[Part 2] "The Railway Children" by Edith Nesbit
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CHAPTER III. THE OLD GENTLEMAN
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After the adventure of Peter's Coal-mine, it seemed well to the children to keep away from the station—but they did not, they could not, keep away from the railway.
They had lived all their lives in a street where cabs and omnibuses rumbled by at all hours, and the carts of butchers and bakers and candlestick makers (I never saw a candlestick-maker's cart; did you?) might occur at any moment.
Here in the deep silence of the sleeping country the only things that went by were the trains.
They seemed to be all that was left to link the children to the old life that had once been theirs.
Straight down the hill in front of Three Chimneys the daily passage of their six feet began to mark a path across the crisp, short turf.
They began to know the hours when certain trains passed, and they gave names to them.
The 9.15 up was called the Green Dragon.
The 10.7 down was the Worm of Wantley.
The midnight town express, whose shrieking rush they sometimes woke from their dreams to hear, was the Fearsome Fly-by-night.
Peter got up once, in chill starshine, and, peeping at it through his curtains, named it on the spot.
It was by the Green Dragon that the old gentleman travelled.
He was a very nice-looking old gentleman, and he looked as if he were nice, too, which is not at all the same thing.
He had a fresh-coloured, clean-shaven face and white hair, and he wore rather odd-shaped collars and a top-hat that wasn't exactly the same kind as other people's.
Of course the children didn't see all this at first.
In fact the first thing they noticed about the old gentleman was his hand.
It was one morning as they sat on the fence waiting for the Green Dragon, which was three and a quarter minutes late by Peter's Waterbury watch that he had had given him on his last birthday.
"The Green Dragon's going where Father is," said Phyllis; "if it were a really real dragon, we could stop it and ask it to take our love to Father."
"Dragons don't carry people's love," said Peter; "they'd be above it."
"Yes, they do, if you tame them thoroughly first.
They fetch and carry like pet spaniels," said Phyllis, "and feed out of your hand.
I wonder why Father never writes to us."
"Mother says he's been too busy," said Bobbie; "but he'll write soon, she says."
"I say," Phyllis suggested, "let's all wave to the Green Dragon as it goes by.
If it's a magic dragon, it'll understand and take our loves to Father.
And if it isn't, three waves aren't much.
We shall never miss them."
So when the Green Dragon tore shrieking out of the mouth of its dark lair, which was the tunnel, all three children stood on the railing and waved their pocket-handkerchiefs without stopping to think whether they were clean handkerchiefs or the reverse.
They were, as a matter of fact, very much the reverse.
And out of a first-class carriage a hand waved back.
A quite clean hand.
It held a newspaper.
It was the old gentleman's hand.
After this it became the custom for waves to be exchanged between the children and the 9.15.
And the children, especially the girls, liked to think that perhaps the old gentleman knew Father, and would meet him 'in business,' wherever that shady retreat might be, and tell him how his three children stood on a rail far away in the green country and waved their love to him every morning, wet or fine.
For they were now able to go out in all sorts of weather such as they would never have been allowed to go out in when they lived in their villa house.
This was Aunt Emma's doing, and the children felt more and more that they had not been quite fair to this unattractive aunt, when they found how useful were the long gaiters and waterproof coats that they had laughed at her for buying for them.
Mother, all this time, was very busy with her writing.
She used to send off a good many long blue envelopes with stories in them—and large envelopes of different sizes and colours used to come to her.
Sometimes she would sigh when she opened them and say:—
"Another story come home to roost.
Oh, dear, Oh, dear!" and then the children would be very sorry.
But sometimes she would wave the envelope in the air and say:—
"Hooray, hooray.
Here's a sensible Editor.
He's taken my story and this is the proof of it."
At first the children thought 'the Proof' meant the letter the sensible Editor had written, but they presently got to know that the proof was long slips of paper with the story printed on them.
Whenever an Editor was sensible there were buns for tea.
One day Peter was going down to the village to get buns to celebrate the sensibleness of the Editor of the Children's Globe, when he met the Station Master.
Peter felt very uncomfortable, for he had now had time to think over the affair of the coal-mine.
He did not like to say "Good morning" to the Station Master, as you usually do to anyone you meet on a lonely road, because he had a hot feeling, which spread even to his ears, that the Station Master might not care to speak to a person who had stolen coals.
'Stolen' is a nasty word, but Peter felt it was the right one.
So he looked down, and said Nothing.
It was the Station Master who said "Good morning" as he passed by.
And Peter answered, "Good morning."
Then he thought:—
"Perhaps he doesn't know who I am by daylight, or he wouldn't be so polite."
And he did not like the feeling which thinking this gave him.
And then before he knew what he was going to do he ran after the Station Master, who stopped when he heard Peter's hasty boots crunching the road, and coming up with him very breathless and with his ears now quite magenta-coloured, he said:—
"I don't want you to be polite to me if you don't know me when you see me."
"Eh?" said the Station Master.
"I thought perhaps you didn't know it was me that took the coals," Peter went on, "when you said 'Good morning.'
But it was, and I'm sorry.
There."
"Why," said the Station Master, "I wasn't thinking anything at all about the precious coals.
Let bygones be bygones.
And where were you off to in such a hurry?"
"I'm going to buy buns for tea," said Peter.
"I thought you were all so poor," said the Station Master.
"So we are," said Peter, confidentially, "but we always have three pennyworth of halfpennies for tea whenever Mother sells a story or a poem or anything."
"Oh," said the Station Master, "so your Mother writes stories, does she?"
"The beautifulest you ever read," said Peter.
"You ought to be very proud to have such a clever Mother."
"Yes," said Peter, "but she used to play with us more before she had to be so clever."
"Well," said the Station Master, "I must be getting along.
You give us a look in at the Station whenever you feel so inclined.
And as to coals, it's a word that—well—oh, no, we never mention it, eh?"
"Thank you," said Peter.
"I'm very glad it's all straightened out between us."
And he went on across the canal bridge to the village to get the buns, feeling more comfortable in his mind than he had felt since the hand of the Station Master had fastened on his collar that night among the coals.
Next day when they had sent the threefold wave of greeting to Father by the Green Dragon, and the old gentleman had waved back as usual, Peter proudly led the way to the station.
"But ought we?" said Bobbie.
"After the coals, she means," Phyllis explained.
"I met the Station Master yesterday," said Peter, in an offhand way, and he pretended not to hear what Phyllis had said; "he expresspecially invited us to go down any time we liked."
"After the coals?" repeated Phyllis.
"Stop a minute—my bootlace is undone again."
"It always IS undone again," said Peter, "and the Station Master was more of a gentleman than you'll ever be, Phil—throwing coal at a chap's head like that."
Phyllis did up her bootlace and went on in silence, but her shoulders shook, and presently a fat tear fell off her nose and splashed on the metal of the railway line.
Bobbie saw it.
"Why, what's the matter, darling?" she said, stopping short and putting her arm round the heaving shoulders.
"He called me un-un-ungentlemanly," sobbed Phyllis.
"I didn't never call him unladylike, not even when he tied my Clorinda to the firewood bundle and burned her at the stake for a martyr."
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Peter had indeed perpetrated this outrage a year or two before.
"Well, you began, you know," said Bobbie, honestly, "about coals and all that.
Don't you think you'd better both unsay everything since the wave, and let honour be satisfied?"
"I will if Peter will," said Phyllis, sniffling.
"All right," said Peter; "honour is satisfied.
Here, use my hankie, Phil, for goodness' sake, if you've lost yours as usual.
I wonder what you do with them."
"You had my last one," said Phyllis, indignantly, "to tie up the rabbit-hutch door with.
But you're very ungrateful.
It's quite right what it says in the poetry book about sharper than a serpent it is to have a toothless child—but it means ungrateful when it says toothless.
