'Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musets through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.'
As soon as the gate was opened, Paul went through mechanically with the others on to the platform, and waited at the bookstall while they changed the paper. He knew well enough that what had seemed at the time a stroke of supreme cunning would now only land him in fresh difficulties, if indeed it did not lead to the detection of his scheme. But he dared not interfere and prevent them from making the unlucky exchange. Something seemed to tie his tongue, and in sullen leaden apathy he resigned himself to whatever might be in store for him.
They passed out again by the booking-office. There was the old lady still at the pigeon-hole, trying to persuade the much-enduring clerk to restore a lucky sixpence she had given him by mistake, and was quite unable to describe. Mr. Bultitude would have given much just then to go up and shake her into hysterics, or curse her bitterly for the mischief she had done; but he refrained, either from an innate chivalry, or from a feeling that such an outburst would be ill-judged.
So, silent and miserable, with slow step and hanging head, he set out with his gaolers to render himself up once more at his house of bondage—a sort of involuntary Regulus, without the oath.
'Dickie, you were very anxious to run just now,' observed Chawner, after they had gone some distance on their homeward way.
'We were late for tea—late for tea,' explained Paul hastily.
'If you think the tea worth racing like that for, I don't,' said Coggs viciously; 'it's muck.'
'You don't catch me racing, except for something worth having,' said Coker.
One more flash of distinct inspiration came to Paul's aid in the very depths of his gloom. It was, in fact, a hazy recollection from English history of the ruse by which Edward I., when a prince, contrived to escape from his captors at Hereford Castle.
'Why—why,' he said excitedly, 'would you race if you had something worth racing for, hey? would you now?'
'Try us!' said Coker emphatically.
'What do you call "something"?' inquired Chawner suspiciously.
'Well,' said Mr. Bultitude; 'what do you say to a shilling?'
'You haven't got a shilling,' objected Coggs.
'Here's a shilling, see,' said Paul, producing one. 'Now then, I'll give this to any boy I see get into tea first!'
'Bultitude thinks he can run,' said Coker, with an amiable unbelief in any disinterestedness. 'He means to get in first and keep the shilling himself, I know.'
'I'll back myself to run him any day,' put in Coggs.
'So will I,' added Chawner.
'Well, is it agreed?' Paul asked anxiously. 'Will you try?'
'All right,' said Chawner. 'You must give us a start to the next lamp-post, though. You stay here, and when we're ready we'll say "off"!'
They drew a line on the path with their feet to mark Paul's starting point, and went on to the next lamp. After a moment or two of anxious waiting he heard Coggs shout, all in one breath, 'One-two-three-off!' and the sound of scampering feet followed immediately.
It was a most exciting and hotly contested race. Paul saw them for one brief moment in the lamplight. He saw Chawner scudding down the path like some great camel, and Coker squaring his arms and working them as if they were wings. Coggs seemed to be last.
He ran a little way himself just to encourage them, but, as the sound of their feet grew fainter and fainter, he felt that his last desperate ruse had taken effect, and with a chuckle at his own cleverness, turned round and ran his fastest in the opposite direction. He felt little or no interest in the result of the race.
Once more he entered the booking-office and, kneeling on a chair, consulted the time-board that hung on the wall over the sheaf of texts and the missionary box.
The next train was not until 7.25. A whole hour and twenty-five minutes to wait! What was he to do? Where was he to pass the weary time till then? If he lingered on the platform he would assuredly be recaptured. His absence could not remain long undiscovered and the station would be the first place they would search for him.
And yet he dared not wander away from the neighbourhood of the station. If he kept to the shops and lighted thoroughfares he might be recognised or traced. If, on the other hand, he went out farther into the country (which was utterly unknown to him), he had no watch, and it would be only too easy to lose his way, or miscalculate time and distance in the darkness.
To miss the next train would be absolutely fatal.
