 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Karen Savage, Waco, Texas, October 2006. The Railway Children by Edith Netsbit, Chapter 11. The Hound in the Red Jersey Bobby knew the secret now. A sheet of old newspaper wrapped round a parcel—just a little chance like that—had given the secret to her. And she had to go down to tea and pretend that there was nothing the matter. The pretense was bravely made, but it wasn't very successful. For when she came in, everyone looked up from tea and saw her pink-lidded eyes and her pale face with red tear-blotches on it. My darling!" cried Mother, jumping up from the tea-tray. Whatever is the matter? My headaches, rather, said Bobby, and indeed it did. Has anything gone wrong? Mother asked. I'm all right, really, said Bobby, and she telegraphed to her mother from her swollen eyes this brief imploring message, not before the others. Tea was not a cheerful meal. Peter was so distressed by the obvious fact that something horrid had happened to Bobby that he limited his speech to repeating more bread and butter, please, at startlingly short intervals. Phyllis stroked her sister's hand under the table to express sympathy, and knocked her cup over as she did it. Fetching a cloth and wiping up the spilled milk helped Bobby a little. But she thought that tea would never end. Yet at last it did end, as all things do at last. And when Mother took out the tray, Bobby followed her. On to own up, said Phyllis to Peter. I wonder what she's done. Broken something, I suppose, said Peter, but she needn't be so silly over it. Mother never roused for accidents. Listen. Yes, they're going upstairs. She's taking Mother up to show her. The water jug with stalks on it, I expect it is. Bobby, in the kitchen, had caught hold of Mother's hand as she set down the tea-things. What is it? Mother asked. But Bobby only said, Come upstairs. Come up where nobody can hear us. When she had got Mother alone in her room she locked the door and then stood quite still and quite without words. All through tea she had been thinking of what to say. She had decided that I know all, or all is known to me, or the terrible secret is a secret no longer would be the proper thing. But now that she and her Mother and that awful sheet of newspaper were alone in the room together, she found that she could say nothing. Suddenly she went to Mother and put her arms around her and began to cry again. And still she could find no words only, Oh, Mummy! Oh, Mummy! Oh, Mummy! over and over again. Mother held her very close and waited. Suddenly Bobby broke away from her and went to her bed. And under her mattress she pulled out the paper she had hidden there and held it out, pointing to her father's name with a finger that shook. Oh, Bobby! Mother cried when one little quick look had shown her what it was. He don't believe it. He don't believe Daddy did it. No! Bobby almost shouted. She had stopped crying. That's all right, said Mother. It's not true. And they've shut him up in prison. But he's done nothing wrong. He's good and noble and honorable and he belongs to us. We have to think of that and be proud of him and wait. Again Bobby clung to her mother and again only one word came to her. But now that word was Daddy. And oh, Daddy! Oh, Daddy! Oh, Daddy! Again and again. Why didn't you tell me, Mummy? She asked presently. Are you going to tell the others? Mother asked. No. Why? Because— Exactly, said Mother. So you understand why I didn't tell you. We, too, must help each other to be brave. Yes, said Bobby. Mother, will it make you more unhappy if you tell me all about it? I want to understand. So then, sitting cuddled up close to her mother, Bobby heard all about it. She heard how those men who had asked to see Father on that remembered last night when the engine was being mended, had come to arrest him, charging him with selling state secrets to the Russians, with being, in fact, a spy and a traitor. She heard about the trial and about the evidence—letters found in Father's desk at the office—letters that convinced the jury that Father was guilty. Oh, how could they look at him and believe it? cried Bobby, and how could anyone do such a thing? Someone did it, said Mother, and all the evidence was against Father. Those letters— Yes! How did the letters get into his desk? Someone put them there, and the person who put them there was the person who was really guilty. He must be feeling pretty awful all this time, said Bobby, thoughtfully. I don't believe he had any feelings, said Mother, hotly. He couldn't have done a thing like that if he had. Perhaps he just shoved the letters into the desk to hide them when he thought he was going to be found out. Why don't you tell the lawyers or someone that it must have been that person? There wasn't anyone that would have hurt Father on purpose, was there? I don't know. I don't know. The man under him who got Daddy's place when the awful thing happened, he was always jealous of your father, because Daddy was so clever and everyone thought such a lot of him. And Daddy never quite trusted that man. Couldn't we explain all that to someone? Nobody will listen, said Mother, very bitterly. Nobody at all. Do you suppose I've not tried everything? No, my dearest. There's nothing to be done. All we can do—you and I and Daddy—is to be brave and patient and— she spoke very softly. To pray, Bobby, dear. Mother, you've got very thin, said Bobby abruptly. A little, perhaps. And oh, said Bobby, I do think you're the bravest person in the world as well as the nicest. We won't talk of all this any more, will we, dear? said Mother. We must bear it and be brave. And darling, try not to think of it. Try to be cheerful and to amuse yourself and the others. It's much easier for me if you can be a little bit happy and enjoy things. Wash your poor little round face and let's go out into the garden for a bit. The other two were very gentle and kind to Bobby, and they did not ask her what was the matter. This was Peter's idea, and he had drilled fillers who would have asked a hundred questions if she had been left to herself. A week later Bobby managed to get away alone, and once more she wrote a letter, and once more it was to the old gentleman. My dear friend, she said, you see what is in this paper. It is not true. Father never did it. Mother says someone put the papers in Father's desk, and she says the man under him that got Father's place afterwards was jealous of Father, and Father suspected him a long time. But nobody listens to a word she says. But you are so good and clever, and you found out about the Russian gentleman's wife directly. Can't you find out who did the treason, because you wasn't Father upon my honour? He is an Englishman and incapable to do such things, and then they would let Father out of prison. It is dreadful, and Mother is getting so thin. She told us once to pray for all prisoners and captives. I see now. Oh, do help me. There is only just Mother and me, no, and we can't do anything. Peter and Phil don't know. I'll pray for you twice every day as long as I live, if you'll only try. Just try to find out. Think if it was your daddy what you would feel. Oh, do, do, do help me. We the love. I remain your affectionately little friend, Roberta. P.S. Mother would send her kind regards if she knew I am writing, but it is no use telling her I am in case you can't do anything, but I know you will. Bobby with best love. She cut the account of her father's trial out of the newspaper with Mother's big cutting-out scissors, and put it in the envelope with her letter. Then she took it down to the station, going out the back way and round by the road, so that the others should not see her and offer to come with her, and she gave the letter to the stationmaster to give to the old gentleman next morning. Where have you been?" shouted Peter from the top of the yard wall where he and Phyllis were. To the station, of course, said Bobby, give us a hand, Pete. She set her foot on the lock of the yard door. Peter reached down a hand. What on earth, she asked, as she reached the wall-top, for Phyllis and Peter were very muddy. A lump of wet clay lay between them on the wall. They had each a slip of slate in a very dirty hand, and behind Peter, out of the reach of accidents, were several strange rounded objects, rather like very fat sausages. Hollow, but closed up at one end. It's nests, said Peter, swallow's nests. We're going to dry them in the oven and hang them up with string under the eaves of the coach-house. Yes, said Phyllis, and then we're going to save up all the wool and hair we can get, and in the spring we'll line them, and then how pleased the swallows will be. I've often thought people don't do nearly enough for dumb animals, said Peter, with an air of virtue. I do think people might have thought of making nests for poor little swallows before this. Oh! said Bobby vaguely, if everybody thought of everything, there'd be nothing left for anybody else to think about. Look at the nests, aren't they pretty? said Phyllis, reaching across Peter to grasp a nest. Look out, Phil, you goat! said her brother, but it was too late. Her strong little fingers had crushed the nest. There now, said Peter, never mind, said Bobby. It is one of my own, said Phyllis, so you needn't jaw, Peter. Yes, we've put our initial names on the ones we've done, so that the swallows will know who they've got to be so grateful to and fond of. Swallows can't read, silly, said Peter. Silly yourself, retorted Phyllis, how do you know? Who thought of making the nests anyhow, shouted Peter? I did, screamed Phyllis. There, rejoined Peter, you only thought of making hay ones and sticking them in the ivy for the sparrows, and they'd have been sopping long before egg-laying time. It was me, said Clay and Swallows. I don't care what you said. Look, said Bobby, I've made the nest all right again. Give me the bit of stick to mark your initial name on it. But how can you? Your letter and Peter's are the same. P for Peter, P for Phyllis. How would F for Phyllis, said the child of that name? That's how it sounds. The swallows wouldn't spell Phyllis with a P, I'm certain sure. They can't spell at all, Peter was still insisting. Then why do you see them always on Christmas cards and Valentine's with letters round their necks? How would they know where to go if they couldn't read? That's only in pictures. You never saw one really with letters round its neck. Well, I have a pigeon, then. At least Daddy told me they did. Only it was under their wings and not round their necks, but it comes to the same thing, and— I say—interrupted Bobby—there's to be a paper-chase tomorrow. Who? Peter asked. Grammar's school. Perks thinks the hare will go along by the line at first. We might go along the cutting. You can see a long way from there. The paper-chase was found to be a more amusing subject of conversation than the reading powers of swallows. Bobby had hoped it might be. And next morning Mother let them take their lunch and go out for the day to see the