"We's comed home again, Aunt Catharine," announced Joan cheerfully and easily, as if the pair of them had just returned from church. "Is you glad to see us?" she asked, smiling sweetly into her aunt's swimming eyes.

"Yes, Joan, very, very glad; I don't think you'll ever know how glad," answered Miss Turner gravely.

"Darby and me went away to look for the Happy Land—like what nurse sings 'bout, don't you know?—far, far away," explained the little girl. "But we didn't find it after goin' miles and miles and miles; we only finded a old carawan, and some bad peoples, and Puck, and a ee-mornous (enormous) bear! Now we's back, and I's awful hung'y! Is there any cake or cold puddin', or anythin' good for tea?" she inquired anxiously, looking audaciously up into the familiar face of Aunt Catharine—familiar, of course, yet with a something so new and strange in its softened lines that the little one instinctively put up a dirty hand and softly stroked her aunt's cheek, murmuring as she did so, in her sweet, cooing voice, "Poor Aunt Catharine! Joan loves you, and willn't never, never go away from you any more. Now, please tell me, is there anythin' good for tea?" she demanded.

"Joan!" exclaimed Darby in a shocked undertone, as if mere creature comforts like cake and cold pudding were not to be thought of at such a time. Then he addressed his aunt.

"Joan's quite correc'," he said, standing right in front of her, bravely bent on confession of his naughtiness and getting it over as quickly as possible, so that he could start fair with a clean sheet. "I was mad because you punished me, and we made up a plan—at least I did—to run away and find the Happy Land, and I coaxed Joan to come with me. It's all my fault, Aunt Catharine; so whatever putting to bed or catechism there is I'll take it, for I was the naughty one. But we found out that there's no Happy Land at all—at least not like what I thought. Our Happy Land's here at Firgrove, and oh, but we're glad to get back to it!—Aren't we, Joan?"

"Yes, werry, werry glad," agreed Joan readily.

"And I'm never going to be disobedient or troublesome, never, never any more, if you'll forgive me this time, Aunt Catharine, and let me begin over again," begged the boy, slipping a grimy little paw into Aunt Catharine's spotless hand.

"Forgive you, child!" cried Aunt Catharine, in a broken voice. "Why, of course I'll forgive you, and we'll both begin over again, Darby," she whispered.

"That's right," he replied cheerily. "And I'm going to try to make a Happy Land all about me wherever I am. Mr. Bambo 'splained it to me ever so nicely. He's very clever, you know. This is he," said Darby, pointing to the dwarf, who still leaned, as if for support, against the pillar of the gate.

Bambo advanced a step, tried to speak, but his voice was too hoarse to be intelligible.

"He's my own dear dwarf!" declared Joan, patting the little man's shoulder with gentle, caressing touch.

"He is called Bambo, but his real own name is Green—Jimmy Green; Green, our gardener's grandson, Aunt Catharine," explained Darby in rapid sentences. "The wicked man and woman took us to their caravan when we were on our way to look for the Happy Land, and only for Bambo we should not have known where to find it. We love him, Aunt Catharine, Auntie Alice. He is ill—very ill, I think. Won't you please be good to him, both of you?" pleaded the boy, in eager, coaxing accents.

The ladies looked from Darby to the dwarf in a bewildered way. Again he attempted to explain his presence there, and again he failed. He was about to steal quietly away—for was not his work done, his mission accomplished?—when all at once the ground seemed to slip from beneath his feet; he swayed, reeled, and with a low moan, as of a hurt animal, fell on the grass border within the gate, at the very feet of the children whose safety he had counted of so much more consequence than his own life.

Darby flung himself on the ground beside the still, pathetic little figure, and Joan, with sobs and cries, implored her dear dwarf to open his eyes, to waken up and speak to his own little missy once more. But the dwarf did not move or speak. His ears were deaf to Darby's tender tones and Joan's insistent pleading.

At this moment Nurse Perry, with Eric in her arms, popped her head out at the front door—just to get a breath of fresh air, as she would have said. For a long minute she gazed at the group by the gate; then with a loud cry, and dumping baby down upon the door mat, she flew along the gravel path, and flinging her arms around the children, she laughed and cried over them by turns.

"My precious pets!" she sobbed. "And have they come back to their poor old Perry? And us thinkin' you was both dead and drownded in the canal. Oh, did I ever!"

"There, nurse, that will do. You'd choke a fellow," declared Darby, wriggling himself out of her clinging embrace. "Of course we're not either dead or drowned. How can you be so silly?"

"Eh! and is it silly you call me for near frettin' myself into the grave about you?" cried nurse, stung by Master Darby's want of feeling.—"Miss Joan won't call nursie silly; sure you won't, lovey? And aren't you glad to get back to your own Perry, and baby, and everything?"

