Part 62

"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?"

"It's the jumps, Bill," gasped the other, "the 'orrors--they've got me and no mistake. As I'm a livin' man, as I was a shovin' of that there truck, I saw a imp--a gashly imp, Bill, stick its hugly 'ed over the side and say, 'Tommy,' it ses, jest like that--it ses, 'Tommy, I wants you!' I dursn't go near it, Bill. I'll get leave, and go 'ome and lay up--it glared at me so 'orrid, Bill, and grinned--ugh! I'll take the pledge after this 'ere, I will--I'll go to chapel Sundays reg'lar!"

"Let's see if there ain't something there first," said the practical Bill. "Easy with the 'oss up there. Now then," here he stepped on the box of the wheel and looked in. "Shin out of this, whatever y'are, we don't contrack to carry no imps on this line--Well, if ever I--Tommy, old man, it's all right, y'ain't got 'em this time--'ere's yer imp!"

And, reaching over, he hauled out the wretched Paul by the scruff of his neck in a state of utter collapse, and deposited him on the ground before him.

"That ain't your private kerridge, yer know, that ain't--there wasn't no bed made up there for you, that I know on. You ain't arter no good, now; you're a wagabone! that's about your size, I can see--what d'yer mean by it, eh?"