Rollo at Play; Or, Safe Amusements Part 20

Rollo looked round. It was his uncle George, walking close behind him.

"What is the liberty of the yard?" said Rollo.

"Why, when _men_ intend to treat a prisoner kindly, they leave the prison door open, and let him walk about the yard; and this is called letting him have the liberty of the yard; and sometimes they let them go over half the town."

"Do you think I had better do so with Mosette?" said Rollo.

"Yes," said his uncle George; "leave his cage open, and let him go where he pleases."

"O, he would fly entirely away," said Rollo.

"Perhaps not, if you should feed him well, and treat him very kindly. He might like his cage better than any nest."

"I shall treat him as kindly as I can," said Rollo; "only think, Jonas, _that Jim_ said, if he had found him, he should have set him up upon the fence for a mark to fire stones at!"

"Jim said so?" said Jonas; "how did Jim know any thing about it?"

"Why--e--h--why--I told him," said Rollo.

"What did you tell him for?"

"O, because," said Rollo, "we were talking, and I told him."

"I hope you did not tell him where we hid Mosette, behind the rock."

"Why--yes," said Rollo, "I believe I did."

"Then I am afraid you will never see poor Mosette again," said Jonas.

"Why," said Rollo, "you don't think that he would go and get him."

"I don't know," said Jonas, "what he would do; but I should not have wanted to tell such a boy any thing about him."

Rollo began to be alarmed. He went back to his father, and asked him to let him and Jonas go on before the rest, to see if their bird was safe.

His father told him he might go. "But," said he, "I am afraid you have lost your bird; when a boy allows himself to get into bad company, he does not know how many troubles he plunges himself into."

Rollo and Jonas ran on, and soon disappeared among the trees. Rollo found it hard to keep up, as the road was not very smooth, though they had got down the steepest part of the mountain. Jonas kept hold of Rollo's hand, and went on running and walking alternately, until they got down to the end of the trees and bushes, and then they came out in sight of the place where the horses were tied.

It was fortunate for poor Mosette, and for Rollo too, that they did thus run on before, for it happened that Jim, and the boys with him, had come down the mountain by another road, and were just going up to the place as Jonas and Rollo came out of the woods.

"There they are," said Jonas. "You stay here; I must run on." And he let go of Rollo's hand, sprang forward, and ran with all his might. Rollo tried to follow, but soon stopped and looked on.

Jim and his boys did not see Jonas coming, and they went to work looking around the bushes and stones after Mosette. In a few minutes, one smaller boy came out from the bushes, close by the place where Rollo recollected the nest was hid, with something in his hand, and Rollo could distinctly hear him calling out,

"Here he is, Jim--I have got him, Jim."

Just that moment, Jonas came running up among the boys, calling out,

"Let that bird alone!--Let that bird alone!" The boys, terrified at this unexpected onset, started and ran in every direction. The boy who had the nest, dropped it upon the ground, and dodged back into the bushes. Jonas took it up carefully, put little Mosette, who had fallen out, back in the nest, and walked out into the road to meet Rollo, who was coming down as fast as he could come, on the other side.

They saw Jim and his comrades no more, and Rollo said he believed he should never again want to have any thing to do with bad boys.