"You go away!" said the boy sullenly. "You don't know. If _he_ catches you, there's no chance." Tilda had time in her distress to be astonished by his voice. It was pure, distinct, with the tone of a sphere not hers. Yet she recognised it. She had heard celestial beings--ladies and gentlemen in Maggs's three-shilling seats--talk in voices like this boy's. "I've took a 'eap o' trouble to find yer," she said. "An' now I've done it, _all_ depends on our gettin' out o' this. Ain't there no way? _Do_ try to think a bit!" The boy shook his head. "There isn't any way. You let me alone, and clear." "He can't do worse'n kill us," said Tilda desperately, with a look back at the house. "S'help me, let's try!" But her spirit quailed. "He won't kill you. He'll catch you, and keep you here for ever and ever." "We'll try, all the same." Tilda shut her teeth and held out a hand--or rather, was beginning to extend it--when a sound arrested her. It came from the door of the glass-house, and as she glanced towards it her heart leapt and stood still. "'Dolph!" Yes, it was 'Dolph, dirty, begrimed with coal; 'Dolph fawning towards her, cringing almost on his belly, but wagging his stump of a tail ecstatically. Tilda dashed upon him. "Oh, 'Dolph!--_how?_" The dog strangled down a bark, and ran back to the glass-house, but paused in the doorway a moment to make sure that she was following. It was all right. Tilda had caught the boy's hand, and was dragging him along. 'Dolph led them through the glass-house and down a flight of four steps to the broken door of a furnace-room. They pushed after him. Behind the furnace a second doorway opened upon a small coal-cellar, through the ceiling of which, in the right-hand corner, poured a circular ray of light. The ray travelled down a moraine of broken coal, so broad at the base that it covered the whole cellar floor, but narrowing upwards and towards the manhole through which the daylight shone. Down through the manhole, too--O bliss!--came the sound of a man's whistle. "_Ph'ut! Phee-ee--uht!_ Darn that fool of a dog! _Ph'w_--" "For the Lord's sake!" called Tilda, pushing the boy up the coal-shute ahead of her and panting painfully as her feet sank and slid in the black pile. "Eh? . . . Hullo!" A man's face peered down, shutting off the daylight. "Well, in all my born days--" He reached down a hand. "The boy first," gasped Tilda, "--and quick!" CHAPTER IV IN WHICH CHILDE ARTHUR LOSES ONE MOTHER AND GAINS ANOTHER. "_But and when they came to Easter Gate, Easter Gate stood wide; 'y' are late, y' are late,' the Porter said; 'This morn my Lady died.'_"--OLD BALLAD. "Well, in all my born days!" said the young coalheaver again, as he landed the pair on the canal bank. He reached down a hand and drew up 'Dolph by the scruff of his neck. The dog shook himself, and stood with his tail still wagging.