The Adventures of Herr Baby Part 7

"I _couldn't_," said Fritz. "There'll be sandwiches or something in the train--sure to be. Now come on; let's see what have I got to look after.

Only Tim and Peepy-Snoozle. I _couldn't_ lose my satchel, you see, for its strapped on me. Much more sensible than _girls_, who have to carry their bags over their arms."

And Fritz, in a new ulster, very long and rather stiff, and feeling, to tell the truth, a little uncomfortable at first, as new things generally do, stalked off--I don't think he _could_ have run!--with the air of a very big man indeed.

Celia and Denny had a slight dispute as to which was which of the bird's cages. For it had been settled that, for the journey at least, the canaries were to be Celia's charge and the "Bully" Denny's, though, hitherto, these three little birds had belonged to all the children together.

"You've got my cage, Denny," said Celia, sharply.

"I haven't," said Denny, holding hers the more tightly. It was not very easy to see, for both were covered up with dark blue stuff wrappers, to keep the birds warm, "and to make them think it's night all the way,"

said Baby.

"I haven't," repeated Denny, "there, don't you see _two_ yellow tails in yours? Peep through."

And Denny proved to be right, so Celia had to give in.

And at last they were off! The drive to the station safely over without any misadventures, the luggage all locked up in the van, the children and the dormice and the birds--far more important things, of course, than the big people!--all comfortably settled at one end of the nice big saloon carriage, which grandfather had had sent down on purpose from London.

"Dear me," said Denny, jigging up and down on her seat, "so we're really off! How nice and springy these cushions are! And this carriage is as big as a little house. I could _never_ be tired of travelling in a carriage like this."

"Him zought we'd _nebber_ get away," said Baby, with his usual solemnity. "Dear, dear, what dedful lots of boxes there is! Him's box is 'aside the 'normous big straw one; did zou know, Denny?"

"Poor grandfather," said Celia, "_what_ a lot of times he said over, 'three black portmanteaux, four, no five canvas-covered, four carpet bags, one--fourteen in all. Is _that_ right, Helen? Grandfather's something like Baby, he thinks no one can do anything right but himself; and there's Peters come on purpose to bother about these things."

(Peters was grandfather's own servant.) "I wish grandfather wouldn't fuss so. I hate people to think he's a fussy old man, something like Mr.

Briggs in Punch. As if he had never travelled before!"

As may be imagined, these remarks of Celia's were made in a low voice, for, of course, they were intended for the nursery party alone. Fritz flew up in grandfather's defence.

"Very fine, Miss Celia," he said. "You may laugh at grandfather for fussing, but _suppose_ he didn't, and _suppose_ that when we get to--oh, bother, I can't say those French names--wherever it is we're going to, _suppose_ that Madamazelle Celia's trunk was lost, and Madamazelle Celia hadn't any best frocks or flounces, or Sunday hats, how would Madamazelle Celia look _then_? Perhaps she'd wish then that grandfather had fussed a little."

Celia turned to look for her bag, and having found it, she took out the book which she had brought with her to read on the way.

"You're too silly to speak to, Fritz," she said; "I'm going to read."

"So am I," said Denny, who had likewise armed herself with a book, though she was rather a dunce for her age, and couldn't read "runningly"

as French people say. But _big_ people always had books to read in the railway--that was enough for Denny, of course, to try to do so too.

"_I'm_ going to take a nap, then," said Fritz, who was really looking rather white and tired. He had been wakened out of a very sound sleep this morning, and had not been able to eat any breakfast. Lisa thought that taking a nap was the best thing he could do, so she got down a bundle of the rugs to make him a pillow, and helped him to tuck up his legs comfortably, and Fritz settled himself for his little sleep, making Lisa promise to waken him when they came to a big station.

So everybody seemed inclined to be quiet. Herr Baby's corner was by the window. He looked about him. Celia and Denny were buried in their books, Fritz seemed asleep already; of the big people at the other end, grandfather's face was quite hidden in his newspaper, which he had kept over from last night on purpose to have something to read in the train, knowing that they would start before the postman came in the morning, and mother and auntie were talking together, softly, not to disturb him.

"Should you like the window more open?" said grandfather, suddenly looking up.

"No, thank you," said auntie. "I think that little c.h.i.n.k is enough. It is really very cold this morning."

"How good the children are!" said mother. She spoke in a lower voice than auntie; but Baby heard her, for he had quick ears. "One could almost fancy they were all asleep."

"Yes," said auntie, "if it would last all the way to Santino, or even to Paris!"

"Or even to London!" said mother. "But they'll all be jumping about like gra.s.shoppers before long."

Then they went on talking softly again about other things; and Baby didn't hear, and didn't care to hear. Besides, he had already been taught a lesson that boys and girls cannot learn too young, which is, that to listen to things you are not meant to hear is a _sort_ of cheating, for it is like taking something not meant for you. Of course, while auntie and mother were talking in a louder voice he could not help hearing, and it was no harm to listen, as if they had minded his hearing they would have spoken more in a whisper.

Baby turned to his window to amuse himself by looking out. First he tried to count the telegraph wires, but he could never be sure if there were eight or nine--he had not yet learnt to count higher than ten--for the top ones were so tiresome, they danced away out of sight, and all of a sudden danced down again, and sometimes they seemed to join together, so that he could not tell if they were one or two. He wondered what made them wave up and down so; whether there were men down in the ground that pulled them, and what they did it for; he had heard of "sending telegrams," and Denny had told him it meant sending messages on wires, but he did not know that these were the wires used for that. He fancied these wires must have something to do with the railway; perhaps they were to show the people living in the fields that the trains were coming, so that they shouldn't get in the way and be "runned over."

