บทที่ บทที่ 2 · Peter's coal-mine.

. Peter's coal-mine.

“What fun!” said Mother, in the dark, feeling for the matches on the

table. “How frightened the poor mice were--I don't believe they were

rats at all.”

She struck a match and relighted the candle and everyone looked at each

other by its winky, blinky light.

“Well,” she said, “you've often wanted something to happen and now it

has. This is quite an adventure, isn't it? I told Mrs. Viney to get us

some bread and butter, and meat and things, and to have supper ready. I

suppose she's laid it in the dining-room. So let's go and see.”

The dining-room opened out of the kitchen. It looked much darker than

the kitchen when they went in with the one candle. Because the kitchen

was whitewashed, but the dining-room was dark wood from floor to

ceiling, and across the ceiling there were heavy black beams. There was

a muddled maze of dusty furniture--the breakfast-room furniture from

the old home where they had lived all their lives. It seemed a very long

time ago, and a very long way off.

There was the table certainly, and there were chairs, but there was no

supper.

“Let's look in the other rooms,” said Mother; and they looked. And in

each room was the same kind of blundering half-arrangement of furniture,

and fire-irons and crockery, and all sorts of odd things on the floor,

but there was nothing to eat; even in the pantry there were only a rusty

cake-tin and a broken plate with whitening mixed in it.

“What a horrid old woman!” said Mother; “she's just walked off with the

money and not got us anything to eat at all.”

“Then shan't we have any supper at all?” asked Phyllis, dismayed,

stepping back on to a soap-dish that cracked responsively.

“Oh, yes,” said Mother, “only it'll mean unpacking one of those big

cases that we put in the cellar. Phil, do mind where you're walking to,

there's a dear. Peter, hold the light.”

The cellar door opened out of the kitchen. There were five wooden steps

leading down. It wasn't a proper cellar at all, the children thought,

because its ceiling went up as high as the kitchen's. A bacon-rack hung

under its ceiling. There was wood in it, and coal. Also the big cases.

Peter held the candle, all on one side, while Mother tried to open the

great packing-case. It was very securely nailed down.

“Where's the hammer?” asked Peter.

“That's just it,” said Mother. “I'm afraid it's inside the box. But

there's a coal-shovel--and there's the kitchen poker.”

And with these she tried to get the case open.

“Let me do it,” said Peter, thinking he could do it better himself.

Everyone thinks this when he sees another person stirring a fire, or

opening a box, or untying a knot in a bit of string.

“You'll hurt your hands, Mammy,” said Roberta; “let me.”

“I wish Father was here,” said Phyllis; “he'd get it open in two shakes.

What are you kicking me for, Bobbie?”

“I wasn't,” said Roberta.

Just then the first of the long nails in the packing-case began to come

out with a scrunch. Then a lath was raised and then another, till all

four stood up with the long nails in them shining fiercely like iron

teeth in the candle-light.

“Hooray!” said Mother; “here are some candles--the very first thing! You

girls go and light them. You'll find some saucers and things. Just drop

a little candle-grease in the saucer and stick the candle upright in

it.”

“How many shall we light?”

“As many as ever you like,” said Mother, gaily. “The great thing is

to be cheerful. Nobody can be cheerful in the dark except owls and

dormice.”

So the girls lighted candles. The head of the first match flew off and

stuck to Phyllis's finger; but, as Roberta said, it was only a little

burn, and she might have had to be a Roman martyr and be burned whole if

she had happened to live in the days when those things were fashionable.

Then, when the dining-room was lighted by fourteen candles, Roberta

fetched coal and wood and lighted a fire.

“It's very cold for May,” she said, feeling what a grown-up thing it was

to say.

The fire-light and the candle-light made the dining-room look very

different, for now you could see that the dark walls were of wood,

carved here and there into little wreaths and loops.

The girls hastily 'tidied' the room, which meant putting the chairs

against the wall, and piling all the odds and ends into a corner and

partly hiding them with the big leather arm-chair that Father used to

sit in after dinner.

“Bravo!” cried Mother, coming in with a tray full of things. “This is

something like! I'll just get a tablecloth and then--”

The tablecloth was in a box with a proper lock that was opened with a

key and not with a shovel, and when the cloth was spread on the table, a

real feast was laid out on it.

