On hearing the strange voices he sat up, and looked about him, rosy and dewy after his slumbers. The night had been mild, and he had rolled himself up so tightly that he had contrived to keep warm. He blinked in bewilderment at the bright sunshine and at the strange bearded faces. Then, with returning consciousness, the thought which had been last present to his mind before sleep had overtaken him leaped back to it.
“Why, how in the name o’ fortun’ did you get here?” cried one of the men, swinging himself over the side, and taking the child up in his arms. “Have you been here all night?”
“Looks like it,” cried another. “What’s your name, little man?”
“I thought the man was arter me, and I couldn’t find Dada,” said Johnny. “I looked and looked, an’ it was dark, and I was running, and I falled down here and I couldn’t get out again.”
“Well, what a tale! The little chap’s lost hisself, d’ye see, mates? There’s somebody in trouble about this ’ere, you mid be sure! Somebody’s lost en at the Fair.”
“Ah, he don’t look as if he belonged to any o’ the gipsy folk, or the shows, or sich as them,” said somebody. “Seems as if he did belong to decent folks. They be lookin’ for en at Shroton most like—we’d best take en back there. He don’t belong to nobody about here, that’s plain. Where d’ye live, Johnny?”
“Next door to Mrs. Short,” returned the child promptly.
“That’s tellin’ nothin’. What’s the name o’ the place?”
Johnny, who was chary of speech at all times, and was besides slightly alarmed at being interrogated by so many strangers, returned no answer to this query, and announced instead loudly, and with a hint of not far distant tears in his voice, that he wanted “_Dada_”.
“There, best take en to the Fair at once,” said the man who held him in his arms. “There’s sure to be some of his folks about. Come along, Johnny—we’ll go and look for Dada.”
He hoisted up the child to one of his comrades, clambered himself to the higher level, and, taking him again in his arms, set off for the scene of the Fair, the others looking after him curiously for a moment or two, and then leisurely setting about their work.
Johnny did not say much during the transit; he sat very upright, staring about him with all his eyes in his anxiety to catch the first glimpse of his father.