The Railway Children
LIKE us being rewarded for saving a train?”
“Yes, I do,” said Peter, downrightly; “and don't you try to come it over
us that you don't like it, too. Because I know you do.”
“Yes,” said Bobbie, doubtfully, “I know I do. But oughtn't we to be
satisfied with just having done it, and not ask for anything more?”
“Who did ask for anything more, silly?” said her brother; “Victoria
Cross soldiers don't ASK for it; but they're glad enough to get it all
the same. Perhaps it'll be medals. Then, when I'm very old indeed, I
shall show them to my grandchildren and say, 'We only did our duty,' and
they'll be awfully proud of me.”
“You have to be married,” warned Phyllis, “or you don't have any
grandchildren.”
“I suppose I shall HAVE to be married some day,” said Peter, “but it
will be an awful bother having her round all the time. I'd like to marry
a lady who had trances, and only woke up once or twice a year.”
“Just to say you were the light of her life and then go to sleep again.
Yes. That wouldn't be bad,” said Bobbie.
“When _I_ get married,” said Phyllis, “I shall want him to want me to be
awake all the time, so that I can hear him say how nice I am.”
“I think it would be nice,” said Bobbie, “to marry someone very poor,
and then you'd do all the work and he'd love you most frightfully, and
see the blue wood smoke curling up among the trees from the domestic
hearth as he came home from work every night. I say--we've got to answer
that letter and say that the time and place WILL be convenient to us.
There's the soap, Peter. WE'RE both as clean as clean. That pink box of
writing paper you had on your birthday, Phil.”
It took some time to arrange what should be said. Mother had gone back
to her writing, and several sheets of pink paper with scalloped gilt
edges and green four-leaved shamrocks in the corner were spoiled before
the three had decided what to say. Then each made a copy and signed it
with its own name.
The threefold letter ran:--
“Dear Mr. Jabez Inglewood,--Thank you very much. We did not want to be
rewarded but only to save the train, but we are glad you think so and
thank you very much. The time and place you say will be quite convenient
to us. Thank you very much.
“Your affecate little friend,”
Then came the name, and after it:--
“P.S. Thank you very much.”
“Washing is much easier than ironing,” said Bobbie, taking the clean dry
dresses off the line. “I do love to see things come clean. Oh--I don't
know how we shall wait till it's time to know what presentation they're
going to present!”
When at last--it seemed a very long time after--it was THE day,
the three children went down to the station at the proper time. And
everything that happened was so odd that it seemed like a dream. The
Station Master came out to meet them--in his best clothes, as Peter
noticed at once--and led them into the waiting room where once they had
played the advertisement game. It looked quite different now. A carpet
had been put down--and there were pots of roses on the mantelpiece and
on the window ledges--green branches stuck up, like holly and laurel
are at Christmas, over the framed advertisement of Cook's Tours and the
Beauties of Devon and the Paris Lyons Railway. There were quite a
number of people there besides the Porter--two or three ladies in
smart dresses, and quite a crowd of gentlemen in high hats and frock
coats--besides everybody who belonged to the station. They recognized
several people who had been in the train on the red-flannel-petticoat
day. Best of all their own old gentleman was there, and his coat and hat
and collar seemed more than ever different from anyone else's. He shook
hands with them and then everybody sat down on chairs, and a gentleman
in spectacles--they found out afterwards that he was the District
Superintendent--began quite a long speech--very clever indeed. I am not
going to write the speech down. First, because you would think it dull;
and secondly, because it made all the children blush so, and get so hot
about the ears that I am quite anxious to get away from this part of the
subject; and thirdly, because the gentleman took so many words to say
what he had to say that I really haven't time to write them down. He
said all sorts of nice things about the children's bravery and presence
of mind, and when he had done he sat down, and everyone who was there
clapped and said, “Hear, hear.”
And then the old gentleman got up and said things, too. It was very like
a prize-giving. And then he called the children one by one, by their
names, and gave each of them a beautiful gold watch and chain. And
inside the watches were engraved after the name of the watch's new
owner:--
“From the Directors of the Northern and Southern Railway in grateful
recognition of the courageous and prompt action which averted an
accident on --- 1905.”
The watches were the most beautiful you can possibly imagine, and each
one had a blue leather case to live in when it was at home.
“You must make a speech now and thank everyone for their kindness,”
whispered the Station Master in Peter's ear and pushed him forward.
“Begin 'Ladies and Gentlemen,'” he added.
Each of the children had already said “Thank you,” quite properly.
“Oh, dear,” said Peter, but he did not resist the push.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said in a rather husky voice. Then there
was a pause, and he heard his heart beating in his throat. “Ladies and
Gentlemen,” he went on with a rush, “it's most awfully good of you, and
we shall treasure the watches all our lives--but really we don't deserve
it because what we did wasn't anything, really. At least, I mean it
was awfully exciting, and what I mean to say--thank you all very, very
much.”
The people clapped Peter more than they had done the District
Superintendent, and then everybody shook hands with them, and as soon as
politeness would let them, they got away, and tore up the hill to Three
Chimneys with their watches in their hands.
It was a wonderful day--the kind of day that very seldom happens to
anybody and to most of us not at all.