He walked out upon the platform, and on past the refreshment and waiting rooms, past the weighing machine, the stacked trucks and the lamp-room, meeting and seen by none—even the boy at the bookstall was busy with bread and butter and a mug of tea in a dark corner, and never noticed him.
He went on to the end of the platform where the planks sloped gently down to a wilderness of sheds, coaling stages and sidings; he could just make out the bulky forms of some tarpaulined cattle-vans and open coal-trucks standing on the lines of metals which gleamed in the scanty gaslights.
It struck him that one of these vans or trucks would serve his purpose admirably, if he could only get into it, and very cautiously he picked his way over the clogging ballast and rails, till he came to a low narrow strip of platform between two sidings.
He mounted it and went on till he came to the line of trucks and vans drawn up alongside; the vans seemed all locked, but at the end he found an empty coal-waggon in which he thought he could manage to conceal himself and escape pursuit till the longed-for 7.25 train should arrive to relieve him.
He stepped in and lay down in one corner of it, listening anxiously for any sound of search, but hearing nothing more than the dismal dirge of the telegraph wires overhead; he soon grew cold and stiff, for his enforced attitude was far from comfortable, and there was more coal-dust in his chosen retreat than he could have wished. Still it was secluded enough; it was not likely that it would occur to anyone to look for him there. Ten days ago Mr. Paul Bultitude would have found it hard to conceive himself lying down in a hard and grimy coal-truck to escape his son's schoolmaster, but since then he had gone through too much that was unprecedented and abnormal to see much incongruity in his situation—it was all too hideously real to be a nightmare.
But even here he was not allowed to remain undisturbed; after about half an hour, when he was beginning to feel almost secure, there came a sharp twanging of wires beneath, and two short strokes of a bell in the signal-box hard by.
He heard some one from the platform, probably the station-master, shout, 'Look alive, there, Ing, Pickstones, some of you. There's those three trucks on the A siding to go to Slopsbury by the 6.30 luggage—she'll be in in another five minutes.'
There were steps as if some persons were coming out of a cabin opposite—they came nearer and nearer: 'These three, ain't it, Tommy?' said a gruff voice, close to Paul's ear.
'That's it, mate,' said another, evidently Tommy's—'get 'em along up to the points there. Can't have the 6.30 standing about on this 'ere line all night, 'cos of the Limited. Now then, all together, shove! they've got the old 'orse on at the other end.'
And to Paul's alarm he felt the truck in which he was begin to move ponderously on the greasy metals, and strike the next with its buffers with a jarring shock and a jangling of coupling chains.
He could not stand this; unless he revealed himself at once, or managed to get out of this delusive waggon, the six-whatever-it-was train would be up and carry him off to Slopsbury, a hundred miles or so farther from home; they would have time to warn Dick—he would be expected—ambushes laid for him, and his one chance would be gone for ever!
There was a whistle far away on the down line, and that humming vibration which announces an approaching train: not a moment to lose—he was afraid to attempt a leap from the moving waggons, and resolved to risk all and show himself.
With this intention he got upon his knees, and putting his head above the dirty bulwark, looked over and said softly, 'Tommy, I say, Tommy!'
A porter, who had been laboriously employed below, looked up with a white and scared face, and staggered back several feet; Mr. Bultitude in a sudden panic ducked again.
'Bill!' Paul heard the porter say hoarsely, 'I'll take my Bible oath I've never touched a drop this week, not to speak of—but I've got 'em again, Bill, I've got 'em again!'
'Got what agin?' growled Bill. 'What's the matter now?'
'It's the jumps, Bill,' gasped the other, 'the 'orrors—they've got me and no mistake. As I'm a livin' man, as I was a shovin' of that there truck, I saw a imp—a gashly imp, Bill, stick its hugly 'ed over the side and say, "Tommy," it ses, jest like that—it ses, "Tommy, I wants you!" I dursn't go near it, Bill. I'll get leave, and go 'ome and lay up—it glared at me so 'orrid, Bill, and grinned—ugh! I'll take the pledge after this 'ere, I will—I'll go to chapel Sundays reg'lar!'
