The Railway Children
“Tell me all about yourself,” said the old gentleman again. And, quite
naturally, Peter was stricken dumb.
“All right, we'll have an examination,” said the old gentleman; “you two
sit on the table, and I'll sit on the bench and ask questions.”
He did, and out came their names and ages--their Father's name and
business--how long they had lived at Three Chimneys and a great deal
more.
The questions were beginning to turn on a herring and a half for three
halfpence, and a pound of lead and a pound of feathers, when the door of
the waiting room was kicked open by a boot; as the boot entered everyone
could see that its lace was coming undone--and in came Phyllis, very
slowly and carefully.
In one hand she carried a large tin can, and in the other a thick slice
of bread and butter.
“Afternoon tea,” she announced proudly, and held the can and the bread
and butter out to the old gentleman, who took them and said:--
“Bless my soul!”
“Yes,” said Phyllis.
“It's very thoughtful of you,” said the old gentleman, “very.”
“But you might have got a cup,” said Bobbie, “and a plate.”
“Perks always drinks out of the can,” said Phyllis, flushing red. “I
think it was very nice of him to give it me at all--let alone cups and
plates,” she added.
“So do I,” said the old gentleman, and he drank some of the tea and
tasted the bread and butter.
And then it was time for the next train, and he got into it with many
good-byes and kind last words.
“Well,” said Peter, when they were left on the platform, and the
tail-lights of the train disappeared round the corner, “it's my belief
that we've lighted a candle to-day--like Latimer, you know, when he was
being burned--and there'll be fireworks for our Russian before long.”
And so there were.
It wasn't ten days after the interview in the waiting room that the
three children were sitting on the top of the biggest rock in the field
below their house watching the 5.15 steam away from the station along
the bottom of the valley. They saw, too, the few people who had got out
at the station straggling up the road towards the village--and they saw
one person leave the road and open the gate that led across the fields
to Three Chimneys and to nowhere else.
“Who on earth!” said Peter, scrambling down.
“Let's go and see,” said Phyllis.
So they did. And when they got near enough to see who the person was,
they saw it was their old gentleman himself, his brass buttons winking
in the afternoon sunshine, and his white waistcoat looking whiter than
ever against the green of the field.
“Hullo!” shouted the children, waving their hands.
“Hullo!” shouted the old gentleman, waving his hat.
Then the three started to run--and when they got to him they hardly had
breath left to say:--
“How do you do?”
“Good news,” said he. “I've found your Russian friend's wife and
child--and I couldn't resist the temptation of giving myself the
pleasure of telling him.”
But as he looked at Bobbie's face he felt that he COULD resist that
temptation.
“Here,” he said to her, “you run on and tell him. The other two will
show me the way.”
Bobbie ran. But when she had breathlessly panted out the news to the
Russian and Mother sitting in the quiet garden--when Mother's face had
lighted up so beautifully, and she had said half a dozen quick French
words to the Exile--Bobbie wished that she had NOT carried the news. For
the Russian sprang up with a cry that made Bobbie's heart leap and then
tremble--a cry of love and longing such as she had never heard. Then he
took Mother's hand and kissed it gently and reverently--and then he sank
down in his chair and covered his face with his hands and sobbed. Bobbie
crept away. She did not want to see the others just then.
But she was as gay as anybody when the endless French talking was over,
when Peter had torn down to the village for buns and cakes, and the
girls had got tea ready and taken it out into the garden.
The old gentleman was most merry and delightful. He seemed to be able
to talk in French and English almost at the same moment, and Mother did
nearly as well. It was a delightful time. Mother seemed as if she could
not make enough fuss about the old gentleman, and she said yes at once
when he asked if he might present some “goodies” to his little friends.
The word was new to the children--but they guessed that it meant sweets,
for the three large pink and green boxes, tied with green ribbon, which
he took out of his bag, held unheard-of layers of beautiful chocolates.
The Russian's few belongings were packed, and they all saw him off at
the station.
Then Mother turned to the old gentleman and said:--
“I don't know how to thank you for EVERYTHING. It has been a real
pleasure to me to see you. But we live very quietly. I am so sorry that
I can't ask you to come and see us again.”
The children thought this very hard. When they HAD made a friend--and
such a friend--they would dearly have liked him to come and see them
again.
What the old gentleman thought they couldn't tell. He only said:--
“I consider myself very fortunate, Madam, to have been received once at
your house.”
“Ah,” said Mother, “I know I must seem surly and ungrateful--but--”
“You could never seem anything but a most charming and gracious lady,”
said the old gentleman, with another of his bows.
And as they turned to go up the hill, Bobbie saw her Mother's face.
“How tired you look, Mammy,” she said; “lean on me.”
“It's my place to give Mother my arm,” said Peter. “I'm the head man of
the family when Father's away.”
Mother took an arm of each.
“How awfully nice,” said Phyllis, skipping joyfully, “to think of the
dear Russian embracing his long-lost wife. The baby must have grown a
lot since he saw it.”
“Yes,” said Mother.
“I wonder whether Father will think I'VE grown,” Phyllis went on,
skipping still more gaily. “I have grown already, haven't I, Mother?”
“Yes,” said Mother, “oh, yes,” and Bobbie and Peter felt her hands
tighten on their arms.
“Poor old Mammy, you ARE tired,” said Peter.
