Furze the Cruel Part 15

Ben gave a nervous smile, gulped, arranged his tie, which would keep slipping up to his chin, moistened his lips, then parted them to utter the monosyllable which was required. He heard the child screaming distinctly. Having stated as much, he proceeded to record his fingerprints accurately upon the young woman's waist.

A farmer from Inwardleigh, who had entered the train at Okehampton, and had slept peacefully ever since, woke up at that moment, looked out, saw the bare moor, remarked in a decided voice that he wouldn't live on Dartmoor for a thousand pounds, and went to sleep again. The stout commoner took up his parable and said--

"There be a little man got out now, and he'm poking about wi' a stick, trying to get the baby out. Did ever hear of trying to get a baby up wi'

an ash-stick, woman?"

His wife replied that she had never heard of a baby getting underneath a train before, and she thought people ought to be ashamed of themselves getting drunk so early in the morning.

"Babies oughtn't to be took to the vair," said the young woman in the white frock. "I shan't tak' mine when I has 'em."

This remark caused young man Ben to smile nervously again.

The Inwardleigh farmer opened his eyes and wanted to know why the train was motionless. He was getting so thirsty that he could sleep no more.

"Us might sing a hymn," he suggested; and proceeded forthwith to make a noise like a chaff-cutting machine, preparatory to describing himself in song as a pure and spotless being whose sins had been entirely washed away. Had he given his face and hands the attention which, according to his own statement, his soul had received, he would have been a more presentable object. The young woman in the white frock knew the hymn, and joined in vigorously, claiming for her soul a whiteness which her dress could not equal. The farmer was so delighted with her singing that he leaned forward and kissed the damsel rapturously. The unhappy Ben dared not remonstrate with his elders and betters, but merely sat and gulped. By this time Peter had dropped his stick beneath the train, where it reposed side by side with the umbrella.

"They'm going to run the train back," said the stout commoner.

"The baby 'll be dead," remarked his wife cheerfully. She was not going to be depressed upon a holiday.

Peter and Mary stood upon the platform, a statuesque, obstinate pair, determined to give the railway company no mercy. It was nothing to them that the train was being delayed. Their property was underneath it, and all the Gubbings blood in them rebelled.

"I'll bide till I gets my umbrella. Tak' your mucky old train off 'en,"

said Mary, wagging her big hand at the men in authority; while Peter added that his intention was also to bide until his ash-stick should be returned to him.

Finally the train was backed, the umbrella and stick were recovered, and the savages permitted themselves to be bundled into the first compartment handy, amid laughter from the heads at the windows and profanity from the mouths of the officials. The train drew out of the station, and Mary subsided into a corner and held on tightly, shouting to her brother, "Shet the window, Peter, du'ye. Us may be falling out."

Peter tried to explain that would not be easy, but Mary was unable to listen. Her former fears had returned. She clutched her umbrella, trembled, and prayed to the G.o.ds of Brentor and the G.o.ds of Ebenezer--Mary's religion was a misty affair--for a safe deliverance from the perils of the railway. She had a feeling as if she was about to part with her breakfast. She had also a distinct admiration just then for all those who went down to the towns in trains, and for her brother, who sat calmly upon the cushions--it was a first-cla.s.s compartment which they had invaded--and spat contentedly upon the carpet. The speed of the train exceeded thirty miles an hour, and poor Mary's bullet head was rolling upon her shoulders.

"Aw, my dear life!" she moaned. "I feels as if my belly were running back to home again. Where be us, Peter?"

"On the railway," her brother answered, with truth, but without brilliance. The remark was rea.s.suring to Mary, however. She thought the train had got upon the moor somehow and was speeding furiously down a steep place towards destruction upon the rocks. A glance from the window gave no comfort. It was terrible to see the big tors tumbling past like a lot of drunken giants.

"Mind what I told ye," observed Peter. "Yew wun't like travelling, I ses. 'Tis easy when yew begins young, but yew be too old to begin."

"Us ha' got legs, and us was meant to use 'em. Us was never meant to run abroad on wheels," said Mary. "If ever I gets home, I'll bide."

Peter refilled his pipe, and began to boast of his experiences upon sea and land; how he had ventured upon the ocean and penetrated to a far country. Mary had heard it all before, but she had never been so impressed as she was then by her brother's account of his famous crossing of the Hamoaze in a fishing-boat, and his alighting upon the distant sh.o.r.e of Torpoint to stand upon Cornish soil. But while Peter was describing how he had been rocked "cruel and proper" upon the waves of what it pleased him to style the Atlantic, brakes fell heavily upon the wheels, a whistle sounded, and the train dragged itself gradually to a standstill. There was no station in sight. The moor heaved on both sides of the line. Even Peter was at a loss to explain the sudden stoppage for a moment.

"The train be broke," said Mary, who was bold now that she had ceased from travelling. "They've run 'en over a nail, and us mun bide till 'em blows the wheels out again."

