“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 he walk on the top o’ the water for, master?”

Duke looked a little puzzled.

“I don’t quite remember, but I think it was to help some poor men when the sea was rough.”

“No, no,” said Pamela; “that was the time he felled asleep, and they woked him up to make the storm go away.”

“I’m sure there was a storm the time he was walking on the water, too,” said Duke; “there’s the picture of it.  When us goes in, sister, us’ll get Grandmamma’s picture-Bible and look”—­but suddenly his voice fell, his eager expression faded.  In the interest of the little discussion he had forgotten where they were, how far away from Grandmamma and her picture-Bible, how uncertain if ever they should see her or it again!  Pamela understood.