Miss Lowe told me so."
"All right," said Peter, impatiently, "I'm sorry.
THERE!
Now will you come on?"
They reached the station and spent a joyous two hours with the Porter.
He was a worthy man and seemed never tired of answering the questions that begin with "Why—" which many people in higher ranks of life often seem weary of.
He told them many things that they had not known before—as, for instance, that the things that hook carriages together are called couplings, and that the pipes like great serpents that hang over the couplings are meant to stop the train with.
"If you could get a holt of one o' them when the train is going and pull 'em apart," said he, "she'd stop dead off with a jerk."
"Who's she?" said Phyllis.
"The train, of course," said the Porter.
After that the train was never again 'It' to the children.
"And you know the thing in the carriages where it says on it, 'Five pounds' fine for improper use.'
If you was to improperly use that, the train 'ud stop."
"And if you used it properly?" said Roberta.
"It 'ud stop just the same, I suppose," said he, "but it isn't proper use unless you're being murdered.
There was an old lady once—someone kidded her on it was a refreshment-room bell, and she used it improper, not being in danger of her life, though hungry, and when the train stopped and the guard came along expecting to find someone weltering in their last moments, she says, 'Oh, please, Mister, I'll take a glass of stout and a bath bun,' she says.
And the train was seven minutes behind her time as it was."
"What did the guard say to the old lady?"
"I dunno," replied the Porter, "but I lay she didn't forget it in a hurry, whatever it was."
In such delightful conversation the time went by all too quickly.
The Station Master came out once or twice from that sacred inner temple behind the place where the hole is that they sell you tickets through, and was most jolly with them all.
"Just as if coal had never been discovered," Phyllis whispered to her sister.
He gave them each an orange, and promised to take them up into the signal-box one of these days, when he wasn't so busy.
Several trains went through the station, and Peter noticed for the first time that engines have numbers on them, like cabs.
"Yes," said the Porter, "I knowed a young gent as used to take down the numbers of every single one he seed; in a green note-book with silver corners it was, owing to his father being very well-to-do in the wholesale stationery."
Peter felt that he could take down numbers, too, even if he was not the son of a wholesale stationer.
As he did not happen to have a green leather note-book with silver corners, the Porter gave him a yellow envelope and on it he noted:—
379
663
and felt that this was the beginning of what would be a most interesting collection.
That night at tea he asked Mother if she had a green leather note-book with silver corners.
She had not; but when she heard what he wanted it for she gave him a little black one.
"It has a few pages torn out," said she; "but it will hold quite a lot of numbers, and when it's full I'll give you another.
I'm so glad you like the railway.
Only, please, you mustn't walk on the line."
"Not if we face the way the train's coming?" asked Peter, after a gloomy pause, in which glances of despair were exchanged.
"No—really not," said Mother.
Then Phyllis said, "Mother, didn't YOU ever walk on the railway lines when you were little?"
Mother was an honest and honourable Mother, so she had to say, "Yes."
"Well, then," said Phyllis.
"But, darlings, you don't know how fond I am of you.
What should I do if you got hurt?"
"Are you fonder of us than Granny was of you when you were little?" Phyllis asked.
Bobbie made signs to her to stop, but Phyllis never did see signs, no matter how plain they might be.
Mother did not answer for a minute.
She got up to put more water in the teapot.
"No one," she said at last, "ever loved anyone more than my mother loved me."
Then she was quiet again, and Bobbie kicked Phyllis hard under the table, because Bobbie understood a little bit the thoughts that were making Mother so quiet—the thoughts of the time when Mother was a little girl and was all the world to HER mother.
It seems so easy and natural to run to Mother when one is in trouble.
Bobbie understood a little how people do not leave off running to their mothers when they are in trouble even when they are grown up, and she thought she knew a little what it must be to be sad, and have no mother to run to any more.
So she kicked Phyllis, who said:—
"What are you kicking me like that for, Bob?"
And then Mother laughed a little and sighed and said:—
"Very well, then.
Only let me be sure you do know which way the trains come—and don't walk on the line near the tunnel or near corners."
"Trains keep to the left like carriages," said Peter, "so if we keep to the right, we're bound to see them coming."
"Very well," said Mother, and I dare say you think that she ought not to have said it.
But she remembered about when she was a little girl herself, and she did say it—and neither her own children nor you nor any other children in the world could ever understand exactly what it cost her to do it.
Only some few of you, like Bobbie, may understand a very little bit.
It was the very next day that Mother had to stay in bed because her head ached so.
Her hands were burning hot, and she would not eat anything, and her throat was very sore.
"If I was you, Mum," said Mrs. Viney, "I should take and send for the doctor.
There's a lot of catchy complaints a-going about just now.
My sister's eldest—she took a chill and it went to her inside, two years ago come Christmas, and she's never been the same gell since."
Mother wouldn't at first, but in the evening she felt so much worse that Peter was sent to the house in the village that had three laburnum trees by the gate, and on the gate a brass plate with W. W. Forrest, M.D., on it.
W. W. Forrest, M.D., came at once.
He talked to Peter on the way back.
He seemed a most charming and sensible man, interested in railways, and rabbits, and really important things.
When he had seen Mother, he said it was influenza.
"Now, Lady Grave-airs," he said in the hall to Bobbie, "I suppose you'll want to be head-nurse."
"Of course," said she.
"Well, then, I'll send down some medicine.
Keep up a good fire.
Have some strong beef tea made ready to give her as soon as the fever goes down.
She can have grapes now, and beef essence—and soda-water and milk, and you'd better get in a bottle of brandy.
The best brandy.
Cheap brandy is worse than poison."
She asked him to write it all down, and he did.
When Bobbie showed Mother the list he had written, Mother laughed.
It WAS a laugh, Bobbie decided, though it was rather odd and feeble.
"Nonsense," said Mother, laying in bed with eyes as bright as beads.
"I can't afford all that rubbish.
Tell Mrs. Viney to boil two pounds of scrag-end of the neck for your dinners to-morrow, and I can have some of the broth.
Yes, I should like some more water now, love.
And will you get a basin and sponge my hands?"
Roberta obeyed.
When she had done everything she could to make Mother less uncomfortable, she went down to the others.
Her cheeks were very red, her lips set tight, and her eyes almost as bright as Mother's.
She told them what the Doctor had said, and what Mother had said.
"And now," said she, when she had told all, "there's no one but us to do anything, and we've got to do it.
I've got the shilling for the mutton."
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"We can do without the beastly mutton," said Peter; "bread and butter will support life.
People have lived on less on desert islands many a time."
"Of course," said his sister.
And Mrs. Viney was sent to the village to get as much brandy and soda-water and beef tea as she could buy for a shilling.
"But even if we never have anything to eat at all," said Phyllis, "you can't get all those other things with our dinner money."
"No," said Bobbie, frowning, "we must find out some other way.
Now THINK, everybody, just as hard as ever you can."
They did think.
And presently they talked.
And later, when Bobbie had gone up to sit with Mother in case she wanted anything, the other two were very busy with scissors and a white sheet, and a paint brush, and the pot of Brunswick black that Mrs. Viney used for grates and fenders.
They did not manage to do what they wished, exactly, with the first sheet, so they took another out of the linen cupboard.
It did not occur to them that they were spoiling good sheets which cost good money.
They only knew that they were making a good—but what they were making comes later.
Bobbie's bed had been moved into Mother's room, and several times in the night she got up to mend the fire, and to give her mother milk and soda-water.
Mother talked to herself a good deal, but it did not seem to mean anything.
And once she woke up suddenly and called out: "Mamma, mamma!" and Bobbie knew she was calling for Granny, and that she had forgotten that it was no use calling, because Granny was dead.
In the early morning Bobbie heard her name and jumped out of bed and ran to Mother's bedside.