"Yes, werry glad," agreed Joan readily; "and I hope you've got lots and lots of jam and goodies for tea. Has you, nurse? 'cause I's as hung'y as hung'y as anythin'!" she whimpered.

"Yes, darlin', there's a seed-cake and toast, and a whole pot of beautiful strawberry jam that has never been touched. I couldn't eat hardly a mouthful these days for picterin' my pretty lyin' in the mud at the bottom of that slimy, smellin' canal," whined Perry, wiping her eyes on the corner of a much-betrimmed white apron.

"That'll do, Perry," called out Miss Turner, in her usual brisk tones. "Come here; I want you."

"Yes, ma'am," answered Perry meekly. "But oh, ma'am, what's that?" she screamed, noticing for the first time the odd little object on the grass over which the ladies were so anxiously bending. "What ever is it, Miss Alice? Is it a man—that? and is he living?" the woman inquired in a shocked whisper, drawing back her skirts, and gaping with eyes and mouth at the quiet figure huddled in a little heap at Miss Turner's feet. Yet when Perry had been made to understand that it was even to this small creature they owed the safety and return of their darlings, she was as warm in her expressions of gratitude and as eager to be kind to him as her mistresses themselves.

Bambo was carried to a pleasant top room overlooking the lawn and the cedar tree, and laid in a comfortable bed—the most comfortable in which his poor body had ever lain in all his weary life. But its softness did not soothe him; the down pillows were not restful; he paid no heed to the cool freshness of the linen: for when he recovered from the stupor into which he had sunk beside the gate, he was in the grip of an enemy which he would have a hard fight to shake off. The wet and cold to which he had been exposed without sufficient clothing, together with the fatigue he had undergone, working on a constitution already in a critical condition, had brought on pneumonia; and when Dr. King saw him, late that night, he had little hope of being able to save his life.

The next morning, after a long, sound sleep and a good breakfast of porridge and milk, Joan was as bright as a button, petted by Perry, playing with baby, and teasing the pussies. Her troubles were behind, and she did not talk much about her adventures.

But Darby was weak, wandering, and feverish. Dr. King said, however, that his illness was merely the effect of excitement and the strain upon a not over strong system. He would be all right in a few days. He chattered incessantly of the Happy Land, Bruno, Joe, Moll, and the monkey, but in broken snatches from which no reliable information could be gleaned.

Miss Turner would have liked to send the police after the Harrises without a single hour's delay. It was dreadful, she declared, to think of such a wicked pair being permitted to wander at large, working mischief without let or hindrance. But her friends advised her to wait until Darby was well enough to be questioned; or possibly the dwarf might yet be able to furnish such a clue to their haunts and habits as should enable the police to pounce upon them unawares.

For a few days Darby continued in a low and feeble condition; then he took a turn for the better, and soon he was strong enough to listen to Joan's merry prattle, and to be amused by baby's funny attempts at speaking. The weather was still mild and bright; so as soon as he was able to be about he was allowed out into the garden, where the kittens loved to sun themselves in the sheltered corner down by the boxwood border.

Still Bambo's life hung trembling in the balance. The actual disease had abated, but his weakness and want of vitality made his recovery seem almost impossible. One hour he would revive somewhat, and the next sink so low that Miss Turner and Miss Alice felt that at any moment the end might come. Between them they kept constant watch beside the faithful creature, feeling as if nothing that they might do could repay him for the devotion which he had displayed towards the children. Bit by bit they had gathered from Darby and Joan the story of their quest of the Happy Land, what befell them by the way, and all that the dwarf had done to deliver them from the clutches of Thieving Joe, and the captivity of life dragged out within the narrow compass of the Satellite Circus Company's old yellow caravan.

At last a day came when the poor dwarf smiled up into Miss Turner's anxious face with a world of intelligence and gratitude in the eyes whose sweet expression made the wan, pinched features look almost beautiful to the aunt of Darby and Joan. She did not regard him as an object utterly unlike other people, a bit of lumber for which the world could have no real use or fitting place. She remembered only that by this man's promptitude and courage two innocent, helpless children had been rescued from a fate infinitely worse than a peaceful death, with a green grave under the daisies, and those who loved them delivered from a lifelong sorrow. So there were real gladness and true thankfulness in Aunt Catharine's look and voice as she laid a cool hand upon the invalid's brow, saying kindly,—

"You are better, are you not, Bambo?—that is, if it is Bambo I am to call you."

"Yes, ma'am, I do feel better," answered the dwarf, in a low, quavering voice. "And, please, call me Bambo; it is the name little master and missy knows me by."

"You have been very ill, but you will soon be stronger and able to see the children. They come to the door very often to ask for you."

A flush of pleasure crept into the dwarf's hollow cheeks. He was not used to having anybody asking after his health, or interested in him in any way. Then Miss Turner held a cup of nice strong soup to his lips, and soon after he fell into a sweet, refreshing sleep, which lasted many hours.