'Let's see if there ain't something there first,' said the practical Bill. 'Easy with the 'oss up there. Now then,' here he stepped on the box of the wheel and looked in. 'Shin out of this, whatever y'are, we don't contrack to carry no imps on this line—Well, if ever I—Tommy, old man, it's all right, y'ain't got 'em this time—'ere's yer imp!'
And, reaching over, he hauled out the wretched Paul by the scruff of his neck in a state of utter collapse, and deposited him on the ground before him.
'That ain't your private kerridge, yer know, that ain't—there wasn't no bed made up there for you, that I know on. You ain't arter no good, now; you're a wagabone! that's about your size, I can see—what d'yer mean by it, eh?'
'Shet yer 'ed, Bill, will yer?' said Tommy, whose relief probably softened his temper, 'this here's a young gent.'
'Young gent, or no young gent,' replied Bill sententiously, 'he's no call to go 'idin' in our waggins and givin' 'ard-workin' men a turn. 'Old 'im tight, Tommy—here's the luggage down on us.'
Tommy held him fast with a grip of iron, while the other porters coupled the trucks, and the luggage train lumbered away with its load.
After this the men slouched up and stood round their captive, staring at him curiously.
'Look here, my men,' said Paul, 'I've run away from school, I want to go on to town by the next train, and I took the liberty of hiding in the truck, because the schoolmaster will be up here very soon to look for me—you understand?'
'I understand,' said Bill, 'and a nice young party you are.'
'I—I don't want to be caught,' said Paul.
'Naterally,' assented Tommy sympathetically.
'Well, can't you hide me somewhere where he won't see me? Come, you can do that?'
'What do you say, Bill?' asked Tommy.
'What'll the Guv'nor say?' said Bill dubiously.
'I've got a little money,' urged Paul. 'I'll make it worth your while.'
'Why didn't you say that afore?' said Bill; 'the Guv'nor needn't know.'
'Here's half-a-sovereign between you,' said Paul, holding it out.
'That's something like a imp,' said Tommy warmly; 'if all bogeys acted as 'andsome as this 'ere, I don't care how often they shows theirselves. We'll have a supper on this, mates, and drink young Delirium Trimminses' jolly good 'ealth. You come along o' me, young shaver, I'll stow you away right enough, and let you out when yer train comes in.'
He led Paul on to the platform again and opened a sort of cupboard or closet. 'That's where we keeps the brooms and lamp-rags, and them,' he said; 'it ain't what you may call tidy, but if I lock you in no one won't trouble you.'
It was perfectly dark and the rags smelt unpleasantly, but Mr. Bultitude was very glad of this second ark of refuge, even though he did bruise his legs over the broom-handles; he was gladder still by-and-by, when he heard a rapid heavy footfall outside, and a voice he knew only too well, saying, 'I want to see the station-master. Ha, there he is. Good evening, station-master, you know me—Dr. Grimstone, of Crichton House. I want you to assist me in a very unpleasant affair—the fact is, one of my pupils has had the folly and wickedness to run away.'
'You don't say so!' said the station-master.
'It's only too true, I'm sorry to say; he seemed happy and contented enough, too; it's a black ungrateful business. But I must catch him, you know; he must be about here somewhere, I feel sure. You don't happen to have noticed a boy who looked as if he belonged to me? They can't tell me at the booking-office.'
How glad Paul was now he had made no inquiries of the station-master!
'No,' said the latter, 'I can't say I have, sir, but some of my men may have come across him. I'll inquire—here, Ing, I want you; this gentleman here has lost one of his boys, have you seen him?'
'What sort of a young gentleman was he to look at?' Paul heard Tommy's voice ask.
'A bright intelligent-looking boy,' said the Doctor, 'medium height, about thirteen, with auburn hair.'