This made Baby begin to think of the people living in the fields; they were just then pa.s.sing a little cottage standing all by itself. It looked a nice cottage, and it had a sort of little garden round it, and some c.o.c.ks and hens were picking about. Baby looked back at the little cottage as long as he could see it; he wondered who lived in it, if there were any little boys and girls, and what they did all day. He wondered if they went to school, or if perhaps they sometimes went messages for their mother, and if they weren't frightened if they had to pa.s.s through the wood, which by this time the train was running along the edge of. Could this be Red Riding Hood's wood, perhaps? Baby shuddered as this idea came into his mind. Or it might be the wood that Hop-o'-my-thumb and his six brothers had to make their way through, where the birds _would_ pick the crumbs they dropped to show the path.

It would be very "dedful" for seven little boys to be lost in a wood like that, and still worse for one little boy all alone. Baby was very glad that when little boys had to go through woods _now_ it was in nice railway carriages with mothers and aunties and everybodies with them.

But even in this way the wood made him feel a _very_ little frightened; just then it got so much darker. He looked up to see if they were all still reading or asleep; he _almost_ thought he would ask Lisa to take him on her knee a little, when, all of a sudden, the "railway," as he called it, screamed out something very sharp and loud, the rattle and the noise got "b.u.mmier" and yet sharper; Baby could see no trees, no fields, "no nothing." What could it be? It was worse than the wood.

"Oh, Lisa," cried poor Herr Baby, "the railway horses must have runned the wrong way. We's going down into the cellars of the world."

Lisa caught him up in her arms and comforted him as well as she could.

It was only a tunnel, she told him, and she explained to him what a tunnel was, just a sort of pa.s.sage through a hill, and that there was nothing to be frightened at. And she persuaded him to look up and see what a nice little lamp there was at the top of the carriage, on purpose to light them up while they were in the dark. Baby was quite pleased when he saw the little lamp.

"Who put it 'zere?" he said. "Were it G.o.d?"

He was rather disappointed when Lisa told him that it was the railway men who put it up, but then he thought again that it was very kind of the railway men, and that it must have been G.o.d who taught them to be so kind, which Lisa quite agreed in. But even though the little lamp was very nice, Baby was very pleased to get out of the tunnel, and out of the rumbly, rattly noise, into the open daylight again, with the beautiful sun shining down at them out of the sky. For the day was growing brighter as it went on, and the air was a little frosty, which made everything look clear and fresh.

"Nice sun," said Baby, glancing up at his old friend in the sky, "that's the bestest lamp of all, isn't it? and it _were_ G.o.d put it up there."

After that he must, I think, have taken a little nap in Lisa's arms almost without knowing it, for he didn't seem to hear anything more or to think where he was or anything, till all of a sudden he heard mother's voice speaking.

"Won't Baby have a sandwich, Lisa? And Denny, why, have you been asleep too, Denny?"

And sitting up on Lisa's knee, all rosy and dimpled with sleeping, his fair curls in a pretty tumble about his eyes, Baby saw Denny, looking very sleepy too, but trying hard to hide it.

"Oh," she said, smoothing down her hair and sitting up very straight, "I've been reading such a long time that my eyes got quite tired; that was why I shut them."

"Oh indeed!" said mother, but Baby could see that she was smiling at Denny, though she didn't laugh right out like Fritz and Celia.

They were all very happy, however, with their sandwiches and buns, and after they had eaten as much as they wanted, auntie taught them a sort of guessing game, which helped to pa.s.s the time, for already Denny and Fritz were beginning to think even the big saloon carriage rather a small room to spend a whole day in.

They pa.s.sed two or three big stations, and then they were allowed to get out and walk up and down the platform a little, which was a nice change.

But Baby was so dreadfully afraid of any of them being left behind that he could hardly be persuaded to get out at all, and once when he and Lisa were waiting alone in the carriage while the others walked about, and the train moved on a little way to another part, he screamed so loudly--

"Oh, mother, oh, auntie, oh, ganfather, and Celia, and Fritz, and Denny!

All, all is left behind!"--that there was quite a commotion in the station, and when the train moved back again, and they all got in, he was obliged to kiss and hug each one separately, several times over, before he could feel quite sure he had them all safe and sound, and that "not n.o.body" was missing.

It seemed a long time after it got dark, even though the little lamp was still lighted. But it was not light enough to see to read, and "the big lamp up in the sky," as Baby said, "was _kite_ goned away." It puzzled him very much how the sun could go away every night and come back every morning, and the queerest thing of all was what Celia had told him--that "away there," in the far-off country where they were going, there would still be the same sun, the _very_ same sun, that they had seen every morning peeping up behind the kitchen-garden wall, and whose red face they had said good-night to on the winter evenings, as he slipped away to bed down below the old elms in the avenue, where the rooks had their nests. Somehow as Baby sat in his corner, staring out now and then at the darkness through which they were whizzing, blinking up sometimes at the little lamp shining faintly in the roof, there came before his mind the pictures of all they had left behind; he seemed to see the garden and the trees _so_ plain, and he thought how very, very quiet and lonely it must seem there now, and Baby's little heart grew sad. He felt so sorry for all the things they had left--the rabbits and the p.u.s.s.y most of all, of course, but even for the dear old trees, and the sweet, "denkle" flowers in the garden; even for the tables and chairs in the house he felt sorry.

"Him's poor little bed will be so cold and lonely," he said to himself.

"Him sinks going away is _werry_ sad."

CHAPTER V.

BY LAND AND SEA

"So the wind blew softly, And the sun shone bright."