Dr. King was standing by the bedside when he awoke.

"You've had a close shave, my lad!" he said, in his quick, direct way. "You'll pull through now though.—Plenty of nourishment and perfect rest, that's all he wants in the meantime," added the doctor to Miss Turner, as he hurried off to visit another patient, or perhaps to have a little chat with Miss Alice, who was amusing Darby in the garden, where the bees buzzed and worked about their hives along the sunny south wall.

After seeing the doctor down the stairs Miss Turner came back to the dwarf, and as she entered the room she saw him turn his face away from the window to the wall with a sigh, which filled her heart with pity for the forlorn little being.

"Now, Bambo," she began, "you have done so much for me and mine that I want you to let me be as kind to you as I know how. You have been more than a friend to my dear nephew's children. I desire above all things to be a friend to you."

"O ma'am, that is impossible," answered the dwarf in a choked voice. "You are a lady, while I am nobody—an insignificant, despised object! And don't you know who I really am? Green, your gardener's grandson—Jimmy Green the dwarf, the boy who ran away from Firgrove long ago, when you and Miss Alice were in foreign parts for your eddication!"

"I believe my sister and I were in Paris at that time," answered Miss Turner lightly. "But what difference does the fact of your being Green's grandson make, except to give you an additional claim upon our friendliness? And, Bambo, your grandfather is truly sorry he treated you harshly and unjustly in the past. He has asked me to tell you so, and to say that instead of feeling ashamed of you now, he's really proud to think what you have done for Master Darby and Miss Joan."

"'Twas nothing, nothing," murmured the dwarf in confusion, although his beaming face plainly showed the gratification he felt at his grandfather's message.

"And now," resumed Miss Turner, "if I am to be your friend, you must tell me why you sighed so sadly just now. Come; you won't refuse, I am sure," she added in a persuasive tone.

For a while there was silence in the room. Miss Turner waited for the dwarf to speak. He kept his face towards the wall, and from time to time put up a long, thin hand to wipe away the big tears that forced their way beneath his closed eyelids to trickle slowly on to the snowy pillow in which his head was half hidden.

At length he raised himself in the bed and looked straight at Miss Turner. And as he met the kindly glance of her keen, true eyes, a quick smile parted his lips and shone like a flicker of pale sunlight all over his worn features.

"You are very good, ma'am, so good that because you ask me I will tell you. Well, I was only wishing that I had not got better. I have been ailing for a while back—since last spring—and I was kind of looking forward to getting away home soon," said Bambo, as calmly as if he were talking of a journey to Barchester. "You see, ma'am, it's this way," he explained, in an apologetic tone. "When a body's made like me—just an object for folks to pity, laugh, jeer, and peep at, without a real friend—the world is a poor place in comparison to that one the Lord has prepared and waiting for all who love Him and want to go there."

"Don't, Bambo, don't!" implored Miss Turner, looking at the dwarf through a mist of tears. "You make me feel that I, who have always been strong and well, am one of those who have done so little to make life a less burdensome possession, a pleasanter thing for such as you. Do not be so anxious to depart, dear friend. The little ones love you; your old grandfather needs you. Here you shall always find a home. At Firgrove we will make a place for you as soon as you shall be able to fill it. Meantime you have nothing to do but try to get well. Perfect rest and plenty of nourishment—these are the doctor's orders, and there's nothing for it but obedience."

The dwarf drank in Miss Turner's words, hardly daring to believe he was in his sober senses, for they sounded almost too good to be true. He to stay on at Firgrove with the dear boy and sweet little missy! What had he done that he should be so kindly treated, so generously dealt with? Nothing, Bambo said to himself, less than nothing, for there had been scarcely anything to do.

Nothing? Ah! was it nothing to be willing to lay down his life for those friends of his? nothing to give the cup of cold water in the name of Jesus to two of His children? "Verily, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

From that day the dwarf grew rapidly better, and before the flowers were all gone out of the borders, or the last red and yellow leaves had fluttered from the lime tree on the lawn, he was able to saunter up and down the gravel paths, his hand on Darby's shoulder, the baby holding fast by one of his fingers, with Joan and the kittens frolicking among their feet, and racing here, there, and everywhere, all over the place.

He quite agreed with Miss Turner that from no mistaken feelings of mercy or pity should Joe Harris be shielded from the reach of the law, so he gave all the information that he could supply concerning the rascal's favourite resorts and usual associates. He and the little ones pleaded hard on Moll's behalf; but Dr. King declared that in her case the receiver was as bad as the thief, and she would just have to take her chance along with her husband.

Soon the Barchester police were on their track. They came across Tonio wandering disconsolately about the streets, with only Puck for company. He, however, knew nothing of the movements of his late master, except that the caravan had been returned to its lawful owner, and that the Satellite Circus Company, as a company, had ceased to exist.