'No, I ain't seen no intelligent boys with median 'eight,' said Tommy slowly, 'not leastways, to speak to positive. What might he 'ave on, now, besides his oburn 'air?'
'Black cloth jacket, with a wide collar,' was the answer; 'grey trousers, and a cloth cap with a leather peak.'
'Oh,' said Tommy, 'then I see 'im.'
'When— Where?'
''Bout arf an 'our since.'
'Do you know where he is now?'
'Well,' said Tommy, to Paul's intense horror, for he was listening, quaking, to every word of this conversation, which was held just outside his cupboard door. 'I dessay I could give a guess if I give my mind to it.'
'Out with it, Ing, now, if you know; no tricks,' said the station-master, who had apparently just turned to go away. 'Excuse me, sir, but I've some matters in there to see after.'
When he had gone, the Doctor said rather heatedly, 'Come, you're keeping something from me, I will have it out of you. If I find you have deceived me, I'll write to the manager and get you sent about your business—you'd better tell me the truth.'
'You see,' said Tommy, very slowly, and reluctantly, 'that young gent o' yourn was a gent.'
'I tried my very best to render him so,' said the Doctor stiffly, 'here is the result—how did you discover he was one, pray?'
''Cos he acted like a gent,' said Tommy; 'he took and give me a 'arf-suffering.'
'Well, I'll give you another,' said the Doctor, 'if you can tell me where he is.'
'Thankee, sir, don't you be afraid—you're a gent right enough, too, though you do 'appen to be a schoolmaster.'
'Where is the unhappy boy?' interrupted the Doctor.
'Seems as if I was a roundin' on 'im, like, don't it a'most, sir?' said Tommy, with too evident symptoms of yielding in his voice. Paul shook so in his terror that he knocked down a broom or two with a clatter which froze his blood.
'Not at all,' said the Doctor, 'not at all, my good fellow; you're—ahem—advancing the cause of moral order.'
'Oh, ah,' said Tommy, obviously open to conviction. 'Well, if I'm a doin' all that, I can't go fur wrong, can I? And arter all, we mayn't like schools or schoolmasters, not over above, but we can't get on without 'em, I s'pose. But, look ye here, sir—if I goes and tells you where you can get hold of this here boy, you won't go and wallop him now, will ye?'
'I can make no bargains,' said the Doctor; 'I shall act on my own discretion.'
'That's it,' said Tommy, unaccountably relieved, 'spoke like a merciful Christian gen'leman; if you don't go actin' on nothing more nor your discretion, you can't hurt him much, I take it. Well then, since you've spoke out fair, I don't mind putting you on his track like.'
If the door of the cupboard had not been locked, Paul would undoubtedly have burst out and yielded himself up, to escape the humiliation of being sold like this by a mercenary and treacherous porter. As it was, he had to wait till the inevitable words should be spoken.
'Well, you see,' went on Tommy, very slowly, as if struggling with the remnants of a conscience, 'it was like this here—he comes up to me, and says—your young gen'leman, I mean—says he, "Porter, I wants to 'ide, I've run away." And I says to him, says I, "It's no use your 'anging about 'ere," I says, "'cause, if you do, your guv'nor (meanin' no offence to you, sir) 'll be comin' up and ketchin' of you on the 'op." "Right you are, porter," says he to me, "what do you advise?" he says. "Well," I says, "I don't know as I'm right in givin' you no advice at all, havin' run away from them as has the care on you," I says; "but if I was a young gen'leman as didn't want to be ketched, I should just walk on to Dufferton; it ain't on'y three mile or so, and you'll 'ave time for to do it before the up-train comes along there." "Thankee, porter," he says, "I'll do that," and away he bolts, and for anything I know, he's 'arf way there by this time.'
