“SILLY little girl!” said Roberta to Bobbie, 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 Bobbie, “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 laid it on the cushion of folded flannel.
“Don't faint again, PLEASE don't,” said Bobbie, 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 Bobbie.
“Jim.”
“Mine's Bobbie.”
“But you're a girl, aren't you?”
“Yes, my long name's Roberta.”
“I say--Bobbie.”
“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 Bobbie.
“Tell you what, Bobbie,” said Jim, “you're a brick. Shake.” He reached out a red-jerseyed arm and Bobbie 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 hanky?”
“I don't expect I have.” He felt in his pocket. “Yes, I have. What for?”
She took it and wetted it with milk and put it on his forehead.
“That's jolly,” he said; “what is it?”
“Milk,” said Bobbie. “We haven't any water--”
“You're a jolly good little nurse,” said Jim.
“I do it for Mother sometimes,” said Bobbie--“not milk, of course, but scent, or vinegar and water. I say, I must put the candle out now, because there mayn't be enough of the other one to get you out by.”
“By George,” said he, “you think of everything.”
Bobbie blew. Out went the candle. You have no idea how black-velvety the darkness was.
“I say, Bobbie,” 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 Bobbie 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, Bobbie?”
or an--
“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.
“Hurray,” said Peter, suddenly, “there's the end of the tunnel--looks just like a pin-hole in a bit of black paper, doesn't it?”
The pin-hole got larger--blue lights lay along the sides of the tunnel. The children could see the 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 Bobbie 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 o'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 dewdrops 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 shamed, 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.”
“Lor' love you--if you hadn't 'a' 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 harm's 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 know'd well enough just how it 'ud 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--pewmonia, the Doctor says--and there's no one but me and 'is little sister to do for him. That's where it is. The gell must 'ave her sleep. Dangerous? Yes, I believe you. Now go and split on me if you like.”