But neither Joe, Moll, nor Bruno was anywhere to be found. They had a long start of their pursuers; consequently they had disappeared as completely as last year's snow, leaving not a trace behind.



CHAPTER XVI.

COMING AND GOING.

"For me, my heart that erst did go Most like a tired child at a show, That sees through tears the mummers leap, Would now its wearied vision close, Would childlike on His love repose Who giveth His beloved—sleep."

E. B. BROWNING.

The winter, which proved a mild and open one, passed very pleasantly at Firgrove. By Dr. King's orders Darby and Joan were granted a long holiday, for Darby was still fragile and delicate looking. He had never quite got over the effects of the excitement and fatigue of his travels in search of the Happy Land. They now lived almost out of doors, with the dwarf as their faithful attendant and constant companion. The little ones never wearied of his company, he could entertain them in so many different ways. He showed Darby how to make whistles of the hollow bore-tree stem, and a huge kite, with a lion painted on its surface, the Union Jack flying at its head, and an old map of Africa cut into strips to form the tail. Darby considered this a masterpiece, and laid it carefully by until he could display it to his father in its full significance. He caught a squirrel in the wood for Joan, and tamed the little animal so that it would nibble a nut from her hand, or hold it in its own paws, looking at her the while with fearless, shining eyes, as much as to say,—

"Thank you, little lady. If all children were as good and kind to us wild creatures as you at Firgrove are, we should have a better time of it than many of us often have."

He brought primrose roots from the glen, and planted a bank with them behind the house. He filled the rockeries with rare ferns, and covered over all the waste corners about the grounds with delicate anemones, variegated hyacinths, and the sweet, wild white bluebell, rifled from the darkest recesses of Copsley Wood.

He carved curious wooden animals and toys for Eric, attracting the little fellow so strongly to himself that often he would cry for "Bam'o," and stay quite happily with him for hours, when all poor Perry's nursery tricks had failed to divert him from brooding over a coming tooth or some other infant ailment. Nurse soon grew to count the dwarf among her blessings at Firgrove; while Miss Alice used to smile, and say to her friend Dr. King that she did not know how ever the children had amused themselves before he came.

And day by day, by his little acts of fore-thought for others and loving-kindness towards all with whom he came in contact, he showed them what a Happy Land even the humblest, the youngest can create around them, what an atmosphere of love, what a foretaste of the existence whose essence is love, because God is its centre—that heaven wherein the pure in heart shall dwell for evermore!

And what of Bambo himself? How can one picture or describe such deep happiness as his? He was well aware that he could not live long. At any time a cold or a chill might hasten the end, yet the knowledge caused him no real regret. During his years of loneliness and privation he had learned to regard death as an open door through which he should escape from drudgery, ill-treatment, desolation, into the rest, the love, the happiness that remain to the children of God in that home where there is no death, "neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Now, the wretchedness was all behind. His daily path was hedged around by affection and watchfulness; but Bambo felt that it could not continue. His friends would by-and-by weary of their self-imposed burden. The children would grow up, go away, form new friendships, find fresh interests in life, and where should he be then? No, no; life was a grand, a satisfying, a beautiful thing for the clever, the strong, the brave; but the like of him could have no continuous part, no fixed place in its keen warfare; so for him he felt that it was better to depart than to hang on a weary, sickly weakling. Therefore, when Darby and Joan were looking forward to the coming summer and making their plans for enjoying it, in all of which they included their little friend, the dwarf would smile—his sweet, childlike smile—and say nothing. He did not want to cast a shadow upon their gladness.

The children frequently had letters from their father, for whom they longed with an eagerness that grew keener as the months went by and still the cruel warfare continued, and always the date of his return was put back from time to time. Oh, why did he not come, they cried. They had so much to tell, so many things to show—lots of precious trifles given and gathered since he went away.

Slowly the winter seemed to pass, day by day, week after week, month in month out. Then spring came shyly creeping over the land, with snowdrops nestling in her breast, primroses and violets budding in the grassy banks beneath her feet. Later on pink and white blossoms crowned the orchard trees, balmy breezes gently stirred the opening leaves, azure skies stretched high overhead, daisies carpeted the ground under foot. At length it was actually summer—summer in the first flush of her fresh, untarnished loveliness. And as the children looked out of the nursery window one bright May morning, they remembered with a sudden thrill of joy that at last daddy was coming home. Any day he might be with them—any hour, in fact; for even at that moment the ship might be lying snug and safe at anchor in Southampton Water!

