did hope that Mother wouldn’t mind. You see, she always says that I
am so careless about my clothes, and that it is unkind to Violet, who
has to wear them when I have grown out of them. It does seem hard on
Violet, certainly, because she never spoils anything herself. I think
she’d look neat on a desert island. She really ought to have been born
an eldest. It made it worse, too, because I was wearing my titums. I
suppose every one knows that a titums is your middle-best dress; the
others are hitums and scrub.
Of course, I didn’t stop under the seat all the time, or else I might
have passed the station. I thought afterwards that it was lucky no
one got into the carriage, because grown-up people are so easily
astonished, and they might have thought it funny when I came crawling
out. We only stopped twice before we got to Farncombe, which made it
easier, and I had lots of time to plan what I’d do when we got there.
First of all, though, I tried if both doors of the compartment were
unlocked, because that was part of the plan. They were. I began to feel
like the Young Pretender after Culloden.
Well, it all went beautifully. As the train slowed down to go into
Farncombe Station I jumped out of the door on the other side to our
platform. Then I ran across the line and crouched down by the hedge
until the train had gone off again and everything was quiet. I did
this because the station-master and all the people at Farncombe know
us, and I thought there’d be more fuss. Besides, the station-master is
a most disagreeable man.
I knew there was a hole in the hedge just there, because Humph and
I discovered it one day when Fräulein took us to meet Mother; she’d
missed her train, and so we had to wait a long time. It wasn’t true,
though, that Humph and I first made that hole, like the station-master
said; it was there all the time, though it may have got a teeny bit
larger, but then holes are things that grow fast, like in sheets, but
’specially with woollen gloves. Anyway it was a good thing now that it
had got big, because I was able to find it quite easily and to scramble
through into the field. Nobody saw me, so after waiting a few minutes
more I walked across and got over the stile into the road.
I had quite forgotten that it would be dark for this walk, when I
planned to come home at Mrs. Charlton’s. If I had remembered, I might
not have started, because of thinking that Mother would not like it,
but I should never have guessed that it would be so horrid in itself.
It wasn’t pitch black either, like it sometimes is. I’m not sure it
wasn’t worse, because it was light enough to see all sorts of dreadful
black things all round, and once you get quite outside Farncombe there
aren’t any more lights or houses at all. It was so quiet, too, there
wasn’t a sound. All at once I began to think of mad dogs and St. Denis.
I thought, suppose there was some one coming after me, holding his head
in his hands and looking down at it with his bleeding neck, like in the
picture. I wanted to run dreadfully, but I wouldn’t let myself, because
if you once start, something seems to come after you that will clutch
you with long, clawy fingers if you stop. I thought of Mother instead,
as hard as ever I could, and I’d got the penwiper on still, so I held
that through my clothes. That made it rather better.
Suddenly I saw something in the road moving. I could hardly breathe.
It was awful. But then it came nearer, and I saw it was just an
ordinary man. He had on his head quite all right. He said “Hullo!” and
I said “Good-evening.”
I didn’t think he was a very nice man, though; for he came up quite
close in rather a rude way. He caught hold of me and said, “That’s a
nice brooch you’ve got on,” and I said, “Yes; Father gave it to me last
birthday. It’s real gold.”
The man didn’t answer because just then we heard wheels coming. He
listened for a minute and then he dashed away into the bushes. The
carriage was really on the upper road, so he needn’t have minded. I
didn’t tell that to him, because I didn’t like him much. It was kind of
him, though, to admire my brooch. He was only a common sort of man, so
I dare say he’d never been taught manners and things.
I felt much better and more comfortable after meeting the man. I got
almost directly to where our short cut through the copse begins, and
that made it seem more like home. I thought that I could let myself
begin to run there, because it’s such a little way, but all the same I
did feel frightened before I got to the house. I rushed up to the front
door and tugged at the handle. It was locked!
Well, of course, I might have known that it would be, but at the time
it seemed the worst thing of all. I began screaming out “Mother,
Mother!” and I was all shaking and crying, I don’t know why. Almost
before you’d have thought there was time, the door was pulled back and
Mother had hold of me.
After that it was all right, of course, and almost too nice to
tell. Mother had come running down just as she was, though she said
afterwards that she hadn’t really believed that it could be me, and had
thought that she was dreaming it all. She carried me up and undressed
me and put me into her own bed. I was still rather silly, for I didn’t
seem to be able to say anything, only a line I’d read kept going on
inside my head about “Port after stormy seas.”