"Oh—ah, yes—I think I was asleep," said Mother.
"My poor little duck, how tired you'll be—I do hate to give you all this trouble."
"Trouble!" said Bobbie.
"Ah, don't cry, sweet," Mother said; "I shall be all right in a day or two."
And Bobbie said, "Yes," and tried to smile.
When you are used to ten hours of solid sleep, to get up three or four times in your sleep-time makes you feel as though you had been up all night.
Bobbie felt quite stupid and her eyes were sore and stiff, but she tidied the room, and arranged everything neatly before the Doctor came.
This was at half-past eight.
"Everything going on all right, little Nurse?" he said at the front door.
"Did you get the brandy?"
"I've got the brandy," said Bobbie, "in a little flat bottle."
"I didn't see the grapes or the beef tea, though," said he.
"No," said Bobbie, firmly, "but you will to-morrow.
And there's some beef stewing in the oven for beef tea."
"Who told you to do that?" he asked.
"I noticed what Mother did when Phil had mumps."
"Right," said the Doctor.
"Now you get your old woman to sit with your mother, and then you eat a good breakfast, and go straight to bed and sleep till dinner-time.
We can't afford to have the head-nurse ill."
He was really quite a nice doctor.
When the 9.15 came out of the tunnel that morning the old gentleman in the first-class carriage put down his newspaper, and got ready to wave his hand to the three children on the fence.
But this morning there were not three.
There was only one.
And that was Peter.
Peter was not on the railings either, as usual.
He was standing in front of them in an attitude like that of a show-man showing off the animals in a menagerie, or of the kind clergyman when he points with a wand at the 'Scenes from Palestine,' when there is a magic-lantern and he is explaining it.
Peter was pointing, too.
And what he was pointing at was a large white sheet nailed against the fence.
On the sheet there were thick black letters more than a foot long.
Some of them had run a little, because of Phyllis having put the Brunswick black on too eagerly, but the words were quite easy to read.
And this what the old gentleman and several other people in the train read in the large black letters on the white sheet:—
LOOK OUT AT THE STATION.
A good many people did look out at the station and were disappointed, for they saw nothing unusual.
The old gentleman looked out, too, and at first he too saw nothing more unusual than the gravelled platform and the sunshine and the wallflowers and forget-me-nots in the station borders.
It was only just as the train was beginning to puff and pull itself together to start again that he saw Phyllis.
She was quite out of breath with running.
"Oh," she said, "I thought I'd missed you.
My bootlaces would keep coming down and I fell over them twice.
Here, take it."
She thrust a warm, dampish letter into his hand as the train moved.
He leaned back in his corner and opened the letter.
This is what he read:—
"Dear Mr. We do not know your name.
Mother is ill and the doctor says to give her the things at the end of the letter, but she says she can't aford it, and to get mutton for us and she will have the broth.
We do not know anybody here but you, because Father is away and we do not know the address.
Father will pay you, or if he has lost all his money, or anything, Peter will pay you when he is a man.
We promise it on our honer.
I.O.U. for all the things Mother wants.
"sined Peter.
"Will you give the parsel to the Station Master, because of us not knowing what train you come down by?
Say it is for Peter that was sorry about the coals and he will know all right.
"Roberta.
"Phyllis.
"Peter."
Then came the list of things the Doctor had ordered.
The old gentleman read it through once, and his eyebrows went up.
He read it twice and smiled a little.
When he had read it thrice, he put it in his pocket and went on reading The Times.
At about six that evening there was a knock at the back door.
The three children rushed to open it, and there stood the friendly Porter, who had told them so many interesting things about railways.
He dumped down a big hamper on the kitchen flags.
"Old gent," he said; "he asked me to fetch it up straight away."
"Thank you very much," said Peter, and then, as the Porter lingered, he added:—
"I'm most awfully sorry I haven't got twopence to give you like Father does, but—"
"You drop it if you please," said the Porter, indignantly.
"I wasn't thinking about no tuppences.
I only wanted to say I was sorry your Mamma wasn't so well, and to ask how she finds herself this evening—and I've fetched her along a bit of sweetbrier, very sweet to smell it is.
Twopence indeed," said he, and produced a bunch of sweetbrier from his hat, "just like a conjurer," as Phyllis remarked afterwards.
"Thank you very much," said Peter, "and I beg your pardon about the twopence."
"No offence," said the Porter, untruly but politely, and went.
Then the children undid the hamper.
First there was straw, and then there were fine shavings, and then came all the things they had asked for, and plenty of them, and then a good many things they had not asked for; among others peaches and port wine and two chickens, a cardboard box of big red roses with long stalks, and a tall thin green bottle of lavender water, and three smaller fatter bottles of eau-de-Cologne.
There was a letter, too.
"Dear Roberta and Phyllis and Peter," it said; "here are the things you want.
Your mother will want to know where they came from.
Tell her they were sent by a friend who heard she was ill.
When she is well again you must tell her all about it, of course.
And if she says you ought not to have asked for the things, tell her that I say you were quite right, and that I hope she will forgive me for taking the liberty of allowing myself a very great pleasure."
The letter was signed G. P. something that the children couldn't read.
"I think we WERE right," said Phyllis.
"Right?
Of course we were right," said Bobbie.
"All the same," said Peter, with his hands in his pockets, "I don't exactly look forward to telling Mother the whole truth about it."
"We're not to do it till she's well," said Bobbie, "and when she's well we shall be so happy we shan't mind a little fuss like that.
Oh, just look at the roses!
I must take them up to her."
"And the sweetbrier," said Phyllis, sniffing it loudly; "don't forget the sweetbrier."
"As if I should!" said Roberta.
"Mother told me the other day there was a thick hedge of it at her mother's house when she was a little girl."
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CHAPTER IV. THE ENGINE-BURGLAR
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What was left of the second sheet and the Brunswick black came in very nicely to make a banner bearing the legend
SHE IS NEARLY WELL THANK YOU
and this was displayed to the Green Dragon about a fortnight after the arrival of the wonderful hamper.
The old gentleman saw it, and waved a cheerful response from the train.
And when this had been done the children saw that now was the time when they must tell Mother what they had done when she was ill.
And it did not seem nearly so easy as they had thought it would be.
But it had to be done.
And it was done.
Mother was extremely angry.
She was seldom angry, and now she was angrier than they had ever known her.
This was horrible.
But it was much worse when she suddenly began to cry.
Crying is catching, I believe, like measles and whooping-cough.
At any rate, everyone at once found itself taking part in a crying-party.
Mother stopped first.
She dried her eyes and then she said:—
"I'm sorry I was so angry, darlings, because I know you didn't understand."
"We didn't mean to be naughty, Mammy," sobbed Bobbie, and Peter and Phyllis sniffed.
"Now, listen," said Mother; "it's quite true that we're poor, but we have enough to live on.
You mustn't go telling everyone about our affairs—it's not right.
And you must never, never, never ask strangers to give you things.
Now always remember that—won't you?"
They all hugged her and rubbed their damp cheeks against hers and promised that they would.
"And I'll write a letter to your old gentleman, and I shall tell him that I didn't approve—oh, of course I shall thank him, too, for his kindness.
It's YOU I don't approve of, my darlings, not the old gentleman.
He was as kind as ever he could be.
And you can give the letter to the Station Master to give him—and we won't say any more about it."
Afterwards, when the children were alone, Bobbie said:—
"Isn't Mother splendid?
You catch any other grown-up saying they were sorry they had been angry."
"Yes," said Peter, "she IS splendid; but it's rather awful when she's angry."
"She's like Avenging and Bright in the song," said Phyllis.
"I should like to look at her if it wasn't so awful.
She looks so beautiful when she's really downright furious."
They took the letter down to the Station Master.