That very evening he arrived—not Captain, but Major Dene, for he had been promoted while he was away. Joan flung herself wildly upon her father, hugging and kissing him with all her might for a minute or two; then she turned her attentions and her fingers towards his pockets, in search of whatever spoil she could find. Darby stood silent and shy, gazing with wide, troubled eyes upon the tall, gaunt man who carried such a cruel scar across the hollow of his bronzed cheek. Then with a low, sobbing cry of "Father! father!" the little lad clasped his arms about his father's neck, and on his father's breast wept out some of the ache, the loneliness, the longing which for many lagging months had lain in such a heavy weight upon his tender, faithful, loving heart.

* * * * *

"Why mayn't we go up to see Bambo this morning, Aunt Catharine?" asked Darby next day, as soon as he and Joan had eaten their breakfast. "We didn't see him at all yesterday, and I have so much to tell him about father and the Boers and Africa and—and—everything."

"And I wants to take him some marigolds," said Joan, holding up a huge bunch nearly as big as her own head.

Aunt Catharine was silent, and Darby almost dropped the rod he was trimming into a stick for baby and looked up into his aunt's face. It was pale and sad, and there were tears in her eyes. "What is it, Aunt Catharine?" inquired the boy. "Has anything vexed you, or are you angry with us?" he added timidly; while Joan rubbed her rosy face up and down against her aunt's hand, for all the world like a confident kitten.

"No, dears, I'm not angry with either of you; why should I?" answered Aunt Catharine quickly. "But I have something to say that will make you both sad, and I don't like doing so."

"It is about Bambo, I am certain," said Darby slowly, throwing down the rod he was whittling, shutting up his precious knife and putting it into his pocket, while a shadow fell upon his face, and clouded the gladness in his eyes. "He's not up yet, and when we were going to his room after we were dressed, nurse dragged us downstairs again; and she looked so funny, as if something had frightened her."

"Please let me go to my dear dwarf, Aunt Catharine," coaxed Joan. "One of Topsy's legs is comin' off, and nobody knows how to mend it 'cept Bambo."

"Bam'o! Bam'o!" cried Eric, at the top of his voice. "Bam'o! tum an' div baby swing—high, high!"

"There, Alice, you tell them, for upon my word I can't," whispered Miss Turner to her sister, who had come into the breakfast-room just behind the children; and catching Eric up in her arms, Aunt Catharine carried him outside into the glory and promise which the beauty of the summer morning held for her saddened spirit.

"Bambo won't be able to mend your doll to-day, Joan," said Auntie Alice gently, lifting the little girl on to her lap and drawing Darby close beside her knee. "He will never talk to you, or amuse you, or do anything for any of us again; because last night, after we were all asleep except your father and Aunt Catharine, God's messenger came and whispered to him that he was wanted—that his errand on earth was done. And early this morning, long before you were awake, when the young birds were yet nestling in the warmth of their mother's wing, ere the lambs were astir in the fields, when the world was hushed in that sweet stillness which awaits the dawn, he went away—away where he will not be weak or sickly any more, where he will no longer be Jimmy Green, the gardener's poor grandson, or Bambo, Joe Harris's musical dwarf, but a new creature, with a new name—a name that is written in the Lamb's book of life!"

Then Auntie Alice soothed and petted the little creatures, talking to them in her soft, caressing voice, telling them once again of that fair country to which their friend had gone. And when their sorrow had sobbed itself dry they stole away to find their father, going on tiptoe, as if they feared to disturb the slumber of their little comrade.

Three days later the dwarf was laid to rest in a corner of the Firdale churchyard beside his mother. Major Dene erected over the spot a rugged granite cross with his name upon it, his age, and the date of his death. And below this he caused to be cut another name—the name by which the dwarf always seemed to know himself best, because by it he was known to those whom he had loved and served so faithfully and so well:—

BAMBO.

"Sown in dishonour, raised in glory."

"Now, what you all require is a thorough change," said Dr. King when he called at Firgrove a few days after Bambo's death. "The young people here have both been through a great deal.—You, my dear sir," to Major Dene, "must make the most of your time, and build up your strength as firmly as possible before you go back to Africa. The ladies, too," he continued, addressing Miss Turner and Miss Alice, "will be all the better of a little holiday, a complete change before—ah—in short, before any further changes take place." And the staid elderly doctor beamed upon Miss Alice, who held down her head, toyed with Joan's curls, and blushed in a most becoming way—the sort of blush which made her gentle face look almost like a girl's again.

"What's you's cheeks gettin' so red for—just like as if you'd got the toofache, eh?" demanded Joan, with awkward directness.

"Are you too hot, Auntie Alice? Shall I draw down the blind?" asked Darby politely. "Or would you prefer to come out into the garden?"

"Yes—no—thank you, dear—that is—" stammered Auntie Alice, in such painful confusion that, although intensely amused, Major Dene felt obliged to come to her rescue.

"Look here, kids!" he said: "I expect you're bound to know later on, so you may as well be told now. Come, and be introduced to your future new uncle—our new uncle!" he added with a laugh, at the same time leading the little ones up to Dr. King.

