in Bills of Parcels, which disgusted him as a business man, by the
glaring improbability of their details, his eye wandered furtively down
the long tables to where the Doctor sat at the head of the class. Every
chance movement of the principal's elbow filled him with a sickening
dread. A hundred times did those rudely carved letters seem about to
start forth and denounce him.
It was a disquieting afternoon for Paul.
But the time dragged wearily on, and still the desk loyally kept its
secret. The dusk drew on and the gas-burners were lit. The younger boys
came up from the lower class-room and were sent out to play; the Doctor
shortly afterwards dismissed his own class to follow them, and Paul and
his companions had the room to themselves.
He sat there on the rough form with his slate before him, hearing
half-unconsciously the shouts, laughter, and ring of feet coming up from
the darkness outside, and the faint notes of a piano, which filtered
through the double doors from one of the rooms, where a boy was
practising Haydn's "Surprise," from Hamilton's exercise book, a surprise
which he rendered as a mildly interjectional form of astonishment.
All the time Paul was racked with an intense burning desire to get up
and run for it then, before it became too late; but cold fits of doubt
and fear preserved him from such lunacy--he would wait, his chance might
come before long.
His patience was rewarded; the Doctor came in, looking at his watch, and
said, "I think these boys have had enough of it, Mr. Tinkler, eh? You
can send them out now till tea-time."
Mr. Tinkler, who had been entangling himself frightfully in intricate
calculations upon the blackboard, without making a single convert, was
only too glad to take advantage of the suggestion, and Paul followed the
rest into the playground with a sense of relief.
The usual "chevy" was going on there, with more spirit than usual,
perhaps, because the darkness allowed of practical jokes and surprises,
and offered great facilities for paying off old grudges with secrecy and
despatch, and as the Doctor had come to the door of the greenhouse, and
was looking on, the players exerted themselves still more, till the
"prison" to which most of one side had been consigned by being run down
and touched by their fleeter enemies was filled with a long line of
captives holding hands and calling out to be released.
Paul, who had run out vaguely from his base, was promptly pursued and
made prisoner by an unnecessarily vigorous thump in the back, after
which he took his place at the bottom of the line of imprisoned ones.
But the enemy's spirit began to slacken; one after another of the
players still left to the opposite side succeeded in outrunning pursuit
and touching the foremost prisoner for the time being, so as to set him
free by the rules of the game. The Doctor went in again, and the enemy
relapsed as usual into total indifference, so that Paul, without exactly
knowing how, soon found himself the only one left in gaol, unnoticed and
apparently forgotten.
He could not see anything through the darkness, but he heard the voices
of the boys disputing at the other side of the playground; he looked
round; at his right was the indistinct form of a large laurel bush,
behind that he knew was the playground gate. Could it be that his chance
had come at last?
He slipped behind the laurel and waited, holding his breath; the dispute
still went on; no one seemed to have noticed him, probably the darkness
prevented all chance of that; he went on tip-toe to the gate--it was not
locked.
He opened it very carefully a little way; it was forbearing enough not
to creak, and the next moment he was outside, free to go where he would!
Escape, after all, was simple enough when he came to try it; he could
hardly believe at first that he really was free at last; free with money
enough in his pocket to take him home, with the friendly darkness to
cover his retreat; free to go back and confront Dick on his own ground,
and, by force, or fraud, get the Garuda Stone into his own hands once
more.
As yet he never doubted that it would be easy enough to convince his
household, if necessary, of the truth of his story, and enlist them one
and all on his side; all that he required, he thought, was caution; he
must reach the house unobserved, and wait and watch, and the deuce would
be in it if the stone were not safe in his pocket again before twelve
hours had gone by.
All this time he was still within a hundred yards or so of the
playground wall; he must decide upon some particular route, some
definite method of ordering his flight; to stay where he was any longer
would clearly be unwise, yet, where should he go first?
If he went to the station at once, how could he tell that he should be
lucky enough to catch a train without having to wait long for it, and
unless he did that, he would almost certainly be sought for first on the
station platform, and might be caught before a train was due?
At last, with an astuteness he had not suspected himself of possessing,
which was probably the result of the harrowing experiences he had lately
undergone, he hit upon a plan of action. "I'll go to a shop," he
thought, "and change this sovereign, and ask to look at a
timetable--then, if I find I can catch a train at once, I'll run for it;
if one is not due for some time, I can hang about near the station till
it comes in."
