The Railway Children, E. Nesbit [book series for 12 year olds .txt] 📗

“Give me one more sandwich,” pleaded Phyllis, “and I will.”

“I'm going first,” said Peter; “it was my idea,” and he went.

Of course you know what going into a tunnel is like? The engine gives a scream and then suddenly the noise of the running, rattling train changes and grows different and much louder. Grown-up people pull up the windows and hold them by the strap. The railway carriage suddenly grows like night—with lamps, of course, unless you are in a slow local train, in which case lamps are not always provided. Then by and by the darkness outside the carriage window is touched by puffs of cloudy whiteness, then you see a blue light on the walls of the tunnel, then the sound of the moving train changes once more, and you are out in the good open air again, and grown-ups let the straps go. The windows, all dim with the yellow breath of the tunnel, rattle down into their places, and you see once more the dip and catch of the telegraph wires beside the line, and the straight-cut hawthorn hedges with the tiny baby trees growing up out of them every thirty yards.

All this, of course, is what a tunnel means when you are in a train. But everything is quite different when you walk into a tunnel on your own feet, and tread on shifting, sliding stones and gravel on a path that curves downwards from the shining metals to the wall. Then you see slimy, oozy trickles of water running down the inside of the tunnel, and you notice that the bricks are not red or brown, as they are at the tunnel's mouth, but dull, sticky, sickly green. Your voice, when you speak, is quite changed from what it was out in the sunshine, and it is a long time before the tunnel is quite dark.

It was not yet quite dark in the tunnel when Phyllis caught at Bobbie's skirt, ripping out half a yard of gathers, but no one noticed this at the time.

“I want to go back,” she said, “I don't like it. It'll be pitch dark in a minute. I WON'T go on in the dark. I don't care what you say, I WON'T.”

“Don't be a silly cuckoo,” said Peter; “I've got a candle end and matches, and—what's that?”

“That” was a low, humming sound on the railway line, a trembling of the wires beside it, a buzzing, humming sound that grew louder and louder as they listened.

“It's a train,” said Bobbie.

“Which line?”

“Let me go back,” cried Phyllis, struggling to get away from the hand by which Bobbie held her.

“Don't be a coward,” said Bobbie; “it's quite safe. Stand back.”

“Come on,” shouted Peter, who was a few yards ahead. “Quick! Manhole!”

The roar of the advancing train was now louder than the noise you hear when your head is under water in the bath and both taps are running, and you are kicking with your heels against the bath's tin sides. But Peter had shouted for all he was worth, and Bobbie heard him. She dragged Phyllis along to the manhole. Phyllis, of course, stumbled over the wires and grazed both her legs. But they dragged her in, and all three stood in the dark, damp, arched recess while the train roared louder and louder. It seemed as if it would deafen them. And, in the distance, they could see its eyes of fire growing bigger and brighter every instant.

“It IS a dragon—I always knew it was—it takes its own shape in here, in the dark,” shouted Phyllis. But nobody heard her. You see the train was shouting, too, and its voice was bigger than hers.

And now, with a rush and a roar and a rattle and a long dazzling flash of lighted carriage windows, a smell of smoke, and blast of hot air, the train hurtled by, clanging and jangling and echoing in the vaulted roof of the tunnel. Phyllis and Bobbie clung to each other. Even Peter caught hold of Bobbie's arm, “in case she should be frightened,” as he explained afterwards.

And now, slowly and gradually, the tail-lights grew smaller and smaller, and so did the noise, till with one last WHIZ the train got itself out of the tunnel, and silence settled again on its damp walls and dripping roof.

“OH!” said the children, all together in a whisper.

Peter was lighting the candle end with a hand that trembled.

“Come on,” he said; but he had to clear his throat before he could speak in his natural voice.

“Oh,” said Phyllis, “if the red-jerseyed one was in the way of the train!”

“We've got to go and see,” said Peter.

“Couldn't we go and send someone from the station?” said Phyllis.

“Would you rather wait here for us?” asked Bobbie, severely, and of course that settled the question.

So the three went on into the deeper darkness of the tunnel. Peter led, holding his candle end high to light the way. The grease ran down his fingers, and some of it right up his sleeve. He found a long streak from wrist to elbow when he went to bed that night.

It was not more than a hundred and fifty yards from the spot where they had stood while the train went by that Peter stood still, shouted “Hullo,” and then went on much quicker than before. When the others caught him up, he stopped. And he stopped within a yard of what they had come into the tunnel to look for. Phyllis saw a gleam of red, and shut her eyes tight. There, by the curved, pebbly down line, was the red-jerseyed hound. His back was against the wall, his arms hung limply by his sides, and his eyes were shut.

“Was the red, blood? Is he all killed?” asked Phyllis, screwing her eyelids more tightly together.

“Killed? Nonsense!” said Peter. “There's nothing red about him except his jersey. He's only fainted. What on earth are we to do?”

“Can we move him?” asked Bobbie.

“I don't know; he's a big chap.”

“Suppose we bathe his forehead with water. No, I know we haven't any, but milk's just as wet. There's a whole bottle.”

“Yes,” said Peter, “and they rub people's hands, I believe.”

“They burn feathers, I know,” said Phyllis.

“What's the good of saying that when we haven't any feathers?”

“As it happens,” said Phyllis, in a tone of exasperated triumph, “I've got a shuttlecock in my pocket. So there!”

And now Peter rubbed the hands of the red-jerseyed one. Bobbie burned the feathers of the shuttlecock one by one under his nose, Phyllis splashed warmish milk on his forehead, and all three kept on saying as fast and as earnestly as they could:—

“Oh, look up, speak to me! For my sake, speak!”