THE RAILWAY CHILDREN
PART 5
Chapter V. Prisoners and captives.
It was one
day when Mother had gone to Maidbridge. She had gone alone, but the children
were to go to the station to meet her. And, loving the station as they did, it
was only natural that they should be there a good hour before there was any
chance of Mother's train arriving, even if the train were punctual, which was
most unlikely. No doubt they would have been just as early, even if it had been
a fine day, and all the delights of woods and fields and rocks and rivers had
been open to them. But it happened to be a very wet day and, for July, very
cold. There was a wild wind that drove flocks of dark purple clouds across the
sky “like herds of dream-elephants,” as Phyllis said. And the rain stung
sharply, so that the way to the station was finished at a run. Then the rain
fell faster and harder, and beat slantwise against the windows of the booking
office and of the chill place that had General Waiting Room on its door.
“It's like
being in a besieged castle,” Phyllis said; “look at the arrows of the foe
striking against the battlements!”
“It's much
more like a great garden-squirt,” said Peter.
They
decided to wait on the up side, for the down platform looked very wet indeed,
and the rain was driving right into the little bleak shelter where
down-passengers have to wait for their trains.
The hour
would be full of incident and of interest, for there would be two up trains and
one down to look at before the one that should bring Mother back.
“Perhaps
it'll have stopped raining by then,” said Bobbie; “anyhow, I'm glad I brought
Mother's waterproof and umbrella.”
They went
into the desert spot labelled General Waiting Room, and the time passed
pleasantly enough in a game of advertisements. You know the game, of course? It
is something like dumb Crambo. The players take it in turns to go out, and then
come back and look as like some advertisement as they can, and the others have
to guess what advertisement it is meant to be. Bobbie came in and sat down
under Mother's umbrella and made a sharp face, and everyone knew she was the
fox who sits under the umbrella in the advertisement. Phyllis tried to make a
Magic Carpet of Mother's waterproof, but it would not stand out stiff and
raft-like as a Magic Carpet should, and nobody could guess it. Everyone thought
Peter was carrying things a little too far when he blacked his face all over
with coal-dust and struck a spidery attitude and said he was the blot that
advertises somebody's Blue Black Writing Fluid.
It was
Phyllis's turn again, and she was trying to look like the Sphinx that
advertises What's-his-name's Personally Conducted Tours up the Nile when the
sharp ting of the signal announced the up train. The children rushed out to see
it pass. On its engine were the particular driver and fireman who were now
numbered among the children's dearest friends. Courtesies passed between them.
Jim asked after the toy engine, and Bobbie pressed on his acceptance a moist,
greasy package of toffee that she had made herself.
Charmed by
this attention, the engine-driver consented to consider her request that some
day he would take Peter for a ride on the engine.
“Stand
back, Mates,” cried the engine-driver, suddenly, “and horf she goes.”
And sure
enough, off the train went. The children watched the tail-lights of the train
till it disappeared round the curve of the line, and then turned to go back to
the dusty freedom of the General Waiting Room and the joys of the advertisement
game.
They
expected to see just one or two people, the end of the procession of passengers
who had given up their tickets and gone away. Instead, the platform round the
door of the station had a dark blot round it, and the dark blot was a crowd of
people.
“Oh!”
cried Peter, with a thrill of joyous excitement, “something's happened! Come
on!”
They ran
down the platform. When they got to the crowd, they could, of course, see
nothing but the damp backs and elbows of the people on the crowd's outside.
Everybody was talking at once. It was evident that something had happened.
“It's my
belief he's nothing worse than a natural,” said a farmerish-looking person.
Peter saw his red, clean-shaven face as he spoke.
“If you
ask me, I should say it was a Police Court case,” said a young man with a black
bag.
“Not it;
the Infirmary more like—”
Then the
voice of the Station Master was heard, firm and official:—
“Now,
then—move along there. I'll attend to this, if YOU please.”
But the
crowd did not move. And then came a voice that thrilled the children through
and through. For it spoke in a foreign language. And, what is more, it was a
language that they had never heard. They had heard French spoken and German.
Aunt Emma knew German, and used to sing a song about bedeuten and zeiten and
bin and sin. Nor was it Latin. Peter had been in Latin for four terms.
It was
some comfort, anyhow, to find that none of the crowd understood the foreign
language any better than the children did.
“What's
that he's saying?” asked the farmer, heavily.
“Sounds
like French to me,” said the Station Master, who had once been to Boulogne for
the day.
“It isn't
French!” cried Peter.
