IN LONDON
"AND what do you want to do to-day?"
"Please, we want to go to see Dawn," was the cry from both Puggy and
Christina.
They had had three days of sight-seeing in town, and it had almost been
too bewildering for Christina. They had been to a pantomime, "Olympia,"
Madame Tussaud's and the Crystal Palace, and now Mr. and Mrs. Maclahan
were going down for the day to Richmond, and the children were to be
left in the charge of Blanche, Mrs. Maclahan's maid, who was a very
staid elderly woman.
They had just finished breakfast in their hotel, and Mr. Maclahan
smiled when he received his answer.
"Ah! I might have guessed that! Now remember! You are to have Blanche
with you when you go. She can call a cab, and take you to see Dawn, and
you can bring him back to lunch."
"But boys don't go about with maids in London," said Puggy rebelliously.
"If you don't like to go out with her, you can stay at home."
Puggy knew the Squire too well by this time to dream of protesting
further, but he prepared himself to be very disagreeable, and when
Puggy was disagreeable, he made every one near him very uncomfortable.
Christina was his butt; when Mr. and Mrs. Maclahan had gone, he made
her shiver in her shoes by his dark descriptions of cab drives in
London.
"The horses are always starved, and they tumble down. I saw a little
girl come crashing through a cab window once, and bits of glass were
sticking in her face just like pins in a pincushion, and it was because
the cab horse tumbled. And all cabmen in London are drunk, and they
drive anyhow, and crash into motor-cars and kill people by hundreds;
and cabs in London are always nearly worn out: their wheels fly off,
and then down they go! If the Squire had let us walk to Dawn's house,
we should have got there safely; but he makes us come in a cab, and
we're positively certain to have an accident, so if we're all killed it
won't be my fault, and I shall tell them so!"
"But," said Christina, trying to disguise her terror at such a
catalogue of evils, "if you're killed, you won't be able to say
anything!"
"Oh, I shall manage to let them know," said Puggy with an emphatic nod
of his round head.
When they started in a four-wheeler, Christina's nerves were on edge.
She clutched hold of Blanche, who sat beside her, and asked her
appealingly if there was any danger.
"Of course there isn't," said Blanche soothingly.
"You're sitting on danger," said Puggy darkly; "this cab smells of
smallpox. A fellow at my school got into a cab just like this and died
of the smallpox a month afterwards. They always take smallpox people in
those cabs—that's why my sister goes in hansoms; she says you're bound
to get awful diseases in these cabs."
"Hold your tongue!" snapped Blanche crossly.
She was peculiarly nervous about taking infection, and Puggy knew it.
Having thoroughly frightened both Blanche and Christina, Puggy began
to enjoy himself. But the pleasures of that drive were over to poor
Christina. Every jolt of the cab meant a wheel off to her, every block
in the streets meant collision, every application of the cabman's whip,
and a corresponding start of the horse, meant a tumble and certain
death. Then she remembered her text and repeated it over to herself.
"God can take care of me," she thought, and her fears began to slip
away.
Still, when they arrived in Kensington, and were put down at Dawn's
home, Christina drew a long sigh of relief.
"I expect he'll be as cocky as a sparrow," said Puggy, as they mounted
the steps and rang the bell; "but I shan't let him cheek me!"
The servant who answered the door showed them into a very small
drawing-room.
"Yes, Master Dawn is at home; he is in the studio with his father. I
will let him know."
"You mustn't stay here long," said Blanche; "for the cabman is waiting,
and if Master Dawn can come back with us, he must do it at once."
The door flew open as she spoke, and Dawn appeared, looking more
radiant than ever. He embraced Christina, thumped Puggy on the back and
danced up and down with ecstasy.
"How scrumptious! I never knew you were in London. Oh what ripping fun
we'll have! I have ten days' more holidays, and if those aren't enough
to do everything in, I'll take French leave, and add on a few more
days."
"You're to come back to lunch with us," said Puggy grandly.
