week's
pay, an' packed up his kit after tea an' 'ooked it. Bess Burton told
me all about it, knowin' me an' Bill to be friends--she's the woman
sits at the pay-table an' gives the change. 'E wouldn' tell nobody
where 'e was goin'. Ain't cryin' about it, are yer?"

"No," he answered, as she peered close to him in the darkness.
"Only we'd built everything on Bill, hadn't we?"

Tilda did not answer this question.

"That's the way with Bill," she said loyally. "Folks never know 'is
worth till they miss 'im. Bess allowed to me that before the evenin's
out Gavel will be offerin' 'is shirt to 'ave 'im back--an' Bess don't
know the worst neither. They've put on a boy to work the engine, an'
Bill 'as told me things about that boiler o' Gavel's . . . I couldn' get
near enough to read the pressure, but by the way 'e was pilin' in
coal--"

She broke off and gazed down the slope. Even as once the poet Gray
looked down from the Windsor's heights up the distant prospect of Eton
College, so did she regard the cluster of naphtha lights around the
galloping horses on which, unconscious of their doom, the little victims
played.

"But there's no call to give up an' cry about it," she resumed bravely.
"We're in a tight place, but it's our turn to play. (That's another
sayin' o' Bill's. Oh, dear, I wish you'd known 'im!) You see, we know
where Glasson is an' what 'e's up to, an' can look out accordin'.
That's one card to us. An' the next is, I've seen Sam Bossom an' warned
'im. 'E was standin' outside 'is show, an' not darin' to go in; the
reason bein' Mortimer 'ad picked up a girl from the shootin' gallery,
that used to belong to 'is company, and 'e an' she an' Mrs. Mortimer are
doing the last act of _Othello_ life size an' tuppence coloured, an' Sam
says 'e can't look on an' command 'is feelin's. 'E was considerable
surprised to see me, an' started scoldin'; but I left 'im promisin' that
'e'd put a stop to Glasson some'ow, if it had to be on the point o' the
jaw; an' we're to nip across and 'ide under the Grand Stand until he
comes for us or sends word. See it?"

She pointed across to a crowded platform on the farther slope--a
structure of timber draped with scarlet cloth, and adorned with palms
and fairy lamps. It stood on the rise a little above and to the left of
the roundabout, the flares of which lit up the faces and gay dresses of
Sir Elphinstone's guests gathered there to watch the show.

The two children mad