THE RAILWAY CHILDREN
PART 8
Chapter VIII. The amateur firemen.
“That's a
likely little brooch you've got on, Miss,” said Perks the Porter; “I don't know
as ever I see a thing more like a buttercup without it WAS a buttercup.”
“Yes,”
said Bobbie, glad and flushed by this approval. “I always thought it was more
like a buttercup almost than even a real one—and I NEVER thought it would come
to be mine, my very own—and then Mother gave it to me for my birthday.”
“Oh, have
you had a birthday?” said Perks; and he seemed quite surprised, as though a
birthday were a thing only granted to a favoured few.
“Yes,”
said Bobbie; “when's your birthday, Mr. Perks?” The children were taking tea
with Mr. Perks in the Porters' room among the lamps and the railway almanacs.
They had brought their own cups and some jam turnovers. Mr. Perks made tea in a
beer can, as usual, and everyone felt very happy and confidential.
“My
birthday?” said Perks, tipping some more dark brown tea out of the can into
Peter's cup. “I give up keeping of my birthday afore you was born.”
“But you
must have been born SOMETIME, you know,” said Phyllis, thoughtfully, “even if
it was twenty years ago—or thirty or sixty or seventy.”
“Not so
long as that, Missie,” Perks grinned as he answered. “If you really want to
know, it was thirty-two years ago, come the fifteenth of this month.”
“Then why
don't you keep it?” asked Phyllis.
“I've got
something else to keep besides birthdays,” said Perks, briefly.
“Oh!
What?” asked Phyllis, eagerly. “Not secrets?”
“No,” said
Perks, “the kids and the Missus.”
It was
this talk that set the children thinking, and, presently, talking. Perks was,
on the whole, the dearest friend they had made. Not so grand as the Station
Master, but more approachable—less powerful than the old gentleman, but more
confidential.
“It seems
horrid that nobody keeps his birthday,” said Bobbie. “Couldn't WE do
something?”
“Let's go
up to the Canal bridge and talk it over,” said Peter. “I got a new gut line
from the postman this morning. He gave it me for a bunch of roses that I gave
him for his sweetheart. She's ill.”
“Then I do
think you might have given her the roses for nothing,” said Bobbie,
indignantly.
“Nyang,
nyang!” said Peter, disagreeably, and put his hands in his pockets.
“He did,
of course,” said Phyllis, in haste; “directly we heard she was ill we got the
roses ready and waited by the gate. It was when you were making the
brekker-toast. And when he'd said 'Thank you' for the roses so many times—much
more than he need have—he pulled out the line and gave it to Peter. It wasn't
exchange. It was the grateful heart.”
“Oh, I BEG
your pardon, Peter,” said Bobbie, “I AM so sorry.”
“Don't
mention it,” said Peter, grandly, “I knew you would be.”
So then
they all went up to the Canal bridge. The idea was to fish from the bridge, but
the line was not quite long enough.
“Never
mind,” said Bobbie. “Let's just stay here and look at things. Everything's so
beautiful.”
It was. The
sun was setting in red splendour over the grey and purple hills, and the canal
lay smooth and shiny in the shadow—no ripple broke its surface. It was like a
grey satin ribbon between the dusky green silk of the meadows that were on each
side of its banks.
“It's all
right,” said Peter, “but somehow I can always see how pretty things are much
better when I've something to do. Let's get down on to the towpath and fish
from there.”
Phyllis
and Bobbie remembered how the boys on the canal-boats had thrown coal at them,
and they said so.
“Oh,
nonsense,” said Peter. “There aren't any boys here now. If there were, I'd
fight them.”
Peter's
sisters were kind enough not to remind him how he had NOT fought the boys when
coal had last been thrown. Instead they said, “All right, then,” and cautiously
climbed down the steep bank to the towing-path. The line was carefully baited,
and for half an hour they fished patiently and in vain. Not a single nibble
came to nourish hope in their hearts.
All eyes
were intent on the sluggish waters that earnestly pretended they had never
harboured a single minnow when a loud rough shout made them start.
“Hi!” said
the shout, in most disagreeable tones, “get out of that, can't you?”
