Johnny Ludlow, First Series. Mrs. Henry Wood
tinker’s. ’Twasn’t of much account, whichever it was.”
Tod gave a spring. “Whereabouts?” was all he asked. And Budd explained where. Tod went off like a shot, and I after him.
If you are familiar with Alcester, or have visited at Ragley or anything of that sort, you must know the long green lane leading to Cookhill; it is dark with overhanging trees, and uphill all the way. We took that road—Tod first, and I next; and we came to the top, and turned in the direction Budd had described the tent to be in.
It was not to be called dark; the nights never are at midsummer; and rays from the bright light in the west glimmered through the trees. On the outskirts of the coppice, in a bit of low ground, we saw the tent, a little mite of a thing, looking no better than a funnel turned upside down. Sounds were heard within it, and Tod put his finger on his lip while he listened. But we were too far off, and he took his boots off, and crept up close.
Sounds of wailing—of some one in pain. But that Tod had been three parts out of his senses all the afternoon, he might have known at once that they did not come from Lena, or from any one so young. Words mingled with them in a woman’s voice; uncouth in its accents, nearly unintelligible, an awful sadness in its tones.
“A bit longer! a bit longer, Corry, and he’d ha’ been back. You needn’t ha’ grudged it to us. Oh——h! if ye had but waited a bit longer!”
I don’t write it exactly as she spoke; I shouldn’t know how to spell it: we made a guess at half the words. Tod, who had grown white again, put on his boots, and lifted up the opening of the tent.
I had never seen any scene like it; I don’t suppose I shall ever see another. About a foot from the ground was a raised surface of some sort, thickly covered with dark green rushes, just the size and shape of a gravestone. A little child, about as old as Lena, lay on it, a white cloth thrown over her, and just touching the white, still face. A torch, blazing and smoking away, was thrust into the ground and lighted up the scene. Whiter the face looked now, because it had been tawny in life. I would rather see one of our faces in death than a gipsy’s. The contrast between the white face and dress of the child, and the green bed of rushes it lay on was something remarkable. A young woman, dark too, and handsome enough to create a commotion at the fair, knelt down, her brown hands uplifted; a gaudy ring on one of the fingers, worth sixpence perhaps when new, sparkled in the torchlight. Tod strode up to the dead face and looked at it for full five minutes. I do believe he thought at first that it was Lena.
“What is this?” he asked.
“It is my dead child!” the woman answered. “She did not wait that her father might see her die!”
But Tod had his head full of Lena, and looked round. “Is there no other child here?”
As if to answer him, a bundle of rags came out of a corner and set up a howl. It was a boy of about seven, and our going in had wakened him up. The woman sat down on the ground and looked at us.
“We have lost a child—a little girl,” explained Tod. “I thought she might have been brought here—or have strayed here.”
“I’ve lost my girl,” said the woman. “Death has come for her!” And, when speaking to us, she spoke more intelligibly than when alone.
“Yes; but this child has been lost—lost out of doors! Have you seen or heard anything of one?”
“I’ve not been in the way o’ seeing or hearing, master; I’ve been in the tent alone. If folks had come to my aid, Corry might not have died. I’ve had nothing but water to put to her lips all day?”
“What was the matter with her?” Tod asked, convinced at length that Lena was not there.
“She have been ailing long—worse since the moon come in. The sickness took her with the summer, and the strength began to go out. Jake have been down, too. He couldn’t get out to bring us help, and we have had none.”
Jake was the husband, we supposed. The help meant food, or funds to get it with.
“He sat all yesterday cutting skewers, his hands a’most too weak to fashion ’em. Maybe he’d sell ’em for a few ha’pence, he said; and he went out this morning to try, and bring home a morsel of food.”
“Tod,” I whispered, “I wish that hard-hearted Molly had——”
“Hold your tongue, Johnny,” he interrupted sharply. “Is Jake your husband?” he asked of the woman.
“He is my husband, and the children’s father.”
“Jake would not be likely to steal a child, would he?” asked Tod, in a hesitating manner, for him.
She looked up, as if not understanding. “Steal a child, master! What for?”
“I don’t know,” said Tod. “I thought perhaps he had done it, and had brought the child here.”
Another comical stare from the woman. “We couldn’t feed these of ours; what should we do with another?”
“Well: Jake called at our house to sell his skewers; and, directly afterwards, we missed my little sister. I have been hunting for her ever since.”
“Was the house far from here!”
“A few miles.”
“Then he have sunk down of weakness on his way, and can’t get back.”
Putting her head on her knees, she began to sob and moan. The child—the living one—began to bawl; one couldn’t call it anything else; and pulled at the green rushes.
“He knew Corry was sick and faint when he went out. He’d have got back afore now if his strength hadn’t failed him; though, maybe, he didn’t think of death. Whist, then, whist, then, Dor,” she added, to the boy.
“Don’t cry,” said Tod to the little chap, who had the largest, brightest eyes I ever saw. “That will do no good, you know.”
“I want Corry,” said he. “Where’s Corry gone?”
“She’s gone up to God,” answered Tod, speaking very gently. “She’s gone to be a bright angel with Him in heaven.”
“Will she fly down to me?” asked Dor, his great eyes shining through their tears at Tod.
“Yes,” affirmed Tod, who had a theory of his own on the point, and used to think, when a little boy, that his mother was always near him, one of God’s angels keeping him from harm. “And after a while, you know, if you are good, you’ll go to Corry, and be an angel, too.”
“God bless you, master!” interposed the woman. “He’ll think of that always.”
“Tod,” I said, as we went out of the tent, “I don’t think they are people to steal children.”
“Who’s to know what the man would do?” retorted Tod.
“A man with a dying child at home wouldn’t be likely to harm another.”
Tod did not answer. He stood still a moment, deliberating which way to go. Back to Alcester?—where a conveyance might be found to take us home, for the fatigue was telling on both of us, now that disappointment was prolonged, and I, at least, could hardly put one foot before another. Or down to the high-road, and run the chance of some vehicle overtaking us? Or keep on amidst these fields and hedgerows, which would lead us home by a rather nearer way, but without chance of a lift? Tod made up his mind, and struck down the lane the way we had come up. He was on first, and I saw him suddenly halt, and turn to me.
“Look here, Johnny!”
I looked as well as I could for the night and the trees, and saw something on the ground. A man had sunk down there, apparently from exhaustion. His face was a tawny white, just like the dead child’s. A stout stick and the bundles of