They ran. Had it not been for Tommy, Kitty dared not think what might have occurred, but Tommy undoubtedly saved them. He had been loping along behind them, seemingly unaware of the dog, but when it got within ten feet of them he stopped dead, fluffed out his body and arched his back, uttering a fearful squawk as he did so. Kitty hesitated, would have turned back to snatch her pet to safety, but Nick grabbed her hand and urged her on. ‘Forget it; Tommy’s been dealing wit’ dogs since he were a kitten. He’s goin’ to save our bacon for us,’ he said breathlessly, as the two of them thundered towards the gate which led on to the lane. ‘Keep runnin’; don’t look back.’
But Kitty, unable to resist, glanced behind her and saw Tommy, when the dog was only feet away, suddenly turn and streak to the left. The dog changed direction so fast that his paws must have smoked, and as she and Nick threw themselves over the gate Tommy arrived on the lane beside them. Kitty would have continued to run but Nick pulled her to a halt. ‘The dog won’t follow us into the lane ’cos it ain’t the farmer’s property,’ he gasped, a hand to his side. He bent to caress the cat, who did not appear one whit the worst for the chase. ‘Good old Tommy. I said you’d save our bacon and so you did. Now we’d best be goin’, ’cos something tells me the feller with the milk pails ain’t a-goin’ to let us earn ourselves a bite o’ breakfast by workin’ for him.’
Kitty chuckled. She bent and picked Tommy up, then strolled along beside Nick, though she could not help glancing nervously at the hedge which bordered their late adversary’s field. It was diamonded with drops from the recent rain, sparkling now in the sunshine, but there were several gaps through which a dog could squeeze should it so wish and she could see the animal keeping pace with them on the other side. ‘He won’t come through to worrit us,’ Nick said reassuringly, following Kitty’s glance. ‘It’s wishful t’inking, so it is; he’s hoping either us or the cat will wriggle through that hawthorn hedge so that he can take a nice mouthful out of us.’
Kitty smiled. ‘Tommy would make a pretty prickly mouthful,’ she observed. ‘Isn’t he brave, Nick? He stood his ground until the dog were almost on him, then he whipped round like a – an adder, and ran like a hare. I know you thought he might give us away, but like you said, he did save our bacon, didn’t he?’
Nick nodded, though he was looking rather serious. ‘Sure and he’s a grand feller,’ he agreed, rather absently. ‘But I dare not nip into a field to rob a cow of some of her milk, and I must have left that half loaf we were saving in the haystack. We came away in a bit of a hurry. Oh well, it’ll be a treat for the rats.’
Kitty shuddered. ‘Then we’ll just have to walk until we get to another farm, or a village,’ she said. And as soon as she saw through the hedge that the dog had deserted them, she put Tommy down, for he was heavy. ‘Remember the last potato clamp – oh, and the woman in that terrible little cottage who gave us soda bread and goat’s cheese? Isn’t it odd, Nick, that poor people will often give us a crust whereas rich people chase us off their land?’
‘It’s the way of the world,’ Nick said airily. ‘Wish it were blackberry time. Still, we’ve not starved yet so likely we shan’t starve today. Best foot forward, Kit!’
A couple of miles further on, the little lane they were following veered to the east and Nick stopped in the middle of it, staring about him. They were approaching wooded country now, with little sign of human habitation, and Kitty thought sorrowfully of the large chunk of soda bread nestling in the haystack, and of the cows which might have given up some of their milk to three hungry travellers, but Nick told her they would have to tighten their belts until they were through the woods. She smiled as bravely as she could. ‘The food’ll taste all the better if we’re really hungry,’ she said, and Nick flung an arm round her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze.
‘You’re a brave kid, so you are,’ he said approvingly. ‘And don’t worrit yourself; we’ll find somethin’ to eat afore nightfall.’
Shortly after this conversation they left the lane and took to the woods, and Kitty began to sing. At first Nick joined in, but suddenly he tugged at her arm and put a finger to his lips. ‘Hush! Can you hear that noise? I reckon there’s a woodcutter quite close at hand; if so, he might give us a share of whatever food he’s got, or maybe let us gather a big bundle of firewood to sell in the nearest village. Then we could buy our own breakfast.’
‘It won’t be breakfast now, it’ll be dinner,’ Kitty pointed out, but she followed Nick’s lead with alacrity. Suppose the man has bread and cheese and apples? Her mouth watered at the thought, for they had found country people to be a good deal more accommodating than city folk when it came to sharing food.
