The E. Nesbit MEGAPACK ®: 26 Classic Novels and Stories. E. Nesbit
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enough to sit up and look round them, Bobbie cried:—
“Oh, look!”
“What at?” said Phyllis.
“The view,” said Bobbie.
“I hate views,” said Phyllis, “don’t you, Peter?”
“Let’s get on,” said Peter.
“But this isn’t like a view they take you to in carriages when you’re at the seaside, all sea and sand and bare hills. It’s like the ‘coloured counties’ in one of Mother’s poetry books.”
“It’s not so dusty,” said Peter; “look at the Aqueduct straddling slap across the valley like a giant centipede, and then the towns sticking their church spires up out of the trees like pens out of an inkstand. I think it’s more like—
“There could he see the banners
Of twelve fair cities shine.”
“I love it,” said Bobbie; “it’s worth the climb.”
“The paperchase is worth the climb,” said Phyllis, “if we don’t lose it. Let’s get on. It’s all down hill now.”
“I said that ten minutes ago,” said Peter.
“Well, I’ve said it now,” said Phyllis; “come on.”
“Loads of time,” said Peter. And there was. For when they had got down to a level with the top of the tunnel’s mouth—they were a couple of hundred yards out of their reckoning and had to creep along the face of the hill—there was no sign of the hare or the hounds.
“They’ve gone long ago, of course,” said Phyllis, as they leaned on the brick parapet above the tunnel.
“I don’t think so,” said Bobbie, “but even if they had, it’s ripping here, and we shall see the trains come out of the tunnel like dragons out of lairs. We’ve never seen that from the top side before.”
“No more we have,” said Phyllis, partially appeased.
It was really a most exciting place to be in. The top of the tunnel seemed ever so much farther from the line than they had expected, and it was like being on a bridge, but a bridge overgrown with bushes and creepers and grass and wild-flowers.
“I know the paperchase has gone long ago,” said Phyllis every two minutes, and she hardly knew whether she was pleased or disappointed when Peter, leaning over the parapet, suddenly cried:—
“Look out. Here he comes!”
They all leaned over the sun-warmed brick wall in time to see the hare, going very slowly, come out from the shadow of the tunnel.
“There, now,” said Peter, “what did I tell you? Now for the hounds!”
Very soon came the hounds—by ones and twos and threes and sixes and sevens—and they also were going slowly and seemed very tired. Two or three who lagged far behind came out long after the others.
“There,” said Bobbie, “that’s all—now what shall we do?”
“Go along into the tulgy wood over there and have lunch,” said Phyllis; “we can see them for miles from up here.”
“Not yet,” said Peter. “That’s not the last. There’s the one in the red jersey to come yet. Let’s see the last of them come out.”
But though they waited and waited and waited, the boy in the red jersey did not appear.
“Oh, let’s have lunch,” said Phyllis; “I’ve got a pain in my front with being so hungry. You must have missed seeing the red-jerseyed one when he came out with the others—”
But Bobbie and Peter agreed that he had not come out with the others.
“Let’s get down to the tunnel mouth,” said Peter; “then perhaps we shall see him coming along from the inside. I expect he felt spun-chuck, and rested in one of the manholes. You stay up here and watch, Bob, and when I signal from below, you come down. We might miss seeing him on the way down, with all these trees.”
So the others climbed down and Bobbie waited till they signalled to her from the line below. And then she, too, scrambled down the roundabout slippery path among roots and moss till she stepped out between two dogwood trees and joined the others on the line. And still there was no sign of the hound with the red jersey.
“Oh, do, do let’s have something to eat,” wailed Phyllis. “I shall die if you don’t, and then you’ll be sorry.”
“Give her the sandwiches, for goodness’ sake, and stop her silly mouth,” said Peter, not quite unkindly. “Look here,” he added, turning to Bobbie, “perhaps we’d better have one each, too. We may need all our strength. Not more than one, though. There’s no time.”
“What?” asked Bobbie, her mouth already full, for she was just as hungry as Phyllis.
“Don’t you see,” replied Peter, impressively, “that red-jerseyed hound has had an accident—that’s what it is. Perhaps even as we speak he’s lying with his head on the metals, an unresisting prey to any passing express—”
“Oh, don’t try to talk like a book,” cried Bobbie, bolting what was left of her sandwich; “come on. Phil, keep close behind me, and if a train comes, stand flat against the tunnel wall and hold your petticoats close to you.”
“Give me one more sandwich,” pleaded Phyllis, “and I will.”
“I’m going first,” said Peter; “it was my idea,” and he went.
Of course you know what going into a tunnel is like? The engine gives a scream and then suddenly the noise of the running, rattling train changes and grows different and much louder. Grown-up people pull up the windows and hold them by the strap. The railway carriage suddenly grows like night—with lamps, of course, unless you are in a slow local train, in which case lamps are not always provided. Then by and by the darkness outside the carriage window is touched by puffs of cloudy whiteness, then you see a blue light on the walls of the tunnel, then the sound of the moving train changes once more, and you are out in the good open air again, and grown-ups let the straps go. The windows, all dim with the yellow breath of the tunnel, rattle down into their places, and you see once more the dip and catch of the telegraph wires beside the line, and the straight-cut hawthorn hedges with the tiny baby trees growing up out of them every thirty yards.
All this, of course, is what a tunnel means when you are in a train. But everything is quite different when you walk into a tunnel on your own feet, and tread on shifting, sliding stones and gravel on a path that curves downwards from the shining metals to the wall. Then you see slimy, oozy trickles of water running down the inside of the tunnel, and you notice that the bricks are not red or brown, as they are at the tunnel’s mouth, but dull, sticky, sickly green. Your voice, when you speak, is quite changed from what it was out in the sunshine, and it is a long time before the tunnel is quite dark.
It was not yet quite dark in the tunnel when Phyllis caught at Bobbie’s skirt, ripping out half a yard of gathers, but no one noticed this at the time.
“I want to go back,” she said, “I don’t like it. It’ll be pitch dark in a minute. I won’t go on in the dark. I don’t care what you say, I won’t.”
“Don’t be a silly cuckoo,” said Peter; “I’ve got a candle end and matches, and—what’s that?”
“That” was a low, humming sound on the railway line, a trembling of the wires beside it, a buzzing, humming sound that grew louder and louder as they listened.
“It’s a train,” said Bobbie.
“Which line?”
“Let me go back,” cried Phyllis, struggling to get away from the hand by which Bobbie held her.
“Don’t be a coward,” said Bobbie; “it’s