The opportunity had come sooner than he had expected. It was quite necessary that, when he helped her to escape, Fanner Joseph’s back should be turned. The old man with’ the merry screwed-up eyes and the white horse-collar of whiskers round his neck, was always watching. He seemed to know by instinct every time that they wandered out of sight of the farmhouse. Sooner or later, as they sat in a field reading or telling stories, his face would peer above the hedge.
In the passage he caught Desire’s hand. “Run upstairs. Get your hat and jacket.—No, wait Mrs. Sarie might see them. drop them out of the window to me in the garden.” He felt immensely excited. If he could get her to the station undetected, they would travel up to London. When it was evening he would smuggle her past Orchid Lodge, and then—— He supposed she would spend the night at his father’s, and all the other days and nights till her mother was found. But why had Hal stolen her? “Here, catch.”
The hat and jacket tumbled down. He caught a glimpse of the laughing face in the thatch. It was going to be a tremendous lark—almost as good as a King Arthur legend. The next moment she rejoined him.
“Sir Teddy, what are we going to do now?” She clung to his arm, jumping with excitement.
“Hulloa!” he exclaimed, “the babies have come into your eyes.” He told her that the babies came into her eyes when they became especially gray and round.
They tiptoed out of the garden into the passage of the house. All the downstair rooms were quiet; Mrs. Sarie’s footsteps overhead and the smacks she gave the pillow were the only sounds. They crossed the farmyard, walking unhurriedly as though nothing were the matter. From the gateway they glanced back. The white fan-tails fluttered and cooed on the thatch. The curtains blew in and out the open windows. Gaining the path which led across the meadows, they ran—ran till they were breathless.
Across the fields, with his nose to the ground, came another fugitive. As he caught sight of them, he expressed his joy in a series of sharp yaps.
“I say, this’ll never do. He’ll give us away before we know it Go back, bad dog. Go back.”
Bones came a little nearer, crawling on his stomach, making abject apologies, but positively refusing to go back.
They walked on together, the white cur following at their heels till lapse of time should have made him certain that his permission to follow was irrevocable.
They had been walking along the main-road, on the alert to scramble into the hedge at the first sign of any one approaching. It was just such a day as the one on which he had arrived, only dog-roses were fuller blown and blackberries were growing ripe. The wheat was yellowing to a deeper gold and the misty fragrance of meadow-sweet was in the air.
“Ha! Here’s one at last.”
It was a post with three fingers pointing.
“Yes, we’re all right. This one, sticking out the way we’re going, says To Ware; but it says that it’s nine miles. D’you think, with those little legs, you can manage it, Princess?”
She lowered her head, looking up through her lashes.
“They’re very strong little legs, and if you talk to me and talk to me, so that I forget—— If I get very tired, I’ll let you carry me.”
They struck into fields again, clambering through hedges and over gates, judging their direction by the road. Teddy was afraid to keep to the road lest they should meet Farmer Joseph coming back from market, or lest Mrs. Sarie, when she missed them, should send some one driving after them to bring them back.
It was pleasant in the fields. Rambling along, they almost lost their sense of danger and forgot they were escaping. Everything living seemed so friendly. Crickets in the grass chirped cheerily. Birds jumped out of their houses, leaving their doors wide open, Teddy said, to see them pass. He invented stories about the things they saw to prevent the little legs from thinking of their tiredness. Only the cows suspected them of escaping; they whisked their tails and blinked their eyes disapprovingly, like grandmothers who had had too many calves to be deceived by a pair of children.
Lunch time came and they grew hungry, but to buy food at a farmhouse was too risky.. They quenched their thirst at a stream and pictured to themselves the enormous meal they would eat when they got to London.
“Tired?”
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CHAPTER XVII—DESIRE
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CHAPTER XIX—THE HIGH HORSE OF ROMANCE
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