paper-chase. If we go to the cutting, said Peter, we shall see the workmen, even if we miss the paper-chase. Of course it had taken some time to get the line clear from the rocks and earth and trees that had fallen on it when the great landslip happened. That was the occasion you will remember when the three children saved the train from being wrecked by waving six little red flannel petticoat flags. It is always interesting to watch people working, especially when they work with such interesting things as spades and picks and shovels and planks and barrows, when they have cindery red fires and iron pots with round holes in them, and red lamps hanging near the works at night. Of course the children were never out at night, but once at dusk, when Peter had got out of his bedroom skylight onto the roof, he had seen the red lamp shining far away at the edge of the cutting. The children had often been down to watch the work, and this day, the interest of picks and spades and barrows being wheeled along planks, completely put the paper-chase out of their heads, so that they quite jumped when a voice just behind them panted, Let me pass, please. It was the hair—a big-boned, loose-limbed boy with dark hair lying flat on a very damp forehead. The bag of torn paper under his arm was fastened across one shoulder by a strap. The children stood back. The hair ran along the line, and the workmen leaned on their picks to watch him. He ran unsteadily and disappeared into the mouth of the tunnel. That's against the bylaws, said the foreman. Why worry, said the oldest workman. Live and let lives, what I always say. Ain't you never been young yourself, Mr. Bates? I ought to report him, said the foreman. Why spoil sports, would I always say? Passengers are forbidden to cross the line on any pretense, murmured the foreman doubtfully. Yet he ain't no passenger, said one of the workmen. Nor he ain't crossed the line, not where we could see him do it, said another. Nor yet he ain't made no pretenses, said a third. And, said the oldest workman, he's out of sight now. What the eye don't see, the art needn't take no notice of, is what I always say. And now, following the track of the hair, by the little white blots of scattered paper, came the hounds. There were thirty of them, and they all came down the steep ladder-like steps by ones and twos and threes and sixes and sevens. Bobby and Phyllis and Peter counted them as they passed. The foremost ones hesitated a moment at the foot of the ladder, then their eyes caught the gleam of scattered whiteness along the line, and they turned towards the tunnel, and by ones and twos and threes and sixes and sevens disappeared in the dark mouth of it. The last one, in a red jersey, seemed to be extinguished by the darkness like a candle that is blown out. They don't know what they're in for, said the foreman, it isn't so easy running in the dark. The tunnel takes two or three turns. They'll take a long time to get through, you think," Peter asked, a narrow more I shouldn't wonder. Then let's cut across the top, and see them come out at the other end," said Peter. We shall get there long before they do. The council seemed good, and they went. They climbed the steep steps from which they had picked the wild cherry blossom for the grave of the little wild rabbit, and reaching the top of the cutting, said their faces towards the hill through which the tunnel was cut. It was stiff work. It's like Alps, said Bobby breathlessly. Or Andes, said Peter. It's like Himmy, what's his name, gasped Phyllis. Mount Everlasting. Do let's stop. Stick to it, panted Peter. You'll get your second win in a minute. Phyllis consented to stick to it, and on they went, running when the turf was smooth and the slope easy, climbing over stones, helping themselves up rocks by the branches of trees, creeping through narrow openings between tree trunks and rocks, and so on and on, up and up, till at last they stood on the very top of the hill where they had so often wished to be. Holt! cried Peter, and threw himself flat on the grass. For the very top of the hill was a smooth, turfed table-land, dotted with mossy rocks and little mountain ash trees. The girls also threw themselves down flat. Plenty of time, Peter panted, the rest saw downhill. When they were rested enough to sit up and look round them, Bobby cried, Oh, look! What at, said Phyllis? The view, said Bobby. I hate views, said Phyllis. Don't you, Peter? Let's get on, said Peter. But this isn't like a view they take you to in carriages when you're at the seaside, all sea and sand and bare hills. It's like the colored counties in one of mother's poetry books. It's not so dusty, said Peter. Look at the aqueducts straddling slap across the valley like a giant centipede, and then the towns sticking their church-spires up out of the trees like pens out of an ink-stand. I think it's more like, there could he see the banners of twelve fair cities shine. I love it, said Bobby. It's worth the climb. The paper-chase is worth the climb, said Phyllis, if we don't lose it. Let's get on. It's all downhill now. I said that ten minutes ago, said Peter. Well, I've said it now, said Phyllis. Come on. Loads of time, said Peter, and there was. For when they had got down to a level with the top of the tunnel's mouth, there were a couple of hundred yards out of their reckoning and had to creep along the face of the hill. There was no sign of the hair or the hounds. They've gone long ago, of course," said Phyllis, as they leaned on the brick parapet above the tunnel. I don't think so," said Bobby. But even if they had, it's ripping here, and we shall see the trains come out of the tunnel like dragons out of lairs. We've never seen that from the topside before. No more we have," said Phyllis, partially appeased. It was really a most exciting place to be in. The top of the tunnel seemed ever so much farther from the line than they had expected, and it was like being on a bridge, but a bridge overgrown with bushes and creepers and grass and wild flowers. I know the paper chaser's gone long ago," said Phyllis, every two minutes, and she hardly knew whether she was pleased or disappointed when Peter, leaning over the parapet, suddenly cried, Look out! Here he comes! They all leaned over the sun-warmed brick wall in time to see the hair, going very slowly, come out of the shadow of the tunnel. There now, said Peter, what did I tell you? Now for the hounds. Very soon came the hounds, by ones and twos and threes and sixes and sevens, and they also were going slowly and seemed very tired. Two or three who lagged far behind came out long after the others. There," said Bobby. That's all. Now what shall we do? Go along to the tall tree wood over there and have lunch," said Phyllis. We can see them for miles from up there. Not yet, said Peter. That's not the last. There's the one in the red jersey to come out yet. Let's see the last of them come out. But though they waited and waited and waited, the boy in the red jersey did not appear. Oh, let's have lunch," said Phyllis. I've got a pain in my front with being so hungry. You must have missed seeing the red jerseyed one when he came out with the others. But Bobby and Peter agreed that he had not come out with the others. Let's go down to the tunnel-mouth," said Peter. Then perhaps we shall see him coming along from the inside. I expect he felt spunchuck and rested in one of the manholes. You stay up here and watch, Bob, and when I signal from below you come down. We might miss seeing him on the way down with all these trees. So the others climbed down, and Bobby waited till they signalled to her from the line below, and then she too scrambled down the roundabout slippery path among roots and moss till she stepped out between two dogwood trees and joined the others on the line. And still there was no sign of the hound with the red jersey. Oh, do, do, let's have something to eat," wailed Phyllis. I shall die if I don't, and then you'll be sorry. Give her the sandwiches for goodness sake, and stop her silly mouth," said Peter, not quite unkindly. Look here," he added, turning to Bobby. Perhaps we'd better have one each too. We may need all our strength. Not more than one, though. There's no time." What? asked Bobby, her mouth already full, for she was just as hungry as Phyllis. Don't you see," replied Peter impressively, that red jerseyed hound has had an accident. That's what it is. Perhaps even as we speak he's lying with his head on the metals, an unresisting prey to any passing express. Oh, don't try to talk like a book," cried Bobby, bolting what was left of her sandwich. Come on! Phil, keep close behind me, and if a train comes, stand flat against the tunnel wall, and hold your petty coats close to you. Give me one more sandwich," pleaded Phyllis, and I will. I'm going first," said Peter. It was my idea, and he went. Of course you know what going into a tunnel is like. The engine gives a scream, and then suddenly the noise of the running, rattling train changes and grows different and much louder. Grown-up people pull up the windows and hold them by the strap. The railway carriage suddenly grows like night, with lamps of course, unless you're in a slow local train, in which case lamps are not always provided. Then by and by the darkness outside the carriage window is touched by puffs of cloudy whiteness. Then you see a blue light on the walls of the tunnel. Then the sound of the moving train changes once more, and you are out in the good open air again, and grown-ups let the straps go. The windows, all dim with the yellow breath of the tunnel, rattle down into their places, and you see once more the dip and catch of the telegraph wires beside the line, and the straight cut hawthorn edges, with the tiny baby trees growing up out of them every thirty yards. All this, of course, is what a tunnel means when you're in a train, but everything is quite different when you walk into a tunnel on your own feet, and tread on shifting sliding stones and gravel on a path that curves downwards from the shining metals to the wall. Then you see slimy, oozy trickles of water running down the inside of the tunnel, and you notice that the bricks are not red or brown as they are at the tunnel's mouth, but dull, sticky, sickly green. Your voice, when you speak, is quite changed from what it was out in the sunshine, and it is a long time before the tunnel is quite dark. It was not yet quite dark in the tunnel when Phyllis caught at Bobby's skirt, ribbing out half a yard of gathers, but no one noticed this at the time. "'I want to go back,' she said, "'I don't like it. It'll be pitch dark in a minute. I won't go on in the dark. I don't care what you say, I won't. Don't be a silly cuckoo,' said Peter. I've got a candle and matches, and—what's that?" That was a low humming sound on the railway line, a trembling of the wires beside it, a buzzing humming sound that grew louder and louder as they listened. "'It's a train,' said Bobby. Which line?' "'Let me go back,' cried Phyllis, struggling