The children, breathless with interest, watched him go. On the trunk,
of course, they felt comparatively safe, for it was "home"; but none
the less the "girls" drew up their skirts a little, and Tim felt
premonitory thrills run up his spidery legs into his spine. The
wallflowers shook their tawny heads as a sudden breath of wind swept
past them across the End of the World. It seemed an age before the
audacious thing was accomplished and the door swung wide into the road
outside. Uncle Felix might so easily have been stabbed or poisoned or
suffocated--but instead they saw a shabby, tangled figure come
shuffling through that open gate upon a cloud of dust.
"Quick! he's a perjured man!" cried Judy, remembering a newspaper
article. "Shut the gate!" She sprang down to help. "He'll be arrested
for a highway violence and be incarc-"
There was confusion in her mind. She felt pity for this woebegone
shadow of a human being, and terror lest the Policeman, who lived on
the white, summery high road, would catch him and send him to the
gallows before he was safe inside. Her love was ever with the under
dog.
There was a rush and a scramble, the gate was shut, and the Tramp
stood gasping before them in the enchanted sanctuary of the End of the
World.
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