"I thought you said you hadn't got any friends except in London," said he.
"We've made him since," said Peter.
"But he doesn't live hereabouts?"
"No—we just know him on the railway."
Then the Station Master retired to that sacred inner temple behind the little window where the tickets are sold, and the children went down to the Porters' room and talked to the Porter.
They learned several interesting things from him—among others that his name was Perks, that he was married and had three children, that the lamps in front of engines are called head-lights and the ones at the back tail-lights.
"And that just shows," whispered Phyllis, "that trains really ARE dragons in disguise, with proper heads and tails."
It was on this day that the children first noticed that all engines are not alike.
"Alike?" said the Porter, whose name was Perks, "lor, love you, no, Miss.
No more alike nor what you an' me are.
That little 'un without a tender as went by just now all on her own, that was a tank, that was—she's off to do some shunting t'other side o' Maidbridge.
That's as it might be you, Miss.
Then there's goods engines, great, strong things with three wheels each side—joined with rods to strengthen 'em—as it might be me.
Then there's main-line engines as it might be this 'ere young gentleman when he grows up and wins all the races at 'is school—so he will.
The main-line engine she's built for speed as well as power.
That's one to the 9.15 up."
"The Green Dragon," said Phyllis.
"We calls her the Snail, Miss, among ourselves," said the Porter.
"She's oftener be'ind'and nor any train on the line."
"But the engine's green," said Phyllis.
"Yes, Miss," said Perks, "so's a snail some seasons o' the year."
The children agreed as they went home to dinner that the Porter was most delightful company.
Next day was Roberta's birthday.
In the afternoon she was politely but firmly requested to get out of the way and keep there till tea-time.
"You aren't to see what we're going to do till it's done; it's a glorious surprise," said Phyllis.
And Roberta went out into the garden all alone.
She tried to be grateful, but she felt she would much rather have helped in whatever it was than have to spend her birthday afternoon by herself, no matter how glorious the surprise might be.
Now that she was alone, she had time to think, and one of the things she thought of most was what mother had said in one of those feverish nights when her hands were so hot and her eyes so bright.
The words were: "Oh, what a doctor's bill there'll be for this!"
She walked round and round the garden among the rose-bushes that hadn't any roses yet, only buds, and the lilac bushes and syringas and American currants, and the more she thought of the doctor's bill, the less she liked the thought of it.
And presently she made up her mind.
She went out through the side door of the garden and climbed up the steep field to where the road runs along by the canal.
She walked along until she came to the bridge that crosses the canal and leads to the village, and here she waited.
It was very pleasant in the sunshine to lean one's elbows on the warm stone of the bridge and look down at the blue water of the canal.
Bobbie had never seen any other canal, except the Regent's Canal, and the water of that is not at all a pretty colour.
And she had never seen any river at all except the Thames, which also would be all the better if its face was washed.
Perhaps the children would have loved the canal as much as the railway, but for two things.
One was that they had found the railway FIRST—on that first, wonderful morning when the house and the country and the moors and rocks and great hills were all new to them.
They had not found the canal till some days later.
The other reason was that everyone on the railway had been kind to them—the Station Master, the Porter, and the old gentleman who waved.
And the people on the canal were anything but kind.
The people on the canal were, of course, the bargees, who steered the slow barges up and down, or walked beside the old horses that trampled up the mud of the towing-path, and strained at the long tow-ropes.
Peter had once asked one of the bargees the time, and had been told to "get out of that," in a tone so fierce that he did not stop to say anything about his having just as much right on the towing-path as the man himself.
Indeed, he did not even think of saying it till some time later.
Then another day when the children thought they would like to fish in the canal, a boy in a barge threw lumps of coal at them, and one of these hit Phyllis on the back of the neck.
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She was just stooping down to tie up her bootlace—and though the coal hardly hurt at all it made her not care very much about going on fishing.
On the bridge, however, Roberta felt quite safe, because she could look down on the canal, and if any boy showed signs of meaning to throw coal, she could duck behind the parapet.
Presently there was a sound of wheels, which was just what she expected.
The wheels were the wheels of the Doctor's dogcart, and in the cart, of course, was the Doctor.
He pulled up, and called out:—
"Hullo, head nurse!
Want a lift?"
"I wanted to see you," said Bobbie.
"Your mother's not worse, I hope?" said the Doctor.
"No—but—"
"Well, skip in, then, and we'll go for a drive."
Roberta climbed in and the brown horse was made to turn round—which it did not like at all, for it was looking forward to its tea—I mean its oats.
"This IS jolly," said Bobbie, as the dogcart flew along the road by the canal.
"We could throw a stone down any one of your three chimneys," said the Doctor, as they passed the house.
"Yes," said Bobbie, "but you'd have to be a jolly good shot."
"How do you know I'm not?" said the Doctor.
"Now, then, what's the trouble?"
Bobbie fidgeted with the hook of the driving apron.
"Come, out with it," said the Doctor.
"It's rather hard, you see," said Bobbie, "to out with it; because of what Mother said."
"What DID Mother say?"
"She said I wasn't to go telling everyone that we're poor.
But you aren't everyone, are you?"
"Not at all," said the Doctor, cheerfully.
"Well?"
"Well, I know doctors are very extravagant—I mean expensive, and Mrs. Viney told me that her doctoring only cost her twopence a week because she belonged to a Club."
"Yes?"
"You see she told me what a good doctor you were, and I asked her how she could afford you, because she's much poorer than we are.
I've been in her house and I know.
And then she told me about the Club, and I thought I'd ask you—and—oh, I don't want Mother to be worried!
Can't we be in the Club, too, the same as Mrs. Viney?"
The Doctor was silent.
He was rather poor himself, and he had been pleased at getting a new family to attend.
So I think his feelings at that minute were rather mixed.
"You aren't cross with me, are you?" said Bobbie, in a very small voice.
The Doctor roused himself.
"Cross?
How could I be?
You're a very sensible little woman.
Now look here, don't you worry.
I'll make it all right with your Mother, even if I have to make a special brand-new Club all for her.
Look here, this is where the Aqueduct begins."
"What's an Aque—what's its name?" asked Bobbie.
"A water bridge," said the Doctor.
"Look."
The road rose to a bridge over the canal.
To the left was a steep rocky cliff with trees and shrubs growing in the cracks of the rock.
And the canal here left off running along the top of the hill and started to run on a bridge of its own—a great bridge with tall arches that went right across the valley.
Bobbie drew a long breath.
"It IS grand, isn't it?" she said.
"It's like pictures in the History of Rome."
"Right!" said the Doctor, "that's just exactly what it IS like.
The Romans were dead nuts on aqueducts.
It's a splendid piece of engineering."
"I thought engineering was making engines."
"Ah, there are different sorts of engineering—making road and bridges and tunnels is one kind.
And making fortifications is another.
Well, we must be turning back.
And, remember, you aren't to worry about doctor's bills or you'll be ill yourself, and then I'll send you in a bill as long as the aqueduct."
When Bobbie had parted from the Doctor at the top of the field that ran down from the road to Three Chimneys, she could not feel that she had done wrong.
She knew that Mother would perhaps think differently.
But Bobbie felt that for once she was the one who was right, and she scrambled down the rocky slope with a really happy feeling.
Phyllis and Peter met her at the back door.
They were unnaturally clean and neat, and Phyllis had a red bow in her hair.
There was only just time for Bobbie to make herself tidy and tie up her hair with a blue bow before a little bell rang.
"There!" said Phyllis, "that's to show the surprise is ready.
Now you wait till the bell rings again and then you may come into the dining-room."
So Bobbie waited.
"Tinkle, tinkle," said the little bell, and Bobbie went into the dining-room, feeling rather shy.
Directly she opened the door she found herself, as it seemed, in a new world of light and flowers and singing.
