CHAPTER XI

IN LONDON

"AND what do you want to do to-day?"

"Please, we want to go to see Dawn," was the cry from both Puggy and Christina.

They had had three days of sight-seeing in town, and it had almost been too bewildering for Christina. They had been to a pantomime, "Olympia," Madame Tussaud's and the Crystal Palace, and now Mr. and Mrs. Maclahan were going down for the day to Richmond, and the children were to be left in the charge of Blanche, Mrs. Maclahan's maid, who was a very staid elderly woman.

They had just finished breakfast in their hotel, and Mr. Maclahan smiled when he received his answer.

"Ah! I might have guessed that! Now remember! You are to have Blanche with you when you go. She can call a cab, and take you to see Dawn, and you can bring him back to lunch."

"But boys don't go about with maids in London," said Puggy rebelliously.

"If you don't like to go out with her, you can stay at home."

Puggy knew the Squire too well by this time to dream of protesting further, but he prepared himself to be very disagreeable, and when Puggy was disagreeable, he made every one near him very uncomfortable. Christina was his butt; when Mr. and Mrs. Maclahan had gone, he made her shiver in her shoes by his dark descriptions of cab drives in London.

"The horses are always starved, and they tumble down. I saw a little girl come crashing through a cab window once, and bits of glass were sticking in her face just like pins in a pincushion, and it was because the cab horse tumbled. And all cabmen in London are drunk, and they drive anyhow, and crash into motor-cars and kill people by hundreds; and cabs in London are always nearly worn out: their wheels fly off, and then down they go! If the Squire had let us walk to Dawn's house, we should have got there safely; but he makes us come in a cab, and we're positively certain to have an accident, so if we're all killed it won't be my fault, and I shall tell them so!"

"But," said Christina, trying to disguise her terror at such a catalogue of evils, "if you're killed, you won't be able to say anything!"

"Oh, I shall manage to let them know," said Puggy with an emphatic nod of his round head.

When they started in a four-wheeler, Christina's nerves were on edge. She clutched hold of Blanche, who sat beside her, and asked her appealingly if there was any danger.

"Of course there isn't," said Blanche soothingly.

"You're sitting on danger," said Puggy darkly; "this cab smells of smallpox. A fellow at my school got into a cab just like this and died of the smallpox a month afterwards. They always take smallpox people in those cabs—that's why my sister goes in hansoms; she says you're bound to get awful diseases in these cabs."

"Hold your tongue!" snapped Blanche crossly.

She was peculiarly nervous about taking infection, and Puggy knew it.

Having thoroughly frightened both Blanche and Christina, Puggy began to enjoy himself. But the pleasures of that drive were over to poor Christina. Every jolt of the cab meant a wheel off to her, every block in the streets meant collision, every application of the cabman's whip, and a corresponding start of the horse, meant a tumble and certain death. Then she remembered her text and repeated it over to herself.

"God can take care of me," she thought, and her fears began to slip away.

Still, when they arrived in Kensington, and were put down at Dawn's home, Christina drew a long sigh of relief.

"I expect he'll be as cocky as a sparrow," said Puggy, as they mounted the steps and rang the bell; "but I shan't let him cheek me!"

The servant who answered the door showed them into a very small drawing-room.

"Yes, Master Dawn is at home; he is in the studio with his father. I will let him know."

"You mustn't stay here long," said Blanche; "for the cabman is waiting, and if Master Dawn can come back with us, he must do it at once."

The door flew open as she spoke, and Dawn appeared, looking more radiant than ever. He embraced Christina, thumped Puggy on the back and danced up and down with ecstasy.

"How scrumptious! I never knew you were in London. Oh what ripping fun we'll have! I have ten days' more holidays, and if those aren't enough to do everything in, I'll take French leave, and add on a few more days."

"You're to come back to lunch with us," said Puggy grandly.

"Hurrah! How did you come? On the top of a 'bus?"

"In a stuffy cab. It's waiting now."

"A 'bus is much jollier! Come and see dad. Tina, he's working at your picture: the one with the hounds. It's nearly finished, and we have such a lovely hound lent to us. He goes any way you want him to; I want to make him stand on his head, but dad won't let me."

"They must only stay five minutes," said Blanche, but they never heard her, they were all racing upstairs to Mr. O'Flagherty's studio.

It was a much larger room than that in his country cottage. Christina looked round it with interest. There were rich coloured stuffs draped over screens, beautiful pictures, bits of armour, china bowls, and all sorts of queer pieces of furniture. The artist was working away, palette in hand. Dawn's corner was soon discovered. A plate of oranges on a stool, some shavings of wood and a knife, and various boy's playthings scattered round showed where he had been working.

"Oh, dad, isn't this luck?" Dawn exclaimed. "Say good-bye for the day, for you won't see me before bedtime; and won't you be jolly glad to get rid of me!"

Mr. O'Flagherty turned round and nodded to Puggy and Christina.

"You've brought a whiff of the country with you," he said. "Well, Tina, have you been defying any more savage sportsmen?"

"She's been defying a drunk pedlar," said Puggy.