"Hurrah! How did you come? On the top of a 'bus?"
"In a stuffy cab. It's waiting now."
"A 'bus is much jollier! Come and see dad. Tina, he's working at your
picture: the one with the hounds. It's nearly finished, and we have
such a lovely hound lent to us. He goes any way you want him to; I want
to make him stand on his head, but dad won't let me."
"They must only stay five minutes," said Blanche, but they never heard
her, they were all racing upstairs to Mr. O'Flagherty's studio.
It was a much larger room than that in his country cottage. Christina
looked round it with interest. There were rich coloured stuffs draped
over screens, beautiful pictures, bits of armour, china bowls, and
all sorts of queer pieces of furniture. The artist was working away,
palette in hand. Dawn's corner was soon discovered. A plate of oranges
on a stool, some shavings of wood and a knife, and various boy's
playthings scattered round showed where he had been working.
"Oh, dad, isn't this luck?" Dawn exclaimed. "Say good-bye for the day,
for you won't see me before bedtime; and won't you be jolly glad to get
rid of me!"
Mr. O'Flagherty turned round and nodded to Puggy and Christina.
"You've brought a whiff of the country with you," he said. "Well, Tina,
have you been defying any more savage sportsmen?"
"She's been defying a drunk pedlar," said Puggy.
"What? Oh, this is delicious! Tell me all about it. Dawn, hand the
oranges round. Don't you forget your hospitality."
So the story of Susy and her father was told. Mr. O'Flagherty chuckled
with delight over it, and laughed at Christina's solemn face. The
recital to her meant a recital of Susy's woes and courage. Her own part
in it was a very small one in her own estimation.
"Bravo, little Scotland!" said the artist. "Go through the world with
your back up and fists out for the oppressed. I wish it had been my
Jack-in-the-box. Whose cause will you undertake next, I wonder? Plenty
need a champion in this big city."
"I wish you'd chuck Blanche out of the cab, Tina," said Puggy; "then
you would be good for something. If she wasn't a woman, but just a
fellow like me, I'd do it myself with the greatest pleasure!"
"I'll show you round London in a jiffy!" cried Dawn. "I know the way,
don't I, dad?"
"There isn't much you don't know!" retorted his father.
They stayed chatting a few minutes longer, and then Dawn struggled into
his greatcoat, and accompanied them downstairs.
"Oh," he said, as they got into the cab together, "we'll do some lovely
things together! Tell me what you've done."
Their tongues went fast. At the bottom of Hanover Square they got out
and walked the rest of the way to their hotel. Dawn thoroughly enjoyed
himself. He liked seeing the different people come in and out of the
rooms, and invented a story at once about each of them. They in their
turn looked at the pretty curly-headed boy with great interest.
The three children sat down to a luncheon table by themselves. Puggy
was in his element now.
"I should like to clear the world of women," he asserted. "I shall have
nothing but men servants in my house when I grow up. I hate Blanche and
that girl Connie being with us. It's like being with nurses again."
"I'll take you to see some of dad's pictures this afternoon," said
Dawn. "They're in a gallery with some others in Bond Street. That's
close here, you know. I can go in free. The gatekeeper knows me."
"Blanche will have to come with us," said Christina.
"Oh no, she won't. Dad lets me go about alone."
"Yes, Dawn is quite enough for us," said Puggy. "And we'll go out the
very minute we've had enough to eat."
"But I couldn't," said Christina; "it wouldn't be right!"
"It will be right if I say it is," cried Dawn gaily.
Christina was silent. The idea of going out with the two boys without
Blanche sounded very tempting.
"The Squire only said Blanche was to come with us when we went to
Dawn," argued Puggy.
"I shan't feel comfortable," said Christina; "my conscience will bother
me so."
"Oh, your conscience is all stuff; it is a rotten egg, your conscience
is!"
Puggy's tone had supreme contempt in it.