Mother and Peter and Phyllis were standing in a row at the end of the table.
The shutters were shut and there were twelve candles on the table, one for each of Roberta's years.
The table was covered with a sort of pattern of flowers, and at Roberta's place was a thick wreath of forget-me-nots and several most interesting little packages.
And Mother and Phyllis and Peter were singing—to the first part of the tune of St. Patrick's Day.
Roberta knew that Mother had written the words on purpose for her birthday.
It was a little way of Mother's on birthdays.
It had begun on Bobbie's fourth birthday when Phyllis was a baby.
Bobbie remembered learning the verses to say to Father 'for a surprise.'
She wondered if Mother had remembered, too.
The four-year-old verse had been:—
Daddy dear, I'm only four
And I'd rather not be more.
Four's the nicest age to be,
Two and two and one and three.
What I love is two and two,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and you.
What you love is one and three,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and me.
Give your little girl a kiss
Because she learned and told you this.
The song the others were singing now went like this:—
Our darling Roberta,
No sorrow shall hurt her
If we can prevent it
Her whole life long.
Her birthday's our fete day,
We'll make it our great day,
And give her our presents
And sing her our song.
May pleasures attend her
And may the Fates send her
The happiest journey
Along her life's way.
With skies bright above her
And dear ones to love her!
Dear Bob!
Many happy
Returns of the day!
When they had finished singing they cried, "Three cheers for our Bobbie!" and gave them very loudly.
Bobbie felt exactly as though she were going to cry—you know that odd feeling in the bridge of your nose and the pricking in your eyelids?
But before she had time to begin they were all kissing and hugging her.
"Now," said Mother, "look at your presents."
They were very nice presents.
There was a green and red needle-book that Phyllis had made herself in secret moments.
There was a darling little silver brooch of Mother's shaped like a buttercup, which Bobbie had known and loved for years, but which she had never, never thought would come to be her very own.
There was also a pair of blue glass vases from Mrs. Viney.
Roberta had seen and admired them in the village shop.
And there were three birthday cards with pretty pictures and wishes.
Mother fitted the forget-me-not crown on Bobbie's brown head.
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"And now look at the table," she said.
There was a cake on the table covered with white sugar, with 'Dear Bobbie' on it in pink sweets, and there were buns and jam; but the nicest thing was that the big table was almost covered with flowers—wallflowers were laid all round the tea-tray—there was a ring of forget-me-nots round each plate.
The cake had a wreath of white lilac round it, and in the middle was something that looked like a pattern all done with single blooms of lilac or wallflower or laburnum.
"It's a map—a map of the railway!" cried Peter.
"Look—those lilac lines are the metals—and there's the station done in brown wallflowers.
The laburnum is the train, and there are the signal-boxes, and the road up to here—and those fat red daisies are us three waving to the old gentleman—that's him, the pansy in the laburnum train."
"And there's 'Three Chimneys' done in the purple primroses," said Phyllis.
"And that little tiny rose-bud is Mother looking out for us when we're late for tea.
Peter invented it all, and we got all the flowers from the station.
We thought you'd like it better."
"That's my present," said Peter, suddenly dumping down his adored steam-engine on the table in front of her.
Its tender had been lined with fresh white paper, and was full of sweets.
"Oh, Peter!" cried Bobbie, quite overcome by this munificence, "not your own dear little engine that you're so fond of?"
"Oh, no," said Peter, very promptly, "not the engine.
Only the sweets."
Bobbie couldn't help her face changing a little—not so much because she was disappointed at not getting the engine, as because she had thought it so very noble of Peter, and now she felt she had been silly to think it.
Also she felt she must have seemed greedy to expect the engine as well as the sweets.
So her face changed.
Peter saw it.
He hesitated a minute; then his face changed, too, and he said: "I mean not ALL the engine.
I'll let you go halves if you like."
"You're a brick," cried Bobbie; "it's a splendid present."
She said no more aloud, but to herself she said:—
"That was awfully jolly decent of Peter because I know he didn't mean to.
Well, the broken half shall be my half of the engine, and I'll get it mended and give it back to Peter for his birthday."—"Yes, Mother dear, I should like to cut the cake," she added, and tea began.
It was a delightful birthday.
After tea Mother played games with them—any game they liked—and of course their first choice was blindman's-buff, in the course of which Bobbie's forget-me-not wreath twisted itself crookedly over one of her ears and stayed there.
Then, when it was near bed-time and time to calm down, Mother had a lovely new story to read to them.
"You won't sit up late working, will you, Mother?" Bobbie asked as they said good night.
And Mother said no, she wouldn't—she would only just write to Father and then go to bed.
But when Bobbie crept down later to bring up her presents—for she felt she really could not be separated from them all night—Mother was not writing, but leaning her head on her arms and her arms on the table.
I think it was rather good of Bobbie to slip quietly away, saying over and over, "She doesn't want me to know she's unhappy, and I won't know; I won't know."
But it made a sad end to the birthday.
The very next morning Bobbie began to watch her opportunity to get Peter's engine mended secretly.
And the opportunity came the very next afternoon.
Mother went by train to the nearest town to do shopping.
When she went there, she always went to the Post-office.
Perhaps to post her letters to Father, for she never gave them to the children or Mrs. Viney to post, and she never went to the village herself.
Peter and Phyllis went with her.
Bobbie wanted an excuse not to go, but try as she would she couldn't think of a good one.
And just when she felt that all was lost, her frock caught on a big nail by the kitchen door and there was a great criss-cross tear all along the front of the skirt.
I assure you this was really an accident.
So the others pitied her and went without her, for there was no time for her to change, because they were rather late already and had to hurry to the station to catch the train.
When they had gone, Bobbie put on her everyday frock, and went down to the railway.
She did not go into the station, but she went along the line to the end of the platform where the engine is when the down train is alongside the platform—the place where there are a water tank and a long, limp, leather hose, like an elephant's trunk.
She hid behind a bush on the other side of the railway.
She had the toy engine done up in brown paper, and she waited patiently with it under her arm.
Then when the next train came in and stopped, Bobbie went across the metals of the up-line and stood beside the engine.
She had never been so close to an engine before.
It looked much larger and harder than she had expected, and it made her feel very small indeed, and, somehow, very soft—as if she could very, very easily be hurt rather badly.
"I know what silk-worms feel like now," said Bobbie to herself.
The engine-driver and fireman did not see her.
They were leaning out on the other side, telling the Porter a tale about a dog and a leg of mutton.
"If you please," said Roberta—but the engine was blowing off steam and no one heard her.
"If you please, Mr. Engineer," she spoke a little louder, but the Engine happened to speak at the same moment, and of course Roberta's soft little voice hadn't a chance.
It seemed to her that the only way would be to climb on to the engine and pull at their coats.
The step was high, but she got her knee on it, and clambered into the cab; she stumbled and fell on hands and knees on the base of the great heap of coals that led up to the square opening in the tender.
The engine was not above the weaknesses of its fellows; it was making a great deal more noise than there was the slightest need for.
And just as Roberta fell on the coals, the engine-driver, who had turned without seeing her, started the engine, and when Bobbie had picked herself up, the train was moving—not fast, but much too fast for her to get off.
All sorts of dreadful thoughts came to her all together in one horrible flash.
There were such things as express trains that went on, she supposed, for hundreds of miles without stopping.
Suppose this should be one of them?
How would she get home again?
She had no money to pay for the return journey.
"And I've no business here.
I'm an engine-burglar—that's what I am," she thought.
"I shouldn't wonder if they could lock me up for this."
And the train was going faster and faster.
There was something in her throat that made it impossible for her to speak.
She tried twice.
The men had their backs to her.
They were doing something to things that looked like taps.
