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have been more frightened than ever, thinking that they would put him in prison for having helped to rob the farmer's hen-house.

So now he stood sobbing as if his heart would break at being left behind in the wood. He could not get either of his arms free, or he would have tried to unfasten the knots of the cord which bound him to the tree.

'I can't, I can't do it!' cried he; 'wicked men ! they have left me here to die!'

'I am here too, Harry,' said Hugh, running out from his bush as soon as he thought the gipsies were out of hearing. I have been hiding near, to see what they would do with you.'

Then Harry could have cried for joy as before he had cried for sorrow; but he had had enough of crying just then, so he laughed instead, which was a better way.

Hugh could not for a long time undo the knots, for the strong hands of the man had tied them so tight; but he would not give up trying, and after a while, and by the time the sun was quite high in the heavens, Harry was free.

'Now, we must try and find our way out of the wood, and then we will ask everybody we meet the way back to Uncle Tom's,' said Hugh.

And they left the place just a little too soon;

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for half an hour afterwards the farmer who had been robbed and the police were on the spot, having traced the men through the wood by their footprints on the grass, which had still shown until the heavy dew had dried up; and if Hugh and Harry had been there, the police would have seen them safely sent home.

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CHAPTER XVII.

ROASTING TURNIPS.

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o Hugh and Harry were once more alone in the wood. They seemed to have grown older boys since they had last been alone in that way. Harry had had so much really to cry for during the last night, that he did not cry so easily for little things.

His feet were very sore, and scratched with brambles, and his dress of the old shirt, which was a world too wide for him at the shoulders, and inches too long for him in the sleeves, was as uncomfortable as it well could be, although, perhaps, not worse than Hugh's old corduroys. But Harry and Hugh walked on, thinking only of how soon they could get clear of the wood, and saying nothing to each other of how hungry they were beginning to feel; for they knew it was of What was there to eat there?

no use.

They walked more slowly every hour, and were feeling faint from being so tired and so hungry; and night came on again, and yet they were not out of the wood. How could they be, when they did not know their way out? They might have been walking round and round all day, and never getting on at all; and so they were, for as evening closed in, they found themselves once more upon the gipsies' camping ground.

Then Hugh and Harry sat down as if there was no hope left. They said nothing one to the other, but threw themselves back upon the turf, and fell fast asleep from grief and faintness.

Poor children! they had had no rest the night before, and no food all day, and so much to make them unhappy, that it was no wonder. But it was very early the next morning that Harry woke, and sitting up, he said to his brother

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Hugh, it was very stupid of me, I never thought of it yesterday, but I think I could find my way to the farm where they got all the fowls and turkeys. I know there is a tree all twisted just at a corner, and you turn down by that tree, and it leads you straight into the road. Perhaps the farmer will not see us; but if he does, it will not be so bad as dying of hunger here.'

So they rose up with fresh spirits, and went to look for the way. Harry was right. After a time they came to a tree all twisted in the branches, and standing at a corner of a path. Down this path they went, and after a walk which seemed to them very long, they came to the end of the wood, and on to the high road.

That was all they wanted; they did not dare go near the farm-house, so they went along the road, and after a time they met a ploughboy.

'Oh! there is actually a boy,' said Hugh; 'let us ask him.'

They asked the boy, but could learn nothing of him. He had never heard of Mr. Thomas Selby, their uncle, nor of Greenway Cottage.

There was a field close by where they stood with the boy, and Hugh seeing things growing out of the ground, asked what they were. 'They? they's turmuts,' said the boy. 'Are they good to eat?' asked Harry.

'Ain't they, when they's ripe, that's all;' said the boy. 'Roasted, they's just prime; but these here ain't noways ripe. They's little uns ; wait till em's a month or so older.'

But Hugh and Harry were much too hungry to wait for a month or two; and when the boy moved on, the one said to the other

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