to get away from the hand by which Bobby held her. "'Don't be a coward,' said Bobby. It's quite safe. Stand back. "'Come on,' shouted Peter, who was a few yards ahead. Quick! Manhole!' The roar of the advancing train was now louder than the noise you hear when your head is under water in the bath, and both taps are running, and you are kicking with your heels against the bath's tin sides. But Peter had shouted for all he was worth, and Bobby heard him. She dragged Phyllis along to the manhole. Phyllis, of course, stumbled over the wires and grazed both her legs, but they dragged her in, and all three stood in the dark, damp, arched recess, while the train roared louder and louder. It seemed as if it were deafening them, and in the distance they could see its eyes of fire growing bigger and brighter every instant. "'It is a dragon! I always knew it was! It takes its own shape in here, in the dark!' shouted Phyllis, but nobody heard her. You see, the train was shouting too, and its voice was bigger than hers. And now, with a rush and a roar and a rattle and a long, dazzling flash of lighted carriage windows, a smell of smoke and blast of hot air, the train hurtled by, clanging and jangling and echoing in the vaulted roof of the tunnel. Phyllis and Bobby clung to each other, even Peter caught hold of Bobby's arm, in case she should be frightened, as he explained afterwards. And now, slowly and gradually, the taillights grew smaller and smaller and so did the noise, till with one last whizz the train got itself out of the tunnel, and silence settled again on its damp walls and dripping roof. "'Oh!' said the children, altogether in a whisper. Peter was lighting the candle-end with a hand that trembled. Come on,' he said, but he had to clear his throat before he could speak in his natural voice. "'Oh!' said Phyllis, if the red jerseyed one was in the way of the train. "'We've got to go and see,' said Peter. "'Couldn't we go and send someone from the station?' said Phyllis. "'Would you rather wait here for us?' asked Bobby severely, and of course that settled the question. So the three went on into the deeper darkness of the tunnel. Peter led, holding his candle-end high, to light the way. The grease ran down his fingers, and some of it right up his sleeve. He found a long streak from wist to elbow when he went to bed that night. He was not more than a hundred and fifty yards from the spot where they had stood while the train went by, that Peter stood still, shouted, "'Hello!' and then went on much quicker than before. When the others caught him up, he stopped, and he stopped within a yard of what they had come into the tunnel to look for. Phyllis saw a gleam of red, and shut her eyes tight. There by the curved, pebbly downline was the red jerseyed hound. His back was against the wall, his arms hung limply by his sides, and his eyes were shut. "'Was the red blood? Is he all killed?' asked Phyllis, screwing her eyelids more tightly together. "'Killed? Nonsense,' said Peter. "'There's nothing red about him except his jersey. He's only fainted. What on earth are we to do? Can we move him?' asked Bobby. "'I don't know. He's a big chap. I suppose we bathe his forehead with water. No, I know we haven't any, but milk's just as wet. There's a whole bottle.' "'Yes,' said Peter, and they rubbed people's hands, I believe. "'They burned feathers, I know,' said Phyllis. "'What's the good of saying that when we haven't any feathers?' "'As it happens,' said Phyllis, in a tone of exasperated triumph, I've got a shuttlecock in my pocket. So there!' And now Peter rubbed the hands of the red jerseyed one. Bobby burned the feathers of the shuttlecock one by one under his nose. This splashed warmish milk on his forehead, and all three kept on saying as fast and as earnestly as they could, "'Oh, look up! Speak to me! For my sick, speak!' CHAPTER XII Oh, look up! Speak to me! For my sick, speak!' The children said the words over and over again to the unconscious hound in a red jersey, who sat with closed eyes and pale face against the side of the tunnel. "'Wet his ears with milk,' said Bobby. I know they do it to people that faint, without a cologne. But I expect milk's just as good.' So they wetted his ears, and some of the milk ran down his neck under the red jersey. It was very dark in the tunnel. The candle-end Peter had carried, and which now burned on a flat stone, gave hardly any light at all. "'Oh, do look up,' said Phyllis, for my sake—I believe he's dead. For my sake,' repeated Bobby, no, he isn't. For any sake,' said Peter, come out of it, and he shook the sufferer by the arm. And then the boy in the red jersey sighed, and opened his eyes, and shut them again, and said in a very small voice, "'Chuck it.' "'Oh, he's not dead,' said Phyllis. I knew he wasn't.' And then she began to cry. "'What's up? I'm all right,' said the boy. "'Drink this,' said Peter, firmly, thrusting the nose of the milk-bottle into the boy's mouth. The boy struggled, and some of the milk was upset before he could get his mouth free to say, "'What is it?' "'It's milk,' said Peter. "'Fear not. You are in the hands of friends. Phyll, you stop bleating this minute. "'Do drink it,' said Bobby gently. "'It'll do you good.'" So he drank, and the three stood by without speaking to him. "'Let him be a minute,' Peter whispered. "'He'll be all right as soon as the milk begins to run like fire through his veins.' He was. "'I'm better now,' he announced. I remember all about it. He tried to move, but the movement ended in a groan. "'Bother! I believe I've broken my leg,' he said. "'Did you tumble down?' asked Phyllis, sniffing. "'Of course not. I'm not a kitty,' said the boy indignantly. It was one of those beastly wires tripped me up, and when I tried to get up again I couldn't stand, so I sat down. Gee, wellikins! It does hurt, though. How did you get here? We saw you all go into the tunnel, and then we went across the hill to see you all come out, and the others did, all but you, and you didn't. "'So we're a rescue party,' said Peter, with pride. "'You've got some pluck, I will say,' remarked the boy. "'Oh, that's nothing,' said Peter, with modesty. "'Do you think you could walk if we helped you?' "'I could try,' said the boy. He did try, but he could only stand on one foot. The other dragged in a very nasty way. "'Here, let me sit down. I feel like dying,' said the boy. "'Let go of me. Let go, quick!' He lay down and closed his eyes. The others looked at each other by the dim light of the little candle. "'What on earth?' said Peter. "'Look here,' said Bobby quickly. "'You must go and get help. Go to the nearest house.' "'Yes, that's the only thing,' said Peter. "'Come on. If you take his feet, and Phil and I take his head, we could carry him to the manhole.' They did it. It was, perhaps, as well, for the sufferer that he had fainted again. "'Now,' said Bobby, I'll stay with him. You take the longest bit of candle, and oh, be quick, for this bit won't burn long. "'I don't think mother would like me leaving you,' said Peter doubtfully. "'Let me stay, and you and Phil go.' "'No, no,' said Bobby. You and Phil go. And lend me your knife. I'll try to get his boot off before he wakes up again.' "'I hope it's all right what we're doing,' said Peter. "'Of course it's right,' said Bobby impatiently. "'What else would you do? Give him here all alone, because it's dark.' "'Nonsense. Hurry up, that's all.' So they hurried up. Bobby watched their dark figures in the little light of the little candle, with an odd feeling of having come to the end of everything. She knew now, she thought, what nuns who were bricked up alive in convent walls felt like. Suddenly she gave herself a little shake. "'Don't be a silly little girl,' she said. She was always very angry when anyone else called her a little girl, even if the adjective that went first was not silly, but nice, or good, or clever. And it was only when she was very angry with herself that she allowed Roberta to use that expression to Bobby. She fixed the little candle-end on a broken brick near the red jerseyed boy's feet. Then she opened Peter's knife. It was always hard to manage. A half-penny was generally needed to get it open at all. This time Bobby somehow got it open with her thumbnail. She broke the nail, and it hurt horribly. Then she cut the boy's boot-lace and got the boot off. She tried to pull off his stocking, but his leg was dreadfully swollen, and it did not seem to be the proper shape. So she cut the stocking down very slowly and carefully. It was a brown-knitted stocking, and she wondered who had knitted it, and whether it was the boy's mother, and whether she was feeling anxious about him, and how she would feel when he was brought home with his leg broken. When Bobby had got the stocking off and saw the poor leg, she felt as though the tunnel was growing darker, and the ground felt unsteady, and nothing seemed quite real. "'Silly little girl,' said Roberta to Bobby, and felt better. The poor leg,' she told herself, it ought to have a cushion. Ah! She remembered the day when she and Phyllis had torn up their red flannel petticoats to make danger signals to stop the train and prevent an accident. Her flannel petticoat to-day was white, but it would be quite as soft as a red one. She took it off. "'Oh, what useful things flannel petticoats are,' she said. The man who invented them ought to have a statue directed to him. And she said it aloud, because it seemed that any voice, even her own, would be a comfort in that darkness. "'What ought to be directed?' "'Who to?' asked the boy, suddenly, and very feebly. "'Oh,' said Bobby, now you're better. Hold your teeth, and don't let it hurt too much. Now!' She had folded the petticoat, and lifting his leg, laded on the cushion of folded flannel. "'Don't faint again. Please don't,' said Bobby, as he groaned. She hastily wetted her handkerchief with milk, and spread it over the poor leg. "'Oh, that hurts,' cried the boy, shrinking. "'Oh!' "'No, it doesn't. It's nice, really.' "'What's your name?' said Bobby. "'Jim.' "'Minds Bobby.' "'But you're a girl, aren't you?' "'Yes, my long name's Roberta.' "'I say—'Bobby.' "'Yes?' "'Wasn't there some more of you just now?' "'Yes, Peter and Phil. That's my brother and sister. They've gone to get someone to carry you out.' "'What rum names? All boys?' "'Yes. I wish I was a boy, don't you?' "'I think you're all right, as you are.' "'I didn't mean that. I meant, don't you wish you were a boy? But, of course, you are without wishing.' "'You're just as brave as a boy. Why didn't you go with the others?' "'Somebody had to stay with you,' said Bobby. "'Tell you about Bobby,' said Jim. "'You're a brick. Shake.' He reached out a red jerseyed arm, and Bobby squeezed his hand. "'I won't shake it,' she explained, because it would shake you, and that would shake your poor leg, and that would hurt. Have you got a hankie?' "'I don't expect I have.' He felt in his pocket. "'Yes, I have.' "'What for?' She took it, and whited it with milk, and put