Kitobni o'qish: «The Railway Children», sahifa 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.”

Chapter VI. Saviours of the train

The Russian gentleman was better the next day, and the day after that better still, and on the third day he was well enough to come into the garden. A basket chair was put for him and he sat there, dressed in clothes of Father’s which were too big for him. But when Mother had hemmed up the ends of the sleeves and the trousers, the clothes did well enough. His was a kind face now that it was no longer tired and frightened, and he smiled at the children whenever he saw them. They wished very much that he could speak English. Mother wrote several letters to people she thought might know whereabouts in England a Russian gentleman’s wife and family might possibly be; not to the people she used to know before she came to live at Three Chimneys—she never wrote to any of them—but strange people—Members of Parliament and Editors of papers, and Secretaries of Societies.

And she did not do much of her story-writing, only corrected proofs as she sat in the sun near the Russian, and talked to him every now and then.

The children wanted very much to show how kindly they felt to this man who had been sent to prison and to Siberia just for writing a beautiful book about poor people. They could smile at him, of course; they could and they did. But if you smile too constantly, the smile is apt to get fixed like the smile of the hyaena. And then it no longer looks friendly, but simply silly. So they tried other ways, and brought him flowers till the place where he sat was surrounded by little fading bunches of clover and roses and Canterbury bells.

And then Phyllis had an idea. She beckoned mysteriously to the others and drew them into the back yard, and there, in a concealed spot, between the pump and the water-butt, she said:—

“You remember Perks promising me the very first strawberries out of his own garden?” Perks, you will recollect, was the Porter. “Well, I should think they’re ripe now. Let’s go down and see.”

Mother had been down as she had promised to tell the Station Master the story of the Russian Prisoner. But even the charms of the railway had been unable to tear the children away from the neighbourhood of the interesting stranger. So they had not been to the station for three days.

They went now.

And, to their surprise and distress, were very coldly received by Perks.

“‘Ighly honoured, I’m sure,” he said when they peeped in at the door of the Porters’ room. And he went on reading his newspaper.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Oh, dear,” said Bobbie, with a sigh, “I do believe you’re CROSS.”

“What, me? Not me!” said Perks loftily; “it ain’t nothing to me.”

“What AIN’T nothing to you?” said Peter, too anxious and alarmed to change the form of words.

“Nothing ain’t nothing. What ‘appens either ‘ere or elsewhere,” said Perks; “if you likes to ‘ave your secrets, ‘ave ‘em and welcome. That’s what I say.”

The secret-chamber of each heart was rapidly examined during the pause that followed. Three heads were shaken.

“We haven’t got any secrets from YOU,” said Bobbie at last.

“Maybe you ‘ave, and maybe you ‘aven’t,” said Perks; “it ain’t nothing to me. And I wish you all a very good afternoon.” He held up the paper between him and them and went on reading.

“Oh, DON’T!” said Phyllis, in despair; “this is truly dreadful! Whatever it is, do tell us.”

“We didn’t mean to do it whatever it was.”

No answer. The paper was refolded and Perks began on another column.

“Look here,” said Peter, suddenly, “it’s not fair. Even people who do crimes aren’t punished without being told what it’s for—as once they were in Russia.”

“I don’t know nothing about Russia.”

“Oh, yes, you do, when Mother came down on purpose to tell you and Mr. Gills all about OUR Russian.”

“Can’t you fancy it?” said Perks, indignantly; “don’t you see ‘im a-asking of me to step into ‘is room and take a chair and listen to what ‘er Ladyship ‘as to say?”

“Do you mean to say you’ve not heard?”

“Not so much as a breath. I did go so far as to put a question. And he shuts me up like a rat-trap. ‘Affairs of State, Perks,’ says he. But I did think one o’ you would ‘a’ nipped down to tell me—you’re here sharp enough when you want to get anything out of old Perks”—Phyllis flushed purple as she thought of the strawberries—“information about locomotives or signals or the likes,” said Perks.

“We didn’t know you didn’t know.”

“We thought Mother had told you.”

“Wewantedtotellyouonlywethoughtitwouldbestalenews.”

The three spoke all at once.

Perks said it was all very well, and still held up the paper. Then Phyllis suddenly snatched it away, and threw her arms round his neck.

“Oh, let’s kiss and be friends,” she said; “we’ll say we’re sorry first, if you like, but we didn’t really know that you didn’t know.”

“We are so sorry,” said the others.

And Perks at last consented to accept their apologies.

Then they got him to come out and sit in the sun on the green Railway Bank, where the grass was quite hot to touch, and there, sometimes speaking one at a time, and sometimes all together, they told the Porter the story of the Russian Prisoner.