“What is
it, then?” asked more than one voice. The crowd fell back a little to see who
had spoken, and Peter pressed forward, so that when the crowd closed up again
he was in the front rank.
“I don't
know what it is,” said Peter, “but it isn't French. I know that.” Then he saw
what it was that the crowd had for its centre. It was a man—the man, Peter did
not doubt, who had spoken in that strange tongue. A man with long hair and wild
eyes, with shabby clothes of a cut Peter had not seen before—a man whose hands
and lips trembled, and who spoke again as his eyes fell on Peter.
“No, it's
not French,” said Peter.
“Try him
with French if you know so much about it,” said the farmer-man.
“Parlay
voo Frongsay?” began Peter, boldly, and the next moment the crowd recoiled
again, for the man with the wild eyes had left leaning against the wall, and
had sprung forward and caught Peter's hands, and begun to pour forth a flood of
words which, though he could not understand a word of them, Peter knew the
sound of.
“There!”
said he, and turned, his hands still clasped in the hands of the strange shabby
figure, to throw a glance of triumph at the crowd; “there; THAT'S French.”
“What does
he say?”
“I don't
know.” Peter was obliged to own it.
“Here,”
said the Station Master again; “you move on if you please. I'LL deal with this
case.”
A few of
the more timid or less inquisitive travellers moved slowly and reluctantly
away. And Phyllis and Bobbie got near to Peter. All three had been TAUGHT
French at school. How deeply they now wished that they had LEARNED it! Peter
shook his head at the stranger, but he also shook his hands as warmly and
looked at him as kindly as he could. A person in the crowd, after some
hesitation, said suddenly, “No comprenny!” and then, blushing deeply, backed
out of the press and went away.
“Take him
into your room,” whispered Bobbie to the Station Master. “Mother can talk
French. She'll be here by the next train from Maidbridge.”
The
Station Master took the arm of the stranger, suddenly but not unkindly. But the
man wrenched his arm away, and cowered back coughing and trembling and trying
to push the Station Master away.
“Oh,
don't!” said Bobbie; “don't you see how frightened he is? He thinks you're
going to shut him up. I know he does—look at his eyes!”
“They're
like a fox's eyes when the beast's in a trap,” said the farmer.
“Oh, let
me try!” Bobbie went on; “I do really know one or two French words if I could only
think of them.”
Sometimes,
in moments of great need, we can do wonderful things—things that in ordinary
life we could hardly even dream of doing. Bobbie had never been anywhere near
the top of her French class, but she must have learned something without
knowing it, for now, looking at those wild, hunted eyes, she actually
remembered and, what is more, spoke, some French words. She said:—
“Vous
attendre. Ma mere parlez Francais. Nous—what's the French for 'being kind'?”
Nobody
knew.
“Bong is
'good,'” said Phyllis.
“Nous etre
bong pour vous.”
I do not
know whether the man understood her words, but he understood the touch of the
hand she thrust into his, and the kindness of the other hand that stroked his
shabby sleeve.
She pulled
him gently towards the inmost sanctuary of the Station Master. The other
children followed, and the Station Master shut the door in the face of the
crowd, which stood a little while in the booking office talking and looking at
the fast closed yellow door, and then by ones and twos went its way, grumbling.
Inside the
Station Master's room Bobbie still held the stranger's hand and stroked his
sleeve.
“Here's a
go,” said the Station Master; “no ticket—doesn't even know where he wants to
go. I'm not sure now but what I ought to send for the police.”
“Oh,
DON'T!” all the children pleaded at once. And suddenly Bobbie got between the
others and the stranger, for she had seen that he was crying.
By a most
unusual piece of good fortune she had a handkerchief in her pocket. By a still
more uncommon accident the handkerchief was moderately clean. Standing in front
of the stranger, she got out the handkerchief and passed it to him so that the
others did not see.
“Wait till
Mother comes,” Phyllis was saying; “she does speak French beautifully. You'd
just love to hear her.”
“I'm sure
he hasn't done anything like you're sent to prison for,” said Peter.
“Looks
like without visible means to me,” said the Station Master. “Well, I don't mind
giving him the benefit of the doubt till your Mamma comes. I SHOULD like to
know what nation's got the credit of HIM, that I should.”
Then Peter
had an idea. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket, and showed that it was
half full of foreign stamps.
“Look
here,” he said, “let's show him these—”
Bobbie
looked and saw that the stranger had dried his eyes with her handkerchief. So
she said: “All right.”