it on his forehead. "'That's jolly,' he said. "'What is it?' "'Milk,' said Bobby. "'We haven't any water.' "'You're a jolly good little nurse,' said Jim. "'I do it for mother sometimes,' said Bobby. "'Not milk, of course, but scent or vinegar and water. "'I say. I must put the candle out now, because they're meant to be enough of the other one to get you out by.' "'By George,' said he, you think of everything.' "'Bobby blew. Out went the candle. You have no idea how black velvety the darkness was.' "'I say, Bobby,' said a voice through the blackness. "'Aren't you afraid of the dark?' "'Not—not very, that is. Let's hold hands,' said the boy, and it was really rather good of him, because he was like most boys of his age, and hated all material tokens of affection, such as kissing and holding of hands. He called all such things pawings, and detested them. The darkness was more bearable to Bobby now that her hand was held in the large, rough hand of the red, jerseyed sufferer, and he, holding her little, smooth, hot paw, was surprised to find that he did not mind it so much as he expected. She tried to talk, to amuse him, and take his mind off his sufferings. But it is very difficult to go on talking in the dark, and presently they found themselves in a silence, only broken now and then by a— "'You all right, Bobby, Oren? I'm afraid it's hurting you most awfully, Jim. I am so sorry.' And it was very cold. Peter and Phyllis tramped down the long way of the tunnel towards daylight, the candle-grease dripping over Peter's fingers. There were no accidents, unless you count Phyllis's catching her frock on a wire, and tearing a long jagged slit in it, and tripping over her bootlace when it came undone, or going down on her hands and knees, all four of which were grazed. "'There's no end to this tunnel,' said Phyllis, and indeed it did seem very, very long. "'Stick to it,' said Peter. Everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep all on.' "'Which is quite true, if you come to think of it, and a useful thing to remember in seasons of trouble, such as measles, arithmetic, impositions, and those times when you are in disgrace, and feel as though no one would ever love you again, and you could never, never again love anybody.' "'Hooray!' said Peter, suddenly, there's the end of the tunnel. Looks just like a pinhole and a bit of black paper, doesn't it? The pinhole got larger. Blue lights lay along the sides of the tunnel. The children could see that gravel way that lay in front of them. The air grew warmer and sweeter. Another twenty steps, and they were out in the good glad sunshine with the green trees on both sides. Phyllis drew a long breath. "'I'll never go into a tunnel again as long as ever I live,' said she, not if there are twenty-hundred thousand millions hounds inside with red jerseys and their legs broken. Don't be a silly cuckoo,' said Peter, as usual. "'You'd have to.' "'I think it was very brave and good of me,' said Phyllis. "'Not it,' said Peter. "'You didn't go because you were brave, but because Bobby and I aren't skunks. Now where's the nearest house, I wonder? You can't see anything here for the trees.' "'There's a roof over there,' said Phyllis, pointing down the line. "'That's the signal box,' said Peter. "'And you know you're not allowed to speak to signalmen on duty. It's wrong.' "'I'm not near so afraid of doing wrong as I was of going into that tunnel,' said Phyllis. "'Come on.' And she started to run along the line. So Peter ran, too. It was very hot in the sunshine, and both children were hot and breathless by the time they stopped, and, bending their heads back to look up at the open windows of the signal box, shouted, "'Hi!' As loud as their breathless state allowed. But no one answered. The signal box stood quiet as an empty nursery, and the handrail of its steps was hot to the hands of the children as they climbed softly up. They peeped in at the open door. The signalman was sitting on a chair tilted back against the wall. His head leaned sideways, and his mouth was open. He was fast asleep. "'My hat,' cried Peter, "'wake up!' and he cried it in a terrible voice, for he knew that if a signalman sleeps on duty he risks losing his situation, let alone all the other dreadful risks to trains which expect him to tell them when it is safe for them to go their ways.' The signalman never moved. Then Peter sprang to him and shook him, and slowly, yawning and stretching, the man awoke. But the moment he was awake he leapt to his feet, put his hands to his head like a mad maniac as Phyllis said afterwards, and shouted, "'Oh, my heavens! What's the clock?' "'Twelve-thirteen,' said Peter, and indeed it was, by the white-faced, round-faced clock on the wall of the signal box. The man looked at the clock, sprang to the levers, and wrenched them this way and that. An electric bell tingled, the wires and cranks creaked, and the man threw himself into a chair. He was very pale, and the sweat stood on his forehead, like large dew-drops on a white cabbage, as Phyllis remarked later. He was trembling, too. The children could see his big hairy hands shake from side to side, with quite extra-sized trembles to use the subsequent words of Peter. He drew long breaths. Then suddenly he cried, "'Thank God! Thank God you come in when you did! Oh, thank God!' And his shoulders began to heave, and his face grew red again, and he hid it in those large hairy hands of his. "'Oh, don't cry. Don't!' said Phyllis. "'It's all right now.' And she patted him on one big, broad shoulder, while Peter conscientiously thumped the other. But the signalman seemed quite broken down, and the children had to pat him and thump him for quite a long time before he found his handkerchief, a red one with mauve and white horseshoes on it, and mopped his face and spoke. During this patting and thumping interval a train thundered by, "'I'm downright ashamed that I am,' were the words of the big signalman when he had stopped crying, snivelling like a kid. Then suddenly he seemed to get cross. "'And what was you doing up here, anyway?' he said. "'You know it ain't allowed.' "'Yes,' said Phyllis. We knew it was wrong, but I wasn't afraid of doing wrong, and so it turned out right. You aren't sorry we came. "'Lord, love you. If you hadn't have come,' he stopped, and then went on. "'It's a disgrace, so it is sleeping on duty. If it was to come to be known, even as it is, when no arms come of it.' "'It won't come to be known,' said Peter. "'We aren't sneaks. All the same. You oughtn't to sleep on duty. It's dangerous.' "'Tell me something I don't know,' said the man. "'But I can't help it. I knowed well enough just how it'd be. But I couldn't get off. They couldn't get no one to take on my duty. I tell you, I ain't had ten minutes sleep this last five days. My little chap's ill. Pumonia,' the doctor says, and there's no one but me and his little sister to do for him. That's where it is. The girl must have her sleep.' "'Dangerous. Yes, I believe you. Now go and split on me, if you like.' But Phyllis ignored the whole of the signalman's speech, except for the first six words. "'You asked us,' she said, to tell you something you don't know. "'Well, I will. There's a boy in the tunnel over there with a red jersey and his leg broken.' "'What did you want to go into the Bloomin' Tunnel for, then?' said the man. "'Don't you be so cross,' said Phyllis kindly. "'We haven't done anything wrong except coming and waking you up, and that was right as it happens.' Then Peter told how the boy came to be in the tunnel. "'Well,' said the man, "'I don't see as I can do anything. I can't leave the box. You might tell us where to go after someone who isn't in a box, though,' said Phyllis. "'It's Bridgen's Farm over Yonder, where you see the smoker coming up through the trees,' said the man, more and more grumpy, as Phyllis noticed. "'Well, good-bye, then,' said Peter, but the man said, "'Wait a minute.' He put his hand in his pocket and brought out some money—a lot of pennies and one or two shillings and sixpences and half a crown. He picked out two shillings and held them out. "'Here,' he said, "'I'll give you this to hold your tongues about what's taken place to-day.' There was a short, unpleasant pause. "'You are a nasty man, though, aren't you?' said Phyllis. Peter took a step forward and knocked the man's hand up, so that the shillings leapt out of it and rolled on the floor. If anything could make me sneak, that would,' he said, come, Phyll, and marched out of the signal-box with flaming cheeks. Phyllis hesitated. Then she took the hand, still held out stupidly, that the shillings had been in. "'I forgive you,' she said, even if Peter doesn't. You're not in your proper senses, or you'd never have done that. I know want of sleep since people mad.' Mother told me. I hope your little boy will soon be better, and—'Come on, Phyll,' cried Peter, eagerly. "'I give you my sacred honoured word. He will never tell any one. Kiss and be friends,' said Phyllis, feeling how noble it was of her to try to make up a quarrel in which she was not to blame. The signalman stooped and kissed her. "'I do believe I'm a bit of my head, Sissy,' he said. Now run along home to mother. I didn't mean to put you about. There.' Phyll left the hot signal box and followed Peter across the fields to the farm. When the farmmen, led by Peter and Phyllis, and carrying a hurdle covered with horse-clothed, reached the manhole in the tunnel, Bobby was fast asleep, and so was Jim. Worn out with the pain, the doctor said afterwards. "'Where does he live?' the bailiff from the farm asked, when Jim had been lifted on to the hurdle. "'In Northumberland,' answered Bobby. "'I'm at school at Maidbridge,' said Jim. "'I suppose I've got to get back there, somehow.' "'Seems to me the doctor ought to have a look in first,' said the bailiff. "'Oh, bring him up to our house,' said Bobby. "'It's only a little way by the road. I'm sure mother would say we ought to.' "'Will your ma like you bringing home strangers with broken legs?' "'She took the poor Russian home herself,' said Bobby. "'I know she'd say we ought.' "'All right,' said the bailiff. "'You ought to know what your ma would like.' "'I wouldn't take it upon me to fetch him up to our place without I asked the Mrs. first, and they'd call me the master, too.' "'Are you sure your mother won't mind?' whispered Jim. "'Certain,' said Bobby. "'Then where to take him up to three chimneys?' said the bailiff. "'Of course,' said Peter. "'Then my lad shall nip up to the doctors on his bike and tell him to come down there. Now, lads, lift him quiet and steady. One, two, three.' Thus it happened that mother, writing away for dear life at a story about a duchess, a designing villain, and secret passage, and a missing will, dropped her pen as her work-room door burst open, and turned to see Bobby, hatless and red with running. "'Oh, mother,' she cried, "'do come down. We found a hound in a red jersey in the tunnel, and he's broken his leg, and they're bringing him home.' "'They