in every limb, startled and almost terrified by the oppressiveloneliness of the night, sure that the insect life which surrounded her,and which would keep up successions of chirps, and croaks, and buzzes,was something mysterious and terrifying. Annie was a brave child, buteven brave little girls may be allowed to possess nerves under herpresent conditions, and when a spider ran across her face she started upwith a scream of terror. At this moment she almost regretted the closeand dirty lodgings which she might have obtained for a few pence atOakley. The hay in the field which she had selected was partly cut andpartly standing. The cut portion had been piled up into little cocksand hillocks, and these, with the night shadows round them, appeared tothe frightened child to assume large and half-human proportions. Shefound she could not sleep any longer. She wrapped her shawl tightlyround her, and, crouching into the hedge-row, waited for the dawn.
That watched-for dawn seemed to the tired child as if it would nevercome; but at last her solitary vigil came to an end, the cold grewgreater, a little gentle breeze stirred the uncut grass, and up in thesky overhead the stars became fainter and the atmosphere clearer. Thencame a little faint flush of pink, then a brighter light, and then allin a moment the birds burst into a perfect jubilee of song, the insectstalked and chirped and buzzed in new tones, the hay-cocks became simplyhay-cocks, the dew sparkled on the wet grass, the sun had risen, and thenew day had begun.
Annie sat up and rubbed her tired eyes. With the sunshine andbrightness her versatile spirits revived; she buckled on her couragelike an armour, and almost laughed at the miseries of the past fewhours. Once more she believed that success and victory would be hers,once more in her small way she was ready to do or die. She believedabsolutely in the holiness of her mission. Love--love alone simple andpure, was guiding her. She gave no thought to after-consequences, shegave no memory to past events: her object now was to rescue Nan, and sheherself was nothing.
Annie had a fellow-feeling, a rare sympathy with every little child; butno child had ever come to take Nan's place with her. The child she hadfirst begun to notice simply out of a naughty spirit of revenge, hadtwined herself round her heart, and Annie loved Nan all the more dearlybecause she had long ago repented of stealing her affections fromHester, and would gladly have restored her to her old place next toHetty's heart. Her love for Nan, therefore, had the purity andgreatness which all love that calls forth self-sacrifice must possess.Annie had denied herself, and kept away from Nan of late. Now, indeed,she was going to rescue her; but if she thought of herself at all, itwas with the certainty that for this present act of disobedience MrsWillis would dismiss her from the school, and she would not see littleNan again.
Never mind that, if Nan herself was saved. Annie was disobedient, buton this occasion she was not unhappy; she had none of that remorse whichtroubled her so much after her wild picnic in the fairies' field. Onthe contrary, she had a strange sense of peace and even guidance; shehad confessed this sin to Mrs Willis, and, though she was suspected offar worse, her own innocence kept her heart untroubled. The verse whichhad occurred to her two mornings before still rang in her ears--
"A soul which has sinned and is pardoned again."
The impulsive, eager child was possessed just now of something which mencall True Courage; it was founded on the knowledge that God would helpher, and was accordingly calm and strengthening.
Annie rose from her damp bed, and looked around her for a little streamwhere she might wash her face and hands; suddenly she remembered thatface and hands were dyed, and that she would do best to leave themalone. She smoothed out as best she could the ragged elf-locks whichthe gipsy maid had left on her curly head, and then, covering her facewith her hands, said simply and earnestly--"Please, my Father in heaven,help me to find little Nan;" then she set off through the cornfields inthe direction of the gipsies' encampment.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE.
TIGER.
It was still very, very early in the morning, and the gipsy folk, tiredfrom their march on the preceding day, slept. There stood the conical,queer-shaped tents, four in number; at a little distance off grazed thedonkeys and a couple of rough mules; at the door of the tents laystretched out in profound repose two or three dogs.
Annie dreaded the barking of the dogs, although she guessed that if theyset up a noise, and a gipsy wife or man put out their heads inconsequence, they would only desire the gipsy child to lie down and keepquiet.
