to us. It said, 'The
explanation of a pupil in your charge, Mr. Catman, being sent barefaced
into the town--a scholar of mine-for sage and onions...'

'Old Rippenger!' breathed Temple.

We sat paralyzed. Now we understood the folly of despatching a donkey
like Barnshed for sage and onions.

'Oh, what asses we have been!' Temple continued. 'Come along-we run for
it! Come along, Richie! They 're picking up the fellows like windfalls.'

I told him I would not run for it; in fact, I distrusted my legs; and he
was staggering, answering Saddlebank's reproaches for having come among
tramps.

'Temple, I see you, sir!' called Mr. Rippenger. Poor Temple had advanced
into the firelight.

With the instinct to defeat the master, I crawled in the line of the
shadows to the farther side of a tent, where I felt a hand clutch
mine. 'Hide me,' said I; and the curtain of the tent was raised. After
squeezing through boxes and straw, I lay flat, covered by a mat smelling
of abominable cheese, and felt a head outside it on my chest. Several
times Mr. Rippenger pronounced my name in the way habitual to him in
anger: 'Rye!'

Temple's answer was inaudible to me. Saddlebank spoke, and other boys,
and the man and the woman. Then a light was thrust in the tent, and the
man said, 'Me deceive you, sir! See for yourself, to satisfy yourself.
Here's our little uns laid warm, and a girl there, head on the mat,
going down to join her tribe at Lipcombe, and one of our women sleeps
here, and all told. But for you to suspect me of combining--Thank ye,
sir. You've got my word as a man.'

The light went away. My chest was relieved of the weight on it. I sat
up, and the creature who had been kind to me laid mat and straw on the
ground, and drew my head on her shoulder, where I slept fast.

CHAPTER VII. A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD

I woke very early, though I had taken kindly to my pillow, as I found by
my having an arm round my companion's neck, and her fingers intertwisted
with mine. For awhile I lay looking at her eyes, which had every
imaginable light and signification in them; they advised me to lie
quiet, they laughed at my wonder, they said, 'Dear little fellow!' they
flashed as from under a cloud, darkened, flashed out of it, seemed to
dip in water and shine, and were sometimes like a view into a forest,
sometimes intensely sunny, never quite still. I trusted her, and could
have slept again, but the sight of the tent stupefied me; I fanci