Horace did not altogether like it, but he knew it was no use arguing then on the subject. They mutually agreed to put the best face on everything before their mother. She was there to meet them at the door, and it rejoiced her heart to hear their brave talk and the cheery story of their day’s adventures. All day long her heart had gone out to them in yearnings of prayer and hope and love, and it repaid her a hundred-fold, this hour of happy meeting, with the sunlight of their faces and the music of their voices filling her soul.
As soon as supper was over Reginald suggested a precipitate retreat into the streets, for fear of another neighbourly incursion. Mrs Cruden laughingly yielded, and the trio had a long walk, heedless where they went, so long as they were together. They wandered as far as Oxford Street, looking into what shops were open, and interested still more in the ever-changing stream of people who even at ten o’clock at night crowded the pavements. They met no one they knew, not even Booms. But it mattered little to them that no one noticed them. They had one another, and there was a sense of security and comfort in that which before these last few weeks they had never dreamed of.
They were about to turn out of Oxford Street on their homeward journey when a loud shout close by arrested their attention. Looking round, they saw a boy with disordered dress and unsteady gait attempting to cross the road just as a hansom cab was bearing down at full speed on the place where he stood. They only saw his back, but it was evident he was either ill or dazed, for he stood stupidly where he was, with the peril in full-view, but somehow helpless to avoid it. The cabman shouted and pulled at his horse’s head. But to the horrified onlookers it was only too clear that nothing could stop his career in time. He was already within a yard or two of the luckless boy when Reginald made a sudden dash into the road, charging at him with a violence that sent him staggering forward two paces and then brought him to the earth. Reginald fell too, on the top of him, and as the cab dashed past it just grazed the sole of his boot where he lay.
It was all the work of a moment—the shout, the vision of the boy, and the rescue—so sudden, indeed, that Mrs Cruden had barely time to clutch Horace by the arm before Reginald lay prone in the middle of the road. In another moment Horace was beside his brother, helping him up out of the mud.
“Are you hurt, old man?”
“Not a bit,” said Reginald, very pale and breathless, but rising to his feet without help. “Look out—there’s a crowd—take mother home, and I’ll come on as soon as I’ve seen this fellow safe. I’m not damaged a bit.”
With this assurance Horace darted back to his mother in time to extricate her from the crowd which, whatever happens, is sure to collect in the streets of London at a minute’s warning.
“He’s all right,” said Horace—“not hurt a bit. Come on, mother, out of this; he’ll probably catch us up before we’re home. I say,” said he, and his voice trembled with excitement and brotherly pride as he spoke, “wasn’t it splendid?”
Mrs Cruden would fain have stayed near, but the crowd made it impossible to be of any use. So she let Horace lead her home, trembling, but with a heart full of thankfulness and pride and love for her young hero.
Reginald, meanwhile, with the coolness of an old football captain, proceeded to pick up his man, and appealed to the crowd to stand back and give the fellow room.