She stood still for a moment--she was very anxious to prowl around theplace and examine the ground while the gipsies still slept, but thewatchful dogs deterred her. She stood perfectly quiet behind thehedge-row, thinking hard. Should she trust to a charm she knew shepossessed, and venture into the encampment? Annie had almost as great afascination over dogs and cats as she had over children. As a littlechild going to visit with her mother at strange houses, the watch-dogsnever barked at her; on the contrary, they yielded to the charm whichseemed to come from her little fingers as she patted their great heads.Slowly their tails would move backwards and forwards as she petted them,and even the most ferocious would look at her with affection.
Annie wondered if the gipsy dogs would now allow her to approach withoutbarking. She felt that the chances were in her favour; she was dressedin gipsy garments, there would be nothing strange in her appearance, andif she could get near one of the dogs she knew that she could exercisethe magic of her touch.
Her object, then, was to approach one of the tents very, very quietly--so softly that even the dog's ears should not detect the light footfall.If she could approach close enough to put her hand on the dog's neckall would be well. She pulled off the gipsy maid's rough shoes, hidthem in the grass where she could find them again, and came gingerly,step by step, nearer and nearer the principal tent. At its entrance laya ferocious-looking half-bred bull-dog. Annie possessed that necessaryaccompaniment to courage--great outward calm; the greater the danger,the more cool and self-possessed did she become. She was within a stepor two of the tent when she trod accidentally on a small twig: itcracked, giving her foot a sharp pain, and, very slight as the soundwas, causing the bull-dog to awake. He raised his wicked face, saw thefigure like his own people, and yet unlike, but a step or two away, and,uttering a low growl, sprang forward.
In the ordinary course of things this growl would have risen in volumeand would have terminated in a volley of barking; but Annie wasprepared: she went down on her knees, held out her arms, said, "Poorfellow!" in her own seductive voice, and the bull-dog fawned at herfeet. He licked one of her hands while she patted him gently with theother.
"Come, poor fellow," she said then in a gentle tone, and Annie and thedog began to perambulate round the tents.
The other dogs raised sleepy eyes, but seeing Tiger and the girltogether, took no notice whatever, except by a thwack or two of theirstumpy tails. Annie was now looking not only at the tents, but forsomething else which Zillah, her nurse, had told her might be found nearto many gipsy encampments. This was a small subterranean passage, whichgenerally led into a long-disused underground Danish fort. Zillah hadtold her what uses the gipsies liked to make of these undergroundpassages, and how they often chose those which had two entrances. Shetold her that in this way they eluded the police, and were enabledsuccessfully to hide the goods which they stole. She had also describedto her their great ingenuity in hiding the entrances to theseunderground retreats.
Annie's idea now was that little Nan was hidden in one of these vaults,and she determined first to make sure of its existence, and then toventure herself into this underground region in search of the lostchild.
She had made a decided conquest in the person of Tiger, who followed herround and round the tents, and when the gipsies at last began to stirand Annie crept into the hedge-row, the dog crouched by her side. Tigerwas the favourite dog of the camp, and presently one of the men calledto him; he rose unwillingly, looked back with longing eyes at Annie, andtrotted off, to return in the space of about five minutes with a
greatbunch of broken bread in his mouth. This was his breakfast, and hemeant to share it with his new friend. Annie was too hungry to befastidious, and she also knew the necessity of keeping up her strength.She crept still farther under the hedge, and the dog and girl shared thebroken bread between them.
Presently the tents were all astir; the gipsy children began to swarmabout, the women lit fires in the open air, and the smell of veryappetising breakfasts filled the atmosphere. The men also lounged intoview, standing lazily at the doors of their tents, and smoking greatpipes of tobacco. Annie lay quiet. She could see from her hiding-placewithout being seen. Suddenly--and her eyes began to dilate, and shefound her heart beating strangely--she laid her hand on Tiger, who wasquivering all over.
"Stay with me, dear dog," she said.
There was a great commotion and excitement in the gipsy camp; thechildren screamed and ran into the tents, the women paused in