'A fly!' shouted the Doctor excitedly, when Tommy had come to the end of his veracious account. 'I'll catch the young rascal now—who has a good horse? Davis, I'll take you. Five shillings if you reach Dufferton before the up-train. Take the——'
The rest was lost in the banging of the fly door and the rumble of wheels; the terrible man had been got safely off on a wrong scent, and Paul fell back amongst the lumber in his closet, faint with the suspense and relief.
Presently he heard Tommy's chuckling whisper through the keyhole: 'Are you all right in there, sir? he's safe enough now—orf on a pretty dance. You didn't think I was goin' to tell on ye, did ye now? I ain't quite sech a cur as that comes to, particular when a young gent saves me from the 'orrors, and gives me a 'arf-suffering. I'll see you through, you make yourself easy about that.'
Half an hour went slowly by for Mr. Bultitude in his darkness and solitude. The platform gradually filled, as he could tell by the tread of feet, the voices, and the scent of cigars, and at last, welcome sound, he heard the station bell ringing for the up-train.
It ran in the next minute, shaking the cupboard in which Paul crouched, till the brushes rattled. There was the usual blind hurry and confusion outside as it stopped. Paul waited impatiently inside. The time passed, and still no one came to let him out. He began to grow alarmed. Could Tommy have forgotten him? Had he been sent away by some evil chance at the critical moment? Two or three times his excited fancy heard the fatal whistle sound for departure. Would he be left behind after all?
But the next instant the door was noiselessly unlocked. 'Couldn't do it afore,' said honest Tommy. 'Our guv'nor would have seen me. Now's your time. Here's a empty first-class coach I've kept for ye. In with you now.'
He hoisted Paul up the high footboard to an empty compartment, and shut the door, leaving him to sink down on the luxurious cushions in speechless and measureless content. But Tommy had hardly done so before he reappeared and looked in. 'I say,' he suggested, 'if I was you, I'd get under the seat before you gets to Dufferton, otherways your guv'nor'll be spottin' you. I'll lock you in.'
'I'll get under now; some one might see me here,' said Paul; and, too anxious for safety to thank his preserver, he crawled under the low, blue-cushioned seat, which left just room enough for him to lie there in a very cramped and uncomfortable position. Still he need not stay there after the train had once started, except for five minutes or so at Dufferton.
Unfortunately he had not been long under the seat before he heard two loud imperious voices just outside the carriage door.
'Porter! guard! Hi, somebody! open this door, will you; it's locked.'
'This way, sir,' he heard Tommy's voice say outside. 'Plenty of room higher up.'
'I don't want to go higher up. I'll go here. Just open it at once, I tell you.'
The door was opened reluctantly, and two middle-aged men came in. 'Always take the middle carriage of a train,' said the first. 'Safest in any accident, y'know. Never heard of a middle carriage of a train getting smashed up, to speak of.'
The other sat heavily down just over Paul, with a comfortable grunt, and the train started, Paul feeling naturally annoyed by this intrusion, as it compelled him to remain in seclusion for the whole of the journey. 'Still,' he thought, 'it is lucky that I had time to get under here before they came in; it would have seemed odd if I had done it afterwards.' And he resigned himself to listen to the conversation which followed.
'What was it we were talking about just now?' began the first. 'Let me see. Ah! I remember. Yes; it was a very painful thing—very, indeed, I assure you.'
There is a certain peculiar and uncomfortable suspicion that attacks most of us at times, which cannot fairly be set down wholly to self-consciousness or an exaggerated idea of our own importance. I mean the suspicion that a partly-heard conversation must have ourselves for its subject. More often than not, of course, it proves utterly unfounded, but once in a way, like most presentiments, it finds itself unpleasantly fulfilled.
Mr. Bultitude, though he failed to recognise either of the voices, was somehow persuaded that the conversation had something to do with himself, and listened with eager attention.
'Yes,' the speaker continued; 'he was never, according to what I hear, a man of any extraordinary capacity, but he was always spoken of as a man of standing in the City, doing a safe business, not a risky one, and so on, you know. So, of course, his manner, when I called, shocked me all the more.'