Suddenly she put out her hand and caught hold of the nearest sleeve.
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The man turned with a start, and he and Roberta stood for a minute looking at each other in silence.
Then the silence was broken by them both.
The man said, "Here's a bloomin' go!" and Roberta burst into tears.
The other man said he was blooming well blest—or something like it—but though naturally surprised they were not exactly unkind.
"You're a naughty little gell, that's what you are," said the fireman, and the engine-driver said:—
"Daring little piece, I call her," but they made her sit down on an iron seat in the cab and told her to stop crying and tell them what she meant by it.
She did stop, as soon as she could.
One thing that helped her was the thought that Peter would give almost his ears to be in her place—on a real engine—really going.
The children had often wondered whether any engine-driver could be found noble enough to take them for a ride on an engine—and now there she was.
She dried her eyes and sniffed earnestly.
"Now, then," said the fireman, "out with it.
What do you mean by it, eh?"
"Oh, please," sniffed Bobbie.
"Try again," said the engine-driver, encouragingly.
Bobbie tried again.
"Please, Mr. Engineer," she said, "I did call out to you from the line, but you didn't hear me—and I just climbed up to touch you on the arm—quite gently I meant to do it—and then I fell into the coals—and I am so sorry if I frightened you.
Oh, don't be cross—oh, please don't!"
She sniffed again.
"We ain't so much CROSS," said the fireman, "as interested like.
It ain't every day a little gell tumbles into our coal bunker outer the sky, is it, Bill?
What did you DO it for—eh?"
"That's the point," agreed the engine-driver; "what did you do it FOR?"
Bobbie found that she had not quite stopped crying.
The engine-driver patted her on the back and said: "Here, cheer up, Mate.
It ain't so bad as all that 'ere, I'll be bound."
"I wanted," said Bobbie, much cheered to find herself addressed as 'Mate'—"I only wanted to ask you if you'd be so kind as to mend this."
She picked up the brown-paper parcel from among the coals and undid the string with hot, red fingers that trembled.
Her feet and legs felt the scorch of the engine fire, but her shoulders felt the wild chill rush of the air.
The engine lurched and shook and rattled, and as they shot under a bridge the engine seemed to shout in her ears.
The fireman shovelled on coals.
Bobbie unrolled the brown paper and disclosed the toy engine.
"I thought," she said wistfully, "that perhaps you'd mend this for me—because you're an engineer, you know."
The engine-driver said he was blowed if he wasn't blest.
"I'm blest if I ain't blowed," remarked the fireman.
But the engine-driver took the little engine and looked at it—and the fireman ceased for an instant to shovel coal, and looked, too.
"It's like your precious cheek," said the engine-driver—"whatever made you think we'd be bothered tinkering penny toys?"
"I didn't mean it for precious cheek," said Bobbie; "only everybody that has anything to do with railways is so kind and good, I didn't think you'd mind.
You don't really—do you?" she added, for she had seen a not unkindly wink pass between the two.
"My trade's driving of an engine, not mending her, especially such a houtsize in engines as this 'ere," said Bill.
"An' 'ow are we a-goin' to get you back to your sorrowing friends and relations, and all be forgiven and forgotten?"
"If you'll put me down next time you stop," said Bobbie, firmly, though her heart beat fiercely against her arm as she clasped her hands, "and lend me the money for a third-class ticket, I'll pay you back—honour bright.
I'm not a confidence trick like in the newspapers—really, I'm not."
"You're a little lady, every inch," said Bill, relenting suddenly and completely.
"We'll see you gets home safe.
An' about this engine—Jim—ain't you got ne'er a pal as can use a soldering iron?
Seems to me that's about all the little bounder wants doing to it."
"That's what Father said," Bobbie explained eagerly.
"What's that for?"
She pointed to a little brass wheel that he had turned as he spoke.
"That's the injector."
"In—what?"
"Injector to fill up the boiler."
"Oh," said Bobbie, mentally registering the fact to tell the others; "that IS interesting."
"This 'ere's the automatic brake," Bill went on, flattered by her enthusiasm.
"You just move this 'ere little handle—do it with one finger, you can—and the train jolly soon stops.
That's what they call the Power of Science in the newspapers."
He showed her two little dials, like clock faces, and told her how one showed how much steam was going, and the other showed if the brake was working properly.
By the time she had seen him shut off steam with a big shining steel handle, Bobbie knew more about the inside working of an engine than she had ever thought there was to know, and Jim had promised that his second cousin's wife's brother should solder the toy engine, or Jim would know the reason why.
Besides all the knowledge she had gained Bobbie felt that she and Bill and Jim were now friends for life, and that they had wholly and forever forgiven her for stumbling uninvited among the sacred coals of their tender.
At Stacklepoole Junction she parted from them with warm expressions of mutual regard.
They handed her over to the guard of a returning train—a friend of theirs—and she had the joy of knowing what guards do in their secret fastnesses, and understood how, when you pull the communication cord in railway carriages, a wheel goes round under the guard's nose and a loud bell rings in his ears.
She asked the guard why his van smelt so fishy, and learned that he had to carry a lot of fish every day, and that the wetness in the hollows of the corrugated floor had all drained out of boxes full of plaice and cod and mackerel and soles and smelts.
Bobbie got home in time for tea, and she felt as though her mind would burst with all that had been put into it since she parted from the others.
How she blessed the nail that had torn her frock!
"Where have you been?" asked the others.
"To the station, of course," said Roberta.
But she would not tell a word of her adventures till the day appointed, when she mysteriously led them to the station at the hour of the 3.19's transit, and proudly introduced them to her friends, Bill and Jim.
Jim's second cousin's wife's brother had not been unworthy of the sacred trust reposed in him.
The toy engine was, literally, as good as new.
"Good-bye—oh, good-bye," said Bobbie, just before the engine screamed ITS good-bye.
"I shall always, always love you—and Jim's second cousin's wife's brother as well!"
And as the three children went home up the hill, Peter hugging the engine, now quite its own self again, Bobbie told, with joyous leaps of the heart, the story of how she had been an Engine-burglar.
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CHAPTER V. PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES
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It was one day when Mother had gone to Maidbridge.
She had gone alone, but the children were to go to the station to meet her.
And, loving the station as they did, it was only natural that they should be there a good hour before there was any chance of Mother's train arriving, even if the train were punctual, which was most unlikely.
No doubt they would have been just as early, even if it had been a fine day, and all the delights of woods and fields and rocks and rivers had been open to them.
But it happened to be a very wet day and, for July, very cold.
There was a wild wind that drove flocks of dark purple clouds across the sky "like herds of dream-elephants," as Phyllis said.
And the rain stung sharply, so that the way to the station was finished at a run.
Then the rain fell faster and harder, and beat slantwise against the windows of the booking office and of the chill place that had General Waiting Room on its door.
"It's like being in a besieged castle," Phyllis said; "look at the arrows of the foe striking against the battlements!"
"It's much more like a great garden-squirt," said Peter.
They decided to wait on the up side, for the down platform looked very wet indeed, and the rain was driving right into the little bleak shelter where down-passengers have to wait for their trains.
The hour would be full of incident and of interest, for there would be two up trains and one down to look at before the one that should bring Mother back.
"Perhaps it'll have stopped raining by then," said Bobbie; "anyhow, I'm glad I brought Mother's waterproof and umbrella."
They went into the desert spot labelled General Waiting Room, and the time passed pleasantly enough in a game of advertisements.
You know the game, of course?
It is something like dumb Crambo.
The players take it in turns to go out, and then come back and look as like some advertisement as they can, and the others have to guess what advertisement it is meant to be.
Bobbie came in and sat down under Mother's umbrella and made a sharp face, and everyone knew she was the fox who sits under the umbrella in the advertisement.
