"No, to be sure not; it would be bad travelling in the dark with this here precious child, wouldn't it? Come along, lovey."
John wondered where they were going for the night. He felt uneasy, though he was too innocent and unsuspicious to disbelieve the woman when she said the child was hers. But he was shy, and did not like to ask any more questions. He lifted the child out of the train; the woman seized her hand and dragged her away along the platform of the quiet, lonely station, where only a stray lamp here and there glimmered in the darkness. John, following them, thought that he had lost his ticket, and it was a few minutes before he found it, safely stowed away at the bottom of his safest pocket.
This delayed him, and when, coming out of the station, he looked up and down the dreary new-made road, the woman and child had long ago disappeared into the darkness.
He thought about them a good deal, however, as he walked on to the village of Moreton, where he was to spend the night with the old schoolmaster who had formerly been at Markwood, and had taught him all he knew. Presently, in talking to this old friend, telling him all the village news, and describing the wonderful sights of London, he did not find room to mention the odd adventure of his first railway journey. But he wondered several times that night what would become of the child, whose sweet little face haunted him. "Fiddler's Green?" Well, it would be easy to walk over there and see her again. It was true that he did not know her grandmother's name, but those few lonely cottages could not boast another child like her. "Why," said John to himself, "she was as white as a lily. And she smiled—she smiled like one o' them baby angels in a Bible picture."
CHAPTER II
STORM AND SUNLIGHT
"And shed on me a smile of beams, that told
Of a bright world beyond the thunder-piles."
—F. TENNYSON.
John's old friend would not part with him till late in the afternoon of the next day, which was Saturday. Though the time of year was late June, the heavy heat was like July; it wearied John, strong young man as he was, and he felt that Mrs. Bland, the schoolmaster's wife, was quite right when she insisted on his having tea before he started on his walk of ten miles. She also expressed an opinion that a thunderstorm was coming—her head ached, and that was a sure sign; John had much better stay where he was till Monday.
"Thank you, ma'am, but there's my mother," said John.
Mrs. Bland's grey curls and the pink ribbons in her cap wagged as she stood looking out of the window.