Book 1 - Chapter 11

Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow

Maggie'S intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom
imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy
had walked away, was not so simple as that of going home. No! she
would run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any
more. That was by no means a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often
told she was like a gypsy, and "half wild," that when she was
miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium, and
being entirely in harmony with circumstances, would be to live in a
little brown tent on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, would
gladly receive her and pay her much respect on account of her superior
knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom and
suggested that he should stain his face brown, and they should run
away together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt, observing
that gypsies were thieves, and hardly got anything to eat and had
nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day however, Maggie thought her
misery had reached a pitch at which gypsydom was her refuge, and she
rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this
was a great crisis in her life; she would run straight away till she
came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gypsies; and
cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault with her,
should never see her any more. She thought of her father as she ran
along, but she reconciled herself to the idea of parting with him, by
determining that she would secretly send him a letter by a small
gypsy, who would run away without telling where she was, and just let
him know that she was well and happy, and always loved him very much.

Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time Tom got to
the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was
on the edge of the lane leading to the highroad. She stopped to pant a
little, reflecting that running away was not a pleasant thing until
one had got quite to the common where the gypsies were, but her
resolution had not abated; she presently passed through the gate into
the lane, not knowing where it would lead her, for it was not this way
that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she felt all the
safer for that, because there was no chance of her being overtaken.
But she was soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men
coming along the lane in front of her; she had not thought of meeting
strangers, she had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends
coming after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby-looking men
with flushed faces, one of them carrying a bundle on a stick over his
shoulder; but to her surprise,