ought to take him to the vet,' said mother, with a worried frown. "'I really can't have a lame dog here.' "'He's not a dog, really. He's a boy,' said Bobby, between laughing and choking. Then he ought to be taken home to his mother. "'His mother's dead,' said Bobby, and his father's in Northumberland. "'Oh, mother, you will be nice to him. I told him I was sure you'd want us to bring him home. You always want to help everybody.' Mother smiled. But she sighed, too. "'It is nice that your children should believe you're willing to open house and heart to any and every one who needs help. But it is rather embarrassing sometimes, too, when they act on their belief.' "'Oh, well,' said mother, "'we must make the best of it.' When Jim was carried in, dreadfully white, and with set lips, whose red had faded to a horrid bluey violet colour, mother said, "'I'm glad you brought him here. Now, Jim, let's get you comfortable in bed before the doctor comes. And Jim, looking at her kind eyes, felt a little warm, comforting flush of new courage. "'It'll hurt rather, won't it?' he said. I don't mean to be a coward. You won't think I'm a coward if I faint again, will you? I really and truly don't do it on purpose, and I do hate to give you all this trouble.' "'Don't you worry,' said mother. "'It's you that have the trouble, you poor dear, not us. And she kissed him just as if he had been Peter. We love to have you here, don't we, Bobby?' "'Yes,' said Bobby, and she saw by her mother's face how right she had been to bring home the wounded hound in the Red Jersey.' End of CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII Mother did not get back to her writing all that day, for the Red Jersey'd hound whom the children had brought three chimneys had to be put to bed, and then the doctor came and hurt him most horribly. Mother was with him all through it, and that made it a little better than it would have been. But bad was the best, as Mrs. Feiney said. The children sat in the parlour downstairs and heard the sound of the doctor's boots going backwards and forwards over the bedroom floor, and once or twice there was a groan. "'It's horrible,' said Bobby. Oh, I wish Dr. Forrest would make haste. Oh, poor Jim.' "'It is horrible,' said Peter, but it's very exciting. I wish doctors weren't so stuck up about who they'll have in the room when they're doing things. I should most awfully like to see a leg set. I believe the bones crunch like anything.' "'Don't,' said the two girls at once. "'Rubbish,' said Peter. How are you going to be red cross-nurses, like you were talking of, coming home, if you can't even stand hearing me say about bones crunching? You'd have to hear them crunch on the field of battle, and be steeped in gore up to the elbows as likely as not, and— "'Stop it!' cried Bobby with a white face. You don't know how funny you're making me feel. "'Me, too,' said Phyllis, whose face was pink. "'Cowards,' said Peter. "'I'm not,' said Bobby. "'I helped mother with your rake wounded foot, and so did Phil. You know we did.' "'Well, then,' said Peter. "'Now, look here. It would be a jolly good thing for you if I were to talk to you every day for half an hour about broken bones and people's insides so as to get you used to it.' A chair was moved above. "'Listen,' said Peter. "'That's the bone crunching. I do wish you wouldn't,' said Phyllis. "'Bobby doesn't like it.' "'I'll tell you what they do,' said Peter. I can't think what made him so horrid. Perhaps it was because he had been so very nice and kind all the earlier part of the day, and now he had to have a change. This is called reaction. One notices it now and then in oneself. Sometimes when one has been extricate for a longer time than usual, one is suddenly attacked by a violent fit of not being good at all. "'I'll tell you what they do,' said Peter. They strap the broken man down so that he can't resist or interfere with their doctorish designs, and then someone holds his head and someone holds his leg, the broken one, and pulls it till the bones fit in—with a crunch, mind you—then they strap it up, and—'Let's play at bone-setting.' "'Oh, no,' said Phyllis. But Bobby said suddenly, all right. Let's. I'll be the doctor, and Phil can be the nurse. You can be the broken boner. We can get at your legs more easily, because you don't wear petticoats. "'I'll get the splints and bandages,' said Peter. You get the couch of suffering ready.' The ropes that had tied up the boxes that had come from home were all in a wooden packing-case in the cellar. When Peter brought in a trailing tangle of them and two boards for splints, Phyllis was excitedly giggling. "'Now, then,' he said, and lay down on the settle, groaning most grievously. "'Not so loud,' said Bobby, beginning to wind the rope around him in the settle. You pull, Phil. "'Not so tight,' moaned Peter. "'You'll break my other leg.' Bobby worked on in silence, winding more and more rope around him. "'That's enough,' said Peter. I can't move at all. "'Oh, my poor leg!' he groaned again. "'Sure you can't move?' asked Bobby in a rather strange tone. "'Quite sure,' replied Peter. "'Shall we play his bleeding freely or not?' he asked cheerfully. "'You can play what you like,' said Bobby sternly, folding her arms and looking down at him, where he lay all wound, round, and round with cord. Phil and I are going away, and we shan't untie you till you promise never, never to talk to us about blood and wounds unless we say you may. Come, Phil. You beast!' said Peter, writhing. "'I'll never promise. Never. I'll yell, and mother will come.' "'Do!' said Bobby, and tell her why we tied you up. Come on, Phil. No, I'm not a beast, Peter. But you wouldn't stop when we asked you, and—' "'Yeah,' said Peter. It wasn't even your own idea. You got it out of storky!' Bobby and Phil, retiring in silent dignity, were met at the door by the doctor. He came in, rubbing his hands, and looking pleased with himself. Well, he said, that job's done. It's a nice, clean fracture, and it'll go on all right, I've no doubt. Lucky young chap, too.' "'Hello? What's all this?' His eye had fallen on Peter, who lay mousy still in his bonds on the settle. Playing at prisoners, eh?' he said, but his eyebrows had gone up a little. Somehow he had not thought that Bobby would be playing while in the room above someone was having a broken bone set. "'Oh, no,' said Bobby. "'Not at prisoners. We were playing at setting bones. Peter's the broken boner, and I was the doctor.' The doctor frowned. "'Then I must say,' he said, and he said it rather sternly, that it's a very heartless game. Haven't you enough imagination, even to faintly picture what's been going on upstairs? That poor chap with the drops of sweat on his forehead, and biting his lips, it was not to cry out, and every touch on his leg agony, and you ought to be tied up,' said Phyllis, "'you're as bad as—' Hush,' said Bobby. "'I'm sorry. But we weren't heartless, really.' "'I was, I suppose,' said Peter crossly. "'All right, Bobby. Don't you go on being noble and screening me, because I jolly well won't have it. It was only that I kept on talking about blood and moons. I wanted to train them for Red Cross nurses, and I wouldn't stop when they asked me.' "'Well?' said Dr. Forrest, sitting down. "'Well, then I said, let's play at setting bones. It was all rot. I knew Bobby wouldn't. I only said it to tease her. And then when she said yes, of course I had to go through with it. And they tied me up. They got it out of stalky. And I think it's a beastly shame.' He managed to writhe over and hide his face against the wooden back of the settle. "'I didn't think that anyone would know but us,' said Bobby, indignantly answering Peter's unspoken reproach. I never thought of your coming in, and hearing about blood and moons does really make me feel most awfully funny. It was only a joke our tying him up. Let me untie you, Pete. I don't care if you never untie me,' said Peter, and if that's your idea of a joke. "'If I were you,' said the doctor, though really he did not quite know what to say, I should be untied before your mother comes down. You don't want to worry her just now, do you? I don't promise anything about not saying about wounds, mind,' said Peter, in very surly tones, as Bobby and Phyllis began to untie the knots. "'I'm very sorry, Pete,' Bobby whispered, leaning close to him as she fumbled with the big knot under the settle. But if you only knew how sick you made me feel. You've made me feel pretty sick, I can tell you,' Peter rejoined. Then he shook off the loose cords and stood up. "'I looked in,' said Dr. Forrest, to see if one of you would come along to the surgery. There are some things that your mother will want at once, and I've given my man a day off to go and see the circus. Will you come, Peter?' Peter went without a word or a look to his sisters. The two walked in silence up to the gate that led from the three chimneys field to the road. Then Peter said, "'Let me carry your bag.' I say it is heavy. What's in it? Oh! knives and lancets and different instruments for hurting people. And the ether-bottle. I had to give him ether, you know. The agony was so intense.' Peter was silent. "'Tell me all about how you found that chap,' said Dr. Forrest. Peter told. And then Dr. Forrest told him stories of brave rescues. He was a most interesting man to talk to as Peter had often remarked. Then in the surgery, Peter had a better chance than he had ever had of examining the doctor's balance and his microscope and his scales and measuring glasses. When all the things were ready that Peter was to take back, the doctor said suddenly, "'You'll excuse my shoving my aural, won't you? But I should like to say something to you.' "'Now for a rowing,' thought Peter, who had been wondering how it was he had escaped one. Something scientific,' added the doctor. "'Yes,' said Peter, fiddling with the fossil ammonite that the doctor used for a paper-weight. "'Well, then, you see, boys and girls are only little men and women. And we are much harder and hardier than they are,' Peter liked the we. Perhaps the doctor had known he would. And much stronger. And things that hurt them don't hurt us. You know you mustn't hit a girl. I should think not indeed,' muttered Peter indignantly. Not even if she's your own sister. That's because girls are so much softer and weaker than we are. They have to be, you know,' he added, because if they weren't it wouldn't be nice for the babies. And that's why all the animals are so good to the mother-animals. They never fight them, you know.' "'I know,' said Peter, interested. "'Two buck-rabbits will fight all day if you let them, but they won't hurt a doe.' "'No.' And quite wild beasts—lions and elephants—they're immensely gentle with the female beasts. And they've got to be, too.' "'I see,' said Peter, and their hearts are soft, too,' the doctor went on, and things that we shouldn't think anything of hurt them dreadfully, so that a man has to be very careful, not only of his fists, but of his words. They're