Five Children and It · Chapter 3 (3/3)

The children hardly dared to breathe. Suppose the gipsies, when they recovered speech, should be furious to think how silly they had been all day?

It was an awkward moment. Suddenly Anthea, greatly daring, held out the Lamb to the red-handkerchief man.

“Here he is!” she said.

The man drew back. “I shouldn’t like to deprive you, miss,” he said hoarsely.

“Anyone who likes can have my share of him,” said the other man.

“After all, I’ve got enough of my own,” said Esther.

“He’s a nice little chap, though,” said Amelia. She was the only one who now looked affectionately at the whimpering Lamb.

Zillah said, “If I don’t think I must have had a touch of the sun. I don’t want him.”

“Then shall we take him away?” said Anthea.

“Well⁠—suppose you do,” said Pharaoh heartily, “and we’ll say no more about it!”

And with great haste all the gipsies began to be busy about their tents for the night. All but Amelia. She went with the children as far as the bend in the road⁠—and there she said⁠—

“Let me give him a kiss, miss⁠—I don’t know what made us go for to behave so silly. Us gipsies don’t steal babies, whatever they may tell you when you’re naughty. We’ve enough of our own, mostly. But I’ve lost all mine.”

She leaned towards the Lamb; and he, looking in her eyes, unexpectedly put up a grubby soft paw and stroked her face.

“Poor, poor!” said the Lamb. And he let the gipsy woman kiss him, and, what is more, he kissed her brown cheek in return⁠—a very nice kiss, as all his kisses are, and not a wet one like some babies give. The gipsy woman moved her finger about on his forehead as if she had been writing something there, and the same with his chest and his hands and his feet; then she said⁠—

“May he be brave, and have the strong head to think with, and the strong heart to love with, and the strong hands to work with, and the strong feet to travel with, and always come safe home to his own.” Then she said something in a strange language no one could understand, and suddenly added⁠—

“Well, I must be saying ‘so long’⁠—and glad to have made your acquaintance.” And she turned and went back to her home⁠—the tent by the grassy roadside.

The children looked after her till she was out of sight. Then Robert said, “How silly of her! Even sunset didn’t put her right. What rot she talked!”

“Well,” said Cyril, “if you ask me, I think it was rather decent of her⁠—”

“Decent?” said Anthea; “it was very nice indeed of her. I think she’s a dear⁠—”

“She’s just too frightfully nice for anything,” said Jane.

And they went home⁠—very late for tea and unspeakably late for dinner. Martha scolded, of course. But the Lamb was safe.

“I say⁠—it turned out we wanted the Lamb as much as anyone,” said Robert, later.

“Of course.”

“But do you feel different about it now the sun’s set?”

“No,” said all the others together.

“Then it’s lasted over sunset with us.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Cyril explained. “The wish didn’t do anything to us. We always wanted him with all our hearts when we were our proper selves, only we were all pigs this morning; especially you, Robert.” Robert bore this much with a strange calm.

“I certainly thought I didn’t want him this morning,” said he. “Perhaps I was a pig. But everything looked so different when we thought we were going to lose him.”

And that, my dear children, is the moral of this chapter. I did not mean it to have a moral, but morals are nasty forward beings, and will keep putting in their oars where they are not wanted. And since the moral has crept in, quite against my wishes, you might as well think of it next time you feel piggy yourself and want to get rid of any of your brothers and sisters. I hope this doesn’t often happen, but I daresay it has happened sometimes, even to you!