Nellie half sprang from her seat at this unexpected addition to their
little party, uttering a scream of terror the while, as genuine as it
was shrill and ear-piercing.
She was a slight, delicate-looking girl of twelve, with a shower of
curls of the colour of light gold that rippled over her forehead and
shoulders and down her back, reaching well-nigh to her waist; and it
seemed almost impossible that such a fairy-like little creature could
have uttered such a volume of sound.
However, she did it; and then, satisfied apparently with having exerted
herself so far for the protection of all, Miss Nellie crouched down in
the corner of the carriage behind Bob, who, two years her elder and a
stoutly-built boy for his age, with short-cropped hair of a tawnier
tinge, stood up sturdily in front of his trembling little sister to
defend her, if need be, as manfully as he could.
But, the gallant old Captain was first in the field, jumping forward
with an agility of which neither Bob nor Nellie thought him capable;
and, in an instant, he had clutched hold of the intruder.
"Who the dickens are you?" he cried, shaking him as a terrier would a
rat. "What the dickens do you want here, confound you!"
"Please don't, ma-aster," gasped out a half-suffocated voice. "I be
a'most shook to pieces!"
"Humph! `when taken to be well shaken,' that's what doctors advise, eh?"
said the Captain, somewhat sternly, although with a sly chuckle at his
witty illustration of the phrase, as, with a strong muscular effort, he
raised up the struggling figure he had clutched hold of and proceeded to
inspect his capture--a lanky woebegone lad, whose rugged garments and
general appearance was by no means improved by the rough handling he had
received in the grip of the old sailor, who, as he now put him on his
feet and released him, repeated his original imperative inquiry, "Who
the dickens are you and what do you want here?"
"Please, sir, I ain't a-doing nothink," snivelled the lad, screwing his
knuckles into his eyes, as if preparing to cry, each word being
sandwiched between a sob and a sniff. "I--ain't--a-doing--nothink!"
"Doing nothing?" echoed the Captain indignantly, overcome apparently by
the enormity of the culprit's offence. "Why, you young scoundrel, here
you have been and gone and committed a burglary, breaking into a
railway-carriage like this, besides nearly frightening the occupants to
death; and, you call that nothing! Do you know, if I were on the Bench,
I could sentence you to penal servitude?"
"Oh, pray don't, Captain Dresser, please!" cried out Bob and Nellie
together, impressed with the terrible powers of the law as thus
presented to their view and the extent of the Captain's authority. "He
really did not mean any harm, poor fellow, I am sure he didn't!"
"Then what did he do it for?" asked the old gentleman snappishly, though
both could see, from the merry twinkle in his eyes, that he was not in
such a bad temper as he pretended to be. "What did he do it for?
That's what I'd like to know!"
But, even the stranger lad, who had so unceremoniously intruded into the
carriage, seemed to become aware as he confronted him that the Captain's
`bark was worse than his bite'; for, dropping his snivel and looking his
questioner manfully in the face, he at once went on to tell who he was
and explain the reasons for his unexpected appearance on the scene--his
earnest accents and honest outspokenness testifying to the truth of his
statement in the opinion, not only of Bob and Nellie, but of the whilom
grumpy old Captain as well.
The lad said that his name was Dick Allsop and that he belonged to
Guildford, the last station the train had passed, and the only one at
which it had stopped since leaving Waterloo. His father had died some
years before, but his mother had lately got married again to a regular
brute of a man, who behaved very badly to her and treated Dick, he
averred, so cruelly, that he could not stand it any longer. That very
morning, Dick stated; he had beaten him so unmercifully that he had
suddenly determined to run away to sea; and this was the reason why he
wanted to get to Portsmouth.
"But, you might have entered the carriage like a Christian!" interposed
the Captain at this point of the lad's story. "The train stopped long
enough at Guildford for you to get in through the doorway, like any
ordinary passenger, surely?"
"No, sir, I couldn't," answered the other. "I couldn't a-done it."
"But why not?"
"Because, sir," snivelled the lad, "I didn't have no money, sir."
"Humph! you had no money, eh?"
"No, sir; nothing but thrippence-a'penny, which mother gave me afore I
started, when she wished me good-bye. She was sorry as how she could
give me nothing more; and so I couldn't pay the fare, and had no
ticket."
"So, my joker, you got on the train without one at all!" said the
Captain, interrupting him. "Do you know that was really cheating the
railway company?"