With this intention he walked on towards the town till he came to a
small terrace of shops, when he went into the first, which was a
stationer's and toy-dealer's, with a stock in trade of cheap wooden toys
and incomprehensible games, drawing slates, penny packets of stationery
and cards of pen and pencil-holders, and a particularly stuffy
atmosphere; the proprietor, a short man with a fat white face with a
rich glaze all over it and a fringe of ragged brown whisker meeting
under his chin, was sitting behind the counter posting up his ledger.
Paul looked round the shop in search of something to purchase, and at
last said, more nervously than he expected to do, "I want a pencil-case,
one which screws up and down." He thought a pencil-case would be an
innocent, unsuspicious thing to ask for. The man set rows of cards
containing pencil-cases of every imaginable shape on the counter before
him, and when Mr. Bultitude had chosen and paid for one, the stationer
asked if there would be anything else, and if he might send it for him.
"You're one of Dr. Grimstone's young gentlemen up at Crichton House,
aren't you, sir?" he added.
A guilty dread of discovery made Paul anxious to deny this at once.
"No," he said; "oh no; no connection with the place. Ah, could you allow
me to look at a time-table?"
"Certainly, sir; expectin' some one to-night or to-morrow p'raps. Let me
see," he said, consulting a table which hung behind him. "There's a
train from Pancras comes in in half an hour from now, 6.5 that is;
there's another doo at 8.15, and one at 9.30. Then from Liverpool Street
they run----"
"Thank you," said Mr. Bultitude, "but--but I want the up-trains."
"Ah," said the man, with a rather peculiar intonation, "I thought maybe
your par or mar was comin' down. Ain't Dr. Grimstone got the times the
trains go?"
"Yes," said Paul desperately, without very well knowing what he said,
"yes, he has, but ah, not for this month; he--he sent me to inquire."
"Did he though?" said the stationer. "I thought you wasn't one of his
young gentlemen?"
Mr. Bultitude saw what a fearful trap he had fallen into and stood
speechless.
"Go along with you!" said the little stationer at last, with a not
unkindly grin. "Lor bless you, I knew your face the minnit you come in.
To go and tell me a brazen story like that! You're a young pickle, you
are!"
Mr. Bultitude began to shuffle feebly towards the door. "Pickle, eh?" he
protested in great discomposure. "No, no. Heaven knows I'm no pickle.
It's of no consequence about those trains. Don't trouble. Good evening
to you."
"Stop," said the man, "don't be in such a nurry now. You tell me what
you want to know straightforward, and I don't mean to say as I won't
help you so far as I can. Don't be afraid of my telling no tales. I've
bin a schoolboy myself in my time, bless your 'art. I shouldn't wonder
now if I couldn't make a pretty good guess without telling at what
you're after. You've bin a catchin' of it hot, and you want to make a
clean bolt of it. I ain't very far off, now, am I?"
"No," said Paul; for something in the man's manner inspired confidence.
"I do want to make a bolt of it. I've been most abominably treated."
"Well, look here, I ain't got no right to interfere; and if you're
caught, I look to you not to bring my name in. I don't want to get into
trouble up at Crichton House and lose good customers, you see. But I
like the looks of you, and you've always dealt 'ere pretty regular. I
don't mind if I give you a lift. Just see here. You want to get off to
London, don't you? What for is your business, not mine. Well, there's a
train, express, stops at only one station on the way, in at 5.50. It's
twenty minnits to six now. If you take that road just oppersite, it'll
bring you out at the end of the Station Road; you can do it easy in ten
minnits and have time to spare. So cut away, and good luck to you?"
"I'm vastly obliged to you," said Paul, and he meant it. It was a new
experience to find anyone offering him assistance. He left the close
little shop, crossed the road, and started off in the direction
indicated to him at a brisk trot.
His steps rang out cheerfully on the path ironbound with frost. He was
almost happy again under the exhilarating glow of unusual exercise and
the excitement of escape and regained freedom.
He ran on, past a series of villa residences enclosed in varnished
palings and adorned with that mediaeval abundance of turrets, balconies,
and cheap stained-glass, which is accepted nowadays as a guarantee of
the tenant's culture, and a satisfactory substitute for effective
drainage. After the villas came a church, and a few yards farther on the
road turned with a sharp curve into the main thoroughfare leading to the
station.