awfully brave, you know,' he went on, "'Think of Bobby waiting alone in the tunnel with that poor chap. It's an odd thing. The softer and more easily hurt a woman is, the better she can screw herself up to do what has to be done. I've seen some brave women—' "'Your mother's one,' he ended abruptly.' "'Yes,' said Peter. "'Well, that's all. Excuse my mentioning it. But nobody knows everything without being told. And you see what I mean, don't you?' "'Yes,' said Peter. "'I'm sorry. There.' "'Of course you are. You'll always are. Directly they understand. Everyone ought to be taught these scientific facts.' "'So long?' They shook hands heartily. When Peter came home, his sisters looked at him doubtfully. "'It's Pax,' said Peter, dumping down the basket on the table. "'Dr. Forrest has been talking scientific to me. No, it's no use my telling you what he said. You wouldn't understand. But it all comes to you girls being poor, soft, weak, frightened things like rabbits, so us men have just got to put up with them. He said you were female beasts. "'Shall I take this up to mother, or will you?' "'I know what boys are,' said Phyllis, with flaming cheeks. "'They're just the nastiest, rudest—' "'They're very brave,' said Bobby, sometimes. "'Ah, you mean the chap upstairs? I see. Go ahead, Phil. I shall put up with you whatever you say, because you're a poor, weak, frightened, soft—' "'Not if I pull your hair you won't,' said Phyllis, springing at him. "'He said Pax,' said Bobby, pulling her away. "'Don't you see?' she whispered as Peter picked up the basket and stalked out with him. "'He's sorry, really. Only he won't say so. Let's say we're sorry.' "'It's so goody-goody,' said Phyllis doubtfully. He said we were female beasts and soft and frightened. Then let's show him we're not frightened of him thinking as goody-goody,' said Bobby, and we're not any more beasts than he is. And when Peter came back, still with his chin in the air, Bobby said, "'We're sorry we tied you up, Pete.' "'I thought you would be,' said Peter, very stiff and superior. This was hard to bear, but—' "'Well, so we are,' said Bobby. "'Now let honour be satisfied on both sides.' "'I did call it Pax,' said Peter, in an injured tone. "'Then let it be Pax,' said Bobby. "'Come on, Phil. Let's get the tea.' "'Pete, you might lay the cloth.' "'I say,' said Phyllis, when peace was really restored, which was not till they were washing up the cups after tea. Dr. Forrest didn't really say boob are female beasts, did he?' "'Yes,' said Peter firmly. "'But I think he meant we men were wild beasts, too.' "'How funny of him,' said Phyllis, breaking a cup.' "'May I come in, mother?' Peter was at the door of mother's writing-room, where mother sat at her table, with two candles in front of her. Their flames looked orange and violet against a clear grey-blue of the sky, where already a few stars were twinkling. "'Yes, dear,' said mother, absently. "'Anything wrong?' She wrote a few more words, and then laid down her pen, and began to fold up what she had written. "'I was just writing to Jim's grandfather. He lives near here, you know.' "'Yes, you said so at tea. That's what I want to say. Must you write to him, mother? Couldn't we keep Jim and not say anything to his people till he's well? It would be such a surprise for them.' "'Well, yes,' said mother, laughing. I think it would.' "'You see,' Peter went on. "'Of course, the girls are all right and all that. I'm not saying anything against them. But I should like it if I had another chap to talk to sometimes.' "'Yes,' said mother. "'I know it's dull for you, dear. But I can't help it. Next year, perhaps, I can send you to school. You'd like that, wouldn't you?' "'I do miss the other chaps, rather,' Peter confessed. "'But if Jim could stay after his leg was well, we could have awful larks.' "'I've no doubt of it,' said mother. "'Well, perhaps he could. But you know, dear, we're not rich. We can't afford to get him everything he'll want. And he must have a nurse. Can't you nurse him, mother? You do nurse people so beautifully. That's a pretty compliment, Pete. But I can't do nursing and my writing as well. That's the worst of it.' "'Then you must send the letter to his grandfather?' "'Of course, and to his schoolmaster, too. We telegraph to them both. But I must write as well. They'll be most dreadfully anxious.' "'I say, mother. Why can't his grandfather pay for a nurse?' Peter suggested. That would be ripping. I expect the old boys rolling in money. Grandfathers and books always are.' "'Well, this one isn't in a book,' said mother, so we mustn't expect him to roll much.' "'I say,' said Peter musingly. "'Wouldn't it be jolly if we all were in a book, and you were writing it? Then you could make all sorts of jolly things happen, and make Jim's legs get well at once and be all right to-morrow, and father would come home soon, and do you miss your father very much?' Mother asked, rather coldly, Peter thought. "'Orfly,' said Peter briefly. Mother was enveloping and addressing the second letter. "'You see,' Peter went on slowly. "'You see, it's not only him being father, but now he's away, there's no other man in the house but me. That's why I want Jim to stay so frightfully much. Wouldn't you like to be writing that book with us all in it, mother, and make daddy come home soon?' Peter's mother put her arm round him suddenly and hugged him in silence for a minute. Then she said, "'Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing the book I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right, in the way that's best for us.' "'Do you really believe that, mother?' Peter asked quietly. "'Yes,' she said. "'I do believe it. Almost always, except when I'm so sad that I can't believe anything. But even when I can't believe it, I know it's true, and I try to believe. You don't know how I try, Peter. Now, take the letters to the post, and don't let's be sad any more. Courage! That's the finest of all the virtues. I dare say Jim will be here for two or three weeks yet." For what was left of the evening Peter was so angelic that Bobby feared he was going to be ill. She was quite relieved in the morning to find him plaiting Phyllis's hair onto the back of her chair, in quite his old manner. It was soon after breakfast that a knock came at the door. The children were hard at work cleaning the brass candlesticks in honour of Jim's visit. "'That'll be the doctor,' said mother. "'I'll go. Shut the kitchen door. You're not fit to be seen.' But it wasn't the doctor. They knew that by the voice and by the sound of the boots it went upstairs. They did not recognise the sound of the boots. But every one was certain that they had heard the voice before. There was a longish interval. The boots and the voice did not come down again. "'Who can it possibly be?' they kept on asking themselves and each other. "'Perhaps,' said Peter at last, "'Dr. Forrest has been attacked by highwaymen and left for dead, and this is the man he's telegraphed for to take his place. Mrs. Viny said he had a local tenant to do his work when he went for a holiday. Didn't you, Mrs. Viny?' "'I did so, my dear,' said Mrs. Viny, from the back kitchen. "'He's fallen down in a fit more likely,' said Phyllis, all human aid despaired of. "'And this is his man come to break the news to mother.' "'Nonsense,' said Peter bristly. Mother wouldn't have taken the man up into Jim's bedroom. Why should she?' "'Listen, the door's opening. Now they'll come down. I'll open the door a crack.' He did. "'It's not listening,' he replied indignantly to Bobby's scandalised remarks. Nobody in their senses would talk secrets on the stairs, and mother can't have secrets to talk with Dr. Forrest's stableman, and you said it was him. Bobby,' called mother's voice, they opened the kitchen door, and mother leaned over the stair railing. "'Jim's grandfather has come,' she said. "'Wash your hands and faces, and then you can see him. He wants to see you.' The bedroom door shut again. "'There, now,' said Peter, fancy us not even thinking of that. "'Let's have some hot water, Mrs. Viny. I'm as black as your hat.' The three were indeed dirty, for the stuff you clean brass candlesticks with is very far from cleaning to the cleaner. They were still busy with soap and flannel when they heard the boots and the voice come down the stairs and go into the dining-room. And when they were clean, though still damp, because it takes such a long time to dry your hands properly, and they were very impatient to see the grandfather, they filed into the dining-room. Mother was sitting in the window-seat, and in the leather-covered arm-chair that father always used to sit in at the other house sat, their own old gentleman. "'Well, I never did,' said Peter, even before he said, how do you do?' He was, as he explained afterwards, too much surprised even to remember that there was such a thing as politeness, much less to practice it. "'It's our own old gentleman,' said Phyllis. "'Oh, it's you,' said Bobby. And then they remembered themselves and their manners and said, how do you do? Very nicely.' "'This is Jim's grandfather, Mr.—' said Mother, naming the old gentleman's name.' "'How splendid,' said Peter. "'That's just exactly like a book, isn't it, Mother?' "'It is rather,' said Mother, smiling. "'Things do happen in real life that are rather like books sometimes.' "'I am so awfully glad it is you,' said Phyllis. "'When you think of the tons of old gentlemen there are in the world, it might have been almost any one.' "'I say, though,' said Peter. "'You're not going to take Jim away, though, are you?' "'Not at present,' said the old gentleman. "'Your mother has most kindly consented to let him stay here. I thought of sending a nurse, but your mother is good enough to say that she will nurse him herself.' "'But what about her writing?' said Peter, before anyone could stop him. "'There won't be anything for him to eat if Mother doesn't write.' "'That's all right,' said Mother hastily. The old gentleman looked very kindly at Mother. "'I see,' he said. "'You trust your children and confide in them.' "'Of course,' said Mother. "'Then I may tell them of our little arrangement,' he said. "'Your mother, my dears, has consented to give up writing for a little while and to become a matron of my hospital.' "'Oh!' said Phyllis, blankly, "'and shall we have to go away from three chimneys in the railway and everything?' "'No, no, darling,' said Mother hurriedly. "'The hospital is called Three Chimneys Hospital,' said the old gentleman, and my unlucky Jim's the only patient, and I hope he'll continue to be so. Your mother will be matron, and there'll be a hospital staff of a housemaid and a cook till Jim's well.' "'And then will Mother go on writing again?' asked Peter. "'We shall see,' said the old gentleman, with a slight swift glance at Bobby. "'Perhaps something nice may happen, and she won't have to.' "'I love my writing,' said Mother, very quickly. "'I know,' said the old gentleman. "'Don't be afraid that I'm going to try to