Robin gratefully stepped back into the darkness, though his heart continued to pump at a great high rate.
“But you have to tell me where it is you’re goin’ at this late hour, and takin’ a baby with you,” Officer Bugle said in a kindly voice.
For a frightening moment, Robin’s brain stopped working. But then he heard himself saying, “My pa is sick, and the baby was crying and keeping him awake. So my mama told me to take him over to my aunt’s. That’s where I’m going now.”
Officer Bugle shook his head with a look showing his view of such an order. “And who is the aunt, and where might she live, lad?” he asked. “It’s safer for you if you let me know that.”
“It’s … it’s Mrs. Kringle,” said Robin, and then proceeded to give the address of the building where he had collected rents earlier that day.
Again Officer Bugle shook his head. “One of those holes,” he muttered under his breath. “But you see, it’s a good thing you told me, lad, because you’re goin’ in just the wrong direction. You need to turn around and go back the other way.”
“Oh, thank you, sir,” said Robin. “I must have taken the wrong turn back there. But I know I can find it now. Thank you very much, Officer.”
“No trouble at all,” said Officer Bugle, smiling. “You’ve a good boy, and you’ve done a fine job gettin’ that baby brother of back to sleep. Take care you don’t wake him. Good night then, lad.”
“Good night, sir,” said Robin, watching Officer Bugle go on down the street, whistling, while he himself turned to go back in exactly the opposite direction from the one he had been taking.
Oh, how much he would have liked to tell this nice man the truth. But the man was a policeman, and he would have had to do what was proper for a policeman to do, deposit Robin and Danny with Hawker. As it was, Robin was going to have to go all around the block to get back to where he would be heading in the right diection to find a church.
Church! What a fine place for Robin to be going. For in something less than two hours he had robbed someone and told a lie. He had suddenly become a thief and a liar. Perhaps that was what it took to survive on the street. If so, he was now well qualified. He only hoped his punishment would never be anything worse than having to go out of his way around the block!
Chapter VI
A Whole Nest!
On and on Robin trudged. Then at last he saw it! The tenements had now been left behind, and there it was—rising tall and stately into the night—the church he was looking for!
Six gas lights on the street around it palely lit up its stone walls and stained-glass arched windows. Rising up from the walls was a lofty spire, now only a shadow against the night sky. At the foot of the church was a lawn lined with spreading junipers and clipped boxwood, all protected by a low, wrought iron fence. Through a large opening in the fence, a brick walk led from the street to the massive carved oak doors of the church.
This was just the church, Robin felt as he walked up the brick path with Danny. Surely among all those who came to this beautiful place there would be someone who would love to have him. Robin would just set him down gently on the steps now and—but no! What was he thinking? Leave Danny there the rest of the night? Even with himself curled up somewhere nearby in the bushes, this was about as harebrained an idea as helping himself to the jewelry in Hawker’s precious drawer. More harebrained than that, if the truth be known. For in this case he might be risking Danny’s life, or his safety at the very least.
What he needed to do, Robin decided, was find some out-of-the-way little cubby at the side or back of the church where he could curl up and have Danny right with him. It would be difficult to lay Danny on the front steps of the church in broad daylight, but somehow he would find a way to do it. Danny still in his arms, Robin left the steps and went around a big circle of yews and boxwoods at the corner of the church to make a search for the cubby. But there was not one to be found at the side of the church. He began to think he would find none at all, and would have to curl up with Danny under one of the bushes. But he would not consider that until he had first gone all around the building.
When he rounded the back corner of the church, he found himself in near-total darkness. The street lamps gave just enough light to reveal a pair of iron railings rising up over brick steps that led down to a cellar door. A cellar door that dipped in enough to provide a cubby for Robin and Danny!
But before Robin could take the first step down, he saw a pinprick of light flickering on the pane of a small cellar window halfway down the back of the church. Robin held his breath. Was there someone in there with an oil lamp or a candle? Might that someone be coming through the door? Would he be caught there with Danny? And then the pinprick of light disappeared, and the window became once more only a small square of black glass like all the other windows.
Robin was very, very tired by this time. His arms ached from carrying Danny. His legs ached from walking. And