An old
white horse coming along the towing-path was within half a dozen yards of them.
They sprang to their feet and hastily climbed up the bank.
“We'll
slip down again when they've gone by,” said Bobbie.
But, alas,
the barge, after the manner of barges, stopped under the bridge.
“She's
going to anchor,” said Peter; “just our luck!”
The barge
did not anchor, because an anchor is not part of a canal-boat's furniture, but
she was moored with ropes fore and aft—and the ropes were made fast to the
palings and to crowbars driven into the ground.
“What you
staring at?” growled the Bargee, crossly.
“We
weren't staring,” said Bobbie; “we wouldn't be so rude.”
“Rude be
blessed,” said the man; “get along with you!”
“Get along
yourself,” said Peter. He remembered what he had said about fighting boys, and,
besides, he felt safe halfway up the bank. “We've as much right here as anyone
else.”
“Oh, 'AVE
you, indeed!” said the man. “We'll soon see about that.” And he came across his
deck and began to climb down the side of his barge.
“Oh, come
away, Peter, come away!” said Bobbie and Phyllis, in agonised unison.
“Not me,”
said Peter, “but YOU'D better.”
The girls
climbed to the top of the bank and stood ready to bolt for home as soon as they
saw their brother out of danger. The way home lay all down hill. They knew that
they all ran well. The Bargee did not look as if HE did. He was red-faced,
heavy, and beefy.
But as
soon as his foot was on the towing-path the children saw that they had
misjudged him.
He made
one spring up the bank and caught Peter by the leg, dragged him down—set him on
his feet with a shake—took him by the ear—and said sternly:—
“Now,
then, what do you mean by it? Don't you know these 'ere waters is preserved?
You ain't no right catching fish 'ere—not to say nothing of your precious
cheek.”
Peter was
always proud afterwards when he remembered that, with the Bargee's furious
fingers tightening on his ear, the Bargee's crimson countenance close to his
own, the Bargee's hot breath on his neck, he had the courage to speak the
truth.
“I WASN'T
catching fish,” said Peter.
“That's
not YOUR fault, I'll be bound,” said the man, giving Peter's ear a twist—not a
hard one—but still a twist.
Peter
could not say that it was. Bobbie and Phyllis had been holding on to the
railings above and skipping with anxiety. Now suddenly Bobbie slipped through
the railings and rushed down the bank towards Peter, so impetuously that
Phyllis, following more temperately, felt certain that her sister's descent
would end in the waters of the canal. And so it would have done if the Bargee
hadn't let go of Peter's ear—and caught her in his jerseyed arm.
“Who are
you a-shoving of?” he said, setting her on her feet.
“Oh,” said
Bobbie, breathless, “I'm not shoving anybody. At least, not on purpose. Please
don't be cross with Peter. Of course, if it's your canal, we're sorry and we
won't any more. But we didn't know it was yours.”
“Go along
with you,” said the Bargee.
“Yes, we
will; indeed we will,” said Bobbie, earnestly; “but we do beg your pardon—and
really we haven't caught a single fish. I'd tell you directly if we had, honour
bright I would.”
She held
out her hands and Phyllis turned out her little empty pocket to show that
really they hadn't any fish concealed about them.
“Well,”
said the Bargee, more gently, “cut along, then, and don't you do it again,
that's all.”
The
children hurried up the bank.
“Chuck us
a coat, M'ria,” shouted the man. And a red-haired woman in a green plaid shawl
came out from the cabin door with a baby in her arms and threw a coat to him.
He put it on, climbed the bank, and slouched along across the bridge towards
the village.
“You'll
find me up at the 'Rose and Crown' when you've got the kid to sleep,” he called
to her from the bridge.
When he
was out of sight the children slowly returned. Peter insisted on this.
“The canal
may belong to him,” he said, “though I don't believe it does. But the bridge is
everybody's. Doctor Forrest told me it's public property. I'm not going to be
bounced off the bridge by him or anyone else, so I tell you.”
Peter's
ear was still sore and so were his feelings.
The girls
followed him as gallant soldiers might follow the leader of a forlorn hope.
“I do wish
you wouldn't,” was all they said.
