The hall-door was open and so was the garden-gate. "It's very, very big, this place," he said, looking cautiously down the road, "and we will get lost; but I will find a man and order him to take me back to my house—like I did in Bombay." He took Judy by the hand, and the two fled hatless in the direction of the sound of the sea. Downe Villa was almost the last of a range of newly built houses running out, through a chaos of brick-mounds, to a heath where gypsies occasionally camped and where the Garrison Artillery of Rocklington practised. There were few people to be seen, and the children might have been taken for those of the soldiery, who ranged far. Half an[155] hour the wearied little legs tramped across heath, potato-field, and sand-dune. [155] "I'se so tired," said Judy, "and Mamma will be angry." "Mamma's never angry. I suppose she is waiting at the sea now while Papa gets tickets. We'll find them and go along with them. Ju, you must n't sit down. Only a little more and we'll come to the sea. Ju, if you sit down I'll thmack you!" said Punch. They climbed another dune, and came upon the great gray sea at low tide. Hundreds of crabs were scuttling about the beach, but there was no trace of Papa and Mamma not even of a ship upon the waters—nothing but sand and mud for miles and miles. And "Uncleharri" found them by chance—very muddy and very forlorn—Punch dissolved in tears, but trying to divert Judy with an "ickle trab," and Judy wailing to the pitiless horizon for "Mamma, Mamma!"—and again "Mamma!" THE SECOND BAG Ah, well-a-day, for we are souls bereaved! Of all the creatures under Heaven's wide scope We are most hopeless, who had once most hope, And most beliefless, who had most believed. —The City of Dreadful Night. All this time not a word about Black Sheep. He came later, and Harry, the black-haired boy, was mainly responsible for his coming. Judy—who[156] could help loving little Judy?—passed, by special permit, into the kitchen and thence straight to Aunty Rosa's heart. Harry was Aunty Rosa's one child, and Punch was the extra boy about the house. There was no special place
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