interfere. But one never knows. Very wonderful and beautiful things do happen, don't they? And we live most of our lives in the hope of them. "'I may come again to see the boy?' "'Surely,' said Mother. "'And I don't know how to thank you for making it possible for me to nurse him, dear boy.' He kept calling Mother, Mother, in the night, said Phyllis. I woke up twice and heard him. "'He didn't mean me,' said Mother, in a low voice to the old gentleman. That's why I wanted so much to keep him.' The old gentleman rose. "'I'm so glad,' said Peter, that you're going to keep him, Mother. "'Take care of your mother, my dears,' said the old gentleman. She's a woman in a million. "'Yes. Isn't she?' whispered Bobby. "'God bless her,' said the old gentleman, taking both Mother's hands. "'God bless her. Aye. And she shall be blessed. Dear me, where's my hat? Will Bobby come with me to the gate?' At the gate he stopped and said, "'You're a good child, my dear. I got your letter.' But it wasn't needed. When I read about your father's case in the papers at the time, I had my doubts. And ever since I've known who you were, I've been trying to find out things. I haven't done very much yet. But I have hopes, my dear. I have hopes.' "'Oh,' said Bobby, choking a little. "'Yes. I may say great hopes. But keep your secret a little longer. Wouldn't do to upset your mother with a false hope, would it? "'Oh, but it isn't false,' said Bobby. "'I know you can do it. I knew you could when I wrote. It isn't a false hope, is it?' "'No,' he said. "'I don't think it is a false hope. Or I wouldn't have told you. And I think you deserve to be told that there is a hope. And you don't think father did it, do you? Oh, say you don't think he did.' "'My dear,' he said. "'I'm perfectly certain,' he didn't. If it was a false hope, it was none the less a very radiant one that lay warm at Bobby's heart, and through the days that followed, lighted her little face as a Japanese lantern is lighted by the candle within." End of Chapter 13 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Karen Savage, Waco, Texas, October 2006 The Railway Children by Edith Nesbitt Chapter 14 The End Life at the Three Chimneys was never quite the same after the old gentleman came to see his grandson. Although they now knew his name, the children never spoke of him by it—at any rate, when they were by themselves. To them he was always the old gentleman, and I think he had better be the old gentleman to us, too. It wouldn't make him seen any more real to you, would it, if I were to tell you that his name was Snooks or Jenkins—which it wasn't—and, after all, I must be allowed to keep one secret. It's the only one. I have told you everything else, except what I am going to tell you in this chapter, which is the last. At least, of course, I haven't told you everything. If I were to do that, the book would never come to an end, and that would be a pity, wouldn't it? Well as I was saying, Life at Three Chimneys was never quite the same again. The cook and the housemaid were very nice. I don't mind telling you their names—they were Clara and Evelyn. But they told Mother they did not seem to want Mrs. Viny, and that she was an old muddler. So Mrs. Viny came only two days a week to do washing and ironing. Then Clara and Evelyn said they could do the work all right if they weren't interfered with, and that meant that the children no longer got the tea and cleared it away and washed up the tea-things and dusted the rooms. This would have left quite a blank in their lives, although they had often pretended to themselves and to each other that they hated housework. But now that Mother had no writing and no housework to do, she had time for lessons. And lessons the children had to do. However nice the person who was teaching you may be, lessons are lessons all the world over, and at their best, are worse fun than peeling potatoes or lighting a fire. On the other hand, if Mother now had time for lessons, she also had time for play, and to make up little rhymes for the children as she had used to do. She had not had much time for rhymes since she came to three chimneys. There was one very odd thing about these lessons. Whatever the children were doing, they always wanted to be doing something else. When Peter was doing his Latin, he thought it would be nice to be learning history like Bobby. Bobby would have preferred arithmetic, which was what Phyllis happened to be doing, and Phyllis, of course, thought Latin much the most interesting kind of lesson, and so on. So one day, when they sat down to lessons, each of them found a little rhyme at its place. I put the rhymes in to show you that their mother really did understand a little how children feel about things, and also the kind of words they use, which is the case with very few grown-up people. I suppose most grown-ups have very bad memories, and have forgotten how they felt when they were little. Of course, the verses were supposed to be spoken by the children. Peter. I once thought Caesar easy-pap, how very soft I must have been. When they start Caesar with a chap, he little know what that will mean. Oh, verbs are silly stupid things. I'd rather learn the dates of kings. Bobby. The worst of all my lesson things is learning who succeeded who, in all the rows of queens and kings, with dates to everything they do, with dates enough to make you sick. I wish it was arithmetic. Phyllis. Such pounds and pounds of apples fill my slate. What is the price you'd spend? You scratch the figures out until you cry upon the dividend. I'd break the slate and scream for joy if I did Latin like a boy. This kind of thing, of course, made lessons much jollier. It is something to know that the person who is teaching you sees that it is not all plain sailing for you, and does not think that it is just your stupidness that makes you not know your lessons till you've learned them. Then as Jim's leg got better, it was very pleasant to go up and sit with him, and hear tales about his school life and the other boys. There was one boy, named Parr, of whom Jim seemed to have formed the lowest possible opinion, and another boy named Wigsby Minor, for whose views Jim had a great respect. Also there were three brothers named Paley, and the youngest was called Paley Turds, and was much given to fighting. Peter drank in all this with deep joy, and mothers seemed to have listened with some interest. For one day she gave Jim a sheet of paper on which she had written a rhyme about Parr, bringing in Paley and Wigsby by name in a most wonderful way, as well as all the reasons Jim had for not liking Parr, and Wigsby's wise opinion on the matter. Jim was immensely pleased. He had never had a rhyme written expressly for him before. He read it till he knew it by heart, and then he sent it to Wigsby, who liked it almost as much as Jim did. Perhaps you may like it too. The new boy. His name is Parr. He says that he is given bread and milk for tea. He says his father killed a bear. He says his mother cuts his hair. He wears galoshes when it's wet. I've heard his people call him pet. He has no proper sense of shame. He told the chaps his Christian name. He cannot wicked keep at all. He's frightened of a cricket ball. He reads indoors for hours and hours. He knows the names of beastly flowers. He says his fringe just like Mosue. Beastly stuck-up thing to do. He won't keep cave, shirks his turn, and says he came to school to learn. He won't play football, says his herds. He wouldn't fight with paleed herds. He couldn't whistle if he tried, and when we laughed at him he cried. Now Wigsby Miners says that Parr is only like all new boys are. I know when I first came to school I wasn't such a jolly fool. Jim could never understand how mother could have been cleverer enough to do it. To the others it seemed nice, but natural. You see, they had always been used to having a mother who could write verses like the way people talk, even to the shocking expression at the end of the rhyme, which was Jim's very own. Jim taught Peter to play chess and draughts and dominoes, and altogether it was a nice quiet time. Only Jim's leg got better and better, and a general feeling began to spring up among Bobby, Peter and Phyllis, that something ought to be done to amuse him, not just games, but something really handsome. But it was extraordinarily difficult to think of anything. It's no good, said Peter, when all of them had thought and thought till their heads felt quite heavy and swollen. If we can't think of anything to amuse him, we just can't, and there's an end of it. Perhaps something will just happen of its own accord that he'll like. Things do happen by themselves sometimes, without your making them, said Phyllis, rather as though usually everything that happened in the world was her doing. I wish something would happen, said Bobby dreamily, something wonderful. And something wonderful did happen exactly four days after she had said this. I wish I could say it was three days after, because in fairy tales it is always three days after that things happen, but this is not a fairy story, and besides, it really was four and not three, and I am nothing if not strictly truthful. They seemed to be hardly railway children at all in those days, and as the days went on, each had an uneasy feeling about this which Phyllis expressed one day. I wonder if the railway misses us, she said plaintively. We never go to see it now. It seems ungrateful, said Bobby. We loved it so when we hadn't anyone else to play with. Perks is always coming up to ask after Jim, said Peter, and the signalman's little boy is better. He told me so. I didn't mean the people explained Phyllis. I meant the deal railway itself. The thing I don't like, said Bobby on this fourth day, which was a Tuesday, is our having stopped waving to the nine-fifteen and sending our love to father by it. Let's begin again, said Phyllis, and they did. Somehow the change of everything that was made by having servants in the house and mother not doing any writing made the time seem extremely long since that strange morning at the beginning of things when they had got up so early and burnt the bottom out of the kettle and had apple pie for breakfast and first seen the railway. It was September now, and the turf on the slope to the railway was dry and crisp. Little long grass spikes stood up like bits of gold wire, frail blue hair-bells trembled on their tough slender stalks, gypsy roses opened wide and flat their lilac-colored discs, and the golden stars of St. John's Wart shone at the edges of the pool that lay halfway to the railway. Bobby gathered a generous handful of the flowers and thought how pretty they would look, lying on the green and pink blanket of silk waste that now covered Jim's poor broken leg. Hurry up, said Peter, or we shall miss the nine-fifteen. I can't hurry up more than I am doing, said Phyllis. Oh, bother it, my bootlace has come undone again. When you're married, said Peter, your bootlace will come undone going up the church aisle, and