“Go home
if you're afraid,” said Peter; “leave me alone. I'M not afraid.”
The sound
of the man's footsteps died away along the quiet road. The peace of the evening
was not broken by the notes of the sedge-warblers or by the voice of the woman
in the barge, singing her baby to sleep. It was a sad song she sang. Something
about Bill Bailey and how she wanted him to come home.
The
children stood leaning their arms on the parapet of the bridge; they were glad
to be quiet for a few minutes because all three hearts were beating much more
quickly.
“I'm not
going to be driven away by any old bargeman, I'm not,” said Peter, thickly.
“Of course
not,” Phyllis said soothingly; “you didn't give in to him! So now we might go
home, don't you think?”
“NO,” said
Peter.
Nothing
more was said till the woman got off the barge, climbed the bank, and came
across the bridge.
She
hesitated, looking at the three backs of the children, then she said, “Ahem.”
Peter
stayed as he was, but the girls looked round.
“You
mustn't take no notice of my Bill,” said the woman; “'is bark's worse'n 'is
bite. Some of the kids down Farley way is fair terrors. It was them put 'is
back up calling out about who ate the puppy-pie under Marlow bridge.”
“Who DID?”
asked Phyllis.
“I
dunno,” said the woman. “Nobody don't know! But somehow, and I don't know the
why nor the wherefore of it, them words is p'ison to a barge-master. Don't you
take no notice. 'E won't be back for two hours good. You might catch a power o'
fish afore that. The light's good an' all,” she added.
“Thank
you,” said Bobbie. “You're very kind. Where's your baby?”
“Asleep in
the cabin,” said the woman. “'E's all right. Never wakes afore twelve. Reg'lar
as a church clock, 'e is.”
“I'm
sorry,” said Bobbie; “I would have liked to see him, close to.”
“And a
finer you never did see, Miss, though I says it.” The woman's face brightened
as she spoke.
“Aren't
you afraid to leave it?” said Peter.
“Lor' love
you, no,” said the woman; “who'd hurt a little thing like 'im? Besides, Spot's
there. So long!”
The woman
went away.
“Shall we
go home?” said Phyllis.
“You can.
I'm going to fish,” said Peter briefly.
“I thought
we came up here to talk about Perks's birthday,” said Phyllis.
“Perks's
birthday'll keep.”
So they
got down on the towing-path again and Peter fished. He did not catch anything.
It was almost
quite dark, the girls were getting tired, and as Bobbie said, it was past
bedtime, when suddenly Phyllis cried, “What's that?”
And she
pointed to the canal boat. Smoke was coming from the chimney of the cabin, had
indeed been curling softly into the soft evening air all the time—but now other
wreaths of smoke were rising, and these were from the cabin door.
“It's on
fire—that's all,” said Peter, calmly. “Serve him right.”
“Oh—how
CAN you?” cried Phyllis. “Think of the poor dear dog.”
“The BABY!”
screamed Bobbie.
In an
instant all three made for the barge.
Her
mooring ropes were slack, and the little breeze, hardly strong enough to be
felt, had yet been strong enough to drift her stern against the bank. Bobbie
was first—then came Peter, and it was Peter who slipped and fell. He went into
the canal up to his neck, and his feet could not feel the bottom, but his arm
was on the edge of the barge. Phyllis caught at his hair. It hurt, but it
helped him to get out. Next minute he had leaped on to the barge, Phyllis
following.
“Not you!”
he shouted to Bobbie; “ME, because I'm wet.”
He caught
up with Bobbie at the cabin door, and flung her aside very roughly indeed; if
they had been playing, such roughness would have made Bobbie weep with tears of
rage and pain. Now, though he flung her on to the edge of the hold, so that her
knee and her elbow were grazed and bruised, she only cried:—
“No—not
you—ME,” and struggled up again. But not quickly enough.
Peter had
already gone down two of the cabin steps into the cloud of thick smoke. He
stopped, remembered all he had ever heard of fires, pulled his soaked
handkerchief out of his breast pocket and tied it over his mouth. As he pulled
it out he said:—
“It's all
right, hardly any fire at all.”