Presently, they came upon a rutted track between the trees and followed it since it was pretty plain that it led in the direction of the thuds they had heard. But now the thuds were accompanied by other sounds: whimpering, wailing, shouts and yells. Left to herself, Kitty would have turned tail, but Nick grabbed her arm. ‘Best see what’s going on,’ he muttered, ‘though I don’t like the sound of it. Kit, if I pinch your arm, you’re to simply follow me as fast as you can. No turning back for Tommy, ’cos he’ll be in no danger. Understand?’
Kitty whispered that she understood. Ahead of them she could see a pool of sunlight, and within a very few minutes they came to a clearing in the trees and took shelter behind the trunk of an enormous beech tree. Peering round it, they were shocked by what they saw. The first thing Kitty noticed was the gypsy caravan, the second thing the large hindquarters of a piebald horse, and the next thing the man and woman. The woman had fallen to the ground where she lay trying to cover her head with her arms. The screaming they had heard was fainter now. The man was belabouring her with an enormous stick, bringing it down mercilessly on any part of her body he could reach. There was blood on the woman’s ragged clothing and instinctively Kitty stepped forward, shouting ‘Stop that!’ as she did so.
The man could not have heard her or, if he had, cared not at all, for his stick continued to rise and fall. The woman’s body shuddered with every stroke, but now her cries had dwindled to the occasional sobbing moan. Kitty broke from cover and ran across the clearing. She grabbed for the stick and clung on to it with all her might. ‘You’re killing her,’ she shouted. ‘Stop it at once, do you hear me? I tell you you’ll kill her.’
For answer, the man growled a stream of invective, his brogue so thick that Kitty only half understood what he was saying, but she could not mistake his intention as he tried to raise the stick and hit his victim again, even though by now Nick was clinging to his other arm and kicking out with all his force at his shins.
The woman on the ground had ceased to move. The man turned his attention to Kitty and Nick, and clearly thought he could handle a couple of youngsters. He wore long leather boots to the knee, old and battered but still a protection against Nick’s bare feet, and Kitty thought, desperately, that presently he would break free, kill the woman, and then start on themselves. She tried to explain this to Nick, but Nick had dropped the man’s arm and joined her on the end of the stick. ‘Get it away from him,’ he muttered, his mouth close to Kitty’s ear. ‘Pull wit’ all your strength, alanna. Pull, pull.’ And then, to Kitty’s astonishment, he hissed: ‘Let go!’ It was just luck that Kitty obeyed instantly, even though she did not understand why Nick should have said such a thing. However, his strategy became clear the next moment, for as they suddenly released their hold on the man’s cudgel he was taken completely by surprise and fell heavily backwards, striking his head on the trunk of the tree behind him with a rather sickening thud.
‘That’ll teach him to hit his poor wife,’ Nick said breathlessly. His chest was heaving from the struggle and his eyes darted uneasily from one still figure on the ground to the other. ‘Tek a look at her, Kitty, while I see if I can find something to tie the old bugger’s arms and legs together with, else he’ll give us a fearful hidin’ as soon as he comes round.’
Kitty knelt obediently by the woman’s side and put a tentative hand on the scarf which covered her head. It fell back, revealing the fact that this was no young woman as Kitty had supposed, for her attacker appeared to be in the prime of life, but a woman of perhaps seventy years of age, for her hair was sparse and grey as a badger, and her thin, bony face was seamed with wrinkles. However, despite the beating she had taken, Kitty saw with immense relief that she was still alive, for the transparent lids flickered up, revealing a pair of eyes so dark that they appeared black, and Kitty realised that the face into which she peered had once been beautiful, though time and bad treatment had left their mark. She turned to Nick, who was leaning over the man on the ground. Kitty wished Nick would hurry up and find some rope to tie him with, for even though he was worsted for the moment she could see now that he was both young and strong, with a pelt of black hair, curly as a ram’s fleece, swarthy skin, and the shoulders of a man used to physical labour, for they were broad and strong. She began to speak, and Nick straightened and came towards her, his expression troubled. ‘I’m after thinking we’ll not be needing so much as a length of string,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve took a good look at him, alanna, and he’s stone dead. His neck’s broke. He won’t be hittin’ anyone again, not his wife, nor a pair of kids. How’s the woman?’