"Dad says," Dawn asserted thoughtfully, conveying some apple tart to
his mouth, "that the Scotch people's consciences make them dour; he
says we have too little of it, and they have too much."
"Well, my conscience is just right," said Puggy. "I'm neither Scotch or
Irish, so you listen to me, Tina. My conscience says go."
"Are you really listening to it?" questioned Christina anxiously.
"Of course I am, you stupid!"
"We'll just tell Blanche what we mean to do," suggested Dawn, pushing
his chair away. "You leave her to me. I'll manage her. And if she says
we can go, it will be all right."
Blanche had a great desire to go out shopping on her own account, so
when Dawn with specious arguments convinced her that they would only
walk up one street and down another, and come straight back to tea
after seeing the pictures, she reluctantly gave her consent.
The three children started from the hotel in the highest spirits. Even
Christina, now that her conscience was eased, felt the force of Dawn's
gay humour.
He told them the drollest anecdotes, and was brimful of mischievous
devices for spending the next few days.
"Not been to the Zoo? Of course we'll go there. We'll do it to-morrow.
I've learnt the way to drive an elephant. A friend of dad's told me.
He's been in India; and we'll get on the elephant's back and make
him gallop! Wouldn't it be fun to tear out of the gardens and come
galloping down Regent Street on him! What a sight we should be! Now
come on, here we are, and its awful fun to hear what people say about
dad's pictures! There's one of me, when I was quite a youngster, and
I'm sitting in the sea; and then there are the three pictures, 'Dawn'
and 'Day' and 'Dusk.' I can tell you those are fine!"
They were at the gallery by the turnstile; the ticket collector looked
at Dawn rather sternly.
"What do you want here again?" he demanded.
"I'm showing some friends round," Dawn said airily. "Don't mind us. I
have dad's card in my pocket, and we shan't stay long."
"Sixpence each, and that's only asking half-price. If you goes in free,
a tail o' children after you don't!"
Puggy tossed the man a shilling with the grandest air.
"Take that and let us through without any more of your cheek!" he said.
Dawn's face was crimson with mortification. He felt in his pockets, and
then laughed his sunny laugh.
"I'm a penniless Paddy," he said, "or I'd pay it for you; but I'll be
even with that fellow yet, for insulting my friends! Come on. Now what
would you say if your father had painted pictures like that?"
He led them triumphantly to a small room, and there in the centre were
three large pictures. A group of people were before them discussing
them, and Dawn on tiptoe, with his finger on his lips, crept up to
listen.
Christina was feasting her eyes, not her ears. The first picture was a
portrait of Dawn, and a very lovely picture he made. He was represented
as just waking up in the centre of a great forest, the sun was rising,
though not actually in sight. Its pale golden light surrounded by a
slight morning mist, edged the horizon between some grand-looking
pines. It was a picture that portrayed not only the dawn of youth, but
the dawn of day and the dawn of summer. Everything was young and fresh;
the baby bracken was softly uncurling, the buds of tree and bush all
unfolding; a nest of young birds, a group of tiny rabbits, and a timid
frightened fawn peering through the bushes at the waking child were all
depicted with power that was akin to genius. The child was the centre
of it all, and with his flushed and dimpled face, the disordered curls
on his forehead, his sleepy eyes, and his little limbs in the act of
stretching themselves, was a life-like sketch.
"What a lovely idea!" said a young girl enthusiastically. "And what a
pretty boy! I long to take him up in my lap and kiss him!"
Dawn looked back at Puggy and Christina with mischief in his glance,
then he sauntered boldly in front of the girl and looked at her.
When she caught his eye, he took off his hat with a low bow.
"Thank you!" he said, and then his flying feet carried him out of
sight into an adjoining room before the young girl could get over her
astonishment. Puggy followed him, but Christina stayed, and let her
eyes take her to the next picture.
