He slid cautiously off the shelf, helped Joan to put on her frock and tie her shawl round her again; then they opened the door, stole down the steps, and there they paused in dismay. The caravan had come to a standstill, and been drawn up on the edge of a stretch of dreary common; the horses were unyoked, and grazing near by. Along the further boundary of the common wound a broad, level highway, bordered by a wide footpath; and in the distance, from the valley front, rose the towers, spires, and smoking chimneys of a large-sized town. But Firgrove, Hill Difficulty, and the Happy Land all lay behind--far, far away!

CHAPTER X.

THE HAPPY LAND.

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy."

WORDSWORTH.

"To be good is to be happy; angels Are happier than men because they're better."

ROWE.

"Now, please, Mrs. Joe, will you show Joan and me the nearest way to the place where you found us?" asked Darby in all good faith when they had finished their breakfast. It had been a most unusual one for them, and not much of a treat: the bread was dry, the bacon strong smelling, the bitter coffee guiltless of either cream or milk, and poor Joan made many a wry face in her efforts to get it down.

"Time enough, time enough," answered Mrs. Joe cheerily, yet with a shamefaced look. "What's yer hurry? Are you so keen to leave us, eh?"

she asked, fixing her bold, smiling eyes on the earnest countenance of the little lad.

"No--that is--ah--not 'zactly," stammered Darby, feeling himself in a fix between truth and politeness. "We didn't come on a visit, you know; we came only for the night. And you promised to let us go this morning after breakfast, and to show us the way."

Molly only laughed, looking this way and that; but Joe began roughly,--

"Look ee here now, young Hop-o'-my-thumb, we've had enough o' this humbug. Ye're both here, an' here ye're goin' to stay till I've done wi'

ye. Do you heed?" he shouted, gripping Darby by the shoulder and giving him a hearty shake, while the dwarf's sunken eyes flashed with an angry gleam.

Joan began to whimper softly into the folds of her tartan shawl, but Darby looked from the black-browed woman to the coa.r.s.e, red-haired man with stern, reproachful eyes.

"You promised--_she_ promised," he said bravely, although his lips were quivering piteously, and all the healthy colour had fled from his cheeks, leaving them pale as the petals of a faded white rose.

Moll laughed again more loudly than before. Did the little softy really believe that big folks meant everything they said? And looking into her broadly-smiling face and unscrupulous eyes, Darby Dene had his first lesson in the meaning of deceit. He there and then began to realize that there are people in the world to whom falsehood comes easy, who think little or nothing of a broken vow.

"Why do you wish us to stay with you?" he asked, turning to Joe as the more hopeful of the two, because Joe said pretty much what he meant, and Moll did not. "You don't love us, and of course you can't expect that we can be very fond of you after--after--well, we know you for only such a little while. Do please let us go," urged the child in pleading tones; and now the big tears rolled down his cheeks and splashed in heavy drops, like a summer shower, over the breast of his shabby velvet blouse, while Joan sat and stared from Moll to Joe in wide-eyed silent terror.

"Not likely!" replied Mr. Harris, with an ugly laugh. "You're goin' to begin yer eddication, my son, an' little missy here too. So now shut up, an' let's have no more o' yer blubb'rin'. Ye're goin' to do as I bid ye, or if ye don't I'll manage to learn ye, I'm thinkin'. Eh?" he cried, playfully pinching Joan's small pink ear until she screamed with pain, then glancing from face to face of the party gathered around the f.a.got fire, fingering idly at the same time the heavy whip in his belt with which he kept Bruno to his tasks. "An' min', if ye try to slope--to run away--well, it'll be all the worse for ye an' for anybody as helps ye,"

he added savagely, with a scowl in the direction of the dwarf, who sat a little apart, his head leaning upon his hands, his barely-tasted breakfast on the ground beside him.

Joe then lighted his pipe, took a gun and some rabbit-snares from the caravan, and shouting to Tonio to look sharp, he sauntered off in the direction of the fir plantation, with the black boy following dutifully at his heels.