And this,
though he thought it was a lie, was rather good of Peter. It was meant to keep
Bobbie from rushing after him into danger. Of course it didn't.
The cabin
glowed red. A paraffin lamp was burning calmly in an orange mist.
“Hi,” said
Peter, lifting the handkerchief from his mouth for a moment. “Hi, Baby—where
are you?” He choked.
“Oh, let
ME go,” cried Bobbie, close behind him. Peter pushed her back more roughly than
before, and went on.
Now what
would have happened if the baby hadn't cried I don't know—but just at that
moment it DID cry. Peter felt his way through the dark smoke, found something
small and soft and warm and alive, picked it up and backed out, nearly tumbling
over Bobbie who was close behind. A dog snapped at his leg—tried to bark,
choked.
“I've got
the kid,” said Peter, tearing off the handkerchief and staggering on to the
deck.
Bobbie
caught at the place where the bark came from, and her hands met on the fat back
of a smooth-haired dog. It turned and fastened its teeth on her hand, but very
gently, as much as to say:—
“I'm bound
to bark and bite if strangers come into my master's cabin, but I know you mean
well, so I won't REALLY bite.”
Bobbie
dropped the dog.
“All
right, old man. Good dog,” said she. “Here—give me the baby, Peter; you're so
wet you'll give it cold.”
Peter was
only too glad to hand over the strange little bundle that squirmed and
whimpered in his arms.
“Now,”
said Bobbie, quickly, “you run straight to the 'Rose and Crown' and tell them.
Phil and I will stay here with the precious. Hush, then, a dear, a duck, a
darling! Go NOW, Peter! Run!”
“I can't
run in these things,” said Peter, firmly; “they're as heavy as lead. I'll
walk.”
“Then I'LL
run,” said Bobbie. “Get on the bank, Phil, and I'll hand you the dear.”
The baby
was carefully handed. Phyllis sat down on the bank and tried to hush the baby.
Peter wrung the water from his sleeves and knickerbocker legs as well as he
could, and it was Bobbie who ran like the wind across the bridge and up the
long white quiet twilight road towards the 'Rose and Crown.'
There is a
nice old-fashioned room at the 'Rose and Crown; where Bargees and their wives
sit of an evening drinking their supper beer, and toasting their supper cheese
at a glowing basketful of coals that sticks out into the room under a great hooded
chimney and is warmer and prettier and more comforting than any other fireplace
I ever saw.
There was
a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it
pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they
liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the
real secret of pleasant society. The Bargee Bill, whom the children had found
so disagreeable, was considered excellent company by his mates. He was telling
a tale of his own wrongs—always a thrilling subject. It was his barge he was
speaking about.
“And 'e
sent down word 'paint her inside hout,' not namin' no colour, d'ye see? So I
gets a lotter green paint and I paints her stem to stern, and I tell yer she
looked A1. Then 'E comes along and 'e says, 'Wot yer paint 'er all one colour
for?' 'e says. And I says, says I, 'Cause I thought she'd look fust-rate,' says
I, 'and I think so still.' An' he says, 'DEW yer? Then ye can just pay for the
bloomin' paint yerself,' says he. An' I 'ad to, too.” A murmur of sympathy ran
round the room. Breaking noisily in on it came Bobbie. She burst open the swing
door—crying breathlessly:—
“Bill! I
want Bill the Bargeman.”
There was
a stupefied silence. Pots of beer were held in mid-air, paralysed on their way
to thirsty mouths.
“Oh,” said
Bobbie, seeing the bargewoman and making for her. “Your barge cabin's on fire.
Go quickly.”
The woman
started to her feet, and put a big red hand to her waist, on the left side,
where your heart seems to be when you are frightened or miserable.
“Reginald
Horace!” she cried in a terrible voice; “my Reginald Horace!”
“All
right,” said Bobbie, “if you mean the baby; got him out safe. Dog, too.” She
had no breath for more, except, “Go on—it's all alight.”
Then she
sank on the ale-house bench and tried to get that breath of relief after
running which people call the 'second wind.' But she felt as though she would
never breathe again.
Bill the
Bargee rose slowly and heavily. But his wife was a hundred yards up the road
before he had quite understood what was the matter.