'Ah!' said the other. 'Was he violent or insulting, then?'
'No, no! I can only describe his conduct as eccentric—what one might call reprehensibly eccentric and extravagant. I didn't call exactly in the way of business, but about a poor young fellow in my house, who is, I fear, rather far gone in consumption, and, knowing he was a Life Governor, y'know, I thought he might give me a letter for the hospital. Well, when I got up to Mincing Lane——'
Paul started. It was as he had feared, then; they were speaking of him!
'When I got there, I sent in my card with a message that, if he was engaged or anything, I would take the liberty of calling at his private house, and so on. But they said he would see me. The clerk who showed me in said: "You'll find him a good deal changed, if you knew him, sir. We're very uneasy about him here," which prepared me for something out of the common. Well, I went into a sort of inner room, and there he was, in his shirt-sleeves, busy over some abomination he was cooking at the stove, with the office-boy helping him! I never was so taken aback in my life. I said something about calling another time, but Bultitude——'
Paul groaned. The blow had fallen. Well, it was better to be prepared and know the worst.
'Bultitude says, just like a great awkward schoolboy, y'know, "What's your name? How d'ye do? Have some hardbake, it's just done?" Fancy finding a man in his position cooking toffee in the middle of the day, and offering it to a perfect stranger!'
'Softening of the brain—must be,' said the other.
'I fear so. Well, he asked what I wanted, and I told him, and he actually said he never did any business now, except sign his name where his clerks told him. He'd worked hard all his life, he said, and he was tired of it. Business was, I understood him to say, "all rot!"
'Then he wouldn't promise me votes or give me a letter or anything, without consulting his head clerk; he seemed to know nothing whatever about it himself, and when that was over, he asked me a quantity of frivolous questions which appeared to have a sort of catch in them, as far as I could gather, and he was exceedingly angry when I wouldn't humour him.'
'What kind of questions?'
'Well, really I hardly know. I believe he wanted to know whether I would rather be a bigger fool than I looked or look a bigger fool than I was, and he pressed me quite earnestly to repeat some foolishness after him, about 'being a gold key,' when he said 'he was a gold lock,' I was very glad to get away from him, it was so distressing.'
'They tell me he has begun to speculate, too, lately,' said the other. 'You see his name about in some very queer things. It's a pitiful affair altogether.'
Paul writhed under his seat with shame. How could he, even if he succeeded in ousting Dick and getting back his old self, how could he ever hold up his head again after this?
Why, Dick must be mad. Even a schoolboy would have had more caution when so much depended on it. But none would suspect the real cause of the change. These horrible tales were no doubt being circulated everywhere!
The conversation fell back into a less personal channel again after this; they talked of 'risks,' of some one who had only been 'writing' a year and was doing seven thousand a week, of losses they had been 'on,' and of the uselessness of 'writing five hundred on everything,' and while at this point the train slackened and stopped—they had reached Dufferton.
There was an opening of doors all along the train, and sounds of some inquiry and answer at each. The voices became audible at length, and, as he had expected, Paul found that the Doctor, not having discovered him on the platform, was making a systematic search of the train, evidently believing that he had managed to slip in somewhere unobserved.
It was a horrible moment when the door of his compartment was flung open and a stream of ice-cold air rushed under the blue cloth which, fortunately for Paul, hung down almost to the floor.
Some one held a lantern up outside, and by its rays Paul saw from behind the hanging the upper half of Dr. Grimstone appear, very pale and polite, at the doorway. He remained there for some moments without speaking, carefully examining every corner of the compartment.
The two men on the seats drew their wraps about them and shivered, until at length one said rather testily—'Get in, sir; kindly get in if you're coming on, please. This draught is most unpleasant!'