He was so near it that he could hear the shrill engine whistles, and the
banging of trucks on the railway sidings echoed sharply from the
neighbouring houses. He was saved, in sight of haven at last!
Full of delight at the thought, he put on a still greater pace, and
turning the corner without looking, ran into a little party of three,
which was coming in the opposite direction.
Fate's vein of irony was by no means worked out yet. As he was
recovering from the collision, and preparing to offer or accept an
apology, as the case might be, he discovered to his horror that he had
fallen amongst no strangers.
The three were his old acquaintances, Coker, Coggs, and the virtuous
Chawner--of whom he had fondly hoped to have seen the last for ever!
The moral and physical shock of such an encounter took all Mr.
Bultitude's remaining breath away. He stood panting under the sickly
rays of a street-lamp, the very incarnation of helpless, hopeless
dismay.
"Hallo!" said Coker, "it's young Bultitude!"
"What do you mean by cannoning into a fellow like this?" said Coggs.
"What are you up to out here, eh?"
"If it comes to that," said Paul, casting about for some explanation of
his appearance, "what are you up to here?"
"Why," said Chawner, "if you want to know, Dick, we've been to fetch the
_St. James' Gazette_ for the Doctor. He said I might go if I liked, and
I asked for Coker and Coggs to come too; because there was something I
wanted to tell them, very important, and I have told them, haven't I,
Corny?"
Coggs growled sulkily; Coker gave a tragic groan, and said: "I don't
care when you tell, Chawner. Do it to-night if you like. Let's talk
about something else. Bultitude hasn't told us yet how he came out here
after us."
His last words suggested a pretext to Paul, of which he hastened to make
use. "Oh," he said, "I? I came out here, after you, to say that Dr.
Grimstone will not require the _St. James' Gazette_. He wants the
_Globe_ and, ah, the _Star_ instead."
It did not sound a very probable combination; but Paul used the first
names that occurred to him, and, as it happened, aroused no suspicions,
for the boys read no newspapers.
"Well, we've got the other now," said Coker. "We shall have to go back
and get the fellow at the bookstall to change it, I suppose. Come on,
you fellows!"
This was at least a move in the right direction; for the three began at
once to retrace their steps. But, unfortunately, all these explanations
had taken time, and before they had gone many yards, Mr. Bultitude was
horrified to hear the station-bell ring loudly, and immediately after a
cloud of white steam rose above the station roof as the London train
clanked cumbrously in, and was brought to with a prolonged screeching of
brakes.
The others were walking very slowly. At the present pace it would be
almost impossible to reach the train in time. He looked round at them
anxiously. "H-hadn't we better run, don't you think?" he asked.
"Run!" said Coker scornfully. "What for? I'm not going to run. You can,
if you like."
"Why, ah, really," said Paul briskly, very grateful for the permission;
"do you know, I think I will!"
And run he did, with all his might, rushing headlong through the gates,
threading his way between the omnibuses and under the Roman noses of the
mild fly-horses in the enclosure, until at length he found himself
inside the little booking-office.
He was not too late; the train was still at the platform, the engine
getting up steam with a dull roar. But he dared not risk detection by
travelling without a ticket. There was time for that, too. No one was at
the pigeon-hole but one old lady.
But, unhappily, the old lady considered taking a ticket as a solemn rite
to be performed with all due caution and deliberation. She had already
catechised the clerk upon the number of stoppages during her proposed
journey, and exacted earnest assurances from him that she would not be
called upon to change anywhere in the course of it; and as Paul came up
she was laying out the purchase-money for her ticket upon the ledge and
counting it, which, the fare being high and the coins mostly halfpence,
seemed likely to take some time.
"One moment, ma'am, if you please," cried Mr. Bultitude, panting and
desperate. "I'm pressed for time."
"Now you've gone and put me out, little boy," said the old lady fussily.
"I shall have to begin all over again. Young man, will you take and
count the other end and see if it adds up right? There's a halfpenny
wrong somewhere; I know there is."
"Now then," shouted the guard from the platform. "Any more going on?"
"I'm going on!" said Paul. "Wait for me. First single to St. Pancras,
quick!"