"Day" was simply the picture of a handsome, vigorous young blacksmith
working at his forge; children were grouped round the door on their way
to school; the sunshine outside and the glowing fire in the darkened
forge were managed with consummate skill. "Dusk" was the third picture,
and Christina could not tear herself away from this. An old man
sitting in the twilight by the sick-bed of his old wife. That was the
subject of it, but the gloom and pathos in his resigned expression and
attitude, and the sad and wistful glance of his dying wife, as her face
was turned towards him, brought the tears to the little girl's eyes.
"Oh, why do they look so unhappy!" she exclaimed aloud.
"Why? Because they are meeting their doom, the doom of us all—decay and
death!"
Christina started nervously at the voice close to her. Turning, she saw
an old man behind her leaning on his stick, and gazing intently upon
the picture.
"But if you die, you go to Jesus," said Christina simply, "and that's a
happy thing to do; Miss Bertha says it is."
The old man put his hand on her shoulder:
"Say it again, child, I like to hear it. I am in the dusk of my life.
The dusk before darkness."
"And the darkness before light."
A gentle-looking woman murmured these words as she passed by, and the
old man gazed after her with a sudden gleam of brightness in his eye.
Then he turned to Christina:
"I am fond of little girls," he said. "I had a little girl of my own
once, and when she was as small as you, she used to sit on my knee and
ask me to tell her stories. Have you come here alone?"
"No," said Christina, a sudden panic seizing her, "I'm with Puggy and
Dawn, and—and I believe they have left me!"
She looked wildly round. A sense of being lost in London rushed over
her, but a minute afterwards, she caught sight of Puggy the other end
of the room, and she dashed across to him.
"Oh, don't leave me," she gasped. "I thought you had gone away. Where
is Dawn?"
"At some of his monkey tricks. I don't care for pictures; come on out,
Tina."
"But we can't go without Dawn, where is he?"
"He's talking to two ladies; they seem to know him. We were just
beginning to have a game of hide and seek, and he was under one of
those seats when the ladies sat down, and then he mewed like a cat, and
they sprang up in an awful fright, and then he crawled out and begged
their pardon, and talked as if the whole place belonged to him, and
they said they knew his father, and whilst they were jawing I came off."
"We can't go away without Dawn. Don't you like pictures, Puggy? I love
them; do let us see some more. Look at that little girl on horseback
over there, who is she I wonder?"
"I know I'd like to be on horseback," muttered Puggy; "this is too slow
for me. I want to get out of it."
Dawn came skipping up to them, quite unconscious that Puggy was
becoming bored.
"Isn't it nice here?" he said. "The rooms are so big. Have you seen
dad's pictures, Tina?"
"Puggy is tired of it, he wants to go."
"All right, we will; and we'll go and have some tea in a shop. I know
where to take you. Dad and I always go there."
Christina very reluctantly left the pictures and followed the boys out
into the street. It was Dawn's way she knew, to be always changing
his programme. But when they left the gallery, which had been lighted
throughout with electricity, they found that outside, thick darkness
prevailed.
"Is it night?" asked Christina with fright in her tone.
"No, it's a regular pea soup fog; isn't it fun? Come on, you follow me!
I know the way."
"Don't go so fast," pleaded Christina; "and, please, don't cross the
street. I can't see the horses and carts properly, and I shall be run
over."
"This is the kind of day you get robbed," announced Dawn. "Burglars
and pickpockets always come along in a fog. Mind if any one takes hold
of you, you hit him straight in the face with your fist. Do you hear,
Christina? You aren't afraid any more, are you?"
"Oh," cried Christina clutching hold of his arm, "I'm very, very much
afraid just now!"
Everything seemed far away. The lights in the shops, the lamps on the
carriages, seemed literally vanishing; and at last she gasped out: "Do
you think it's the Judgment Day? Perhaps God has taken the sun right
away?"
Both boys laughed; and then suddenly—Christina never knew how it
was—there was a crowd of people, she became detached from the boys; and
before she had time to call after them, she was alone by herself in the
foggy London street.