"I knows it, sir," replied Dick Allsop, who had better now be called by
his own proper name, looking down as if ashamed of what he had done. "I
knows it's wrong; but, sir, I couldn't help it, as there was no other
way I seed of getting to Porchmouth."
"But, why didn't you jump into the carriage like a Christian, as I said
just now?" observed the Captain. "Eh?"
Dick seemed amused by this question.
"Does yer think, sir, the porters would ha' let me if they'd seed me a-
trying it on?" said he, with a radiant grin that lit up his face, quite
changing its expression. "Not if they, knowed it!"
"Perhaps not," agreed the Captain, nonplussed by the lad's logic and
knowledge of human nature. "No, I don't think they would."
"No, sir; that they wouldn't," exclaimed the runaway triumphantly, as if
he knew all about that matter at any rate. "So, sir, I waits down by
the side o' the line, where I lays hid, sir, without nobody a-seeing me;
and then, jist as the train was started and quite clear o' the station,
a-going into the tunnel as ain't fur off, as yer know, sir--?"
"Yes, I know the line, my lad," said Captain Dresser. "I ought to!"
"Well, sir, there I climbs on by the buffers and coupling-chain of the
guard's van to the step of the end carriage, and works myself along till
I reaches this; when, drawing myself up and looking in through the
windy, I thought I would get in here, not seeing nobody but young ma-
aster and little missis in the corner--"
"You didn't see me, eh?" questioned the Captain, with one of his
quizzical chuckles. "You didn't see me, I'll wager."
"No, sir, or I wouldn't have tried it on," confessed Dick, with the most
open candour. "I would a-been afeard like."
"Lucky for you that you did, though," said Captain Dresser, his little
black beady eyes blinking away furiously. "If you had got in anywhere
and not come across such a good-natured old donkey as myself, you would
have had the signal-bell rung to summon the guard, who would have
stopped the train and given you in custody at the next station for
travelling without a ticket! But what are you going to do now, eh?"
"Please, sir, I dunno," replied Dick, looking puzzled.
"Humph, that's a pretty state of things for an independent young
gentleman running away to sea!" said the Captain in a quizzing tone.
"Do you know you're not half out of the scrape yet? You have got into
the train all right; but, how are you going to get out of it, eh--tell
me that, my lad?"
"I dunno, sir," again answered Dick laconically, still seeming unmoved
by the critical nature of his position--"I dunno, sir."
"Drat the boy!" exclaimed the Captain impatiently, stamping his foot.
"There you are again with your `dunno!' Why, when we arrive at
Portsmouth, the collector will be asking for your ticket; what will you
say then, eh?"
"I thought, sir, of jumping out afore the train got there, sir," said
Dick, scratching his head reflectively. "Aye, I did."
"Broke your neck, probably!" growled the old Captain. "The best thing
that could have happened to you, my lad."
Bob and Nellie meanwhile had been whispering together and comparing
notes apparently as to the state of their respective funds; for, Nellie
had extracted a little leather purse from some hidden receptacle in her
dress, while Bob was feeling in his pockets. Before either could speak,
however, Captain Dresser anticipated their evident intention.
"Suppose now I paid your fare for you?" he went on, addressing Dick.
"What would you say to that, eh?"
"Lor', sir, I'd be orful grateful, that I'd be, sir--I would indeed,
sir," eagerly replied the lad in an outburst of thankfulness; "and if,
sir, I could work it out in any way so as to repay the money, I'd be
that glad yer wouldn't know me."
"Humph!" grunted the Captain again. "We'll see about that."
Bob and Nellie, both of whom had been listening with intense interest to
Dick's cross-examination, were quite carried away with enthusiasm at
this happy termination of the animated discussion that had gone on.
"Oh, you dear Captain," cried Nellie, hugging the old sailor
rapturously. "You've just done what Bob and I wished."
"Have I?" said he smiling. "I don't see it, I'm sure."
"Yes, you have, you have," she replied impulsively. "Bob and I were
just going to offer the same thing when you took the words out of our
mouth."
"And the money out of my pocket, eh?" slyly added the Captain with a
chuckle--"eh, missy?"
"But we'd like to pay too," said Bob. "Let us go shares, sir."
"Not a bit of it," retorted the other, blinking away as he always
appeared to do when excited. "That was only my joke. I will pay his
fare for him when we get to Portsmouth; for, I like the pluck of the lad
in climbing on to the train like that, and not being daunted by
obstacles in carrying out a planned purpose. Can't say much for his
looks though. He seems to me half-starved."
