that source; but there was a probability
that we might strike a gipsy encampment somewhere along our route. We
rode on hopefully but uneventfully for another mile or so.

"'I wonder what that child was doing there,' said Constance presently.

"'Picking blackberries. Obviously.'

"'I don't like the way it cried,' pursued Constance; 'somehow its wail
keeps ringing in my ears.'

"I did not chide Constance for her morbid fancies; as a matter of fact
the same sensation, of being pursued by a persistent fretful wail, had
been forcing itself on my rather over-tired nerves. For company's sake
I hulloed to Esme, who had lagged somewhat behind. With a few springy
bounds he drew up level, and then shot past us.

"The wailing accompaniment was explained. The gipsy child was firmly,
and I expect painfully, held in his jaws.

"'Merciful Heaven!' screamed Constance, 'what on earth shall we do?
What are we to do?'

"I am perfectly certain that at the Last Judgment Constance will ask
more questions than any of the examining Seraphs.

"'Can't we do something?' she persisted tearfully, as Esme cantered
easily along in front of our tired horses.

"Personally I was doing everything that occurred to me at the moment.
I stormed and scolded and coaxed in English and French and gamekeeper
language; I made absurd, ineffectual cuts in the air with my thongless
hunting-crop; I hurled my sandwich case at the brute; in fact, I really
don't know what more I could have done. And still we lumbered on
through the deepening dusk, with that dark uncouth shape lumbering
ahead of us, and a drone of lugubrious music floating in our ears.
Suddenly Esme bounded aside into some thick bushes, where we could not
follow; the wail rose to a shriek and then stopped altogether. This
part of the story I always hurry over, because it is really rather
horrible. When the beast joined us again, after an absence of a few
minutes, there was an air of patient understanding about him, as though
he knew that he had done something of which we disapproved, but which
he felt to be thoroughly justifiable.

"'How can you let that ravening beast trot by your side?' asked
Constance. She was looking more than ever like an albino beetroot.

"'In the first place, I can't prevent it,' I said; 'and in the second
place, whatever else he may be, I doubt if he's ravening at the present
moment.'

"Constance shuddered. 'Do you think the poor little thing suffered
much?'