Moll shortly after retired within the caravan, where they could hear her singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of a rollicking street song as if for her own diversion; then--with only the dwarf, the bear, and the monkey to witness their distress--Darby and Joan threw themselves on the gra.s.s, where, wrapped in each other's arms, they gave free vent to their disappointment and dismay.

Bruno rolled on the ground, grunted, sat up and blinked at the children out of his funny little slits of eyes, but he said nothing. Puck skipped hither and thither, chattering and jabbering as if begging them to forget their grief and crack some nuts for him instead. The dwarf sat motionless, his head still sunk upon his hands, as if he had forgotten their very presence, yet all the time he was watching them through his fingers. And as soon as their sobs had subsided into long-drawn, gasping sighs, such as the west wind makes in a wide chimney, he left his place, and sitting down between them, put a long arm around the shoulders of each, and drew them close beside him.

He was only a dwarf, but in his heart there were pity and love for all creatures helpless and weaker than himself. And because of this he was like G.o.d--_he_, Bambo the object: mean, lowly, poor, so far as money went, yet rich in the priceless power of loving, which is beyond the riches of gold or lands; for is not love of G.o.d? Is not G.o.d Himself the beginning, centre, end--nay, not _end_, because it endureth for ever--of all real, true love? And in their desolation Darby and Joan turned to him with a feeling of confidence and hope.

"Now, I want to hear everything," he said coaxingly; "then perhaps I shall be able to help you. You must be quick, for Joe and Tonio won't stay long away. There's no rabbits or birds over there, I'm sure," he continued, nodding his great head in the direction of the plantation, "and at any moment Moll may come and interrupt us."

Then Darby told their odd new friend everything, as he had desired the child to do--who they were, where they lived, why they had left their home, whither they were bound, and what had befallen them upon the journey.

"Dear, dear!" exclaimed Bambo when the recital was ended, and Darby paused to draw a long breath. "Firgrove! Turner of Firgrove! Old Squire Turner folks about Firdale used to call him. Why, my grandfather, Moses Green, was gardener there once upon a time."

"And he's there yet!" declared Darby, looking highly delighted at the discovery. "Green my aunts call him; an old, old man with white hair and a bended back--'all 'count o' the rheumatiz,' he says."

"Ay, ay! so grandad's still alive. Deary me! deary me! Although he always had a sort of spite at me for being as I am," added the dwarf to himself.

"Had you never no muver?" demanded Joan curiously; "or does funny-lookin' peoples like you just grow the way Topsy did? Topsy never had no muver. That was 'cause she was black, I s'pose; and Tonio won't have none either?"

"Yes, I had a mother once, missy--a good and loving mother, and a kind grandmother too. But they are both gone this many a year ago, and--except grandad, who doesn't count--I have neither kith nor kin in the world."

Bambo sighed deeply, overcome by sad memories. A tear trickled slowly down his hollow, weather-beaten cheek, and Joan put up a smudgy, gentle, little hand to wipe it away.

"Don't be sorry, please, dear dwarf. Joan loves you; you's so kind to Joan," she murmured.

"Couldn't _we_ be your kith and kin?" asked Darby anxiously. "I expect by 'kith and kin' you just mean friends. We'll be your friends if you'd like us to. We're both very fond of you already.--Aren't we, Joan?"

"Yes, werry," Joan a.s.sented warmly, continuing to caress the dwarf's haggard face with her soft, chubby fingers.

"Bless your dear, loving little hearts!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed fervently, looking from one to the other of the earnest faces raised so trustfully to his. "Them's the sweetest words that anybody has spoken to poor Bambo this many's the day--since my mother died. _She_ always had gentle words and sweet looks in plenty for her misshapen boy; and granny too, bless her! But after they went and left me the world seemed all cold and cruel, with nothing better for the likes of me than cuffs and kicks. It was always, 'Get out of the way, you object!' 'Oh, poor wretch! how horrid-looking he is!' or else jeers, gibes, and laughter. And since I became a man, _this_ kind of a man, I mean," he explained, glancing from Joan to his stunted limbs, huge feet, and claw-like hands, "it has been harder still--harsh words and heavy blows if I did not bring in money enough at shows and fairs. Now, I think the Lord Jesus has seen my loneliness, taken pity upon me, and sent two of His own to cheer me, and brighten a bit of the wilderness for a weary pilgrim. And we'll see if the dwarf can't do something to show his grat.i.tude," said Bambo resolutely, yet speaking softly as if to himself. "Firgrove! And this is Barchester, you may say--only about three miles from it as the crow flies--and Barchester's thirty odd miles from Firdale. It's not so far after all, and yet it would be a goodish bit to tramp," he added thoughtfully.

