The Sailor. Snaith John Collis
and get under one of the sheets, which happened to have been loosely tied. Also he had the luck to find a bed that would have been more or less comfortable had the night not been so bitterly cold. The wagon was loaded with sacks full of a substance soft and yielding; as a matter of fact, it was flour.
Henry Harper lay down with a feeling of relief and burrowed among the sacks as far as he could get. A mass of aches in body and soul, anything was better than the darkness and damp fog and icy substances cutting into his bare feet. Presently, with the sacks piled all round him, he felt less miserable, and he fell asleep.
How long he slept he didn't know. But it must have been some little time, and the sleep must have been fairly sound, for he was only awakened by a great jolt of the wagon. And before he was fully awake it had begun to move.
Hadn't he better jump out? No, let it move. Let it do anything it liked. Let it go anywhere it pleased. What did it matter? Again he fell asleep.
The next time he awoke he was shivering with cold and feeling very hungry. But the wagon was moving now and no mistake. It was still pitch dark, although the fog seemed to have lifted a bit, but the detonators which had been placed on the line were going off now and again with tremendous reports, signals flew past, and while he lay wondering what he ought to do now, he passed through an array of lights which looked like a station.
He soon came to the conclusion that it was useless to do anything. He couldn't get out of the wagon now even if he wanted to, that was unless he wanted to kill himself. Yes … that was exactly what…
"Lie quiet. Go to sleep," a stern voice commanded him.
He tried to sleep again but soon found he couldn't. He was cold and ill, but after an attack of vomiting he felt better. Meanwhile the wagon rattled on and on through the night, and it seemed to go faster the farther it went.
Where was it going? What did it matter where it went so long as he went with it? But – the sudden thought was like a blow – that was just what did matter! They would find him lying there, and they would give him to the police, and the police would do something to him. He knew all about that, because they had done something to him once already for taking an apple off a stall in the market place. He had only taken one, but they had given him six strokes, and in spite of the cold and the pain in his left leg he still remembered just what they were like.
Perhaps he ought to jump for it. No, that was impossible with his leg like that; the wagon was going too fast. He had better lie quiet and slip out as soon as the wagon stopped at a station. He burrowed far down into the sacks once more, for the sake of the warmth, and after a while he went to sleep again.
And then he had a dream that filled him with terror. The police had found him. The police had found him in the wagon.
He awoke with a start. Rough hands were shaking him. Yes, it was perfectly true!
"Kim up … you!"
It was the voice of the police.
He turned over with a whimper and lifted up his head, only to drop it instantly. He had been blinded by the glare of a lantern held six inches from his eyes.
"Well, damn me," a great, roaring voice surged into his ears. "Here, Ike!"
"What's up now?" said a second voice, roaring like the first.
"Come and look at this."
The boy dug his head into the sacks.
"What's up?" said voice the second.
"What about it? Must ha' got in at Blackhampton."
"Well, damn me."
The boy burrowed deeper and deeper into the sacks.
"Here, come out of it." The owner of the first voice took him by the ear and dragged him out of the wagon.
"What's yer name?"
No answer.
His captor shook him roughly.
"Enry Arper," whimpered the boy.
"Enry what?"
"Enry Arper."
"Enry Arper, is it? Well, you are going to have something to 'arp for, you are, my lad."
"Ever had the birch rod, Mister Enry Arper?" inquired the first voice with a kind of grim pleasantness.
The boy didn't answer.
"No? Not had that pleasure? The police are going to cut the skin off o' you and sarve you right. They'll larn you to trespass on to the railway. Fetch the foreman, Ike."
While the boy, securely held by the ear, stood shivering, Ike went leisurely in search of the foreman shunter. It was six o'clock, and that individual, who had been on duty since that hour the previous evening, was on the point of going home. Ike found him in the messroom, where he had gone to exchange his lantern for the small wicker basket in which he brought his meals. His name was Job Lorimer, and being large and fat and florid he sauntered up to the scene of action with an air of frank acceptance of life as it is, that seems to go as a rule with his type of physique and countenance.
"Why, blow me, Iggins, what's all this year?"
"Allow me to introjuice Mr. Enry Arper o' Blackhampton. – Mr. Job Lorimer, foreman shunter, Kentish Town."
"'Owdy do, young man. Pleased to meet you." Mr. Lorimer winked solemnly at both his subordinates. "What can we do for you?"
"Twelve strokes with the birch rod," said subordinate the first.
"Eight for the first offence," said subordinate the second.
Suddenly the boy fell down senseless at the foreman shunter's feet.
V
"Well, blow me," said the Foreman Shunter. "Show the light, Pearson."
The second subordinate maneuvered the lantern. "On'y a kid. And I never see sich a state as he's in. No boots. No stockings. Just look at them feet. And his hands all of a mush. Gawd!" said the Foreman Shunter.
"What'll you do about it, Job?" said subordinate number one.
"Do about it?" said the Foreman Shunter sharply. "Do about what?"
"Might let him go this time?" said subordinate number two.
The boy opened his eyes.
"I'll take him 'ome to the missus and give him some breakfast," said the Foreman Shunter with an air of asperity.
The odd thing was that both subordinates seemed silently to approve this grave dereliction of a foreman shunter's duty.
"Can you walk, me lad?"
"O' course he can't, Iggins, not with them," said the Foreman Shunter. "Can't stand on 'em, let alone walk on 'em. Here, catch holt o' the bawsket."
The Foreman Shunter took the boy in his arms and carried him away from the goods yard as he would have carried a baby.
"Leave the bawsket at No. 12 when you come off duty," he called back to the first subordinate.
"Right, Job, I will," said the first subordinate rather respectfully, and then as the Foreman Shunter passed out of hearing, the first subordinate said to his mate, "Fancy taking a thing like that 'ome to your missus."
In the meantime the boy was shivering and whimpering in what he felt to be the strong arms of the police.
"Let me go, mister, this once," he whined as awful recollections surged upon him. He had been getting terribly hurt all through the night, but he knew that he was going to be hurt still more now that the police had got hold of him.
But his faint whimpers and half-hearted wriggles were without effect upon the majesty of the law.
"Lie still. Keep quiet," growled the Foreman Shunter, adding as quite an impersonal afterthought, "Blast you!"
It seemed a very long time to the boy before he came to prison. Up one strange street and down another he was carried. As he lay in the arms of the police he could make out lamp after lamp and row after row of houses in the darkness.
It was a long way to the station.
"Let