A MILKMAN TO THE RESCUE.

WHEN Davey made his way up the cliff, he found that the pretty little town of Tenby was still asleep. The streets were deserted, save by a slinking cat or two and a few rakish-looking sparrows. The grand old walls and the five-arched entrance at the head of what is now known as the South Parade, dripped heavy dew-drops from every spray of ivy and flowering weed that clothed with green dress the ancient stone-work.

A strong south-west wind had sprung up, and the big white breakers that fringed the beach with foam, made a dismal noise which mingled with the dirge of the gale as it eddied in and out among the streets, whirling hither and thither every scrap of moveable rubbish that it could find.

The sense of hunger had become acute by this time, and Davey was hardly able to get along, for he was bent nearly double with sharp pain. A poor, piteous little figure he looked, as he crawled on through the silent town, with its closed shops and curtained windows. His head and feet were bare, for the waves had washed away his cap during the voyage round the point, and his socks had also vanished in the same way. His boots had been left behind in the cave, as being too heavy to wear with safety in the water.

His clothes, soiled and threadbare, were covered all over with sand, and his thickly-curling brown hair was a perfect museum in the way of collected specimens of broken shell, sea-weed, dry crab-claws, and other relics of shore and sea.

At last, the boy felt so faint and sick with the pain of his long fast, that he could go no further. Down he dropped with his back against a shop-door, and his drooping head in his hands.

"I say, my young scarecrow, what's up?" asked a rough, but kindly voice, which roused Davey and made him look up.

A jolly-looking milkman had stopped his cart in which he had just driven up from the country, and was gazing at him with curious but compassionate eyes.

"I'm dreadful hungry," said the boy, "and that made me feel so queer that I had to sit down here. I couldn't go further."

"You look starved, boy. Well, well, I think I can help you a bit."

And the good-hearted fellow got out of his cart, filled a large tin mug with new milk from the can, and handed it to Davey, with two thick slices of brown bread and butter which he took out of a paper parcel in a basket.

"There," said he, "my old woman always gives me something to eat on the way up to Tenby, for I've no time for a proper breakfast before starting from home. Eat it up, my lad; I've enough left for myself. No—don't hurry, neither; I'm a bit earlier than usual to-day; Dobbin trotted fast, and the roads were good."

It was only when Davey had nearly finished the food given him that the milkman said, "And now tell me, my boy, how you came to be here in such a plight. You don't look like a common tramp or a beggar."

"Don't I, sir?" questioned Davey, glancing ruefully at his miserable clothing. "I was afraid that was just what I did look like."

"Your clothes—p'raps, but not your face," replied the man, with a kindly smile.

"Then as you're not a tramp or a beggar," continued the milkman, "where's your home? Have you got one?"

"To be sure I have, sir," responded Davey, his eyes filling just at the thought of that dear, far-off home of his. "And it's near Bristol."

"Have you no friends here, and no one you know?"

"No, sir, nobody at all."

"And how does it happen, my lad, that you're all over sand and shells and things?"

"I slept on the beach last night," replied Davey. But seeing in the man's face that he was puzzled about him, he said, "I ran away from home, and I've been through a lot of trouble of one sort and another, and lately I got in with—" Here Davey checked himself, for he was going to say smugglers, and remembered only just in time.

"With what?" asked the milkman.

"A queer set of folks that wanted me to live as they did. I knew I'd soon be just like them if I stayed, so I ran away. It seems to me," continued Davey, after a thoughtful little pause—"it does seem to me as if I'd been doing little else but running away ever since I ran away from my own home. The first time I did it for my own pleasure, but afterwards it's been my punishment. And now, when I'd like nothing so well as to go home and be quiet and safe with Uncle Zach and Aunt Patty, I can't get to them."

"It's hard lines, ain't it?"

"Yes, and it's being my own fault makes it the harder," replied Davey. "But I feel much better now," he added, gratefully; "the bread and milk has made a man of me. I must go about and see if I can get some work anywhere, if it's only to earn my victuals, and maybe an old cap and pair of boots, so as I can set off and walk home."

"Well, my lad, I wish I could do more for you, but I must be away on my round now. The folks are getting up at last in this sleepy place, and will be wanting their milk."

So the milkman drove off, and Davey walked away in the opposite direction, and came to a corner where there was a hoarding, on which were displayed some huge waybills, with brightly coloured pictures of circus horses and their riders, and also of lions, bears, and leopards, with a life-size picture of the handsome young wild beast tamer, Mr. Leo Mendoza.

"Why," said Davey to himself, "if that isn't the very circus that me and Tom went to see in Bristol! It must be making a round, and taking Tenby in its turn."

The poor lad wandered about, bitterly ashamed of his bare head and feet, stared and jeered at by the rude boys of the town, and unable to get a job of any sort. A little girl on the north shore beach divided her lunch cake with him, and later on he gathered a quantity of mussels on the rocks to stay his craving for food, but this was all.

And evening came again, and Davey, disheartened, weary, and shivering, but thankful at least for the darkness that hid his forlorn condition, stole back into the town, hoping against hope for something to turn up for his help.

After a while, he noticed that quite a number of people were walking in one direction, and having nothing else to do, he followed with the crowd, and soon he saw that they were bound for a field just outside the town, and that the big tent which he had cause to remember so well was pitched there. Poor Davey, shut out from the light and warmth inside those canvas walls, walked about the field, and presently found himself at the side of the tent just opposite the entrance where the man was taking the money. Here, in a smaller tent of oblong shape, and quite open in front, stood the great performing cage. The tent was not lighted, and only the deep breathings and occasional growls of the animals showed that they were there.

A little way off, in a corner of the field, some members of the troupe had made a fire on the grass, and were piling up sticks under a big pot—perhaps cooking their supper.

Davey had strolled nearer to them, and was watching the fire and wishing the good folks would invite him to share their meal, when from the place he had just left, in front of the great cage, there came a loud shriek of pain and fear.