Phyllis,
shivering by the canal side, had hardly heard the quick approaching feet before
the woman had flung herself on the railing, rolled down the bank, and snatched
the baby from her.
“Don't,”
said Phyllis, reproachfully; “I'd just got him to sleep.”
* * * * * *
Bill came
up later talking in a language with which the children were wholly unfamiliar.
He leaped on to the barge and dipped up pails of water. Peter helped him and
they put out the fire. Phyllis, the bargewoman, and the baby—and presently
Bobbie, too—cuddled together in a heap on the bank.
“Lord help
me, if it was me left anything as could catch alight,” said the woman again and
again.
But it
wasn't she. It was Bill the Bargeman, who had knocked his pipe out and the red
ash had fallen on the hearth-rug and smouldered there and at last broken into
flame. Though a stern man he was just. He did not blame his wife for what was
his own fault, as many bargemen, and other men, too, would have done.
* * * * * *
Mother was
half wild with anxiety when at last the three children turned up at Three
Chimneys, all very wet by now, for Peter seemed to have come off on the others.
But when she had disentangled the truth of what had happened from their mixed
and incoherent narrative, she owned that they had done quite right, and could
not possibly have done otherwise. Nor did she put any obstacles in the way of
their accepting the cordial invitation with which the bargeman had parted from
them.
“Ye be
here at seven to-morrow,” he had said, “and I'll take you the entire trip to
Farley and back, so I will, and not a penny to pay. Nineteen locks!”
They did
not know what locks were; but they were at the bridge at seven, with bread and
cheese and half a soda cake, and quite a quarter of a leg of mutton in a
basket.
It was a
glorious day. The old white horse strained at the ropes, the barge glided
smoothly and steadily through the still water. The sky was blue overhead. Mr.
Bill was as nice as anyone could possibly be. No one would have thought that he
could be the same man who had held Peter by the ear. As for Mrs. Bill, she had
always been nice, as Bobbie said, and so had the baby, and even Spot, who might
have bitten them quite badly if he had liked.
“It was
simply ripping, Mother,” said Peter, when they reached home very happy, very
tired, and very dirty, “right over that glorious aqueduct. And locks—you don't
know what they're like. You sink into the ground and then, when you feel you're
never going to stop going down, two great black gates open slowly, slowly—you
go out, and there you are on the canal just like you were before.”
“I know,”
said Mother, “there are locks on the Thames. Father and I used to go on the
river at Marlow before we were married.”
“And the
dear, darling, ducky baby,” said Bobbie; “it let me nurse it for ages and
ages—and it WAS so good. Mother, I wish we had a baby to play with.”
“And
everybody was so nice to us,” said Phyllis, “everybody we met. And they say we
may fish whenever we like. And Bill is going to show us the way next time he's
in these parts. He says we don't know really.”
“He said
YOU didn't know,” said Peter; “but, Mother, he said he'd tell all the bargees
up and down the canal that we were the real, right sort, and they were to treat
us like good pals, as we were.”
“So then I
said,” Phyllis interrupted, “we'd always each wear a red ribbon when we went
fishing by the canal, so they'd know it was US, and we were the real, right
sort, and be nice to us!”
“So you've
made another lot of friends,” said Mother; “first the railway and then the
canal!”
“Oh, yes,”
said Bobbie; “I think everyone in the world is friends if you can only get them
to see you don't want to be UN-friends.”
“Perhaps
you're right,” said Mother; and she sighed. “Come, Chicks. It's bedtime.”
“Yes,”
said Phyllis. “Oh dear—and we went up there to talk about what we'd do for
Perks's birthday. And we haven't talked a single thing about it!”
“No more
we have,” said Bobbie; “but Peter's saved Reginald Horace's life. I think
that's about good enough for one evening.”
“Bobbie
would have saved him if I hadn't knocked her down; twice I did,” said Peter,
loyally.
“So would I,”
said Phyllis, “if I'd known what to do.”
“Yes,”
said Mother, “you've saved a little child's life. I do think that's enough for
one evening. Oh, my darlings, thank God YOU'RE all safe!”
To be continued