Everyone was very, very tired, but everyone cheered up at the sight of

the funny and delightful supper. There were biscuits, the Marie and the

plain kind, sardines, preserved ginger, cooking raisins, and candied

peel and marmalade.

“What a good thing Aunt Emma packed up all the odds and ends out of the

Store cupboard,” said Mother. “Now, Phil, DON'T put the marmalade spoon

in among the sardines.”

“No, I won't, Mother,” said Phyllis, and put it down among the Marie

biscuits.

“Let's drink Aunt Emma's health,” said Roberta, suddenly; “what should

we have done if she hadn't packed up these things? Here's to Aunt Emma!”

And the toast was drunk in ginger wine and water, out of

willow-patterned tea-cups, because the glasses couldn't be found.

They all felt that they had been a little hard on Aunt Emma. She wasn't

a nice cuddly person like Mother, but after all it was she who had

thought of packing up the odds and ends of things to eat.

It was Aunt Emma, too, who had aired all the sheets ready; and the men

who had moved the furniture had put the bedsteads together, so the beds

were soon made.

“Good night, chickies,” said Mother. “I'm sure there aren't any rats.

But I'll leave my door open, and then if a mouse comes, you need only

scream, and I'll come and tell it exactly what I think of it.”

Then she went to her own room. Roberta woke to hear the little

travelling clock chime two. It sounded like a church clock ever so far

away, she always thought. And she heard, too, Mother still moving about

in her room.

Next morning Roberta woke Phyllis by pulling her hair gently, but quite

enough for her purpose.

“Wassermarrer?” asked Phyllis, still almost wholly asleep.

“Wake up! wake up!” said Roberta. “We're in the new house--don't you

remember? No servants or anything. Let's get up and begin to be useful.

We'll just creep down mouse-quietly, and have everything beautiful

before Mother gets up. I've woke Peter. He'll be dressed as soon as we

are.”

So they dressed quietly and quickly. Of course, there was no water in

their room, so when they got down they washed as much as they thought

was necessary under the spout of the pump in the yard. One pumped and

the other washed. It was splashy but interesting.

“It's much more fun than basin washing,” said Roberta. “How sparkly

the weeds are between the stones, and the moss on the roof--oh, and the

flowers!”

The roof of the back kitchen sloped down quite low. It was made

of thatch and it had moss on it, and house-leeks and stonecrop and

wallflowers, and even a clump of purple flag-flowers, at the far corner.

“This is far, far, far and away prettier than Edgecombe Villa,” said

Phyllis. “I wonder what the garden's like.”

“We mustn't think of the garden yet,” said Roberta, with earnest energy.

“Let's go in and begin to work.”

They lighted the fire and put the kettle on, and they arranged the

crockery for breakfast; they could not find all the right things, but

a glass ash-tray made an excellent salt-cellar, and a newish baking-tin

seemed as if it would do to put bread on, if they had any.

When there seemed to be nothing more that they could do, they went out

again into the fresh bright morning.

“We'll go into the garden now,” said Peter. But somehow they couldn't

find the garden. They went round the house and round the house. The yard

occupied the back, and across it were stables and outbuildings. On the

other three sides the house stood simply in a field, without a yard

of garden to divide it from the short smooth turf. And yet they had

certainly seen the garden wall the night before.

It was a hilly country. Down below they could see the line of the

railway, and the black yawning mouth of a tunnel. The station was out of

sight. There was a great bridge with tall arches running across one end

of the valley.

“Never mind the garden,” said Peter; “let's go down and look at the

railway. There might be trains passing.”

“We can see them from here,” said Roberta, slowly; “let's sit down a

bit.”

So they all sat down on a great flat grey stone that had pushed itself

up out of the grass; it was one of many that lay about on the hillside,

and when Mother came out to look for them at eight o'clock, she found

them deeply asleep in a contented, sun-warmed bunch.

They had made an excellent fire, and had set the kettle on it at about

half-past five. So that by eight the fire had been out for some time,

the water had all boiled away, and the bottom was burned out of the

kettle. Also they had not thought of washing the crockery before they

set the table.

“But it doesn't matter--the cups and saucers, I mean,” said Mother.

