And still on strode the piercing-eyed gipsy, as sure of his prey now apparently as a fowler who watches unmoved the fruitless struggles of some poor little birds in the net from which they have no chance of escaping.

It would be impossible to say how far they had gone—­perhaps not so very far after all, though their panting breath and trembling little legs showed that the gipsy’s purpose of tiring them out was pretty well accomplished—­when at last a sharp cry from Pamela forced the pedlar to look round.  She had caught her foot on a stone or a root, and fallen, and in falling one of the jagged bits of the broken crockery had cut her leg pretty deeply; the blood was already streaming from it, her little white sock was deeply stained, and she lay on the ground almost fainting with terror and pain.

“Stop that screaming, will ye?” said the man, and then, with a half return to his former tone, “There’s nothing to cry about, missy.  It’s just a scratch—­I’ll tie it up with a bit of rag,” and he began fumbling about in his dirty pockets as he spoke.  “There’s the donkey and the others waiting for us just five minutes farther;” and for once the gipsy spoke the truth.  The way he had brought the children was in reality a great round, chosen on purpose to bewilder them, so that the rest of his party had been able to reach the meeting-place he had appointed very much more quickly by the road.

But Pamela, once thoroughly upset and frightened, was not to be so easily calmed down.

“No, no,” she screamed, “I won’t let him touch me.  Go away, go away, you ugly man,” she cried, pushing him back with her tiny hands when he tried to come near.  “I won’t let you touch me or carry me,” for that now seemed to be the gipsy’s intention, “leave me here with Duke; we don’t want you any more.”

The man’s dark face grew darker with the scowl that came over it.  For half a moment he seemed on the point of seizing Pamela in his arms in spite of her cries and resistance.  But there was Duke too to be considered; Pamela alone it would be easy to cover up, so that her cries should not be heard; but he could not carry both, and if the boy ran after them screaming, or if he tried to run home, to ask for help—­for “home” was really not far off—­there was no knowing what trouble the anything but blessed “brats” might bring upon worthy Mick and his horde!  So that respectable gentleman decided on different tactics.

“You’re a very naughty little girl,” he said—­speaking, however, not roughly, but more as if Pamela’s behaviour really shocked and hurt him.  “After all the trouble I’ve give myself for you—­a-goin’ out of my road, and a-unpackin’ all the pots and crocks down there, for to please you.  Not even to let me tie up your foot or carry you to the missus for her to do it!  Well, if you lie there till you bleed to death, it’s no fault o’ mine.”

But Duke’s presence of mind had returned by this time.