Nearly Bedtime Part 5

"What if you did, man? Wasn't the sixpence heavy enough?"

Gull knew now that he had found the man he wanted. He drew his hand from his pocket and held a bright half-sovereign towards Mr. Kingsley.

"That's what you give me, in mistake, sir," he said huskily, adding, "I'm glad I remembered who 'twas as give it to me."

Again Mr. Kingsley looked the porter well over. Then he turned his eyes to the further end of the railway carriage, and was relieved to see that his fellow-pa.s.senger was, to all appearance, deeply interested in his evening paper. I say, to all appearance, for the truth is that he was listening to all that pa.s.sed; and it is from him that I heard this story, which is no fiction.

Still, though satisfied that he was unnoticed, Mr. Kingsley did not take the proffered coin. After a moment's pause he said--

"How did you find out that I was coming back this way to-night?"

"I seemed to know as you was a 'season,' sir," Gull answered, "and I watched for you."

"Well, well, man! and now, as to that half-sovereign. I expect it will be of more use to you than to me--eh? Keep it, man; keep it."

Gull's pale cheeks flushed.

He stammered out, "You'd--you'd best take it back, sir." It seemed to him as if this was some new form of that terrible temptation which had been a.s.sailing him all that long day; and he thrust the half-sovereign forward again.

"No, no! Keep it, man!" repeated Mr. Kingsley. "I'm not going to say a word about your honesty. You are just as much a man as I am; and a true man is always honest. But keep it, _because_ the Christmas bells will ring to-night."

"Thank you, sir."

Written, the words appear cold; but said, as Gull said them, they carried an amount of warmth and grat.i.tude which quite satisfied Mr.

Kingsley without the half-involuntary speech that followed, "So there _will_ be boots for the little lads, after all!"

"Bless the man! How jolly you look! Did you get your tanner, then?"

This was the ticket collector's greeting as Gull pa.s.sed.

"Yon gent's a trump, and no mistake!" answered the other as he hurried along, eager for the delight which _such_ a story would bring to the little ears now listening for his coming in that third floor front in Pleasant Court.

I wonder what it was that moved Mr. Kingsley to a wider generosity that evening than was at all usual in the money-wise, business man? Could it have been that he was led to it partly by the fact--though he was quite unconscious of it--that there was something similar in the home relations of these two men?

For Mr. Kingsley was also a widower; and it was his little only daughter who was pressing her tiny nose against the window-pane, and trying to guess how many people would go by the gate before daddy set it swinging and came up the drive.

Patsy's greeting was quite as loving and vigorous as the one the "twinses" gave their father every day. The slippers warming at the fire were elegant braided ones, bound round with velvet. Well! what of that?

It was the love that thought of putting them there which made them so comfortable; and so, in that respect, Gull's were quite as good to wear as Mr. Kingsley's.

When the two were comfortably settled, Patsy began to rummage in all daddy's pockets.

"It's Christmas present night!" she cried. "Where's my little yellow money?"

Mr. Kingsley felt in his pockets with a musing air.

"I don't know what my little maid will say," he said at last, producing four half-crowns; "but I have no nice half-sovereign for her to-night--only these big ugly white things. It is true they will buy quite as many toys. And I _might_ have had 'the yellow money,' only now, I expect, it is turned into shoeleather."

At the opening of this speech Patsy's face had borne an expression of disgust and disappointment; but before it was finished, it changed to one of undisguised interest.

"Oh! I'm _sure_ you've been in a fairy tale to-day, daddy! You know I just _love_ fairy stories. _Do_ begin at once, before nurse comes. Tell me about it quickly--do, _please_."

And so, out of the materials that Gull had given him, Mr. Kingsley pleased his little daughter by weaving a wonderful modern fairy story.

He had rather a talent that way, and had learnt by experience the kind of stories that the little ones like best. This time his narrative was "truer" than he knew; and Patsy acknowledged, when it was done, that it was "the nicest and beautifullest that she had heard for a long time."