“Because I've found another room--I'd quite forgotten there was one. And

it's magic! And I've boiled the water for tea in a saucepan.”

The forgotten room opened out of the kitchen. In the agitation and half

darkness the night before its door had been mistaken for a cupboard's.

It was a little square room, and on its table, all nicely set out, was a

joint of cold roast beef, with bread, butter, cheese, and a pie.

“Pie for breakfast!” cried Peter; “how perfectly ripping!”

“It isn't pigeon-pie,” said Mother; “it's only apple. Well, this is the

supper we ought to have had last night. And there was a note from Mrs.

Viney. Her son-in-law has broken his arm, and she had to get home early.

She's coming this morning at ten.”

That was a wonderful breakfast. It is unusual to begin the day with

cold apple pie, but the children all said they would rather have it than

meat.

“You see it's more like dinner than breakfast to us,” said Peter,

passing his plate for more, “because we were up so early.”

The day passed in helping Mother to unpack and arrange things. Six small

legs quite ached with running about while their owners carried clothes

and crockery and all sorts of things to their proper places. It was not

till quite late in the afternoon that Mother said:--

“There! That'll do for to-day. I'll lie down for an hour, so as to be as

fresh as a lark by supper-time.”

Then they all looked at each other. Each of the three expressive

countenances expressed the same thought. That thought was double,

and consisted, like the bits of information in the Child's Guide to

Knowledge, of a question and an answer.

Q. Where shall we go?

A. To the railway.

So to the railway they went, and as soon as they started for the railway

they saw where the garden had hidden itself. It was right behind the

stables, and it had a high wall all round.

“Oh, never mind about the garden now!” cried Peter. “Mother told me

this morning where it was. It'll keep till to-morrow. Let's get to the

railway.”

The way to the railway was all down hill over smooth, short turf with

here and there furze bushes and grey and yellow rocks sticking out like

candied peel from the top of a cake.

The way ended in a steep run and a wooden fence--and there was the

railway with the shining metals and the telegraph wires and posts and

signals.

They all climbed on to the top of the fence, and then suddenly there was

a rumbling sound that made them look along the line to the right, where

the dark mouth of a tunnel opened itself in the face of a rocky cliff;

next moment a train had rushed out of the tunnel with a shriek and

a snort, and had slid noisily past them. They felt the rush of its

passing, and the pebbles on the line jumped and rattled under it as it

went by.

“Oh!” said Roberta, drawing a long breath; “it was like a great dragon

tearing by. Did you feel it fan us with its hot wings?”

“I suppose a dragon's lair might look very like that tunnel from the

outside,” said Phyllis.

But Peter said:--

“I never thought we should ever get as near to a train as this. It's the

most ripping sport!”

“Better than toy-engines, isn't it?” said Roberta.

(I am tired of calling Roberta by her name. I don't see why I should.

No one else did. Everyone else called her Bobbie, and I don't see why I

shouldn't.)

“I don't know; it's different,” said Peter. “It seems so odd to see ALL

of a train. It's awfully tall, isn't it?”

“We've always seen them cut in half by platforms,” said Phyllis.

“I wonder if that train was going to London,” Bobbie said. “London's

where Father is.”

“Let's go down to the station and find out,” said Peter.

So they went.

They walked along the edge of the line, and heard the telegraph wires

humming over their heads. When you are in the train, it seems such a

little way between post and post, and one after another the posts seem

to catch up the wires almost more quickly than you can count them. But

when you have to walk, the posts seem few and far between.

But the children got to the station at last.

Never before had any of them been at a station, except for the purpose

of catching trains--or perhaps waiting for them--and always with

grown-ups in attendance, grown-ups who were not themselves interested in

stations, except as places from which they wished to get away.

Never before had they passed close enough to a signal-box to be able to

notice the wires, and to hear the mysterious 'ping, ping,' followed by

the strong, firm clicking of machinery.

The very sleepers on which the rails lay were a delightful path to

travel by--just far enough apart to serve as the stepping-stones in a

game of foaming torrents hastily organised by Bobbie.

Then to arrive at the station, not through the booking office, but in

a freebooting sort of way by the sloping end of the platform. This in

itself was joy.

