They waited until everything was quiet again. Then Larry whispered, "Run now, and if you fall, never wait to rise but run till we get to Tom Daly"s house!"
Then they ran! The soft pat-pat of their bare feet on the dirt road was not heard by the Tinkers, and soon another turn in the road hid them from view, but, for all that, they ran and ran, ever so far, until some houses were in sight.
They could see the flicker of firelight in the windows of the nearest house. It was Tom Daly"s house. They could see Tom"s shadow as he sat at his loom, weaving flax into beautiful white linen cloth. They could hear the clack! clack! of his loom. It made the Twins feel much safer to hear this sound and see Tom"s shadow, for Tom was a friend of theirs, and they often went into his house and watched him weave his beautiful linen, which was so fine that the Queen herself used it. Up the road, in the window of the last house of all, a candle shone.
"Sure, Mother is watching for us," said Larry. "She"s put a candle in the window."
They went on more slowly now, past Tom Daly"s, past the Maguires" and the O"Briens" and several other houses on the way, and when they were quite near their own home Larry said, "Sure, I"ll never travel again without a bit of coal in my pocket. Look at all the danger we"ve been in this night, and never the smallest thing happening to us."
And Eileen said, "Indeed, musha, "tis well we"re the good children!
Sure, the Good Little People would never at all let harm come to the likes of us, just as Grannie said."
CHAPTER FIVE.
THE TWINS GET HOME.
When they were nearly home, the Twins saw a dark figure hurrying down the road, and as it drew near, their Mother"s voice called to them, "Is it yourselves, Larry and Eileen, and whatever kept you till this hour?
Sure, you"ve had me distracted entirely with wondering what had become of you at all! And your Dada sits in the room with a lip on him as long as to-day and to-morrow!"
The Twins both began to talk at once. Their mother clapped her hands over her ears.
"Can"t you hold your tongues and speak quietly now--one at a time like gentlemen and ladies?" she said. "Come in to your father and tell him all about it."
The Twins each took one of her hands, and they all three hurried into the house. They went into the kitchen. Their Father was sitting by the chimney, with his feet up, smoking his pipe when they came in. He brought his feet to the floor with a thump, and sat up straight in his chair.
"Where have you been, you Spalpeens?" he said. "It"s nine o"clock this instant minute."
The Twins both began again to talk. Their Mother flew about the kitchen to get them a bite of supper.
"Come now," said the Father, "I can"t hear myself at all with the noise of you. Do you tell the tale, Larry."
Then Larry told them about the cakeen, and the silk hat, and Michael Malone, and the Tinkers, while his Mother said, "The Saints preserve us!" every few words, and Eileen interrupted to tell how brave Larry had been--"just like the good son in Grannie Malone"s tale, for all the world."
But when they came to the geese part of the story, the Father said, "Blathers," and got up and hurried out to the place where the fowls were kept, in the yard behind the house.
In a few minutes he came in again. "The geese are gone," he said, "and that"s the truth or I can"t speak it!"
"Bad luck to the thieves, then," cried the Mother. "The back of my hand to them! Sure, I saw a rough, scraggly man with a beard on him like a rick of hay, come along this very afternoon, and I up the road talking with Mrs Maguire! I never thought he"d make that bold, to carry off geese in the broad light of day! And me saving them against Christmastime, too!"
"Wait till I get that fellow where beating is cheap, and I"ll take the change out of him!" said the Father.
Eileen began to cry and Larry"s lip trembled.
"Come here now, you poor dears," their Mother said. "Sit down on the two creepeens by the fire, and have a bite to eat before you go to bed.
Indeed, you must be starved entirely, with the running, and the fright, and all. I"ll give you a drink of cold milk, warmed up with a sup of hot water through it, and a bit of bread, to comfort your stomachs."
While the Twins ate the bread and drank the milk, their Father and Mother talked about the Tinkers. "Sure, they are as a frost in spring, and a blight in harvest," said Mrs McQueen. "I wonder wherever they got the badness in them the way they have."