"Drat the boy!" said the old lady angrily. "Do you think the world's to
give way for you? Such impidence! Mind your manners, little boy, can't
you? You've made me drop a threepenny bit with your scrouging!"
"First single, five shillings," said the clerk, jerking out the precious
ticket.
"Right!" cried the guard at the same instant. "Stand back there, will
you!"
Paul dashed towards the door of the booking-office which led to the
platform; but just as he reached it a gate slammed in his face with a
sharp click, through the bars of it he saw, with hot eyes, the tall,
heavy carriages which had shelter and safety in them jolt heavily past,
till even the red lamp on the last van was quenched in the darkness.
That miserable old woman had shattered his hopes at the very moment of
their fulfilment. It was fate again!
As he stood, fiercely gripping the bars of the gate, he heard Coggs'
hateful voice again.
"Hallo! so you haven't got the _Globe_ and the other thing after all,
then; they've shut you out?"
"Yes," said Mr. Bultitude in a hollow voice; "they've shut me out!"
16. _Hard Pressed_
"Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musets through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes."
As soon as the gate was opened, Paul went through mechanically with the
others on to the platform, and waited at the bookstall while they
changed the paper. He knew well enough that what had seemed at the time
a stroke of supreme cunning would now only land him in fresh
difficulties, if indeed it did not lead to the detection of his scheme.
But he dared not interfere and prevent them from making the unlucky
exchange. Something seemed to tie his tongue, and in sullen leaden
apathy he resigned himself to whatever might be in store for him.
They passed out again by the booking-office. There was the old lady
still at the pigeon-hole, trying to persuade the much-enduring clerk to
restore a lucky sixpence she had given him by mistake, and was quite
unable to describe. Mr. Bultitude would have given much just then to go
up and shake her into hysterics, or curse her bitterly for the mischief
she had done; but he refrained, either from an innate chivalry, or from
a feeling that such an outburst would be ill-judged.
So, silent and miserable, with slow step and hanging head, he set out
with his gaolers to render himself up once more at his house of
bondage--a sort of involuntary Regulus, without the oath.
"Dickie, you were very anxious to run just now," observed Chawner,
after they had gone some distance on their homeward way.
"We were late for tea--late for tea," explained Paul hastily.
"If you think the tea worth racing like that for, I don't," said Coggs
viciously; "it's muck."
"You don't catch me racing, except for something worth having," said
Coker.
One more flash of distinct inspiration came to Paul's aid in the very
depths of his gloom. It was, in fact, a hazy recollection from English
history of the ruse by which Edward I., when a prince, contrived to
escape from his captors at Hereford Castle.
"Why--why," he said excitedly, "would you race if you had something
worth racing for, hey? would you now?"
"Try us!" said Coker emphatically.
"What do you call 'something'?" inquired Chawner suspiciously.
"Well," said Mr. Bultitude; "what do you say to a shilling?"
"You haven't got a shilling," objected Coggs.
"Here's a shilling, see," said Paul, producing one. "Now then, I'll give
this to any boy I see get into tea first!"
"Bultitude thinks he can run," said Coker, with an amiable unbelief in
any disinterestedness. "He means to get in first and keep the shilling
himself, I know."
"I'll back myself to run him any day," put in Coggs.
"So will I," added Chawner.
"Well, is it agreed?" Paul asked anxiously. "Will you try?"
"All right," said Chawner. "You must give us a start to the next
lamp-post, though. You stay here, and when we're ready we'll say 'off'!"
They drew a line on the path with their feet to mark Paul's starting
point, and went on to the next lamp. After a moment or two of anxious
waiting he heard Coggs shout, all in one breath, "One-two-three-off!"
and the sound of scampering feet followed immediately.
It was a most exciting and hotly contested race. Paul saw them for one
brief moment in the lamplight. He saw Chawner scudding down the path
like some great camel, and Coker squaring his arms and working them as
if they were wings. Coggs seemed to be last.
He ran a little way himself just to encourage them, but, as the sound of
their feet grew fainter and fainter, he felt that his last desperate
ruse had taken effect, and with a chuckle at his own cleverness, turned
round and ran his fastest in the opposite direction. He felt little or
no interest in the result of the race.
Once more he entered the booking-office and, kneeling on a chair,
consulted the time-board that hung on the wall over the sheaf of texts
and the missionary box.