“I did want to talk to the old gentleman about something else,” said
Bobbie, “but it was so public--like being in church.”
“What did you want to say?” asked Phyllis.
“I'll tell you when I've thought about it more,” said Bobbie.
So when she had thought a little more she wrote a letter.
“My dearest old gentleman,” it said; “I want most awfully to ask you
something. If you could get out of the train and go by the next, it
would do. I do not want you to give me anything. Mother says we ought
not to. And besides, we do not want any THINGS. Only to talk to you
about a Prisoner and Captive. Your loving little friend,
“Bobbie.”
She got the Station Master to give the letter to the old gentleman, and
next day she asked Peter and Phyllis to come down to the station with
her at the time when the train that brought the old gentleman from town
would be passing through.
She explained her idea to them--and they approved thoroughly.
They had all washed their hands and faces, and brushed their hair, and
were looking as tidy as they knew how. But Phyllis, always unlucky, had
upset a jug of lemonade down the front of her dress. There was no time
to change--and the wind happening to blow from the coal yard, her frock
was soon powdered with grey, which stuck to the sticky lemonade stains
and made her look, as Peter said, “like any little gutter child.”
It was decided that she should keep behind the others as much as
possible.
“Perhaps the old gentleman won't notice,” said Bobbie. “The aged are
often weak in the eyes.”
There was no sign of weakness, however, in the eyes, or in any other
part of the old gentleman, as he stepped from the train and looked up
and down the platform.
The three children, now that it came to the point, suddenly felt that
rush of deep shyness which makes your ears red and hot, your hands warm
and wet, and the tip of your nose pink and shiny.
“Oh,” said Phyllis, “my heart's thumping like a steam-engine--right
under my sash, too.”
“Nonsense,” said Peter, “people's hearts aren't under their sashes.”
“I don't care--mine is,” said Phyllis.
“If you're going to talk like a poetry-book,” said Peter, “my heart's in
my mouth.”
“My heart's in my boots--if you come to that,” said Roberta; “but do
come on--he'll think we're idiots.”
“He won't be far wrong,” said Peter, gloomily. And they went forward to
meet the old gentleman.
“Hullo,” he said, shaking hands with them all in turn. “This is a very
great pleasure.”
“It WAS good of you to get out,” Bobbie said, perspiring and polite.
He took her arm and drew her into the waiting room where she and the
others had played the advertisement game the day they found the Russian.
Phyllis and Peter followed. “Well?” said the old gentleman, giving
Bobbie's arm a kind little shake before he let it go. “Well? What is
it?”
“Oh, please!” said Bobbie.
“Yes?” said the old gentleman.
“What I mean to say--” said Bobbie.
“Well?” said the old gentleman.
“It's all very nice and kind,” said she.
“But?” he said.
“I wish I might say something,” she said.
“Say it,” said he.
“Well, then,” said Bobbie--and out came the story of the Russian who
had written the beautiful book about poor people, and had been sent to
prison and to Siberia for just that.
“And what we want more than anything in the world is to find his wife
and children for him,” said Bobbie, “but we don't know how. But you must
be most horribly clever, or you wouldn't be a Direction of the Railway.
And if YOU knew how--and would? We'd rather have that than anything else
in the world. We'd go without the watches, even, if you could sell them
and find his wife with the money.”
And the others said so, too, though not with so much enthusiasm.
“Hum,” said the old gentleman, pulling down the white waistcoat that
had the big gilt buttons on it, “what did you say the name
was--Fryingpansky?”
“No, no,” said Bobbie earnestly. “I'll write it down for you. It doesn't
really look at all like that except when you say it. Have you a bit of
pencil and the back of an envelope?” she asked.
The old gentleman got out a gold pencil-case and a beautiful,
sweet-smelling, green Russian leather note-book and opened it at a new
page.
“Here,” he said, “write here.”
She wrote down “Szezcpansky,” and said:--
“That's how you write it. You CALL it Shepansky.”
The old gentleman took out a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and fitted
them on his nose. When he had read the name, he looked quite different.
“THAT man? Bless my soul!” he said. “Why, I've read his book! It's
translated into every European language. A fine book--a noble book. And
so your mother took him in--like the good Samaritan. Well, well. I'll
tell you what, youngsters--your mother must be a very good woman.”
“Of course she is,” said Phyllis, in astonishment.
“And you're a very good man,” said Bobbie, very shy, but firmly resolved
to be polite.
“You flatter me,” said the old gentleman, taking off his hat with a
flourish. “And now am I to tell you what I think of you?”
“Oh, please don't,” said Bobbie, hastily.
“Why?” asked the old gentleman.
“I don't exactly know,” said Bobbie. “Only--if it's horrid, I don't want
you to; and if it's nice, I'd rather you didn't.”
The old gentleman laughed.
“Well, then,” he said, “I'll only just say that I'm very glad you came
to me about this--very glad, indeed. And I shouldn't be surprised if I
found out something very soon. I know a great many Russians in London,
and every Russian knows HIS name. Now tell me all about yourselves.”
He turned to the others, but there was only one other, and that was
Peter. Phyllis had disappeared.