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

Chapter XII. What Bobbie brought home.

“Oh, look up! Speak to me! For MY sake, speak!” The children said the words over and over again to the unconscious hound in a red jersey, who sat with closed eyes and pale face against the side of the tunnel.

“Wet his ears with milk,” said Bobbie. “I know they do it to people that faint—with eau-de-Cologne. But I expect milk's just as good.”

So they wetted his ears, and some of the milk ran down his neck under the red jersey. It was very dark in the tunnel. The candle end Peter had carried, and which now burned on a flat stone, gave hardly any light at all.

“Oh, DO look up,” said Phyllis. “For MY sake! I believe he's dead.”

“For MY sake,” repeated Bobbie. “No, he isn't.”

“For ANY sake,” said Peter; “come out of it.” And he shook the sufferer by the arm.

And then the boy in the red jersey sighed, and opened his eyes, and shut them again and said in a very small voice, “Chuck it.”

“Oh, he's NOT dead,” said Phyllis. “I KNEW he wasn't,” and she began to cry.

“What's up? I'm all right,” said the boy.

“Drink this,” said Peter, firmly, thrusting the nose of the milk bottle into the boy's mouth. The boy struggled, and some of the milk was upset before he could get his mouth free to say:—

“What is it?”

“It's milk,” said Peter. “Fear not, you are in the hands of friends. Phil, you stop bleating this minute.”

“Do drink it,” said Bobbie, gently; “it'll do you good.”

So he drank. And the three stood by without speaking to him.

“Let him be a minute,” Peter whispered; “he'll be all right as soon as the milk begins to run like fire through his veins.”

He was.

“I'm better now,” he announced. “I remember all about it.” He tried to move, but the movement ended in a groan. “Bother! I believe I've broken my leg,” he said.

“Did you tumble down?” asked Phyllis, sniffing.

“Of course not—I'm not a kiddie,” said the boy, indignantly; “it was one of those beastly wires tripped me up, and when I tried to get up again I couldn't stand, so I sat down. Gee whillikins! it does hurt, though. How did YOU get here?”

“We saw you all go into the tunnel and then we went across the hill to see you all come out. And the others did—all but you, and you didn't. So we are a rescue party,” said Peter, with pride.

“You've got some pluck, I will say,” remarked the boy.

“Oh, that's nothing,” said Peter, with modesty. “Do you think you could walk if we helped you?”

“I could try,” said the boy.

He did try. But he could only stand on one foot; the other dragged in a very nasty way.

“Here, let me sit down. I feel like dying,” said the boy. “Let go of me—let go, quick—” He lay down and closed his eyes. The others looked at each other by the dim light of the little candle.

“What on earth!” said Peter.

“Look here,” said Bobbie, quickly, “you must go and get help. Go to the nearest house.”

“Yes, that's the only thing,” said Peter. “Come on.”

“If you take his feet and Phil and I take his head, we could carry him to the manhole.”

They did it. It was perhaps as well for the sufferer that he had fainted again.

“Now,” said Bobbie, “I'll stay with him. You take the longest bit of candle, and, oh—be quick, for this bit won't burn long.”

“I don't think Mother would like me leaving you,” said Peter, doubtfully. “Let me stay, and you and Phil go.”

“No, no,” said Bobbie, “you and Phil go—and lend me your knife. I'll try to get his boot off before he wakes up again.”

“I hope it's all right what we're doing,” said Peter.

“Of course it's right,” said Bobbie, impatiently. “What else WOULD you do? Leave him here all alone because it's dark? Nonsense. Hurry up, that's all.”

So they hurried up.

Bobbie watched their dark figures and the little light of the little candle with an odd feeling of having come to the end of everything. She knew now, she thought, what nuns who were bricked up alive in convent walls felt like. Suddenly she gave herself a little shake.

“Don't be a silly little girl,” she said. She was always very angry when anyone else called her a little girl, even if the adjective that went first was not “silly” but “nice” or “good” or “clever.” And it was only when she was very angry with herself that she allowed Roberta to use that expression to Bobbie.

She fixed the little candle end on a broken brick near the red-jerseyed boy's feet. Then she opened Peter's knife. It was always hard to manage—a halfpenny was generally needed to get it open at all. This time Bobbie somehow got it open with her thumbnail. She broke the nail, and it hurt horribly. Then she cut the boy's bootlace, and got the boot off. She tried to pull off his stocking, but his leg was dreadfully swollen, and it did not seem to be the proper shape. So she cut the stocking down, very slowly and carefully. It was a brown, knitted stocking, and she wondered who had knitted it, and whether it was the boy's mother, and whether she was feeling anxious about him, and how she would feel when he was brought home with his leg broken. When Bobbie had got the stocking off and saw the poor leg, she felt as though the tunnel was growing darker, and the ground felt unsteady, and nothing seemed quite real.

“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.