g
about in his dirty pockets as he spoke. "There's the donkey and the
others waiting for us just five minutes farther;" and for once the gipsy
spoke the truth. The way he had brought the children was in reality a
great round, chosen on purpose to bewilder them, so that the rest of his
party had been able to reach the meeting-place he had appointed very
much more quickly by the road.

But Pamela, once thoroughly upset and frightened, was not to be so
easily calmed down.

"No, no," she screamed, "I won't let him touch me. Go away, go away, you
ugly man," she cried, pushing him back with her tiny hands when he tried
to come near. "I _won't_ let you touch me or carry me," for that now
seemed to be the gipsy's intention, "leave me here with Duke; we don't
want you any more."

The man's dark face grew darker with the scowl that came over it. For
half a moment he seemed on the point of seizing Pamela in his arms in
spite of her cries and resistance. But there was Duke too to be
considered; Pamela alone it would be easy to cover up, so that her cries
should not be heard; but he could not carry both, and if the boy ran
after them screaming, or if he tried to run home, to ask for help--for
"home" was really not far off--there was no knowing what trouble the
anything but blessed "brats" might bring upon worthy Mick and his horde!
So that respectable gentleman decided on different tactics.

"You're a very naughty little girl," he said--speaking, however, not
roughly, but more as if Pamela's behaviour really shocked and hurt him.
"After all the trouble I've give myself for you--a-goin' out of my road,
and a-unpackin' all the pots and crocks down there, for to please you.
Not even to let me tie up your foot or carry you to the missus for her
to do it! Well, if you lie there till you bleed to death, it's no fault
o' mine."

But Duke's presence of mind had returned by this time.

"I'll tie up her foot with my hankercher," he said, producing the little
twelve-inch square of linen, which for a wonder he found in his pocket,
on the whole much cleaner than could have been expected. And though he
grew white and sick with the sight of the streaming blood, he managed
without any opposition from his sister to strap it up after a fashion,
the gipsy looking on in silence.

"You can go now, thank you," said Duke, his voice trembling in spite of
himself. "Us don't mind about the bowl--it's too far to go. Us will tell
Grandmamma all about