"Oh!" exclaimed Joan, drawing a long breath and surveying the doctor with her head sideways, like a fastidious young robin eyeing a crumb. "Is that why you was allus comin' to ask if we had headiks, or stumukiks, or if baby wanted castor-oil, and to look at our tongues? I s'pose uncles is like that. Never had none before," she added, still gazing at the stout, bald-headed gentleman in front of her, as if the honour of being her future relative had invested him with a new personality and lent him fresh interest in her eyes.

"What'll Aunt Catharine do without you?" asked Darby of Auntie Alice somewhat reproachfully, and giving but a limp, indifferent shake to the hand which Dr. King held out as a peace-offering.

Auntie Alice glanced timidly and sadly at her sister, for this was the one bitter drop in her cup of sweetness—this severing of the ties which for years and years had bound the two Misses Turner as closely together as the Siamese twins almost.

"Tush!" cried Aunt Catharine briskly, although there were tears in her eyes. "She's not going out of the country. Beechfield is but a short walk from Firgrove; we can meet every day, if we want to. Besides, I have you children, and your father will be back and forward between this and Denescroft—for a while, anyway," added she, laying a loving hand on Darby's head.

The boy pressed closely to her side; but Joan confidently clambered upon her knee, and laid her golden head against her aunt's shoulder.

"Aunt Catharine has got me," she announced, flinging her arms round that lady's neck, creasing the dainty lace collar, crumpling the delicate lilac ribbons, tumbling the neatly-banded hair. But Aunt Catharine did not seem to mind; in fact, she looked as if she rather enjoyed the feel of those soft little hands upon her face, the pressure of those clinging arms about her neck. "I'll stay wif her allus and allus. I used to like Auntie Alice best, but she's got him," Joan went on, pointing a small pink finger at Dr. King, who, it must be admitted, looked a trifle sheepish at being so frankly and openly sat upon in family council; "so now I's goin' to give the most of the love to Aunt Catharine," she declared, bestowing upon her aunt a shower of hearty kisses. "And I'm never goin' to leave her, never, never—unless," she added thoughtfully, "she gets a doctor man too, by-and-by. Then I'd just have to stay wif daddy."

Darby giggled behind Aunt Catharine's back, and the others laughed heartily.

"What would you say to Scotland?" asked Dr. King, well pleased to get gracefully away from a subject which he had been feeling rather personal. "That would be a change indeed—the very thing after South Africa," he added, looking with a keen professional eye at Major Dene's gaunt cheeks and too sharply outlined profile. "There are some pleasant places on the west coast—bracing, yet not too cold. In my boyhood I spent a summer in a village called St. Aidens. It was out of the way, certainly, but you could not go to a more delightful spot."

"St. Aidens!" echoed Miss Turner, with a note of pleasure in her voice. "Why, I stayed there one year too, long ago, with my father. Yes, let us go to St. Aidens by all means," she said heartily. "Your mother could come with us," she continued, addressing her nephew.—"And you," turning to the doctor, "I daresay Alice will make you welcome if you will join us during our stay."

So there and then the question was settled, and by the second week in June to St. Aidens the family went.

* * * * *

It is the time of the yearly fair at St. Aidens. The buying and selling are done, and now the people who have flocked thither in crowds are free to enjoy the shows and performances which make the fair a festival to be looked forward to and back upon as the chief outing of the season.

There are many items of attraction. Here Punch and Judy make public their domestic broils for the benefit of the onlookers—old, young, and middle-aged—whom this sample pair never fail to draw around them wherever they appear. There an Indian juggler squats, the centre of a gaping circle, as without a grimace he swallows swords, scissors, knives, old nails, and scraps of metal that would tax the stomach of an ostrich. Farther away is an Italian basket-maker, with olive skin and oily manners; while leaning listlessly against the railing behind him is a woman—his wife, probably—with dusky hair, and sad dark eyes which hardly seem to see her green love-birds pecking knowingly at their pack of dirty cards. Along near the pier a negro minstrel with his banjo is singing one of the simple melodies of his race, its sad, sweet refrain almost drowned in the roars of laughter called forth by a chalky-faced clown, who appears to be not a compound of flesh, blood, and nerves like ordinary mortals, but just a bundle of wire springs and india-rubber balls.

The hobby-horses go round and round, with their ever-changing load, in monotonous regularity. The switchback railway sways up and down to the time of its own mechanical music, amid shrieks of delight and peals of merriment; while youngsters yell aloud with excitement or fear as the gaudily-painted gondolas swing them up higher and higher than before.

