The Railway Children, E. Nesbit [ebook reader below 3000 .TXT] 📗

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 tomorrow.”

“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 tomorrow.”

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 armchair 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