They
showed him an Italian stamp, and pointed from him to it and back again, and
made signs of question with their eyebrows. He shook his head. Then they showed
him a Norwegian stamp—the common blue kind it was—and again he signed No. Then
they showed him a Spanish one, and at that he took the envelope from Peter's
hand and searched among the stamps with a hand that trembled. The hand that he
reached out at last, with a gesture as of one answering a question, contained a
RUSSIAN stamp.
“He's
Russian,” cried Peter, “or else he's like 'the man who was'—in Kipling, you
know.”
The train
from Maidbridge was signalled.
“I'll stay
with him till you bring Mother in,” said Bobbie.
“You're
not afraid, Missie?”
“Oh, no,”
said Bobbie, looking at the stranger, as she might have looked at a strange dog
of doubtful temper. “You wouldn't hurt me, would you?”
She smiled
at him, and he smiled back, a queer crooked smile. And then he coughed again.
And the heavy rattling swish of the incoming train swept past, and the Station
Master and Peter and Phyllis went out to meet it. Bobbie was still holding the
stranger's hand when they came back with Mother.
The Russian
rose and bowed very ceremoniously.
Then
Mother spoke in French, and he replied, haltingly at first, but presently in
longer and longer sentences.
The
children, watching his face and Mother's, knew that he was telling her things
that made her angry and pitying, and sorry and indignant all at once.
“Well,
Mum, what's it all about?” The Station Master could not restrain his curiosity
any longer.
“Oh,” said
Mother, “it's all right. He's a Russian, and he's lost his ticket. And I'm
afraid he's very ill. If you don't mind, I'll take him home with me now. He's
really quite worn out. I'll run down and tell you all about him to-morrow.”
“I hope
you won't find you're taking home a frozen viper,” said the Station Master,
doubtfully.
“Oh, no,”
Mother said brightly, and she smiled; “I'm quite sure I'm not. Why, he's a
great man in his own country, writes books—beautiful books—I've read some of
them; but I'll tell you all about it to-morrow.”
She spoke
again in French to the Russian, and everyone could see the surprise and
pleasure and gratitude in his eyes. He got up and politely bowed to the Station
Master, and offered his arm most ceremoniously to Mother. She took it, but
anybody could have seen that she was helping him along, and not he her.
“You girls
run home and light a fire in the sitting-room,” Mother said, “and Peter had
better go for the Doctor.”
But it was
Bobbie who went for the Doctor.
“I hate to
tell you,” she said breathlessly when she came upon him in his shirt sleeves,
weeding his pansy-bed, “but Mother's got a very shabby Russian, and I'm sure
he'll have to belong to your Club. I'm certain he hasn't got any money. We
found him at the station.”
“Found
him! Was he lost, then?” asked the Doctor, reaching for his coat.
“Yes,”
said Bobbie, unexpectedly, “that's just what he was. He's been telling Mother
the sad, sweet story of his life in French; and she said would you be kind
enough to come directly if you were at home. He has a dreadful cough, and he's
been crying.”
The Doctor
smiled.
“Oh,
don't,” said Bobbie; “please don't. You wouldn't if you'd seen him. I never saw
a man cry before. You don't know what it's like.”
Dr. Forrest
wished then that he hadn't smiled.
When
Bobbie and the Doctor got to Three Chimneys, the Russian was sitting in the
arm-chair that had been Father's, stretching his feet to the blaze of a bright
wood fire, and sipping the tea Mother had made him.
“The man
seems worn out, mind and body,” was what the Doctor said; “the cough's bad, but
there's nothing that can't be cured. He ought to go straight to bed, though—and
let him have a fire at night.”
“I'll make
one in my room; it's the only one with a fireplace,” said Mother. She did, and
presently the Doctor helped the stranger to bed.
There was
a big black trunk in Mother's room that none of the children had ever seen
unlocked. Now, when she had lighted the fire, she unlocked it and took some
clothes out—men's clothes—and set them to air by the newly lighted fire.
Bobbie, coming in with more wood for the fire, saw the mark on the night-shirt,
and looked over to the open trunk. All the things she could see were men's
clothes. And the name marked on the shirt was Father's name. Then Father hadn't
taken his clothes with him. And that night-shirt was one of Father's new ones.
Bobbie remembered its being made, just before Peter's birthday. Why hadn't Father
taken his clothes? Bobbie slipped from the room. As she went she heard the key
turned in the lock of the trunk. Her heart was beating horribly. WHY hadn't
Father taken his clothes? When Mother came out of the room, Bobbie flung
tightly clasping arms round her waist, and whispered:—
“Mother—Daddy
isn't—isn't DEAD, is he?”
