me back to him now--how every time he
could manage to get a little talk with his new friends their gentle
voices and pretty ways seemed to revive old memories that he had not
known were there. And the thought of rescuing them,--of succeeding in
taking them safe back to their own home,--opened a new door for him.

"Maybe," said Tim to himself, "the old gentleman and lady'd take me on
as a stable-boy or such like if the little master and missie'd speak a
word for me, as I'm sure they would. And I'm right down sure I'd try to
do my best--anything to get away from this life."

Of course he could have got away by himself at any time much more easily
than with the children. But till now, as he had told them, he had not
cared to try it, for where had he to run to? And, besides, it was only
since Duke and Pamela had been with the gipsies that the wish to return
to a better kind of life had grown so very strong.

He sighed heavily as he stood on the desolate moor with his two little
companions, for he felt what he would not say to them, how terribly
difficult their escape would be.

Suddenly Pamela tugged at his arm.

"What is that shining down there, Tim?" she said, pointing over the
moor, which sloped downwards at one side. "Is it a river?"

Tim looked where she directed, and his face brightened a little.

"'Tis the canal, missie," he said. "It comes past Monkhaven, and goes--I
don't rightly know where to. Maybe to that place we're going to, where
the fair's to be. I once went a bit of a way on a canal--that was afore
I was with Mick and his lot. There was a boy and his mother as was very
good to me. I wish I could see them again, I do."

"But what _is_ a canal, Tim," said Pamela. "Us has never seen one, and
that down there looks like a silver thread--it shines like water."

"So it is water, missie--a canal's a sort of a river, only it goes along
always quite straight. It doesn't go bending in and out like a real
river, sometimes bigger and sometimes littler like."

"And how did you go on it," asked Duke. "And the boy and his mother? You
couldn't walk on it if it was water--nobody can except Jesus in the big
Bible at home. _He_ walked on the top of the water."

"Did he really?" said Tim, opening his eyes. "I've heerd tell on him. He
was very good to poor folk and such like, wasn't he? Mother telled me
about him, tho' I thought I'd forgotten all she'd told me. But I
remember the name now as you says it. And what did