'I do not propose to travel by this train, sir,' said the Doctor; 'but, as a person entrusted with the care of youth, permit me to inquire whether you have seen (or, it may be assisted to conceal) a small boy of intelligent appearance——'
'Why should we conceal small boys of intelligent appearance about us, pray?' demanded the man who had described his visit to Mincing Lane. 'And may we ask you to shut that door, and make any communications you wish to make through the window, or else come in and sit down?'
'That's not an answer to my question, sir,' retorted the Doctor. 'I notice you carefully decline to say whether you have seen a boy. I consider your manner suspicious, sir; and I shall insist on searching this carriage through and through till I find that boy!'
Mr. Bultitude rolled himself up close against the partition at these awful words.
'Guard, guard!' shouted the first gentleman. 'Come here. Here's a violent person who will search this carriage for something he has lost. I won't be inconvenienced in this way without any reason whatever! He says we're hiding a boy in here!'
'Guard!' said the Doctor, quite as angrily, 'I insist upon looking under these seats before you start the train. I've looked through every other carriage and he must be in here. Gentlemen, let me pass, I'll get him if I have to travel in this compartment to town with you!'
'For peace and quietness sake, gentlemen,' said the guard, 'let him look round, just to ease his mind. Lend me your stick a minute, sir, please. I'll turn him out if he's anywhere about this here compartment!'
And with this he pulled Dr. Grimstone down from the footboard and mounted it himself; after which he began to rummage about under the seats with the Doctor's heavy stick.
Every lunge found out some tender part in Mr. Bultitude's person and caused him exquisite torture; but he clenched his teeth hard to prevent a sound, while he thought each fresh dig must betray his whereabouts.
'There,' said the guard at last; 'there really ain't no one there, sir, you see. I've felt everywhere and—— Hello, I certainly did feel something just then, gentlemen!' he added, in an undertone, after a lunge which took all the breath out of Paul's body. All was lost now!
'You touch that again with that confounded stick if you dare!' said one of the passengers. 'That's a parcel of mine. I won't have you poking holes through it in that way. Don't tell that lunatic behind you, he'll be wanting it opened to see if his boy's inside! Now perhaps you'll let us alone!'
'Well, sir,' said the guard at last to the Doctor, as he withdrew, 'he ain't in there. There's nothing under any of the seats. Your boy'll be comin' on by the next train, most likely—the 8.40. We're all behind. Right!'
'Good night, sir,' said the first passenger as he leant out of the window, to the baffled schoolmaster on the platform. 'You've put us to all this inconvenience for nothing, and in the most offensive way too. I hope you won't find your boy till you're in a better temper, for his sake.'
'If I had you out on this platform, sir,' shouted the angry Doctor, 'I'd horsewhip you for that insult. I believe the boy's there and you know it. I——'
But the train swept off and, to Paul's joy and thankfulness, soon left the Doctor, gesticulating and threatening, miles behind it.
'What a violent fellow for a schoolmaster, eh?' said one of Paul's companions, when they were fairly off again. 'I wasn't going to have him turning the cushions inside out here; we shouldn't have settled down again before we got in!'
'No; and if the guard hasn't, as it is, injured that Indian shawl in my parcel, I shall be—— Why, bless my soul, that parcel's not under the seat after all! It's up in the rack. I remember putting it there now.'
'The guard must have fancied he felt something; and yet—— Look here, Goldicutt; just feel under here with your feet. It certainly does seem as if something soft was—eh?'
Mr. Goldicutt accordingly explored Paul's ribs with his boot for some moments, which was very painful.
'Upon my word,' he said at last, 'it really does seem very like it. It's not hard enough for a bag or a hat-box. It yields distinctly when you kick it. Can you fetch it out with your umbrella, do you think? Shall we tell the guard at the next——? Lord, it's coming out of its own accord. It's a dog! No, my stars—it's the boy, after all!'
