his back, and that his pretty, dainty clothes, which his own mother had bought for him, were removed, never to be worn by him again.
"Now, then," said Mother Rodesia, when she had laid the two children back again upon the straw, "when they awake, and if Ben is not there, we must dye their faces with walnut juice; but we can"t begin that now, for they are sure to howl a good bit, and if folks are near, they will hear them and come to the rescue. Jack, have you got that spade "andy?"
The man, without a word, lifted a portion of the straw in the cart, and took out a spade.
"That"s right," said the woman. "You make a deep hole under that tree, and put all the clothes in. Bury "em well. I"ll rescue "em and p.a.w.n "em myself when we go to the West of England in the winter, but for the present they must stay under ground. See, I"ll wrap "em up in this good piece of stout brown paper, and then perhaps they won"t get much spoiled."
Jack took the little bundle (there were the soft, pretty socks, the neat little shoes, even the ribbon with which Diana"s hair was tied), and twisted them all up into a bundle. Then his mother wrapped the bundle in the piece of brown paper, and gave it to him to bury.
This being done the pony was once more whipped up, and the cart proceeded at a rapid rate. They were now on the highroad, and going in the direction of a large town. The town was called Maplehurst. It was fifteen miles away from the Rectory of Super-Ashton.
Little Diana slept on and on, and the sun was beginning to send faint rays of light into the eastern sky, when at last she opened her eyes.
"Where is I?" she said with a gasp.
"With me, my little dear; you are as safe as child can be," said Mother Rodesia. "Don"t you stir, my love; you are just as good as you was in your little bed. See, let me lay this rug over you."
She threw a piece of heavy tarpaulin, lined with cloth, over the child as she spoke.
Diana yawned in a comfortable manner.