your man that you're going to get married to will tumble over it and smash his nose in on the ornamented pavement, and then you'll say you won't marry him, and you'll have to be an old maid. I shan't, said Phyllis, I'd much rather marry a man with his nose smashed in than not marry anybody. It would be horrid to marry a man with a smashed nose all the same, went on Bobby. He wouldn't be able to smell the flowers at the wedding. Wouldn't that be awful? Bother the flowers at the wedding, cried Peter. Look! The signal's down. We must run." They ran, and once more they waved their handkerchiefs without at all minding whether the handkerchiefs were clean or not to the nine-fifteen. Take our love to father, cried Bobby, and the others too shouted, take our love to father. The old gentleman waved from his first-class carriage window. Quite violently he waved, and there was nothing odd in that, for he always had waved. But what was really remarkable was that from every window handkerchiefs fluttered, newspaper signalled, hands waved wildly. The train swept by with a rustle and a roar. The little pebbles jumped and danced under it as it passed, and the children were left looking at each other. "'Well,' said Peter. "'Well,' said Bobby. "'Well,' said Phyllis. "'What on earth does that mean?' asked Peter. But he did not expect any answer. "'I don't know,' said Bobby. Perhaps the old gentleman told the people at his station to look out for us and he knew we should like it. Now, curiously enough, this was just what had happened. The old gentleman, who was very well known and respected at his particular station, had got there early that morning, and had waited at the door where the young man stands holding the interesting machine that clips the tickets, and he had said something to every single passenger who passed through that door. And after nodding to what the old gentleman had said, and the nods expressed every shade of surprise, interest, doubt, cheerful, pleasuring, grumpy agreement, each passenger had gone on to the platform and read one certain part of his newspaper. And when the passengers got into the train, they had told the other passengers who were already there what the old gentleman had said. And then the other passengers had also looked at their newspapers, and seemed very astonished and mostly pleased. Then when the train passed the fence where the three children were, newspapers and hands and handkerchiefs were waved madly till all that side of the train was fluttery with white like the pictures of the king's coronation in the biograph at Masculine and Cook's. After the children it almost seemed as though the train itself was alive and was at last responding to the love that they had given it so freely and so long. It is most extraordinarily rum, said Peter, most strontary, echoed Phyllis. But Bobby said, Don't you think the old gentleman's wave seemed more significant than usual? No, said the others. I do, said Bobby. I thought he was trying to explain something to us with his newspaper. Explain what? asked Peter, not unnaturally. I don't know, Bobby answered. But I do feel most awfully funny. I feel just exactly as if something was going to happen. What is going to happen, said Peter, is that Phyllis's stocking is going to come down. This was but too true. The suspender had given way in the agitation of the waves to the nine-fifteen. Bobby's handkerchiefs served as first aid to the injured, and the all went home. Lessons were more than usually difficult to Bobby that day. Indeed, she disgraced herself so deeply over a quite simple sum of about the division of forty-eight pounds of meat and thirty-six pounds of bread among one hundred and forty-four hungry children that mother looked at her anxiously. Don't you feel quite well, dear? She asked. I don't know, was Bobby's unexpected answer. I don't know how I feel. It isn't that I'm lazy. Mother, will you let me off lessons to-day? I feel as if I wanted to be quite alone by myself. Yes, of course I'll let you off, said mother, but Bobby dropped her slate. She cracked just across the little green mark that is so useful for drawing patterns round, and it was never the same slate again. Without waiting to pick it up, she bolted. Mother caught her in the hall, feeling blindly among the waterproofs and umbrellas for her garden-hat. What is it, my sweetheart? said mother. You don't feel ill, do you? I don't know, Bobby answered a little breathlessly. But I want to be by myself, and see if my head really is all silly and my inside all squirmy twisty. Hadn't you better lie down, mother said, stroking her hair back from her forehead. I'd be more alive in the garden, I think, said Bobby. But she could not stay in the garden. The hollyhocks and the asters and the late roses all seem to be waiting for something to happen. It was one of those still shiny autumn days when everything does seem to be waiting. Bobby could not wait. I'll go down to the station, she said, and talk to Perks and ask about the signalman's little boy. So she went down. On the way she passed the old lady from the post-office who gave her a kiss and a hug. But rather to Bobby's surprise, no words except, God bless your love. And after a pause, run along, do. The draper's boy, who had sometimes been a little less than civil, and a little more than contemptuous, now touched his cap and uttered the remarkable words, morning, miss, I'm sure. The blacksmith, coming along with an open newspaper in his hand, was even more strangeness manner. He grinned broadly, though as a rule he was a man not given gender-smiles, and waved the newspaper long before he came up to her. And as he passed her, he said, in answer to her, good morning. Good morning to you, Missy, and many of them. I wish you joy that I do. Oh! said Bobby to herself, and her heart quickened its beats. Something is going to happen. I know it is. Everyone is so odd. Like people are in dreams. The stationmaster wrung her hand warmly. In fact, he worked it up and down like a pump handle. But he gave her no reason for this unusually enthusiastic greeting. He only said, the eleven-fifty-fourth's a bit late, miss, the extra luggage to this holiday time, and went away very quickly into that inner temple of his into which even Bobby dared not follow him. Perks was not to be seen, and Bobby shared the solitude of the platform with the station cat. This tortoise-shell lady, usually of a retiring disposition, came to-day to rub herself against the brown stockings of Bobby, with arched back, waving tail, and reverberating purrs. Dear me! said Bobby, stooping to stroker, how very kind everybody is to-day. Even you, pussy! Perks did not appear until the eleven-fifty-fourth was signalled, and then he, like everybody else that morning, had a newspaper in his hand. Hello! he said. Here you are. Well, if this is the train, it'll be smart work. God bless you, my dear. I see it in the paper, and I don't think I was ever so glad of anything in all my born days. He looked at Bobby a moment, then said, One I must have, miss, and no offence I know on a day like this year, and with that he kissed her, first on one cheek, and then on the other. You ain't offended, are you?" He asked anxiously. I ain't took too great a liberty. On a day like this, you know. No, no, said Bobby, of course it's not a liberty, dear Mr. Perks. We love you quite as much as if you were an uncle of ours, but on a day like what? Like this year, said Perks, don't I tell you I see it in the paper? So what in the paper? Asked Bobby. But already the eleven-fifty-four were steaming into the station, and the stationmaster was looking at all the places where Perks was not, and ought to have been. Bobby was left standing alone, the station cat watching her from under the bench with friendly golden eyes. Of course you already know exactly what was going to happen. Bobby was not so clever. She had the vague, confused, expectant feeling that comes to one's heart in dreams. What her heart expected, I can't tell. Perhaps the very thing that you and I know was going to happen. But her mind expected nothing. It was almost blank, and felt nothing but tiredness and stupidness and empty feeling, like your body has when you have been a long walk and it is very far indeed past your proper dinner-time. Only three people got out of the eleven-fifty-four. The first was a countryman with two basket-y boxes full of live chickens, who stuck their russet heads out anxiously through the wicker bars. The second was Miss Peckett, the grocer's wife's cousin, with the tin-box and three brown paper-puzzles. And the third, oh, my daddy, my daddy! The scream went like a knife into the heart of everyone in the train, and people put their heads out of the windows to see a tall pale man with lips set in a thin, close line, and a little girl clinging to him with arms and legs while his arms went tightly around her. I knew something wonderful was going to happen, said Bobby as they went up the road, but I didn't think it was going to be this. Oh, my daddy, my daddy! Then didn't mother get my letter, father asked. There weren't any letters this morning. Oh, daddy! It is really you, isn't it? The clasp of a hand she had not forgotten assured her that it was. You must go in by yourself, Bobby, and tell mother quite quietly that it's all right. They've caught the man who did it. Everyone knows now that it wasn't your daddy. I always knew it wasn't, said Bobby, me and mother and her old gentleman. Yes, he said, it's all his doing. She wrote and told me you had found out, and she told me what you'd been to her, my own little girl. They stopped a minute then. And now I see them crossing the field. Bobby goes into the house, trying to keep her eyes from speaking before her lips have found the right words to tell mother quite quietly that the sorrow and struggle and the parting are over and done, and that father has come home. I see father walking in the garden, waiting, waiting. He is looking at the flowers, and each flower is a miracle to eyes that all these months of spring and summer have seen only flagstones and gravel, and a little grudging grass, but his eyes keep turning towards the house, and presently he leaves the garden and goes to stand outside the nearest door. It is the back door, and across the yard the swallows are circling. They are getting ready to fly away from cold winds and keying frost to the land where it is always summer. They are the same swallows that the children built the little clay nests for. Now the house door opens. These voice calls, come in, daddy, come in. He goes in, and the door is shut. I think we will not open the door or follow him. I think that just now we are not wanted there. I think it will be best for us to go quickly and quietly away. At the end of the field, among the thin gold spikes of grass and the hair-bells and gypsy roses and St. John's Ward, we may just take one last look over our shoulders, at the White House when either we or anyone else is wanted now. End of Chapter 14. End of The Railway Children