She had heard celestial beings--ladies and gentlemen in Maggs's
three-shilling seats--talk in voices like this boy's.

"I've took a 'eap o' trouble to find yer," she said. "An' now I've done
it, _all_ depends on our gettin' out o' this. Ain't there no way? _Do_
try to think a bit!"

The boy shook his head.

"There isn't any way. You let me alone, and clear."

"He can't do worse'n kill us," said Tilda desperately, with a look back
at the house. "S'help me, let's try!"

But her spirit quailed.

"He won't kill you. He'll catch you, and keep you here for ever and
ever."

"We'll try, all the same."

Tilda shut her teeth and held out a hand--or rather, was beginning to
extend it--when a sound arrested her. It came from the door of the
glass-house, and as she glanced towards it her heart leapt and stood
still.

"'Dolph!"

Yes, it was 'Dolph, dirty, begrimed with coal; 'Dolph fawning towards
her, cringing almost on his belly, but wagging his stump of a tail
ecstatically. Tilda dashed upon him.

"Oh, 'Dolph!--_how?_"

The dog strangled down a bark, and ran back to the glass-house, but
paused in the doorway a moment to make sure that she was following.
It was all right. Tilda had caught the boy's hand, and was dragging him
along. 'Dolph led them through the glass-house and down a flight of
four steps to the broken door of a furnace-room. They pushed after him.
Behind the furnace a second doorway opened upon a small coal-cellar,
through the ceiling of which, in the right-hand corner, poured a
circular ray of light. The ray travelled down a moraine of broken coal,
so broad at the base that it covered the whole cellar floor, but
narrowing upwards and towards the manhole through which the daylight
shone.

Down through the manhole, too--O bliss!--came the sound of a man's
whistle.

"_Ph'ut! Phee-ee--uht!_ Darn that fool of a dog! _Ph'w_--"

"For the Lord's sake!" called Tilda, pushing the boy up the coal-shute
ahead of her and panting painfully as her feet sank and slid in the
black pile.

"Eh? . . . Hullo!" A man's face peered down, shutting off the daylight.
"Well, in all my born days--"

He reached down a hand.

"The boy first," gasped Tilda, "--and quick!"

CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH CHILDE ARTHUR LOSES ONE MOTHER AND GAINS ANOTHER.

"_But and when they came to Easter Gate,
Easter Gate stood wide;
'y' are late, y' are late,' the Porter said;
'This morn my Lady died.'_"--OLD BALLAD