“Well, I must say,” said Perks; but he did not say it—whatever it was.

“Yes, it is pretty awful, isn’t it?” said Peter, “and I don’t wonder you were curious about who the Russian was.”

“I wasn’t curious, not so much as interested,” said the Porter.

“Well, I do think Mr. Gills might have told you about it. It was horrid of him.”

“I don’t keep no down on ‘im for that, Missie,” said the Porter; “cos why? I see ‘is reasons. ‘E wouldn’t want to give away ‘is own side with a tale like that ‘ere. It ain’t human nature. A man’s got to stand up for his own side whatever they does. That’s what it means by Party Politics. I should ‘a’ done the same myself if that long-’aired chap ‘ad ‘a’ been a Jap.”

“But the Japs didn’t do cruel, wicked things like that,” said Bobbie.

“P’r’aps not,” said Perks, cautiously; “still you can’t be sure with foreigners. My own belief is they’re all tarred with the same brush.”

“Then why were you on the side of the Japs?” Peter asked.

“Well, you see, you must take one side or the other. Same as with Liberals and Conservatives. The great thing is to take your side and then stick to it, whatever happens.”

A signal sounded.

“There’s the 3.14 up,” said Perks. “You lie low till she’s through, and then we’ll go up along to my place, and see if there’s any of them strawberries ripe what I told you about.”

“If there are any ripe, and you DO give them to me,” said Phyllis, “you won’t mind if I give them to the poor Russian, will you?”

Perks narrowed his eyes and then raised his eyebrows.

“So it was them strawberries you come down for this afternoon, eh?” said he.

This was an awkward moment for Phyllis. To say “yes” would seem rude and greedy, and unkind to Perks. But she knew if she said “no,” she would not be pleased with herself afterwards. So—

“Yes,” she said, “it was.”

“Well done!” said the Porter; “speak the truth and shame the—”

“But we’d have come down the very next day if we’d known you hadn’t heard the story,” Phyllis added hastily.

“I believe you, Missie,” said Perks, and sprang across the line six feet in front of the advancing train.

The girls hated to see him do this, but Peter liked it. It was so exciting.

The Russian gentleman was so delighted with the strawberries that the three racked their brains to find some other surprise for him. But all the racking did not bring out any idea more novel than wild cherries. And this idea occurred to them next morning. They had seen the blossom on the trees in the spring, and they knew where to look for wild cherries now that cherry time was here. The trees grew all up and along the rocky face of the cliff out of which the mouth of the tunnel opened. There were all sorts of trees there, birches and beeches and baby oaks and hazels, and among them the cherry blossom had shone like snow and silver.

The mouth of the tunnel was some way from Three Chimneys, so Mother let them take their lunch with them in a basket. And the basket would do to bring the cherries back in if they found any. She also lent them her silver watch so that they should not be late for tea. Peter’s Waterbury had taken it into its head not to go since the day when Peter dropped it into the water-butt. And they started. When they got to the top of the cutting, they leaned over the fence and looked down to where the railway lines lay at the bottom of what, as Phyllis said, was exactly like a mountain gorge.

“If it wasn’t for the railway at the bottom, it would be as though the foot of man had never been there, wouldn’t it?”

The sides of the cutting were of grey stone, very roughly hewn. Indeed, the top part of the cutting had been a little natural glen that had been cut deeper to bring it down to the level of the tunnel’s mouth. Among the rocks, grass and flowers grew, and seeds dropped by birds in the crannies of the stone had taken root and grown into bushes and trees that overhung the cutting. Near the tunnel was a flight of steps leading down to the line—just wooden bars roughly fixed into the earth—a very steep and narrow way, more like a ladder than a stair.

“We’d better get down,” said Peter; “I’m sure the cherries would be quite easy to get at from the side of the steps. You remember it was there we picked the cherry blossoms that we put on the rabbit’s grave.”

So they went along the fence towards the little swing gate that is at the top of these steps. And they were almost at the gate when Bobbie said:—

“Hush. Stop! What’s that?”

“That” was a very odd noise indeed—a soft noise, but quite plainly to be heard through the sound of the wind in tree branches, and the hum and whir of the telegraph wires. It was a sort of rustling, whispering sound. As they listened it stopped, and then it began again.

And this time it did not stop, but it grew louder and more rustling and rumbling.

“Look”—cried Peter, suddenly—“the tree over there!”

The tree he pointed at was one of those that have rough grey leaves and white flowers. The berries, when they come, are bright scarlet, but if you pick them, they disappoint you by turning black before you get them home. And, as Peter pointed, the tree was moving—not just the way trees ought to move when the wind blows through them, but all in one piece, as though it were a live creature and were walking down the side of the cutting.