Phyllis tried to make a Magic Carpet of Mother's waterproof, but it would not stand out stiff and raft-like as a Magic Carpet should, and nobody could guess it.
Everyone thought Peter was carrying things a little too far when he blacked his face all over with coal-dust and struck a spidery attitude and said he was the blot that advertises somebody's Blue Black Writing Fluid.
It was Phyllis's turn again, and she was trying to look like the Sphinx that advertises What's-his-name's Personally Conducted Tours up the Nile when the sharp ting of the signal announced the up train.
The children rushed out to see it pass.
On its engine were the particular driver and fireman who were now numbered among the children's dearest friends.
Courtesies passed between them.
Jim asked after the toy engine, and Bobbie pressed on his acceptance a moist, greasy package of toffee that she had made herself.
Charmed by this attention, the engine-driver consented to consider her request that some day he would take Peter for a ride on the engine.
"Stand back, Mates," cried the engine-driver, suddenly, "and horf she goes."
And sure enough, off the train went.
The children watched the tail-lights of the train till it disappeared round the curve of the line, and then turned to go back to the dusty freedom of the General Waiting Room and the joys of the advertisement game.
They expected to see just one or two people, the end of the procession of passengers who had given up their tickets and gone away.
Instead, the platform round the door of the station had a dark blot round it, and the dark blot was a crowd of people.
"Oh!" cried Peter, with a thrill of joyous excitement, "something's happened!
Come on!"
They ran down the platform.
When they got to the crowd, they could, of course, see nothing but the damp backs and elbows of the people on the crowd's outside.
Everybody was talking at once.
It was evident that something had happened.
"It's my belief he's nothing worse than a natural," said a farmerish-looking person.
Peter saw his red, clean-shaven face as he spoke.
"If you ask me, I should say it was a Police Court case," said a young man with a black bag.
"Not it; the Infirmary more like—"
Then the voice of the Station Master was heard, firm and official:—
"Now, then—move along there.
I'll attend to this, if YOU please."
But the crowd did not move.
And then came a voice that thrilled the children through and through.
For it spoke in a foreign language.
And, what is more, it was a language that they had never heard.
They had heard French spoken and German.
Aunt Emma knew German, and used to sing a song about bedeuten and zeiten and bin and sin.
Nor was it Latin.
Peter had been in Latin for four terms.
It was some comfort, anyhow, to find that none of the crowd understood the foreign language any better than the children did.
"What's that he's saying?" asked the farmer, heavily.
"Sounds like French to me," said the Station Master, who had once been to Boulogne for the day.
"It isn't French!" cried Peter.
"What is it, then?" asked more than one voice.
The crowd fell back a little to see who had spoken, and Peter pressed forward, so that when the crowd closed up again he was in the front rank.
"I don't know what it is," said Peter, "but it isn't French.
I know that."
Then he saw what it was that the crowd had for its centre.
It was a man—the man, Peter did not doubt, who had spoken in that strange tongue.
A man with long hair and wild eyes, with shabby clothes of a cut Peter had not seen before—a man whose hands and lips trembled, and who spoke again as his eyes fell on Peter.
"No, it's not French," said Peter.
"Try him with French if you know so much about it," said the farmer-man.
"Parlay voo Frongsay?" began Peter, boldly, and the next moment the crowd recoiled again, for the man with the wild eyes had left leaning against the wall, and had sprung forward and caught Peter's hands, and begun to pour forth a flood of words which, though he could not understand a word of them, Peter knew the sound of.
"There!" said he, and turned, his hands still clasped in the hands of the strange shabby figure, to throw a glance of triumph at the crowd; "there; THAT'S French."
"What does he say?"
"I don't know." Peter was obliged to own it.
"Here," said the Station Master again; "you move on if you please.
I'LL deal with this case."
A few of the more timid or less inquisitive travellers moved slowly and reluctantly away.
And Phyllis and Bobbie got near to Peter.
All three had been TAUGHT French at school.
How deeply they now wished that they had LEARNED it!
Peter shook his head at the stranger, but he also shook his hands as warmly and looked at him as kindly as he could.
A person in the crowd, after some hesitation, said suddenly, "No comprenny!" and then, blushing deeply, backed out of the press and went away.
"Take him into your room," whispered Bobbie to the Station Master.
"Mother can talk French.
She'll be here by the next train from Maidbridge."
The Station Master took the arm of the stranger, suddenly but not unkindly.
But the man wrenched his arm away, and cowered back coughing and trembling and trying to push the Station Master away.
"Oh, don't!" said Bobbie; "don't you see how frightened he is?
He thinks you're going to shut him up.
I know he does—look at his eyes!"
"They're like a fox's eyes when the beast's in a trap," said the farmer.
"Oh, let me try!" Bobbie went on; "I do really know one or two French words if I could only think of them."
Sometimes, in moments of great need, we can do wonderful things—things that in ordinary life we could hardly even dream of doing.
Bobbie had never been anywhere near the top of her French class, but she must have learned something without knowing it, for now, looking at those wild, hunted eyes, she actually remembered and, what is more, spoke, some French words.
She said:—
"Vous attendre.
Ma mere parlez Francais.
Nous—what's the French for 'being kind'?"
Nobody knew.
"Bong is 'good,'" said Phyllis.
"Nous etre bong pour vous."
I do not know whether the man understood her words, but he understood the touch of the hand she thrust into his, and the kindness of the other hand that stroked his shabby sleeve.
She pulled him gently towards the inmost sanctuary of the Station Master.
The other children followed, and the Station Master shut the door in the face of the crowd, which stood a little while in the booking office talking and looking at the fast closed yellow door, and then by ones and twos went its way, grumbling.
Inside the Station Master's room Bobbie still held the stranger's hand and stroked his sleeve.
"Here's a go," said the Station Master; "no ticket—doesn't even know where he wants to go.
I'm not sure now but what I ought to send for the police."
"Oh, DON'T!" all the children pleaded at once.
And suddenly Bobbie got between the others and the stranger, for she had seen that he was crying.
By a most unusual piece of good fortune she had a handkerchief in her pocket.
By a still more uncommon accident the handkerchief was moderately clean.
Standing in front of the stranger, she got out the handkerchief and passed it to him so that the others did not see.
"Wait till Mother comes," Phyllis was saying; "she does speak French beautifully.
You'd just love to hear her."
"I'm sure he hasn't done anything like you're sent to prison for," said Peter.
"Looks like without visible means to me," said the Station Master.
"Well, I don't mind giving him the benefit of the doubt till your Mamma comes.
I SHOULD like to know what nation's got the credit of HIM, that I should."
Then Peter had an idea.
He pulled an envelope out of his pocket, and showed that it was half full of foreign stamps.
"Look here," he said, "let's show him these—"
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Bobbie looked and saw that the stranger had dried his eyes with her handkerchief.
So she said: "All right."
They showed him an Italian stamp, and pointed from him to it and back again, and made signs of question with their eyebrows.
He shook his head.
Then they showed him a Norwegian stamp—the common blue kind it was—and again he signed No.
Then they showed him a Spanish one, and at that he took the envelope from Peter's hand and searched among the stamps with a hand that trembled.
The hand that he reached out at last, with a gesture as of one answering a question, contained a RUSSIAN stamp.
"He's Russian," cried Peter, "or else he's like 'the man who was'—in Kipling, you know."
The train from Maidbridge was signalled.
"I'll stay with him till you bring Mother in," said Bobbie.
"You're not afraid, Missie?"
"Oh, no," said Bobbie, looking at the stranger, as she might have looked at a strange dog of doubtful temper.
"You wouldn't hurt me, would you?"
She smiled at him, and he smiled back, a queer crooked smile.
And then he coughed again.
And the heavy rattling swish of the incoming train swept past, and the Station Master and Peter and Phyllis went out to meet it.