"But do you think we must go home?" queried Darby anxiously. "You see, when Mr. Joe and Mrs. Moll overtook us we were on our way, as I told you, to the Happy Land--we were quite close to it, in fact. Would it be right to turn back now?" the little lad asked, fixing his clear gray eyes seriously on the face of the dwarf. "Wouldn't we be like somebody--I forget who--that put his hand to the plough and looked back?

Didn't Jesus say that it's wrong of any one to do that?"

"Ay, sonny, our blessed Lord does say that 'no man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of G.o.d;' and, of course, we oughtn't to do it. But we must first make sure that we've put our hands upon the right plough, that it's pointed in the proper direction in the very field the great Husbandman wants us to turn over.

Then we can forge right ahead, cutting the furrow clean and straight, no matter how stony the soil, or how stiff we find the ground."

"I _think_ I understand what you mean," said Darby slowly. "You are trying to tell me as nicely as you can that we haven't got our plough pointed in the right direction. Is that it, Mr. Bambo?"

"That's it, deary, and the sooner you get it turned about the better,"

replied the dwarf briskly. "Your field's waiting for you at Firgrove, so back there you and missy must go as soon as ever you can give Joe and Moll the slip. My, won't the ladies be in a fine way! By this time, I expect, they'll have scoured the country, and be getting the ca.n.a.l dragged in search of you both."

"Isn't we goin' to the Happy Land at all, then?" asked Joan, in a tone of glad relief.

She had been listening to the talk between Bambo and her brother in somewhat of a puzzle as to their meaning. She had, however, gathered the gist of their remarks, and is that not about all that is worth gathering of most conversations?

"Wait a little," whispered Darby, gently prodding her behind the dwarf's back. "Don't be in such a hurry. We're coming to that."

"'Cause if we isn't," continued Joan the irrepressible, "I's werry, werry glad. I doesn't know nuffin' 'bout the Happy Land--nuffin' much, anyway, 'cept what nurse's hymn says--but I knows Firgrove, and I love Auntie Alice, and the p.u.s.s.ies, and baby when he's not cryin'. They's quite 'nuff for me--just now at least," she added as an after-thought.

"And I wants to go back to Miss Carolina and the rest of my dear, sweet dollies. Darby wouldn't let me bring none of them wif me. Now I's lonesome for them," she whimpered, "and I won't go to no Happy Land wifout my fings. There!" declared the mutinous little maid, with an emphatic waggle of her sunny head, such as she had seen Perry finish up with when argument waxed warm between her and Molly the cook.

And just as Captain Dene had smiled sympathetically over a similar speech of his small daughter's, so did the dwarf bend an understanding gaze upon the winsome, wilful face, with its dewy eyes and quivering lips. At the same time there came back to his memory a verse of a hymn or poem, Bambo did not know which, that his mother had been very fond of and often repeated:--

"Fair Anwoth by the Solway, To me thou still art dear; E'en from the verge of heaven I drop for thee a tear.

Oh, if one soul from Anwoth Meet me at G.o.d's right hand, My heaven will be two heavens In Immanuel's land."

"Should we try to go to the Happy Land some other time, do you think, Mr. Bambo?" asked Darby anxiously, half frightened and wholly distressed by the feeling of satisfaction which filled him at the prospect of going back to the security of Firgrove. It seemed to him as if a return implied an easy entrance at the wide gate upon the broad and pleasant way, and turning their backs on the strait and narrow path, which had proved so tortuous and stony for their tender, stumbling feet.