The latter observation was uttered in an undertone, the Captain having
too much delicacy to comment on Dick's appearance in his hearing. Miss
Nellie, however, acted instantly on the suggestion, which gave it a
practical turn.
"Are you hungry, poor boy," she asked Dick--"very hungry?"
"No, miss," he answered humbly; "not pertick'ler, I be."
"But you could eat a sandwich, perhaps?" said she, opening a parcel
which their mother had put up for the refreshment of Bob and herself
during their journey. "Don't you think you could?"
Dick's eyes glistened.
"I'll try, miss," said he, trying to speak calmly; although they could
see that he was really almost ravenous at the sight of the food. "I
thinks as how I could eat a mou'ful."
"Give him the lot, poor chap," cried the old Captain; but Nellie did not
need this admonition, being in the very act of handing over the parcel
of sandwiches to Dick even while the old sailor spoke. "There's no good
in his making two bites of a cherry, as the saying goes."
"Eat these, my poor boy," cried Nellie. "Bob and I had buns at Waterloo
before the train started, and we shan't want anything till we get to
auntie's house."
"Fire away, old chap!" chimed in Bob, noticing that the lad hesitated a
moment in accepting the proffered gift. "You needn't be afraid. Nellie
and I are not hungry like you."
Bob's friendly tone, coupled with the sight of the tempting viands, at
once removed any of Dick's lingering scruples; and, in another minute,
he was gobbling up the sandwiches like a famished wolf--his fellow-
travellers looking on with the utmost complacency and satisfaction at
the rapidity with which he got rid of them, bolting the little squares
of bread and meat one by one.
All this time, the engine was puffing and snorting away as if it had a
bad attack of asthma, giving a fierce pull every now and then to the
dragging carriages behind it; while, when the stalwart iron horse
occasionally loitered in his paces or slackened speed in going round a
sharp curve on the line, the coupling-chains would rattle as they lost
their tension and the buffers of the carriages behind, going faster for
the moment than the engine, would come together with a bang that
vibrated through the marrow-bones of all!
The scenery altered, too, every instant along the route; the wooded
heights around Guildford and Godalming and Haslemere, which the poet
Tennyson loved and where he lived and died, being succeeded by a stretch
of level landscape, and this again by the steep bare hills encircling
sleepy Petersfield.
Presently, a range of downs came in sight, curving away in horse-shoe
fashion from right to left, on which were a series of red-brick,
detached structures, placed along the topmost ridge at equal intervals
apparently, until they were lost in the distance.
As they approached these nearer, Miss Nellie's sharp eyes noticed that
on the landward side these brick piles were covered with a slant of
smoothly-shaven green turf that contrasted conspicuously with the chalky
surface of the sloping ridge.
"What funny things those are!" said she, pointing these out to Bob.
"Are they houses, or tombs, or what?"
"Where, what do you mean?" asked the Captain, turning round from his
contemplation of Dick, who, having finished the packet of sandwiches,
was now carefully searching the piece of newspaper in which they had
been wrapped up on the chance of there being a few stray crumbs left.
"Why, hullo, here we are close to our destination! Those `funny
things,' as you style them, missy, are the Portsdown forts--you are not
far out though, in your estimate of their appearance, for they're called
`Palmerston's Follies' by the political wags here."
"Are we near Portsmouth then?" said Nellie, peering out anxiously. "I
don't see anything!"
"Oh yes, missy, quite near," replied the Captain, also looking out of
the window. "There's Havant just in front. Don't you smell the sea?"
"Yes, Captain, yes, I do! Yes, I do!" cried Bob and Nellie together,
clapping their hands. "Isn't it nice! Isn't it jolly!"--Bob, it may be
taken for granted, using the latter term of approbation; Nellie adding
on her own private account another, "Ah, how nice!"
"Well, that's a matter of opinion," said Captain Dresser dryly, his
experiences of the fickle element not having, perhaps, always been
pleasant ones; but, before he could explain this, the train, with a
piercing shriek of warning from the steam-whistle of the engine, glided
into the station.
"Hav-'nt! Hav-'nt!" shouted the porters with lungs of brass and voices
of leather or gutta-percha. "Hav-'nt! Hav-'nt!"
"That's just what this boy will say when the guard asks him presently
for his ticket, or the money for his fare," said the Captain, with his
comical chuckle and merry twinkle of his bird-like eyes, pointing to
Dick as the ticket-collector banged open the door of the carriage as if
trying to wrench it off its hinges and held out his hand. "He haven't
got his ticket. Hav-n't, you see, my dears! Ha--ha--ha!"