“My
darling, no! What made you think of anything so horrible?”
“I—I don't
know,” said Bobbie, angry with herself, but still clinging to that resolution
of hers, not to see anything that Mother didn't mean her to see.
Mother
gave her a hurried hug. “Daddy was quite, QUITE well when I heard from him
last,” she said, “and he'll come back to us some day. Don't fancy such horrible
things, darling!”
Later on,
when the Russian stranger had been made comfortable for the night, Mother came
into the girls' room. She was to sleep there in Phyllis's bed, and Phyllis was
to have a mattress on the floor, a most amusing adventure for Phyllis. Directly
Mother came in, two white figures started up, and two eager voices called:—
“Now,
Mother, tell us all about the Russian gentleman.”
A white
shape hopped into the room. It was Peter, dragging his quilt behind him like
the tail of a white peacock.
“We have
been patient,” he said, “and I had to bite my tongue not to go to sleep, and I
just nearly went to sleep and I bit too hard, and it hurts ever so. DO tell us.
Make a nice long story of it.”
“I can't
make a long story of it to-night,” said Mother; “I'm very tired.”
Bobbie
knew by her voice that Mother had been crying, but the others didn't know.
“Well,
make it as long as you can,” said Phil, and Bobbie got her arms round Mother's
waist and snuggled close to her.
“Well,
it's a story long enough to make a whole book of. He's a writer; he's written
beautiful books. In Russia at the time of the Czar one dared not say anything
about the rich people doing wrong, or about the things that ought to be done to
make poor people better and happier. If one did one was sent to prison.”
“But they
CAN'T,” said Peter; “people only go to prison when they've done wrong.”
“Or when
the Judges THINK they've done wrong,” said Mother. “Yes, that's so in England.
But in Russia it was different. And he wrote a beautiful book about poor people
and how to help them. I've read it. There's nothing in it but goodness and
kindness. And they sent him to prison for it. He was three years in a horrible
dungeon, with hardly any light, and all damp and dreadful. In prison all alone
for three years.”
Mother's
voice trembled a little and stopped suddenly.
“But,
Mother,” said Peter, “that can't be true NOW. It sounds like something out of a
history book—the Inquisition, or something.”
“It WAS
true,” said Mother; “it's all horribly true. Well, then they took him out and
sent him to Siberia, a convict chained to other convicts—wicked men who'd done
all sorts of crimes—a long chain of them, and they walked, and walked, and
walked, for days and weeks, till he thought they'd never stop walking. And
overseers went behind them with whips—yes, whips—to beat them if they got
tired. And some of them went lame, and some fell down, and when they couldn't
get up and go on, they beat them, and then left them to die. Oh, it's all too
terrible! And at last he got to the mines, and he was condemned to stay there
for life—for life, just for writing a good, noble, splendid book.”
“How did
he get away?”
“When the
war came, some of the Russian prisoners were allowed to volunteer as soldiers.
And he volunteered. But he deserted at the first chance he got and—”
“But
that's very cowardly, isn't it”—said Peter—“to desert? Especially when it's
war.”
“Do you
think he owed anything to a country that had done THAT to him? If he did, he
owed more to his wife and children. He didn't know what had become of them.”
“Oh,”
cried Bobbie, “he had THEM to think about and be miserable about TOO, then, all
the time he was in prison?”
“Yes, he
had them to think about and be miserable about all the time he was in prison.
For anything he knew they might have been sent to prison, too. They did those
things in Russia. But while he was in the mines some friends managed to get a
message to him that his wife and children had escaped and come to England. So
when he deserted he came here to look for them.”
“Had he
got their address?” said practical Peter.
“No; just
England. He was going to London, and he thought he had to change at our
station, and then he found he'd lost his ticket and his purse.”
“Oh, DO
you think he'll find them?—I mean his wife and children, not the ticket and
things.”
“I hope
so. Oh, I hope and pray that he'll find his wife and children again.”
Even
Phyllis now perceived that mother's voice was very unsteady.
“Why,
Mother,” she said, “how very sorry you seem to be for him!”
Mother
didn't answer for a minute. Then she just said, “Yes,” and then she seemed to
be thinking. The children were quiet.
Presently
she said, “Dears, when you say your prayers, I think you might ask God to show
His pity upon all prisoners and captives.”
“To show
His pity,” Bobbie repeated slowly, “upon all prisoners and captives. Is that
right, Mother?”
“Yes,”
said Mother, “upon all prisoners and captives. All prisoners and captives.”
To be continued