"What? Oh, this is delicious! Tell me all about it. Dawn, hand the oranges round. Don't you forget your hospitality."

So the story of Susy and her father was told. Mr. O'Flagherty chuckled with delight over it, and laughed at Christina's solemn face. The recital to her meant a recital of Susy's woes and courage. Her own part in it was a very small one in her own estimation.

"Bravo, little Scotland!" said the artist. "Go through the world with your back up and fists out for the oppressed. I wish it had been my Jack-in-the-box. Whose cause will you undertake next, I wonder? Plenty need a champion in this big city."

"I wish you'd chuck Blanche out of the cab, Tina," said Puggy; "then you would be good for something. If she wasn't a woman, but just a fellow like me, I'd do it myself with the greatest pleasure!"

"I'll show you round London in a jiffy!" cried Dawn. "I know the way, don't I, dad?"

"There isn't much you don't know!" retorted his father.

They stayed chatting a few minutes longer, and then Dawn struggled into his greatcoat, and accompanied them downstairs.

"Oh," he said, as they got into the cab together, "we'll do some lovely things together! Tell me what you've done."

Their tongues went fast. At the bottom of Hanover Square they got out and walked the rest of the way to their hotel. Dawn thoroughly enjoyed himself. He liked seeing the different people come in and out of the rooms, and invented a story at once about each of them. They in their turn looked at the pretty curly-headed boy with great interest.

The three children sat down to a luncheon table by themselves. Puggy was in his element now.

"I should like to clear the world of women," he asserted. "I shall have nothing but men servants in my house when I grow up. I hate Blanche and that girl Connie being with us. It's like being with nurses again."

"I'll take you to see some of dad's pictures this afternoon," said Dawn. "They're in a gallery with some others in Bond Street. That's close here, you know. I can go in free. The gatekeeper knows me."

"Blanche will have to come with us," said Christina.

"Oh no, she won't. Dad lets me go about alone."

"Yes, Dawn is quite enough for us," said Puggy. "And we'll go out the very minute we've had enough to eat."

"But I couldn't," said Christina; "it wouldn't be right!"

"It will be right if I say it is," cried Dawn gaily.

Christina was silent. The idea of going out with the two boys without Blanche sounded very tempting.

"The Squire only said Blanche was to come with us when we went to Dawn," argued Puggy.

"I shan't feel comfortable," said Christina; "my conscience will bother me so."

"Oh, your conscience is all stuff; it is a rotten egg, your conscience is!"

Puggy's tone had supreme contempt in it.

"Dad says," Dawn asserted thoughtfully, conveying some apple tart to his mouth, "that the Scotch people's consciences make them dour; he says we have too little of it, and they have too much."

"Well, my conscience is just right," said Puggy. "I'm neither Scotch or Irish, so you listen to me, Tina. My conscience says go."

"Are you really listening to it?" questioned Christina anxiously.

"Of course I am, you stupid!"

"We'll just tell Blanche what we mean to do," suggested Dawn, pushing his chair away. "You leave her to me. I'll manage her. And if she says we can go, it will be all right."

Blanche had a great desire to go out shopping on her own account, so when Dawn with specious arguments convinced her that they would only walk up one street and down another, and come straight back to tea after seeing the pictures, she reluctantly gave her consent.

The three children started from the hotel in the highest spirits. Even Christina, now that her conscience was eased, felt the force of Dawn's gay humour.

He told them the drollest anecdotes, and was brimful of mischievous devices for spending the next few days.

"Not been to the Zoo? Of course we'll go there. We'll do it to-morrow. I've learnt the way to drive an elephant. A friend of dad's told me. He's been in India; and we'll get on the elephant's back and make him gallop! Wouldn't it be fun to tear out of the gardens and come galloping down Regent Street on him! What a sight we should be! Now come on, here we are, and its awful fun to hear what people say about dad's pictures! There's one of me, when I was quite a youngster, and I'm sitting in the sea; and then there are the three pictures, 'Dawn' and 'Day' and 'Dusk.' I can tell you those are fine!"

They were at the gallery by the turnstile; the ticket collector looked at Dawn rather sternly.

"What do you want here again?" he demanded.

"I'm showing some friends round," Dawn said airily. "Don't mind us. I have dad's card in my pocket, and we shan't stay long."

"Sixpence each, and that's only asking half-price. If you goes in free, a tail o' children after you don't!"

Puggy tossed the man a shilling with the grandest air.

"Take that and let us through without any more of your cheek!" he said.

Dawn's face was crimson with mortification. He felt in his pockets, and then laughed his sunny laugh.

"I'm a penniless Paddy," he said, "or I'd pay it for you; but I'll be even with that fellow yet, for insulting my friends! Come on. Now what would you say if your father had painted pictures like that?"

He led them triumphantly to a small room, and there in the centre were three large pictures. A group of people were before them discussing them, and Dawn on tiptoe, with his finger on his lips, crept up to listen.