For Paul, alarmed at the suggestion about the guard, once more felt inclined to risk the worst and reveal himself. Begrimed with coal, smeared with whitewash, and covered with dust and flue, he crawled slowly out and gazed imploringly up at his fellow-passengers.
After the first shock of surprise they lay back in their seats and laughed till they cried.
'Why, you young rascal!' they said, when they recovered breath, 'you don't mean to say you've been under there the whole time?'
'I have indeed,' said Paul. 'I—I didn't like to come out before.'
'And are you the boy all this fuss was about? Yes? And we kept the schoolmaster off without knowing it! Why, this is splendid, capital! You're something like a boy, you little dog, you! This is the best joke I've heard for many a day!'
'I hope,' said Paul, 'I haven't inconvenienced you. I could not help it, really.'
'Inconvenienced us? Gad, your schoolmaster came very near inconveniencing us and you too. But there, he won't trouble any of us now. To think of our swearing by all our gods there was no boy in here, and vowing he shouldn't come in, while you were lying down there under the seat all the time! Why, it's lovely! The boy's got pluck and manners too. Shake hands, young gentleman, you owe us no apologies. I haven't had such a laugh for many a day!'
'Then you—you won't give me up?' faltered poor Paul.
'Well,' said the one who was called Goldicutt, and who was a jovial old gentleman with a pink face and white whiskers, 'we're not exactly going to take the trouble of getting out at the next station, and bringing you back to Dufferton, just to oblige that hot-tempered master of yours, you know; he hasn't been so particularly civil as to deserve that.'
'But if he were to telegraph and get some one to stop me at St. Pancras?' said Paul nervously.
'Ah, he might do that, to be sure—sharp boy this—well, as we've gone so far, I suppose we must go through with the business now and smuggle the young scamp past the detectives, eh, Travers?'
The younger man addressed assented readily enough, for the Doctor had been so unfortunate as to prejudice them both from the first by his unjustifiable suspicions, and it is to be feared they had no scruples in helping to outwit him.
Then they noticed the pitiable state Mr. Bultitude was in, and he had to give them a fair account of his escape and subsequent adventures, at which even their sympathy could not restrain delighted shouts of laughter—though Paul himself saw little enough in it all to laugh at; they asked his name, which he thought more prudent, for various reasons, to give as 'Jones,' and other details, which I am afraid he invented as he went on, and altogether they reached Kentish Town in a state of high satisfaction with themselves and their protégé.
At Kentish Town there was one more danger to be encountered, for with the ticket collector there appeared one of the station inspectors. 'Beg pardon, gentlemen,' said the latter, peering curiously in, 'but does that young gent in the corner happen to belong to either of you?'
The white-whiskered gentleman seemed a little flustered at this downright inquiry, but the other was more equal to the occasion. 'Do you hear that, Johnny, my boy,' he said, to Paul (whom they had managed during the journey to brush and scrape into something approaching respectability), 'they want to know if you belong to me. I suppose you'll allow a son to belong to his father to a certain extent, eh?' he asked the inspector.
The man apologised for what he conceived to be a mistake. 'We've orders to look out for a young gent about the size of yours, sir,' he explained; 'no offence meant, I'm sure,' and he went away satisfied.
A very few minutes more and the train rolled in to the terminus, under the same wide arch beneath which Paul had stood, helpless and bewildered, a week ago.
'Now my advice to you, young man,' said Mr. Goldicutt, as he put Paul into a cab, and pressed half-a-sovereign into his unwilling hand, 'is to go straight home to Papa and tell him all about it. I daresay he won't be very hard on you—here's my card, refer him to me if you like. Good-night, my boy, good-night, and good luck to you. Gad, the best joke I've had for years!'
And the cab rolled away, leaving them standing chuckling on the platform, and, as Paul found himself plunging once more into the welcome roar and rattle of London streets, he forgot the difficulties and dangers that might yet lie before him in the thought that at last he was beyond the frontier, and, for the first time since he had slipped through the playground gate, he breathed freely.