"Where do you want to get to, to-night?" she asked, turning to Harry
Lang.
"London."
"Um! The next train that stops here doesn't come in till 10.15.
It is a long time for her to wait, and late for her to get home."
"'Tisn't going to kill her," answered Jessie's father shortly.
"Everybody has got something to put up with sometimes. She is lucky
not to have to walk all the way." He hated to be asked questions,
and grew cross at being obliged to answer them.
"It's my opinion she'd never reach the other end if she had to do
that," said the woman curtly. Then, turning to Jessie, she said
gently, "If you lie back again, dear, maybe you'll be able to sleep,
and that will rest you, and help to pass the time too."
Jessie, only too glad to obey, and not to have to move her aching
body again, nestled back on the hard cushions, and turning her face
away from the light, shut her eyes, and soon was miles away from her
present surroundings and her miseries, in a deep dreamless sleep, and
she knew nothing more until she was wakened suddenly by a tremendous
rumbling and shaking, puffing and roaring, close at hand, which made
her start up in a terrible panic of alarm.
For a moment she did not realize where she was or what had happened;
her brain was dazed, her eyes full of sleep. Then her father came
in, and seizing her by the arm hurried her out of the room and across
the platform to the brightly-lighted train drawn up there. He gave
her no time for farewells to the kind-hearted woman who had helped
her so much, nor did he thank her himself. Poor Jessie could only
look back over her shoulder and try to thank her with her eyes and
smiles.
"Thank you very much," she called out, her voice sounding very weak
and small in the midst of all the uproar; but the gratitude on her
face and in her eyes spoke more than words.
"I've thought dozens of times of that poor little child," the woman
remarked next day to one of the porters; "the man looked so cruel and
horrid, and the child so frightened. I should like to know the truth
about them. I am sure he was unkind to her."
Once inside the railway carriage, Jessie's father put her to sit in
the corner by the window, and seated himself next to her. He was so
anxious that no one should speak to her that he even gave up the
comfortable corner seat himself, and sat bolt upright beside her, a
bit of self-denial which did not improve his temper, which was at no
time a sweet one; and when at last Waterloo was reached, it was with
no gentle hand that he shook and roused her from the kindly sleep
which had fallen on her again, and blotted for the time all her woes
from her memory.
With a shock Jessie started to her feet, staring about her with wide,
dazed, sleep-filled eyes. "Wake up, can't you? I can't stay here
all night while you has your sleep out!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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