Christina was feasting her eyes, not her ears. The first picture was a portrait of Dawn, and a very lovely picture he made. He was represented as just waking up in the centre of a great forest, the sun was rising, though not actually in sight. Its pale golden light surrounded by a slight morning mist, edged the horizon between some grand-looking pines. It was a picture that portrayed not only the dawn of youth, but the dawn of day and the dawn of summer. Everything was young and fresh; the baby bracken was softly uncurling, the buds of tree and bush all unfolding; a nest of young birds, a group of tiny rabbits, and a timid frightened fawn peering through the bushes at the waking child were all depicted with power that was akin to genius. The child was the centre of it all, and with his flushed and dimpled face, the disordered curls on his forehead, his sleepy eyes, and his little limbs in the act of stretching themselves, was a life-like sketch.

"What a lovely idea!" said a young girl enthusiastically. "And what a pretty boy! I long to take him up in my lap and kiss him!"

Dawn looked back at Puggy and Christina with mischief in his glance, then he sauntered boldly in front of the girl and looked at her.

When she caught his eye, he took off his hat with a low bow.

"Thank you!" he said, and then his flying feet carried him out of sight into an adjoining room before the young girl could get over her astonishment. Puggy followed him, but Christina stayed, and let her eyes take her to the next picture.

"Day" was simply the picture of a handsome, vigorous young blacksmith working at his forge; children were grouped round the door on their way to school; the sunshine outside and the glowing fire in the darkened forge were managed with consummate skill. "Dusk" was the third picture, and Christina could not tear herself away from this. An old man sitting in the twilight by the sick-bed of his old wife. That was the subject of it, but the gloom and pathos in his resigned expression and attitude, and the sad and wistful glance of his dying wife, as her face was turned towards him, brought the tears to the little girl's eyes.

"Oh, why do they look so unhappy!" she exclaimed aloud.

"Why? Because they are meeting their doom, the doom of us all—decay and death!"

Christina started nervously at the voice close to her. Turning, she saw an old man behind her leaning on his stick, and gazing intently upon the picture.

"But if you die, you go to Jesus," said Christina simply, "and that's a happy thing to do; Miss Bertha says it is."

The old man put his hand on her shoulder:

"Say it again, child, I like to hear it. I am in the dusk of my life. The dusk before darkness."

"And the darkness before light."

A gentle-looking woman murmured these words as she passed by, and the old man gazed after her with a sudden gleam of brightness in his eye. Then he turned to Christina:

"I am fond of little girls," he said. "I had a little girl of my own once, and when she was as small as you, she used to sit on my knee and ask me to tell her stories. Have you come here alone?"

"No," said Christina, a sudden panic seizing her, "I'm with Puggy and Dawn, and—and I believe they have left me!"

She looked wildly round. A sense of being lost in London rushed over her, but a minute afterwards, she caught sight of Puggy the other end of the room, and she dashed across to him.

"Oh, don't leave me," she gasped. "I thought you had gone away. Where is Dawn?"

"At some of his monkey tricks. I don't care for pictures; come on out, Tina."

"But we can't go without Dawn, where is he?"

"He's talking to two ladies; they seem to know him. We were just beginning to have a game of hide and seek, and he was under one of those seats when the ladies sat down, and then he mewed like a cat, and they sprang up in an awful fright, and then he crawled out and begged their pardon, and talked as if the whole place belonged to him, and they said they knew his father, and whilst they were jawing I came off."

"We can't go away without Dawn. Don't you like pictures, Puggy? I love them; do let us see some more. Look at that little girl on horseback over there, who is she I wonder?"

"I know I'd like to be on horseback," muttered Puggy; "this is too slow for me. I want to get out of it."

Dawn came skipping up to them, quite unconscious that Puggy was becoming bored.

"Isn't it nice here?" he said. "The rooms are so big. Have you seen dad's pictures, Tina?"

"Puggy is tired of it, he wants to go."

"All right, we will; and we'll go and have some tea in a shop. I know where to take you. Dad and I always go there."

Christina very reluctantly left the pictures and followed the boys out into the street. It was Dawn's way she knew, to be always changing his programme. But when they left the gallery, which had been lighted throughout with electricity, they found that outside, thick darkness prevailed.

"Is it night?" asked Christina with fright in her tone.

"No, it's a regular pea soup fog; isn't it fun? Come on, you follow me! I know the way."

"Don't go so fast," pleaded Christina; "and, please, don't cross the street. I can't see the horses and carts properly, and I shall be run over."

"This is the kind of day you get robbed," announced Dawn. "Burglars and pickpockets always come along in a fog. Mind if any one takes hold of you, you hit him straight in the face with your fist. Do you hear, Christina? You aren't afraid any more, are you?"

"Oh," cried Christina clutching hold of his arm, "I'm very, very much afraid just now!"

Everything seemed far away. The lights in the shops, the lamps on the carriages, seemed literally vanishing; and at last she gasped out: "Do you think it's the Judgment Day? Perhaps God has taken the sun right away?"

Both boys laughed; and then suddenly—Christina never knew how it was—there was a crowd of people, she became detached from the boys; and before she had time to call after them, she was alone by herself in the foggy London street.