Bobbie was still holding the stranger's hand when they came back with Mother.
The Russian rose and bowed very ceremoniously.
Then Mother spoke in French, and he replied, haltingly at first, but presently in longer and longer sentences.
The children, watching his face and Mother's, knew that he was telling her things that made her angry and pitying, and sorry and indignant all at once.
"Well, Mum, what's it all about?" The Station Master could not restrain his curiosity any longer.
"Oh," said Mother, "it's all right.
He's a Russian, and he's lost his ticket.
And I'm afraid he's very ill.
If you don't mind, I'll take him home with me now.
He's really quite worn out.
I'll run down and tell you all about him to-morrow."
"I hope you won't find you're taking home a frozen viper," said the Station Master, doubtfully.
"Oh, no," Mother said brightly, and she smiled; "I'm quite sure I'm not.
Why, he's a great man in his own country, writes books—beautiful books—I've read some of them; but I'll tell you all about it to-morrow."
She spoke again in French to the Russian, and everyone could see the surprise and pleasure and gratitude in his eyes.
He got up and politely bowed to the Station Master, and offered his arm most ceremoniously to Mother.
She took it, but anybody could have seen that she was helping him along, and not he her.
"You girls run home and light a fire in the sitting-room," Mother said, "and Peter had better go for the Doctor."
But it was Bobbie who went for the Doctor.
"I hate to tell you," she said breathlessly when she came upon him in his shirt sleeves, weeding his pansy-bed, "but Mother's got a very shabby Russian, and I'm sure he'll have to belong to your Club.
I'm certain he hasn't got any money.
We found him at the station."
"Found him!
Was he lost, then?" asked the Doctor, reaching for his coat.
"Yes," said Bobbie, unexpectedly, "that's just what he was.
He's been telling Mother the sad, sweet story of his life in French; and she said would you be kind enough to come directly if you were at home.
He has a dreadful cough, and he's been crying."
The Doctor smiled.
"Oh, don't," said Bobbie; "please don't.
You wouldn't if you'd seen him.
I never saw a man cry before.
You don't know what it's like."
Dr. Forrest wished then that he hadn't smiled.
When Bobbie and the Doctor got to Three Chimneys, the Russian was sitting in the arm-chair that had been Father's, stretching his feet to the blaze of a bright wood fire, and sipping the tea Mother had made him.
"The man seems worn out, mind and body," was what the Doctor said; "the cough's bad, but there's nothing that can't be cured.
He ought to go straight to bed, though—and let him have a fire at night."
"I'll make one in my room; it's the only one with a fireplace," said Mother.
She did, and presently the Doctor helped the stranger to bed.
There was a big black trunk in Mother's room that none of the children had ever seen unlocked.
Now, when she had lighted the fire, she unlocked it and took some clothes out—men's clothes—and set them to air by the newly lighted fire.
Bobbie, coming in with more wood for the fire, saw the mark on the night-shirt, and looked over to the open trunk.
All the things she could see were men's clothes.
And the name marked on the shirt was Father's name.
Then Father hadn't taken his clothes with him.
And that night-shirt was one of Father's new ones.
Bobbie remembered its being made, just before Peter's birthday.
Why hadn't Father taken his clothes?
Bobbie slipped from the room.
As she went she heard the key turned in the lock of the trunk.
Her heart was beating horribly.
WHY hadn't Father taken his clothes?
When Mother came out of the room, Bobbie flung tightly clasping arms round her waist, and whispered:—
"Mother—Daddy isn't—isn't DEAD, is he?"
"My darling, no!
What made you think of anything so horrible?"
"I—I don't know," said Bobbie, angry with herself, but still clinging to that resolution of hers, not to see anything that Mother didn't mean her to see.
Mother gave her a hurried hug.
"Daddy was quite, QUITE well when I heard from him last," she said, "and he'll come back to us some day.
Don't fancy such horrible things, darling!"
Later on, when the Russian stranger had been made comfortable for the night, Mother came into the girls' room.
She was to sleep there in Phyllis's bed, and Phyllis was to have a mattress on the floor, a most amusing adventure for Phyllis.
Directly Mother came in, two white figures started up, and two eager voices called:—
"Now, Mother, tell us all about the Russian gentleman."
A white shape hopped into the room.
It was Peter, dragging his quilt behind him like the tail of a white peacock.
"We have been patient," he said, "and I had to bite my tongue not to go to sleep, and I just nearly went to sleep and I bit too hard, and it hurts ever so.
DO tell us.
Make a nice long story of it."
"I can't make a long story of it to-night," said Mother; "I'm very tired."
Bobbie knew by her voice that Mother had been crying, but the others didn't know.
"Well, make it as long as you can," said Phil, and Bobbie got her arms round Mother's waist and snuggled close to her.
"Well, it's a story long enough to make a whole book of.
He's a writer; he's written beautiful books.
In Russia at the time of the Czar one dared not say anything about the rich people doing wrong, or about the things that ought to be done to make poor people better and happier.
If one did one was sent to prison."
"But they CAN'T," said Peter; "people only go to prison when they've done wrong."
"Or when the Judges THINK they've done wrong," said Mother.
"Yes, that's so in England.
But in Russia it was different.
And he wrote a beautiful book about poor people and how to help them.
I've read it.
There's nothing in it but goodness and kindness.
And they sent him to prison for it.
He was three years in a horrible dungeon, with hardly any light, and all damp and dreadful.
In prison all alone for three years."
Mother's voice trembled a little and stopped suddenly.
"But, Mother," said Peter, "that can't be true NOW.
It sounds like something out of a history book—the Inquisition, or something."
"It WAS true," said Mother; "it's all horribly true.
Well, then they took him out and sent him to Siberia, a convict chained to other convicts—wicked men who'd done all sorts of crimes—a long chain of them, and they walked, and walked, and walked, for days and weeks, till he thought they'd never stop walking.
And overseers went behind them with whips—yes, whips—to beat them if they got tired.
And some of them went lame, and some fell down, and when they couldn't get up and go on, they beat them, and then left them to die.
Oh, it's all too terrible!
And at last he got to the mines, and he was condemned to stay there for life—for life, just for writing a good, noble, splendid book."
"How did he get away?"
"When the war came, some of the Russian prisoners were allowed to volunteer as soldiers.
And he volunteered.
But he deserted at the first chance he got and—"
"But that's very cowardly, isn't it"—said Peter—"to desert?
Especially when it's war."
"Do you think he owed anything to a country that had done THAT to him?
If he did, he owed more to his wife and children.
He didn't know what had become of them."
"Oh," cried Bobbie, "he had THEM to think about and be miserable about TOO, then, all the time he was in prison?"
"Yes, he had them to think about and be miserable about all the time he was in prison.
For anything he knew they might have been sent to prison, too.
They did those things in Russia.
But while he was in the mines some friends managed to get a message to him that his wife and children had escaped and come to England.
So when he deserted he came here to look for them."
"Had he got their address?" said practical Peter.
"No; just England.
He was going to London, and he thought he had to change at our station, and then he found he'd lost his ticket and his purse."
"Oh, DO you think he'll find them?—I mean his wife and children, not the ticket and things."
"I hope so.
Oh, I hope and pray that he'll find his wife and children again."
Even Phyllis now perceived that mother's voice was very unsteady.
"Why, Mother," she said, "how very sorry you seem to be for him!"
Mother didn't answer for a minute.
Then she just said, "Yes," and then she seemed to be thinking.
The children were quiet.
Presently she said, "Dears, when you say your prayers, I think you might ask God to show His pity upon all prisoners and captives."
"To show His pity," Bobbie repeated slowly, "upon all prisoners and captives.
Is that right, Mother?"
"Yes," said Mother, "upon all prisoners and captives.
All prisoners and captives."