‘She’s alive; she’s breathin’, and her eyes opened for a second just now,’ Kitty said tremulously. ‘But she’s
old
, Nick, really old. ‘I t’ought she was his wife too ’cos I know bad men do beat their wives. Sometimes you hear the yells from some poor woman what’s done nothin’ wrong ’cept to be there when her man comes home drunk, but even the worst of fellers don’t beat their mammies.’
Nick knelt down beside her and peered at the woman. ‘I dunno; they ain’t much alike,’ he said uncertainly. ‘They’re both tinkers, though. Maybe a tinker might marry an old woman to get her money, ’cos they say tinks keep gold under the floorboards of their caravans, or – or mebbe he were drunk and mistook her for his wife.’
Kitty thought that this sounded reasonable but it still left them with an insuperable problem. The man was dead and the woman in a bad way. They knew better than to take her to a hospital, even if they could find one in these parts, because that would have meant telling the whole story, and admitting that a man lay dead. Kitty told herself that she and Nick were innocent, had done nothing save to let go of the cudgel with which the man had been beating the woman, but she knew that if the authorities heard of their involvement it would be the end of their freedom; Nick would be sent back to his parents and the hovel in which he lived, and she would be put in an orphanage, or sent across the water to England. She glanced at Nick and saw immediately that he shared her own feelings. ‘It weren’t our fault that the feller tripped over his own cudgel and broke his neck agin that tree,’ he said. ‘But if we goes an’ tells, likely they won’t believe us and we’ll find ourselves in Mountjoy Prison or swingin’ on the end of the hangman’s rope. No, we’ve got to get out of here and forget we ever met ’em.’
‘But we can’t just leave the old woman here,’ Kitty objected. ‘What if she’s been hurt mortal bad and goes an’ dies? Let’s carry her to the caravan, and if there’s a spade or some such I suppose . . . I suppose we’d best bury the feller. If we leave him here someone’s bound to find him, and then they’ll start looking for us.’
Nick, however, shook his head. ‘If we bury him, there’ll be nothing to prove we didn’t stick a knife in him, or kill him in some other way,’ he pointed out. ‘I reckon if we leave him where he is – don’t move him so much as an inch – then when he is found, it’ll be pretty plain he fell and broke his neck. Besides, this is a pretty remote part o’ the woods. It could be days, weeks even, before someone comes this way again.’
Kitty looked doubtful. ‘But they’ll know he wouldn’t have come here by hisself and on foot,’ she said fearfully. ‘Oh, Nick, I’m scared, really I am.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll think of something,’ Nick said bracingly, though Kitty noticed that there was a deep worry line between his brows. ‘Let’s get the old girl into the caravan for a start, then we’ll decide what to do. You take her feet, ’cos that’s the lightest end, and I’ll carry her shoulders.’
The two of them carried the old woman into the caravan. They laid her upon a narrow bench seat which, Kitty guessed, became a bed at night, then Kitty fussed about finding a brightly coloured, hand-knitted blanket to put over her and used one of the cushions with which both seats were decorated as a pillow. Then she looked about her. She thought the caravan was delightful, for there was a little blackened stove, and a board pulled out from one end of the van so that the occupants could sit along the bench seats with their plates of food upon the table in front of them. It was all very neat and compact. The walls were hung with kitchen equipment – pans, ladles and the like – and from the ceiling depended a number of hooks upon which hung a string bag of onions, another of potatoes, a third of turnips and carrots, and – oh joy! – what looked like a side of smoked bacon. Kitty grabbed Nick’s arm, seeing his eyes as wide as her own. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ she whispered. ‘I wish we could stay in this caravan – I wish it were ours! Do you – do you think the old woman would mind if we spent a bit of time and made ourselves a bite of dinner? That there smoked bacon looks so good I could eat it just as it is, and the vegetables could be in the pot in a moment, if you give the word.’
Much to Kitty’s disappointment, Nick shook his head. ‘I don’t think we ought to hang around here, not with that feller dead out there. You settle the old lady comfortable, tuck the blanket in tight so she won’t fall out when we move, an’ I’ll get the horse backed into the shafts and harnessed up. We’ll take the track we came into the woods on because it’s already thick with wheel marks, so another set won’t bother anyone. But just to be on the safe side, I’ll drive the caravan a bit along the track and then I’ll walk back and brush out any traces it’s left in the clearing. Then there’ll be nothing to say he weren’t just a tramp making his way alone across country.’