Vice Versa; or, A Lesson to Fathers by F. Anstey (trending books to read TXT) 📗

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.

[Pg 222]

"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.[Pg 223] 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.

[Pg 224]

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[Pg 225] 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