The next train was not until 7.25. A whole hour and twenty-five minutes
to wait! What was he to do? Where was he to pass the weary time till
then? If he lingered on the platform he would assuredly be recaptured.
His absence could not remain long undiscovered and the station would be
the first place they would search for him.
And yet he dared not wander away from the neighbourhood of the station.
If he kept to the shops and lighted thoroughfares he might be recognised
or traced. If, on the other hand, he went out farther into the country
(which was utterly unknown to him), he had no watch, and it would be
only too easy to lose his way, or miscalculate time and distance in the
darkness.
To miss the next train would be absolutely fatal.
He walked out upon the platform, and on past the refreshment and waiting
rooms, past the weighing machine, the stacked trucks and the lamp-room,
meeting and seen by none--even the boy at the bookstall was busy with
bread and butter and a mug of tea in a dark corner, and never noticed
him.
He went on to the end of the platform where the planks sloped gently
down to a wilderness of sheds, coaling stages and sidings; he could just
make out the bulky forms of some tarpaulined cattle-vans and open
coal-trucks standing on the lines of metals which gleamed in the scanty
gaslights.
It struck him that one of these vans or trucks would serve his purpose
admirably, if he could only get into it, and very cautiously he picked
his way over the clogging ballast and rails, till he came to a low
narrow strip of platform between two sidings.
He mounted it and went on till he came to the line of trucks and vans
drawn up alongside; the vans seemed all locked, but at the end he found
an empty coal-waggon in which he thought he could manage to conceal
himself and escape pursuit till the longed-for 7.25 train should arrive
to relieve him.
He stepped in and lay down in one corner of it, listening anxiously for
any sound of search, but hearing nothing more than the dismal dirge of
the telegraph wires overhead; he soon grew cold and stiff, for his
enforced attitude was far from comfortable, and there was more coal-dust
in his chosen retreat than he could have wished. Still it was secluded
enough; it was not likely that it would occur to anyone to look for him
there. Ten days ago Mr. Paul Bultitude would have found it hard to
conceive himself lying down in a hard and grimy coal-truck to escape his
son's schoolmaster, but since then he had gone through too much that was
unprecedented and abnormal to see much incongruity in his situation--it
was all too hideously real to be a nightmare.
But even here he was not allowed to remain undisturbed; after about half
an hour, when he was beginning to feel almost secure, there came a sharp
twanging of wires beneath, and two short strokes of a bell in the
signal-box hard by.
He heard some one from the platform, probably the station-master,
shout, "Look alive, there, Ing, Pickstones, some of you. There's those
three trucks on the A siding to go to Slopsbury by the 6.30
luggage--she'll be in in another five minutes."
There were steps as if some persons were coming out of a cabin
opposite--they came nearer and nearer: "These three, ain't it, Tommy?"
said a gruff voice, close to Paul's ear.
"That's it, mate," said another, evidently Tommy's--"get 'em along up to
the points there. Can't have the 6.30 standing about on this 'ere line
all night, 'cos of the Limited. Now then, all together, shove! they've
got the old 'orse on at the other end."
And to Paul's alarm he felt the truck in which he was begin to move
ponderously on the greasy metals, and strike the next with its buffers
with a jarring shock and a jangling of coupling chains.
He could not stand this; unless he revealed himself at once, or managed
to get out of this delusive waggon, the six-whatever-it-was train would
be up and carry him off to Slopsbury, a hundred miles or so farther from
home; they would have time to warn Dick--he would be expected--ambushes
laid for him, and his one chance would be gone for ever!
There was a whistle far away on the down line, and that humming
vibration which announces an approaching train: not a moment to lose--he
was afraid to attempt a leap from the moving waggons, and resolved to
risk all and show himself.
With this intention he got upon his knees, and putting his head above
the dirty bulwark, looked over and said softly, "Tommy, I say, Tommy!"
A porter, who had been laboriously employed below, looked up with a
white and scared face, and staggered back several feet; Mr. Bultitude in
a sudden panic ducked again.
"Bill!" Paul heard the porter say hoarsely, "I'll take my Bible oath
I've never touched a drop this week, not to speak of--but I've got 'em
again, Bill, I've got 'em again!"
"Got what agin?" growled Bill. "What's the matter now?"