And while Patsy's father was telling the story in his way, another version of it was being repeated again and again to the twins, high up in that old London house.

They were never tired of hearing it, never tired of asking questions; and all the time the feeling of grat.i.tude in their father's heart--which had been like a little seed, planted there by the kind words and gift of Mr. Kingsley--grew and grew until he _longed_ to _do_ something. He had only as yet said, "Thank you, sir;" but now he longed to show his grat.i.tude in a more fitting way. So thought the "twinses," too, for Bob said presently--

"Father, shouldn't I just like to do something nice for that gentleman!

I wonder whether you're like to see him again?"

"In course, lad. I shall often see him pa.s.s, I'll never forget him; but it's not so likely as he'll remember me. Got summat better to do, I reckon. Yes; he'll come most days, seeing as he's a 'season.' But, there--you're right! I don't feel as if I shall be able to rest until I've done 'summat nice for him,' as you says, if it's only to carry his bag for nothing. But summat bigger nor that would _ease_ me more. What a rale gent he is, to be sure!"

There was no disguising the tears that stood in Gull's eyes now; and strange to say, he did not try to hide from his "little lads" that they were there.

He made the boys put their feet, now so stoutly booted, in a row upon the fender. How the bra.s.s tips shone in the firelight! And there was _such_ a jolly noise when the heels knocked against the floor! Bob made the grand discovery that he could dance a hornpipe. And his st.u.r.dy feet careered over the floor, clattering, tapping, and jumping, until the quiet Tom was roused into clapping and "hurrahing" with delight.

His "act of irregular charity," as he called it, quickly faded from Mr.

Kingsley's mind--so quickly, too, that when one of the outside porters occasionally helped him more readily than usual, or seemed less eager for the accustomed "tip," he never thought that it might have any connection with that Christmas Eve adventure. He was short-sighted, too, and not very quick to recognize faces. He did not know that as he pa.s.sed out of the station every morning, Gull's eyes followed him with a pleasant _remembering_ look, that Gull's hand was always ready to throw back the doors of the hansom if the day was wet and he drove, and that Gull's feet were swift to carry their owner away before the accustomed "coppers" could be offered.

The first question that always greeted Gull when he got home to his boys in the evening was, from Bob--

"Did you see _our_ gentleman to-day, father?" echoed by Tom's eager--

"Did you, father?"

A year had nearly pa.s.sed away. Christmas was coming again, this time dressed in a mantle of thick, choking fog and biting frost. The days seemed to be turned into night. People and things looked queerly distorted and unnaturally large. The street lamps tried to pierce the gloom all day with foolish, blinking eyes; and every one took his full measure of grumbling.

One evening Mr. Kingsley hurried up the steps to Waterloo Junction with a feeling of relief that the unknown perils of the gloomy streets were safely past. He pushed his way through a little group of idlers near one of the doors, and was turning towards the booking-office, when he was startled by a violent commotion close behind him. He turned to find two men--both tall, but one powerful and thick-set, the other meagre and ill-clad--engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle.

His first impulse was to continue his way and leave them to fight it out.

"It is some wretched, drunken tramp," he said to himself. But a second look showed him that there was too much desperate method on the part of both for this to be the case; and he was looking round for a policeman to interpose the "stern arm of the law," when the struggle was ended as abruptly as it had begun.

The stronger man of the two suddenly flung his antagonist from him with an angry oath, and then disappeared in the fog. He left the other lying almost at Mr. Kingsley's feet--flung there upon his back, with one hand hidden beneath him. He lay motionless as death, silenced by the force with which his head had struck the ground. His white face and closed eyes sent a quick fear to Mr. Kingsley's kindly heart as he bent over him, and he turned to the two porters who hurried up, to say--

"The man's terribly hurt, I'm afraid. There was a quarrel, and he was thrown down."

While one of the men answered him the other stooped down to look at the prostrate figure, and then started to his feet again, crying--

"Mate--it's Gull! It's Gull, I tell you! What does it mean?"