Bobbie said, “Come on, Phil; I'll race you to the gate.”
And she started the race, though she hated doing it. YOU know why Bobbie
did that. Mother only thought that Bobbie was tired of walking slowly.
Even Mothers, who love you better than anyone else ever will, don't
always understand.
Chapter VIII. The amateur firemen.
“That's a likely little brooch you've got on, Miss,” said Perks the
Porter; “I don't know as ever I see a thing more like a buttercup
without it WAS a buttercup.”
“Yes,” said Bobbie, glad and flushed by this approval. “I always thought
it was more like a buttercup almost than even a real one--and I NEVER
thought it would come to be mine, my very own--and then Mother gave it
to me for my birthday.”
“Oh, have you had a birthday?” said Perks; and he seemed quite
surprised, as though a birthday were a thing only granted to a favoured
few.
“Yes,” said Bobbie; “when's your birthday, Mr. Perks?” The children were
taking tea with Mr. Perks in the Porters' room among the lamps and
the railway almanacs. They had brought their own cups and some jam
turnovers. Mr. Perks made tea in a beer can, as usual, and everyone felt
very happy and confidential.
“My birthday?” said Perks, tipping some more dark brown tea out of the
can into Peter's cup. “I give up keeping of my birthday afore you was
born.”
“But you must have been born SOMETIME, you know,” said Phyllis,
thoughtfully, “even if it was twenty years ago--or thirty or sixty or
seventy.”
“Not so long as that, Missie,” Perks grinned as he answered. “If you
really want to know, it was thirty-two years ago, come the fifteenth of
this month.”
“Then why don't you keep it?” asked Phyllis.
“I've got something else to keep besides birthdays,” said Perks,
briefly.
“Oh! What?” asked Phyllis, eagerly. “Not secrets?”
“No,” said Perks, “the kids and the Missus.”
It was this talk that set the children thinking, and, presently,
talking. Perks was, on the whole, the dearest friend they had made. Not
so grand as the Station Master, but more approachable--less powerful
than the old gentleman, but more confidential.
“It seems horrid that nobody keeps his birthday,” said Bobbie. “Couldn't
WE do something?”
“Let's go up to the Canal bridge and talk it over,” said Peter. “I got a
new gut line from the postman this morning. He gave it me for a bunch of
roses that I gave him for his sweetheart. She's ill.”
“Then I do think you might have given her the roses for nothing,” said
Bobbie, indignantly.
“Nyang, nyang!” said Peter, disagreeably, and put his hands in his
pockets.
“He did, of course,” said Phyllis, in haste; “directly we heard she was
ill we got the roses ready and waited by the gate. It was when you were
making the brekker-toast. And when he'd said 'Thank you' for the roses
so many times--much more than he need have--he pulled out the line and
gave it to Peter. It wasn't exchange. It was the grateful heart.”
“Oh, I BEG your pardon, Peter,” said Bobbie, “I AM so sorry.”
“Don't mention it,” said Peter, grandly, “I knew you would be.”
So then they all went up to the Canal bridge. The idea was to fish from
the bridge, but the line was not quite long enough.
“Never mind,” said Bobbie. “Let's just stay here and look at things.
Everything's so beautiful.”
It was. The sun was setting in red splendour over the grey and purple
hills, and the canal lay smooth and shiny in the shadow--no ripple broke
its surface. It was like a grey satin ribbon between the dusky green
silk of the meadows that were on each side of its banks.
“It's all right,” said Peter, “but somehow I can always see how pretty
things are much better when I've something to do. Let's get down on to
the towpath and fish from there.”
Phyllis and Bobbie remembered how the boys on the canal-boats had thrown
coal at them, and they said so.
“Oh, nonsense,” said Peter. “There aren't any boys here now. If there
were, I'd fight them.”
Peter's sisters were kind enough not to remind him how he had NOT fought
the boys when coal had last been thrown. Instead they said, “All right,
then,” and cautiously climbed down the steep bank to the towing-path.
The line was carefully baited, and for half an hour they fished
patiently and in vain. Not a single nibble came to nourish hope in their
hearts.
All eyes were intent on the sluggish waters that earnestly pretended
they had never harboured a single minnow when a loud rough shout made
them start.
“Hi!” said the shout, in most disagreeable tones, “get out of that,
can't you?”
An old white horse coming along the towing-path was within half a dozen
yards of them. They sprang to their feet and hastily climbed up the
bank.
“We'll slip down again when they've gone by,” said Bobbie.
But, alas, the barge, after the manner of barges, stopped under the
bridge.
“She's going to anchor,” said Peter; “just our luck!”
The barge did not anchor, because an anchor is not part of a
canal-boat's furniture, but she was moored with ropes fore and aft--and
the ropes were made fast to the palings and to crowbars driven into the
ground.
“What you staring at?” growled the Bargee, crossly.
“We weren't staring,” said Bobbie; “we wouldn't be so rude.”
“Rude be blessed,” said the man; “get along with you!”
“Get along yourself,” said Peter. He remembered what he had said about
fighting boys, and, besides, he felt safe halfway up the bank. “We've as
much right here as anyone else.”
“Oh, 'AVE you, indeed!” said the man. “We'll soon see about that.” And
he came across his deck and began to climb down the side of his barge.
“Oh, come away, Peter, come away!” said Bobbie and Phyllis, in agonised
unison.