Joy, too, it was to peep into the porters' room, where the lamps are,

and the Railway almanac on the wall, and one porter half asleep behind a

paper.

There were a great many crossing lines at the station; some of them just

ran into a yard and stopped short, as though they were tired of business

and meant to retire for good. Trucks stood on the rails here, and on one

side was a great heap of coal--not a loose heap, such as you see in your

coal cellar, but a sort of solid building of coals with large square

blocks of coal outside used just as though they were bricks, and built

up till the heap looked like the picture of the Cities of the Plain in

'Bible Stories for Infants.' There was a line of whitewash near the top

of the coaly wall.

When presently the Porter lounged out of his room at the twice-repeated

tingling thrill of a gong over the station door, Peter said, “How do you

do?” in his best manner, and hastened to ask what the white mark was on

the coal for.

“To mark how much coal there be,” said the Porter, “so as we'll know if

anyone nicks it. So don't you go off with none in your pockets, young

gentleman!”

This seemed, at the time but a merry jest, and Peter felt at once that

the Porter was a friendly sort with no nonsense about him. But later the

words came back to Peter with a new meaning.

Have you ever gone into a farmhouse kitchen on a baking day, and seen

the great crock of dough set by the fire to rise? If you have, and if

you were at that time still young enough to be interested in everything

you saw, you will remember that you found yourself quite unable to

resist the temptation to poke your finger into the soft round of dough

that curved inside the pan like a giant mushroom. And you will remember

that your finger made a dent in the dough, and that slowly, but quite

surely, the dent disappeared, and the dough looked quite the same as it

did before you touched it. Unless, of course, your hand was extra dirty,

in which case, naturally, there would be a little black mark.

Well, it was just like that with the sorrow the children had felt at

Father's going away, and at Mother's being so unhappy. It made a deep

impression, but the impression did not last long.

They soon got used to being without Father, though they did not forget

him; and they got used to not going to school, and to seeing very little

of Mother, who was now almost all day shut up in her upstairs room

writing, writing, writing. She used to come down at tea-time and read

aloud the stories she had written. They were lovely stories.

The rocks and hills and valleys and trees, the canal, and above all, the

railway, were so new and so perfectly pleasing that the remembrance of

the old life in the villa grew to seem almost like a dream.

Mother had told them more than once that they were 'quite poor now,' but

this did not seem to be anything but a way of speaking. Grown-up people,

even Mothers, often make remarks that don't seem to mean anything in

particular, just for the sake of saying something, seemingly. There was

always enough to eat, and they wore the same kind of nice clothes they

had always worn.

But in June came three wet days; the rain came down, straight as lances,

and it was very, very cold. Nobody could go out, and everybody shivered.

They all went up to the door of Mother's room and knocked.

“Well, what is it?” asked Mother from inside.

“Mother,” said Bobbie, “mayn't I light a fire? I do know how.”

And Mother said: “No, my ducky-love. We mustn't have fires in June--coal

is so dear. If you're cold, go and have a good romp in the attic.

That'll warm you.”

“But, Mother, it only takes such a very little coal to make a fire.”

“It's more than we can afford, chickeny-love,” said Mother, cheerfully.

“Now run away, there's darlings--I'm madly busy!”

“Mother's always busy now,” said Phyllis, in a whisper to Peter. Peter

did not answer. He shrugged his shoulders. He was thinking.

Thought, however, could not long keep itself from the suitable

furnishing of a bandit's lair in the attic. Peter was the bandit, of

course. Bobbie was his lieutenant, his band of trusty robbers, and, in

due course, the parent of Phyllis, who was the captured maiden for whom

a magnificent ransom--in horse-beans--was unhesitatingly paid.

They all went down to tea flushed and joyous as any mountain brigands.

But when Phyllis was going to add jam to her bread and butter, Mother

said:--

“Jam OR butter, dear--not jam AND butter. We can't afford that sort of

reckless luxury nowadays.”

Phyllis finished the slice of bread and butter in silence, and followed

it up by bread and jam. Peter mingled thought and weak tea.

After tea they went back to the attic and he said to his sisters:--

“I have an idea.”

“What's that?” they asked politely.

“I shan't tell you,” was Peter's unexpected rejoinder.

“Oh, very well,” said Bobbie; and Phil said, “Don't, then.”