Presently, though, Mother began to ask me questions. She kept asking me
if I had really come all the way alone, as if she could hardly believe
it. Each time I said “Yes” she cuddled me again. Then she asked me if
Mrs. Charlton knew; so I ’splained about it. Mother didn’t say anything
hardly then, but she wrote a telegram for Mrs. Charlton to say that
I’d arrived safely, and she put it for the gardener to take to the
post-office the first thing in the morning. Mother got me some milk,
and some cake, which I ate while she went in for a minute to see Humph.
I forgot to say that of course I’d asked about him at the beginning,
and Mother said that he had got much better the last day. Fräulein was
with him, so Mother didn’t have to stay. She came back to me, and I was
so happy it seemed to make me sleepy all at once. It was almost too
lovely to feel that Mother was quite close to me.
The next day it wasn’t so nice, though. Mother talked to me a long
time, and she said a thing that made me feel dreadfully bad; she said
I’d been selfish; I’d thought of my own feelings but not of other
people’s. She said that fortunately Mrs. Charlton had not discovered my
absence until the next morning, but if she had done so she would have
been extremely worried, and, at her age, it might have made her quite
ill. Also she’d have telegraphed home, and Mother says had she known
that I was wandering about the country by myself all night, she could
hardly have borne it, especially when Humphrey was so ill and Father
away. I minded that part much more than about Mrs. Charlton. Mother
looked so unhappy, it was dreadful. I promised and promised I’d never
do such a thing again.
That wasn’t all the disagreeables either. The next day a letter came
from Cousin Sophy in London, asking me and the little ones to stay with
her. She’d been abroad before, and so had only just heard of Humph’s
having measles. Well, Mother wrote to Jane, who was away in lodgings
with the little ones, to tell her to take them to Cousin Sophy’s at the
end of the week, because Mother knew that they’d like it better. But
with regard to me, Mother said she hardly liked to trust me away from
home again.
I minded the not being trusted part, but I didn’t mind the not going
so much when Mother told me, because it seemed so nice to stop at home
with her. But it wasn’t really; it was a great deal horrider than I
could have ’magined. I hardly saw Mother at all because she was looking
after Humphrey all the time, and I wasn’t allowed to go in to him.
As for Fräulein, she was most strict and disagreeable. And then when
Violet wrote she said that Cousin Sophy had taken them to the Zoo and
the Chamber of Horrors, and lots of other lovely places. I did feel
cross.
They are back now, though, and Humph is well, and everything is nice.
I’ve quite settled not to go visiting strangers alone again--no, not as
long as I live. The others are so interested in my adventures, though,
that it almost makes one forget how horrid they really were. Perhaps
the lovely things you read in books are really like that, and even
being a cowboy mayn’t be always nice. And I do think a journey like
mine would be too dreadful for any one if Mother weren’t waiting for
them at the end of it.
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, WOKING AND LONDON.
SOME DAINTY GIFT BOOKS.
TUFFY AND THE MERBOO
BY PHYLLIS M. GOTCH,
Author of “The Romance of a Boo-Bird Chic.”
Seventeen Full-page Coloured Pictures.
_Large 4to_, =6s.=
THE CINEMATOGRAPH TRAIN
BY G. E. FARROW,
Author of the “Wallypug of Why.”
Thirty Drawings by ALAN WRIGHT.
_Large Crown 8vo_, =5s.=
THE GIANT CRAB
BY W. H. D. ROUSE.
Profusely Illustrated by CHARLES ROBINSON.
_Square Crown 8vo_, =3s. 6d.=
R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON,
4, ADAM STREET, STRAND, LONDON;
and 3, FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
FROM THE AUTUMN LIST.
LESSONS
BY EVELYN SHARP,
Author of “Wynips,” etc., etc.
Sketches of Child Life and Character.
_Crown 8vo_, =2s. 6d.= _net_.
ENGLAND: A NATION
BEING
The Papers of the Patriots’ Club
EDITED BY
LUCIAN OLDERSHAW.
_Crown 8vo_, =3s. 6d.= _net_.
Contributors:
G. K. CHESTERTON, Rev. CONRAD NOEL,
H. W. NEVINSON, REGINALD BRAY,
J. L. HAMMOND, C. F. G. MASTERMAN,
and R. C. K. ENSOR.
YOUNG ENGLAND
BEING
Vivian Grey, Coningsby, Sybil, Tancred
BY BENJAMIN DISRAELI.
4 Vols. _Large Crown 8vo, each_ =5s.= _net_.
Edited by B. LANGDON DAVIES.
Illustrated by BYAM SHAW.
J. T. NETTLESHIP
In Memoriam
EDITED BY W. ROTHENSTEIN.
Twenty-four beautiful reproductions of his early symbolic and late
animal work.
Appreciations by W. B. YEATS, Professor ANDREW BRADLEY, A. E. JOHN, and
H. MCILVAINE.
R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.