Mary comprehended bicycles, and had contemplated tourists, who were so foolish as to bring their machines upon Dartmoor, pumping away at punctured tyres. Peter did not contradict because he was perturbed. He understood that the train had not broken down; but he believed that an accident was impending. Out of his worldly wisdom he spoke: "It be a collusion, I reckon."

Suspiciously Mary demanded an explanation.

"'Tis when two trains. .h.i.t one into t'other," explained Peter, striking his left fist into his right palm. "That be a collusion. Same as if yew was to run into a wall in the dark," he added.

The meaning of these words did not dawn upon Mary for some moments. When she did grasp them she made for the door, with the intention of abandoning the railway forthwith; but the train gave a sudden jerk, which threw her upon the seat, and then began to glide back. Peter thrust his head out of the window and perceived they were making for a siding. He and his sister had delayed the train so long that an express which was due to follow had almost caught them up, and had made it necessary for the local train, which has to wait for everything, to get off the main line. Peter did not understand that. Even old travellers make mistakes sometimes. He considered that the situation was desperate.

"They'm trying to get away, trying cruel hard," he said drearily.

"What be 'em getting away from?" gasped Mary.

"T'other train," her brother answered.

"Aw, Peter, will 'em du it?"

"Bain't hardly likely," said Peter dolefully.

"Be t'other train going to run into we?"

Peter admitted that it was so, adding: "I told ye to bide to home."

"Will us get hurt?" moaned Mary.

"Smashed to bits. They newspapers will tell us was cut to pieces," said Peter, in his gloomiest fashion. "How much have ye got in the money-box?" he asked.

With prophetic insight Peter perceived that he would be spared. Mary would be destroyed, together with all the other pa.s.sengers, and Peter naturally was anxious to know the amount of hard cash he was likely to inherit.

But Mary gave no heed to the avaricious question. She groaned and rubbed her eyes with the umbrella. It was the umbrella she was thinking of rather than herself. Somehow she could not imagine her own body mangled upon the line; but a melancholy picture of the wrecked umbrella was clear before her eyes.

In the next compartment the farmer was still singing hymns, accompanied by a chorus. Mary thought they were praying. This was travelling, enjoying life, a day's pleasure, St. Goose's Day! Mary wished with all her heart she had never left her geese and her hut-circle. In the meantime Peter was keeping her well informed.

"They be running the train off on Dartmoor," he explained. "There's a gurt cleave down under, and they be going to run us down that. Us mun get smashed either way."

"Why don't us get out and run away?" suggested frightened Mary.

As she spoke the train stopped. It was safe in the siding, although the savages did not know that. They supposed that the motive power had failed, or the engine-driver had come to realise that escape was hopeless, and had abandoned the train to secure his own safety. Peter saw a man running along the line. He was only a harmless pointsman going about his business, but Peter supposed him to be the base engine-driver flying for his life, and he told Mary as much. Even Peter's nerve was somewhat shaken by this time. Mary said plainly she should follow the example of the engine-driver. "My legs be as good as his," she cried. "I hain't a-going to bide here and be broke up like an old goosie's egg. I be a-going out."

"They'll fine ye," cried Peter. "There be a notice yonder. For trampesing on the line a sum not exceeding forty shilluns--"

"Bain't that better than getting smashed to pieces?" shouted Mary.

Peter was not sure. He could not translate the phrase "not exceeding,"

but he had a clear notion that it meant considerably more than forty shillings.

Mary was struggling with the door. In another moment she would have opened it, but a terrific interruption occurred. There sounded a wild whistling, and a roar which stunned her, and caused her to fall back upon the seat to prepare hurriedly for her doom, to recall various religious memories and family a.s.sociations, and to mutter fervently such disjointed sc.r.a.ps of sun-worship and Christianity as: "Our Vaither, hollered be the name, kingdom come. Angels and piskies, long-stones and crosses, glory to 'em all. Amen."

Then the express thundered past, shaking everything horribly. The tragedy was soon over, and Peter emerged into the light with worm-like wrigglings. For all his courage and experience he had dived beneath the seat, conscious somehow that any change of position would be better than no change. Everything seemed to have become very quiet all at once. They could hear the wind whistling gently over the moor, and the water splashing below. Mary had no idea what had happened, but she quite believed that Peter's worst fears had been realised, and that the "collusion" had actually occurred. So she groaned, and did not venture to move, and muttered feebly: "I be cut to pieces."

"No, you bain't," said Peter cheerfully. "Us got away after all."

With a little more encouragement Mary stretched herself, discovered that she and the umbrella were both intact, and from that moment the joy of life was hers again. They had escaped somehow. The express had missed them, and Peter a.s.sured her it was not likely to return. He admitted they had gone through a terrifying experience, which was as novel to him as to Mary; and his conclusion of the whole matter was that the engine-driver had undoubtedly saved their lives by cool and daring courage in the presence of fearful danger.

"He saw t'other train coming, and got us out o' the way just in time.

Yew saw how near t'other train was. Only just missed us," explained Peter.

"He'm a cruel larned man," declared Mary. "He ought to be given something. Ought to be fined forty shilluns." Poor Mary was anxious to learn the English language; but when she made use of strange words she betrayed her ignorance.