“Girls,” said Peter, “are always so hasty tempered.”

“I should like to know what boys are?” said Bobbie, with fine disdain.

“I don't want to know about your silly ideas.”

“You'll know some day,” said Peter, keeping his own temper by what

looked exactly like a miracle; “if you hadn't been so keen on a row, I

might have told you about it being only noble-heartedness that made me

not tell you my idea. But now I shan't tell you anything at all about

it--so there!”

And it was, indeed, some time before he could be induced to say

anything, and when he did it wasn't much. He said:--

“The only reason why I won't tell you my idea that I'm going to do is

because it MAY be wrong, and I don't want to drag you into it.”

“Don't you do it if it's wrong, Peter,” said Bobbie; “let me do it.” But

Phyllis said:--

“_I_ should like to do wrong if YOU'RE going to!”

“No,” said Peter, rather touched by this devotion; “it's a forlorn hope,

and I'm going to lead it. All I ask is that if Mother asks where I am,

you won't blab.”

“We haven't got anything TO blab,” said Bobbie, indignantly.

“Oh, yes, you have!” said Peter, dropping horse-beans through his

fingers. “I've trusted you to the death. You know I'm going to do a lone

adventure--and some people might think it wrong--I don't. And if Mother

asks where I am, say I'm playing at mines.”

“What sort of mines?”

“You just say mines.”

“You might tell US, Pete.”

“Well, then, COAL-mines. But don't you let the word pass your lips on

pain of torture.”

“You needn't threaten,” said Bobbie, “and I do think you might let us

help.”

“If I find a coal-mine, you shall help cart the coal,” Peter

condescended to promise.

“Keep your secret if you like,” said Phyllis.

“Keep it if you CAN,” said Bobbie.

“I'll keep it, right enough,” said Peter.

Between tea and supper there is an interval even in the most greedily

regulated families. At this time Mother was usually writing, and Mrs.

Viney had gone home.

Two nights after the dawning of Peter's idea he beckoned the girls

mysteriously at the twilight hour.

“Come hither with me,” he said, “and bring the Roman Chariot.”

The Roman Chariot was a very old perambulator that had spent years of

retirement in the loft over the coach-house. The children had oiled its

works till it glided noiseless as a pneumatic bicycle, and answered to

the helm as it had probably done in its best days.

“Follow your dauntless leader,” said Peter, and led the way down the

hill towards the station.

Just above the station many rocks have pushed their heads out through

the turf as though they, like the children, were interested in the

railway.

In a little hollow between three rocks lay a heap of dried brambles and

heather.

Peter halted, turned over the brushwood with a well-scarred boot, and

said:--

“Here's the first coal from the St. Peter's Mine. We'll take it home in

the chariot. Punctuality and despatch. All orders carefully attended to.

Any shaped lump cut to suit regular customers.”

The chariot was packed full of coal. And when it was packed it had to

be unpacked again because it was so heavy that it couldn't be got up the

hill by the three children, not even when Peter harnessed himself to the

handle with his braces, and firmly grasping his waistband in one hand

pulled while the girls pushed behind.

Three journeys had to be made before the coal from Peter's mine was

added to the heap of Mother's coal in the cellar.

Afterwards Peter went out alone, and came back very black and

mysterious.

“I've been to my coal-mine,” he said; “to-morrow evening we'll bring

home the black diamonds in the chariot.”

It was a week later that Mrs. Viney remarked to Mother how well this

last lot of coal was holding out.

The children hugged themselves and each other in complicated wriggles of

silent laughter as they listened on the stairs. They had all forgotten

by now that there had ever been any doubt in Peter's mind as to whether

coal-mining was wrong.

But there came a dreadful night when the Station Master put on a pair

of old sand shoes that he had worn at the seaside in his summer holiday,

and crept out very quietly to the yard where the Sodom and Gomorrah heap

of coal was, with the whitewashed line round it. He crept out there, and

he waited like a cat by a mousehole. On the top of the heap something

small and dark was scrabbling and rattling furtively among the coal.

