kers' fire glowed more and more
red, as the night came on.

"Sure, it isn't going to get real dark at all," whispered Larry.

"Then we'd better be going now," said Eileen, "for the Tinkers are
eating their supper, and their backs are towards the road, and we'll
make hardly a taste of noise with our bare feet."

They crept along behind the rocks, and over the wall. "Now," whispered
Larry, "slip along until we're right beside them, and then run like the
wind!"

The Twins took hold of hands. They could hear their hearts beat. They
walked softly up the road.

The Tinkers were still laughing and talking; the baby and the dog kept
on playing.

The Twins were almost by, when all of a sudden, the geese stood up.
"Squawk, squawk," they cried. "Squawk, squawk."

"Whatever is the matter with you, now?" said the Tinker's wife to the
geese. "Can't you be quiet?" The dog stopped romping with the baby,
sniffed the air, and growled. "Lie down," said the woman; "there's a
bone for your supper." She threw the dog a bone. He sprang at it and
began to gnaw it.

Larry and Eileen had crouched behind a rock the minute the geese began
to squawk. "I believe they know us," whispered Eileen.

They waited until everything was quiet again. Then Larry whispered,
"Run now, and if you fall, never wait to rise but run till we get to Tom
Daly's house!"

Then they ran! The soft pat-pat of their bare feet on the dirt road was
not heard by the Tinkers, and soon another turn in the road hid them
from view, but, for all that, they ran and ran, ever so far, until some
houses were in sight.

They could see the flicker of firelight in the windows of the nearest
house. It was Tom Daly's house. They could see Tom's shadow as he sat
at his loom, weaving flax into beautiful white linen cloth. They could
hear the clack! clack! of his loom. It made the Twins feel much safer
to hear this sound and see Tom's shadow, for Tom was a friend of theirs,
and they often went into his house and watched him weave his beautiful
linen, which was so fine that the Queen herself used it. Up the road,
in the window of the last house of all, a candle shone.

"Sure, Mother is watching for us," said Larry. "She's put a candle in
the window."

They went on more slowly now, past Tom Daly's, past the Maguires' and
the O'Briens' and several other houses on the way, and when they were
quite near their own home Larry said, "Sure, I'll never travel again
with