"I"ve heard said it was a Tinker that led Saint Patrick astray when he was in Ireland," said Mr McQueen. "I don"t know if it"s true or not, but the tale is that he was brought here a slave, and that it would take a hundred pounds to buy his freedom. One day, when he was minding the sheep on the hills, he found a lump of silver, and he met a Tinker and asked him the value of it.
""Wirra," says the Tinker, ""tis naught but a bit of solder. Give it to me!" But Saint Patrick took it to a smith instead, and the smith told him the truth about it, and Saint Patrick put a curse on the Tinkers, that every man"s face should be against them, and that they should get no rest at all but to follow the road."
"Some say they do be walking the world forever," said Mrs McQueen, "and I never in my life met any one that had seen a Tinker"s funeral."
"There"ll maybe be one if I catch the Tinker that stole the geese!" Mr McQueen said grimly.
Mrs McQueen laughed. "It"s the fierce one you are to talk," she said, "and you that good-natured when you"re angry that you"d scare not even a fly! Come along now to bed with you," she added to the Twins. "There you sit with your eyes dropping out of your heads with sleep."
She helped them undress and popped them into their beds in the next room; then she barred the door, put out the candle, covered the coals in the fireplace, and went to bed in the room on the other side of the kitchen. Last of all, Mr McQueen knocked the ashes from his pipe against the chimney-piece, and soon everything was quiet in their cottage, and in the whole village of Ballymora where they lived.
CHAPTER SIX.
HOW THEY WENT TO THE BOG.
The next morning when the Twins woke up, the sun was shining in through the one little square window in the bedroom, and lay in a bright patch of yellow on the floor. Eileen sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. Then she stuck her head out between the curtains of her bed. "Is it to-day or to-morrow? I don"t know," she said.
Larry sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes. He peeped out from his curtains. "It isn"t yesterday, anyway," he said, "and glad I am for that. Do you mind about the Tinkers, Eileen?"
"I do so," said Eileen, "and the geese."
Their Mother heard them and came to the door. "Sure, I thought I"d let you sleep as late as ever you liked," she said, "for there"s no school to-day, but you"re awake and clacking, so how would you like to go with your Dada to the bog to cut turf? Himself will put a bit of bread in his pocket for you, and you can take a sup of milk along."
"Oh, wirra!" cried Eileen. "What have we done but left the milk-jug at Grannie Malone"s!"
"You can take the milk in the old brown jug, then," said the Mother, "and come along home by way of Grannie"s, and get the jug itself. I"d like your Father to get a sight of the Tinkers" Camp, and maybe of that thief of the world that stole the geese on us."
It didn"t take the Twins long to dress. They wore few clothes, and no shoes and stockings, and their breakfast of bread and potatoes was soon eaten. The Mother had already milked the cow, and when they had had a drink of fresh milk they were ready to start.
Mr McQueen was at the door with "Colleen," the donkey, and when Larry and Eileen came out, he put them both on Colleen"s back, and they started down the road toward the bog.
When they came to the place where the Tinkers" Camp should be, there was no camp there at all! They looked east and west, but no sign of the Tinkers did they see.
"If it were not for the two geese gone, I"d think you had been dreaming!" said Mr McQueen to the Twins.
"Look there, then," said Larry. "Sure, there"s the black mark on the ground where their fire was!"
The Twins slid off Colleen"s back, and ran to the spot where the camp had been. There, indeed, was the mark of a fire, and near by were some wisps of straw. There were the marks of horses" feet, too, and Eileen found a white goose feather by the thorn-bush, and a piece of broken rope.
"They were here surely," Mr McQueen said, "and far enough away they are by this time, no doubt. It"s likely the police were after them."
They went back to the road, and the Twins got up again on Colleen"s back, and soon they had reached the near end of the bog.
Mr McQueen stopped. "I"ll be cutting the turf here," he said, "and the two of you can go on to Grannie Malone"s with the donkey, and bring back the jug with yourselves. Get along with you," and he gave the donkey a slap.