"I'm not so sure about that," said the officer. "He's the exact height, and that's the same coloured hair."
"Now I come to think of it," said the keeper, "I believe I saw that boy pass along here this morning, along with two trampers. That coat with the pocket torn. Yes, and red lining showing. I thought I'd seen them."
"Well, boy," said the officer, "what's your name?"
"Jim Davis," I answered.
"What were you doing with the two trampers, Jim?" he asked.
"Please, sir," I said, "I wasn't doing anything with them."
"Ah," said one of the runners. "These young rogues is that artful, they never do nothing anywhere."
"You'll live to be hanged, I know," said the other runner.
"What were you doing with the smugglers?" asked the officer suddenly, staring hard at my face, to watch for any change of expression.
But I was ready for him. A boy is often better able to keep his countenance than a grown man. With masters, and aunts, and game-keepers all down upon him, he lives a hunted life. He gets lots of practice in keeping his countenance. A grown man often gets very little.
"What smugglers, sir?" I asked as boldly as I could.
"The men you sailed with from Etaples," said the officer.
"Sailed with?" I asked, feeling that I was done for.
"Didn't the horses splash about, when you cut the cable?" said the officer, with a smile.
This time I thought I had better not answer. I looked as puzzled as I could, and looked from one face to the other, as though for enlightenment.
"Now, Jim," said one of the runners. "It's no good. Tell us all about the smugglers, and we'll let you go."
"We know you're the boy we want," said the captain. "Make a clean breast of it, and perhaps you will get off with transportation."
"Now don't look so innocent," said the other runner. "Tell us what we want to know, or we'll make you."
Now somewhere I had read that the police bullied suspected persons in this way. If you make a guilty person believe that you know him to be guilty, you can also get him to confess if you startle him sufficiently. It occurred to me that this was what these men were doing, especially as they had not been sure of me when I came into the room.
I had some twenty or thirty seconds in which to think of an answer, for the three men spoke one after the other, without giving me a chance to speak. I shook my head, putting on a puzzled look.
"I beg your pardon, sir," I said, speaking rather roughly, in the accent which Bill had used. "I think there's some mistake."
"Oh, I think not," said the officer. "Suppose I tell you how many men were in the lugger?"
But here we were stopped by the arrival of a chaise outside. A man entered hurriedly.
"It's all right, Gray," the newcomer called to the officer. "We have the boy. We caught him back there, along the road, with a couple of gipsies. There can be no doubt about it. The clothes and bundle are just as they're described in the advertisement. Who have you here?"
"Oh, a boy we brought in on suspicion," said the officer. "Shall we let him go?"
"Well, who is he?" asked the new arrival. "Eh, boy? Who are you?"
"A poor boy," I answered.
"How do you make a living?" he asked. "Little boys, like you, oughtn't to be about on the roads, you know. What d'ye do for a living?"
I am afraid it was rather a bold statement; but I cried out that I could sing ballads.
"Oh, Jim. So you sing ballads, do you?" said the officer. "Get on to that chair and sing us a ballad."
But I was cunning and wary. "Please, sir," I said, "I'm very hungry. I don't sing, except for my dinner and a sixpence."
"So you defy the law already, do you?" said the newcomer. "Well. Eat some bread and cheese, and I will give you sixpence for a song."
So I sat down very thankfully, and made a good dinner at the table. I pretended to pay no attention to the officers; but really I listened very eagerly to all that they said. I gathered that the newcomer was a coastguard naval captain, of the name of Byrne, and I felt that he half-suspected and half-liked me, without thinking very much about me one way or the other. When I had finished my dinner—and I ate enough to last me till the night—I got upon my chair, without being pressed, and sang the ballad of "The White Cockade," then very popular all over the West country. My voice was not bad in those days, and I was used to singing; indeed, people sang more then than they do now. Everybody sang.
Captain Byrne seemed puzzled by my voice, and by my cultivated accent. "Who taught you to sing?" he asked.
So I answered that I had been in the village choir at home; which was true enough.
"And where was that?" he asked.
For a moment I thought that I would trust him, and tell him everything. Then, very foolishly, I determined to say nothing, so I said that it was a long way away, and that I had come from thence after my father had died. He whispered something to Mr. Gray, the other officer; and they looked at me curiously. They both gave me a sixpenny piece for my ballad; and then they went out. Captain Byrne stopped at the door. "Look here," he said, "you take my advice and go home. You will come to no good, leading this wandering life."
When they had gone, I went out also, and watched their chaise disappear. The last that I saw of them was the two top-hats of the runners, sticking up at the back of the conveyance, like little black chimneys.
I felt very glad that Bill was taken up, evidently in mistake for me. It seemed a fitting reward. But at the same time I knew that the mistake might be found out at any moment; and that I should be searched for as soon as Bill had cleared himself. I walked slowly away from the turnpike, so that the keeper might not suspect me, and then I nipped over a stile, and ran away across country, going inland, away from the sea, as fast as I could travel. I could tell my direction by the sun, and I kept a westerly course, almost due west, for three or four hours, till I was tired out.
It was a lonely walk, too; hardly anything but wild, rather marshy country, with few houses, few churches, and no bigger town than the tiniest of villages. At about six o'clock that afternoon, when I had gone some sixteen miles since daybreak, I felt that I could go no further, and began to cast about for a lodging-place.
CHAPTER XX.
THE GIPSY CAMP
I plodded on till I came to a sort of copse or little wood, where I expected to find shelter. Supper I had resolved to do without; I wished to keep my shilling for dinner and breakfast the next day. As I came up to the copse hedge I saw that some gipsies were camped there. They had a fine travelling waggon drawn up on some waste ground near at hand; they had also pitched three or four beehive huts, made of bent poles, covered with sacks. They were horse-dealers and basket-makers, as one could see from the drove of lean horses and heap of wicker-work near the waggon. Several children were playing about among the huts. Some women were at their basket-making by the waggon. A middle-aged man, smoking a pipe, stood by the hedge, mending what looked like an enormous butterfly net. In spite of my adventure on the road, I was not at all frightened by these gipsies, because I liked their looks, and I knew now that I had only my shilling to lose, and that I could earn a dinner at any time by singing a ballad.
The middle-aged man looked rather hard at me as I came near, and called out in a strange language to his people in the tents. They came about me at the call, and stared at me very strangely, as though I was a queer beast escaped from a menagerie. Then, to my great surprise, the man pointed to my forehead, and all the gipsies stared at my forehead, repeating those queer words which Marah had used so long before in the gorse-clump—"Orel. Orel. Adartha Cay." They seemed very pleased and proud; they clapped their hands and danced, as though I was a little prince. All the time they kept singing and talking in their curious language. Now and then one of them would come up to me and push back my cap to look at my hair, which was of a dark brown colour, with a dash of reddy gold above my forehead.