The noise is deafening. Between the cries of ice-cream vendors, the high-pitched eloquence of medicine-men, peddlers, tired children, and scolding mothers, it is well-nigh maddening. Still the crowd elbows and jostles along, gradually growing noisier and denser. There they mingle shoulder to shoulder, the squalid and the well-to-do, lads and lasses, boys and girls, husbands and wives, grave and gay; while friendly greetings are exchanged, light jests bandied as they move backwards and forwards, intent upon the fun of the fair, with hardly a glance for the feast of beauty which nature has spread around them with such a lavish hand.

Along the level ground above the beach the tents and caravans are drawn up in orderly array. Stretching away from the shore is the bay, lying calm and unruffled under the summer sky, except when its glassy surface is rippled by the dip of an oar or churned into froth by the restless pulsations of a passing steamer. Across the bay the hills rise beautiful and purple-blue through the evening glow, throwing out encircling arms around the villages dotted thick and white along their base, as the arms of a mother are open wide to infold her nestling children.

Away to the left the bay stretches on till its waters are merged in ocean; while to the east, above the little town, with its swarming streets, its bustling railway station, its quiet cemetery, its chimneys, and its spires, rises another range of hills, seeming in their nearness like a God-built barrier between that old-world village on the Scottish coast and the steadily advancing steps of the great city which lies beyond.



CHAPTER XVII.

ADIEU!

"We need love's tender lessons taught As only weakness can; God hath His small interpreters— The child must teach the man.

"Of such the kingdom! Teach Thou us, O Master most divine, To feel the deep significance Of these wise words of Thine!

"The haughty eye shall seek in vain What innocence beholds; No cunning finds the key of heaven, No strength its gate unfolds.

"Alone to guilelessness and love That gate shall open fall; The mind of pride is nothingness, The childlike heart is all."

WHITTIER.

Six o'clock had chimed from the church tower, and already the sun's rays were falling slantwise across the water, and tingeing the kingly heights of Arran with a royal purple radiance.

On a bench, somewhat removed from the bustle and the hubbub, Major Dene sat smoking and dreaming. He had come out a little while before to seek the children, who, along with Perry, were enjoying the fresh sights and novelties to the full. From where he lounged he could see them standing on the fringe of a crowd that had rapidly collected on the road right in front of one of the hotels.

It was not a safe stand for little people; not a fitting place for them to be, either. Perry should have more sense and less curiosity, thought Major Dene, as he sent the stump of his cigar hissing and sputtering into the placid blue water at his feet, and rose to join the children and accompany them home; for it was their tea-time, and going on quickly for the dinner-hour at Westfield, the comfortable house where the family from Firgrove had temporarily taken up their abode.

All this time the youngsters had been straining and tiptoeing to get a glimpse at whatever was causing so much interest and excitement amongst those of the pleasure-seekers who were fortunate enough to have a peep. Just then the crowd swayed and split, so that through the opening they had an uninterrupted view of the performers who had drawn about them so many of the sightseers.

They numbered three—an ugly red-haired man, with coarse features and squint eye, armed with a heavy-handled dog-whip; a tall, black-browed, sad-faced woman; and a bear, big, brown, shaggy, and savage-looking.

For one long moment the children gazed at the group as if spellbound. Then, with a ringing cry from Joan and a choking sob from Darby, they instinctively clutched at each other's hands and fled in the direction of the open ground beside the water, coming bang up against their father just as he was sauntering slowly forward to join them.

"Daddy, daddy! the bear, the bear!" screamed Joan, hiding her small, scared face against her father's arm, burrowing her fluffy head beneath his coat like a frightened rabbit.

"Do you know what the people over there are staring at, father?" asked Darby, in a low, strained voice, while his lips quivered so that he could hardly articulate the words. "It's Joe, father, Thieving Joe—Joe Harris and Moll! They've got Bruno with them—the bear, you remember—and he's dancing and capering. But there's foam at his mouth, and his eyes are glittering; for Joe's raging at him just the way he used to do, and lashing him on his legs with the long whip. Oh, it's dreadful!" and the boy shuddered, more at the recollection of past terror than in fear of present danger. His father's strong fingers were folded firmly round his little hand; so he held up his head and tried to feel brave.

"Are you sure?" asked Major Dene, in a queer, tense tone—a tone which Darby had never heard from his father in all his life before.

"Quite, quite sure," answered the boy decidedly. "Do you think I could be mistaken?"

"And I's sure too," added Joan, lifting her head for the first time, and looking timidly about her with wide, tearful blue eyes, as if she expected to see Bruno waiting to play at hide-and-seek with her from behind her father's back. "I'd like to speak to Mrs. Moll, 'cause she heard me say my p'ayers and put me to bed. But I don't want never to see that howid Joe or the dwedful big bear no more. Please pwomise you won't let them come near us, daddy!" she begged in piteous accents.

"Take the children home at once—directly," said Major Dene to Perry, who, breathless and flushed, at this point joined them, with Eric kicking and struggling in her arms, quite cross, because he wanted a longer look at the huge beast, which in his baby eyes appeared neither more nor less than a great big pussy cat.