The Station Master concealed himself in the shadow of a brake-van that

had a little tin chimney and was labelled:--

G. N. and S. R.

34576

Return at once to

White Heather Sidings

and in this concealment he lurked till the small thing on the top of

the heap ceased to scrabble and rattle, came to the edge of the heap,

cautiously let itself down, and lifted something after it. Then the arm

of the Station Master was raised, the hand of the Station Master fell

on a collar, and there was Peter firmly held by the jacket, with an old

carpenter's bag full of coal in his trembling clutch.

“So I've caught you at last, have I, you young thief?” said the Station

Master.

“I'm not a thief,” said Peter, as firmly as he could. “I'm a

coal-miner.”

“Tell that to the Marines,” said the Station Master.

“It would be just as true whoever I told it to,” said Peter.

“You're right there,” said the man, who held him. “Stow your jaw, you

young rip, and come along to the station.”

“Oh, no,” cried in the darkness an agonised voice that was not Peter's.

“Not the POLICE station!” said another voice from the darkness.

“Not yet,” said the Station Master. “The Railway Station first. Why,

it's a regular gang. Any more of you?”

“Only us,” said Bobbie and Phyllis, coming out of the shadow of another

truck labelled Staveley Colliery, and bearing on it the legend in white

chalk: 'Wanted in No. 1 Road.'

“What do you mean by spying on a fellow like this?” said Peter, angrily.

“Time someone did spy on you, _I_ think,” said the Station Master. “Come

along to the station.”

“Oh, DON'T!” said Bobbie. “Can't you decide NOW what you'll do to us?

It's our fault just as much as Peter's. We helped to carry the coal

away--and we knew where he got it.”

“No, you didn't,” said Peter.

“Yes, we did,” said Bobbie. “We knew all the time. We only pretended we

didn't just to humour you.”

Peter's cup was full. He had mined for coal, he had struck coal, he had

been caught, and now he learned that his sisters had 'humoured' him.

“Don't hold me!” he said. “I won't run away.”

The Station Master loosed Peter's collar, struck a match and looked at

them by its flickering light.

“Why,” said he, “you're the children from the Three Chimneys up yonder.

So nicely dressed, too. Tell me now, what made you do such a thing?

Haven't you ever been to church or learned your catechism or anything,

not to know it's wicked to steal?” He spoke much more gently now, and

Peter said:--

“I didn't think it was stealing. I was almost sure it wasn't. I thought

if I took it from the outside part of the heap, perhaps it would be. But

in the middle I thought I could fairly count it only mining. It'll

take thousands of years for you to burn up all that coal and get to the

middle parts.”

“Not quite. But did you do it for a lark or what?”

“Not much lark carting that beastly heavy stuff up the hill,” said

Peter, indignantly.

“Then why did you?” The Station Master's voice was so much kinder now

that Peter replied:--

“You know that wet day? Well, Mother said we were too poor to have a

fire. We always had fires when it was cold at our other house, and--”

“DON'T!” interrupted Bobbie, in a whisper.

“Well,” said the Station Master, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “I'll

tell you what I'll do. I'll look over it this once. But you remember,

young gentleman, stealing is stealing, and what's mine isn't yours,

whether you call it mining or whether you don't. Run along home.”

“Do you mean you aren't going to do anything to us? Well, you are a

brick,” said Peter, with enthusiasm.

“You're a dear,” said Bobbie.

“You're a darling,” said Phyllis.

“That's all right,” said the Station Master.

And on this they parted.

“Don't speak to me,” said Peter, as the three went up the hill. “You're

spies and traitors--that's what you are.”

But the girls were too glad to have Peter between them, safe and free,

and on the way to Three Chimneys and not to the Police Station, to mind

much what he said.

“We DID say it was us as much as you,” said Bobbie, gently.

“Well--and it wasn't.”

“It would have come to the same thing in Courts with judges,” said

Phyllis. “Don't be snarky, Peter. It isn't our fault your secrets are so

jolly easy to find out.” She took his arm, and he let her.

“There's an awful lot of coal in the cellar, anyhow,” he went on.

“Oh, don't!” said Bobbie. “I don't think we ought to be glad about

THAT.”

“I don't know,” said Peter, plucking up a spirit. “I'm not at all sure,

even now, that mining is a crime.”

But the girls were quite sure. And they were also quite sure that he was

quite sure, however little he cared to own it.