across his
sleepy eyes, Ned hastily told himself there must be no harking back, no
thinking of what granny or anybody else at Northbourne would say or do.
It must be good-bye, for ever, to the old life. The motion of the van,
the rest after the long tramp, alike caused the country-bred boy to nod
sleepily as he clung to his perch.

Presently, he was back again in Northbourne. It was Sunday afternoon,
and, dressed in his best, the fisher-boy stood up straight in class to
repeat his hymn to his earnest-eyed, sweet-faced teacher, 'Miss
Theedory.' And the words he fought sleepily to remember must have been
born of his nearness to the growling monsters within the caravan--

'Christian, dost thou see them
On the holy ground,
How the troops of Midian
Prowl and prowl around?'

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE MIRE

It was still darkish as the array of vans filed along the London road,
and, in the confusion, Ned lost sight of the van in which Alick had got
a lift beside the lady in curl-papers. And no wonder! for the fact
was, the show had parted in two divisions--one going to be stationed in
the East End, somewhere about Whitechapel, the other portion to
traverse the suburbs south of the Thames.

It thus happened that the two Northbourne boys were separated, as they
each discovered when the day wore on. Worse still: they found, to
their dismay, that they had been entrapped artfully. A couple of
useful boys were desperately needed, as a fever had been hanging about
the show, breaking out at fitful intervals, and the chief victims had
been the boy-helpers, who, one after another, dropped off, some to
hospitals, others to die, like rats in the holes that were all the
homes they knew.

The welcome accorded to Alick and Ned was thus explained. The
showwoman was secretly overjoyed to give the strangers a lift on their
journey. But before the first day closed in the pair of adventurers
found out what real hard work meant. Even Ned Dempster, accustomed to
the dilatory, easy-going life of sea-fishing, knew nothing indeed of
the drudgery and hustling and flurry of such everyday work as he had
stepped into, unawares, among the rough caravan folk.

Alick, of course, was thunderstruck and stupefied to find himself at
everybody's rude beck and call. And to have his awkward, bewildered
movements hurried on by hard cuffs and violent language was an
unpleasantly new experience for a Carnegy to endure. His indignant