"Please, sir—" began Perry; but the expression of her master's face checked the words, whatever she had intended to say, on the woman's lips, and obediently she drew the little ones away. It was such a look as his men might have seen in their commander's eyes as he doggedly led them on to avenge some of the blood that has flowed so free and red to enrich the arid plains of South Africa, at the cost, alas! of the impoverishment of many a desolated heart. But none of his home folks had ever seen those frank, smiling eyes snap and sparkle in the way they did now, like broken steel; not one of them would have imagined that those almost boyish features could set in such stern, grim lines as they fell into while he waited for the much and long desired interview with the rascal who had tried to rob him of his children.

Major Dene stood and watched until Perry and her charges had turned up a side street that would take them straight to Westfield. Then grasping his tough Malacca firmly in his supple fingers, he strode swiftly forward to face the foe.

As he came close to the mob of people around the performers there arose a hoarse shout, mingled with shrill screams and piercing cries. Then the crowd surged, broke, scattered, and fled hither and thither in panic, until, in an incredibly short time, there were only about half a dozen who stood their ground to watch the closing scene in the final exhibition given by the remaining members of the old Satellite Circus Company.

It was, in truth, a gruesome spectacle! A huge beast—maddened to fury by the sharp lashes of a stinging whip, blinded by the blows that had fallen thick and fast about his head and ears, goaded by the memory of years of cruelty and brutality—crushing to death in his hairy embrace his tormentor, as together they rolled over and over in the thick white dust of the village street, not a sound breaking the awesome silence but the fierce, deep growling of the savage bear and the wild, hysterical weeping of a terrified woman.

For one brief, breathless moment Major Dene held back, gazing in horror at the unequal combat. Then, forgetting everything except that there on the ground before him was a fellow-creature in dire need of help, he sprang to the rescue. With one hand he tried to drag the brute off its victim by the leather collar that encircled its neck, while with the cane, which he still held in the other hand, he belaboured it smartly about the snout and eyes. Fired by one man's courage, several others came to his assistance, and among them they at length succeeded in securing Bruno. But not before his thirst for revenge was satisfied; for when Joe Harris was lifted and laid gently down upon the soft greensward alongside the sea, one glance was sufficient to show the medical man, who was quickly on the spot, that he was beyond the reach of human aid.

Yea, verily, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

* * * * *

"Couldn't we help poor Mrs. Moll somehow, father?" suggested Darby next morning, after their father had briefly told the children that Thieving Joe was dead, and Bruno had been taken in charge by an enterprising organ-grinder, who, shrewdly surmising the real state of feeling between the brute and his late master which had led to such an awful tragedy, promised to be answerable for his good behaviour in the future. "She tried to help us as well as she knew how. Bambo thought so too."

"Let us take her back to Firgrove wif us, Aunt Catharine," coaxed Joan; "she can do heaps and heaps of fings, I know."

"I'm afraid that would hardly do, little one," answered Aunt Catharine, shaking her head. "But we'll think it over, and do the kindest thing we can for the poor creature."

The following day Major Dene and his aunt bent their steps towards the village, intending to seek out Moll, have a talk with her, and befriend her in whatever way should seem wisest and best. But although they sought high and low, peering inside canvas caves, walking boldly into booths and marquees, haunting Aunt Sally alleys and shooting galleries, inquiring of her probable whereabouts from any likely person they saw, Mrs. Harris was not to be found. She must, they concluded, have caught a glimpse of Darby and Joan, taken fright, and, fearful of consequences, made off.

So there was an end of all kindly intentions towards poor Moll, who, under other circumstances, might have been a better woman. And who can say that after her husband's tragic death, aided possibly by the altered conditions of her life, she would not henceforth endeavour to live more honestly than she had done hitherto? Certainly Aunt Catharine hoped she would, but Joan believed she should. And for some subtle, inexplicable reason Darby felt that Joan was right.

* * * * *

If you journey some day through the heart of happy England, it may be that you will come upon the village of Firdale, and not far away, sheltering snugly in the hollow below Copsley Wood, the old-fashioned, handsome homestead of Firgrove.

Darby and Joan are a big boy and girl now. Eric is in knickerbockers, and trots quite proudly up the hill to Copsley Farm and down again, all by his own self! There is a bright, clever governess at Firdale, and Joan has quite left off dolls. Even Miss Carolina, the well-beloved, has long since ceased to charm. Darby is at school—a real, proper boys' school, as he says, where they have forms and fags, masters and mischief in plenty.

But he and Joan still preserve their spirits pure, simple, single, childlike, as they were on that bright October morning when, hand in hand, they set out to seek the Happy Land.

And now, having accompanied them so far, let us wish them for the remainder of their journey "Bon voyage!" and thus take leave of our Two Little Travellers.

THE END