Chapter IX: At the "station Arms."

It is strange what magic there is in water; either for outward or inward application, nothing is more soothing in its effects. Weary and depressed, we plunge ourselves into a stream of water, and back comes life and buoyancy; hopeless we bathe, and hope revives; forlorn we revel in its cool depths, and we begin to see that the world is not so very dreadful after all. It is almost, if not quite, as powerful a wonder-worker as food; and the two together, food and water--never were such magicians, not even in the days of fairies and of fairy lore. Dirty and hungry, a man feels himself not half a man; satisfied and cleaned, a man feels himself much more a man than any of his fellows. See the same person in the two different states: it is Proteus come back to life again. It cannot be possible that this one is the same; yet so it is.

No better example of the influence of these two rare powers could be found than was displayed in the persons of our three friends; and not only in their, but in all the persons of their fellows in misfortune too. A sufficiently uncomfortable spectacle these were when they first crossed the threshold of the "Station Arms." Judging from appearances, not one single decent article of clothing could they boast between them. Dirty, tattered, and torn--these three words portrayed them; muddy from top to toe; their faces so disguised either by scratches or dirt as to be almost unrecognisable; soaked to the skin; hatless, for Pollyon was the only one who could boast even a fragment of head-gear, it would have been difficult to find three altogether more disreputable figures than they were then. Nor was their state of misery confined to their exteriors; to a great extent it extended to their interiors as well. It would have been curious if it had not. Hungry, tired, dispirited, and sore--they were all four of these, and, as a natural corollary, in the worst of tempers too. No wonder when they first entered the well-regulated hostelry the landlord stared, the waiter stared, and all others who were so fortunate as to be in staring distance. The "Station Arms" was not wont to be favoured by such customers; but if the starers supposed that by their astonished looks they would abash their visitors, their supposition was soon proved wrong. With his tattered remnant of a cap thrust at the back of his head, hands in his pockets, legs apart, Pollyon returned their looks with interest; then, nodding his head with sarcastic affability--

"How do! how do?" he said. "Seen me before, or like to see me perhaps again. This is a very, _very_ cheerful meeting!"

But Tregowan, not deeming the present a suitable occasion for Master Lionel to ventilate his own ideas of humour, brought the situation to an end by going up to the man who evidently filled the position of landlord and saying--

"We have been in the accident; can you let us have a private room at once?"

At the mention of the word accident a dozen tongues were loosed. "Accident, sir?" "Was you, sir?" "Were you hurt, sir?" "How many was there killed, sir?" "You don't happen to know if John Tompkinson was in the train, sir?" This last query was addressed by a little man, dressed in the most gorgeous style. Several massive rings of some material, which vainly tried to look like gold, were on his fingers; his shirt-collar was so stiff and high that it must have seriously interfered with the locomotion of his head; his tie was resplendent, with many colours--an enormous scarf-pin set off its centre; his trousers were so tight that, thin as his legs were, it was a moot question how he got them through, and when through, how he ever got them back again.

"No," said Marmaduke, looking this individual straight in the face, and answering his question, "I do not; I do not happen to have the pleasure of Mr. Tompkinson's acquaintance."

There was no mistaking Tregowan's manner; there was no mistaking him to be anything else than what he was when he assumed the haughty look and tone which came to him only too naturally. The gentleman addressed fell back as though he had received a sudden shock, and Marmaduke passed on; Penharden passed close upon him, but Pollyon preferred to follow at his leisure. Seeming to lend an attentive ear to all inquiries, and encouraging by his manner his questioners to make still more inquiries, he waited till there was something like a pause in the shower of words, and then, taking off his cap, or what assumed to be his cap, making his most sweeping bow, remarked--

"I shall have pleasure, the very greatest pleasure, in replying to all inquiries upon a future occasion; at present, you will excuse my observing--I am engaged," And without giving them a chance to say another word, he made all haste to join his friends.

It was a very comfortable room which the landlord showed them into--better, as Pollyon said later in the evening, than the dormitories at Dorrincourt. The mention of Dorrincourt brought a lump into Tregowan's throat, though, from some points of view, he was compelled to agree with what the speaker said. The landlord (whose name, as he told them in response to Lionel's bland inquiry, was Robbins--"Robbins, sir, is my name, Thomas Robbins; well known in this town and this house these thirty years, as my father was before me, sir"), who soon perceived, despite their present disreputable appearance, the sort of customers he had to deal with, was civil to a degree; but in spite of his civility, when Tregowan asked him if they could not have another room, but whether they must perforce all share one, he frankly told them that the demand upon the accommodation which he had to offer would, in all probability, shortly be so great, that they were fortunate in even having that.

"One thing's very certain," said Lionel, when it was clearly understood that they must share the room between the three of them, "and that is, that this toggery, although eminently adapted to meet the requirements of a first-rate railway accident, is not exactly calculated to cut a shine in respectable society."

Of that there could be no doubt whatever; indeed their boots had already left their marks upon the carpet; while to sit down in those garments was not likely to improve the appearance of anything which they might sit upon.

"You must let us have a bath," suggested Tregowan; "and as I presume that our boxes will not be here to-night, or at any rate at present, if you could get us anything to supply the place of these in the meantime, we should feel obliged to you."

"A few petticoats, or anything in that line," was interposed by Lionel.

"Well, sir, I have got boys--there's two of them--both of them as promising young fellers as ever I see; and if you wouldn't mind, now I come to think of it, I shouldn't be surprised if they could loan you a soot of clothes or so."

And the landlord's absence of surprise proved to be justified by facts. The two "promising young fellers" could lend them a suit of clothes, and did. They were brought to them while they were enjoying the luxury of a warm bath, putting to a test the magical effect of water. Marmaduke had bathed, and was drying himself before a blazing fire which the landlord had had lighted in the grate; Lionel was in the water, and Noel was unrobing, a process which occupied an inordinate length of time, owing to the fact that he was continually discovering, as he removed garment after garment, fresh injuries of so grave a character that each took him several minutes to bemoan.

"Oh, if there isn't a bruise upon my thigh as large as a meat dish. It will be as black as ink before the morning; and, oh! isn't it tender? and the skin's grazed off my leg right to the knee. Oh, it's as raw as beef. It were almost better to have been slain at once than to endure such agony!" and he groaned at the thought of his own martyrdom.

"Pity you weren't," said Lionel, plunging his head beneath the water; then, bringing it out again, "I daresay they'd slay you now if you were to go back and ask them to politely. They slaughter pigs without remorse, and why should they object to slaughter you?"

"It's all very well for you to laugh. The man who makes the sufferings of others his delight"----

"Well?" said Lionel, seeing that the other stopped, "the man who makes the sufferings of others his delight--what comes afterwards? I've got that off by heart."

"Is unworthy the respect of others," continued Noel, scorning to be crushed. "He is fit only to herd by himself alone upon some solitary desert where the foot of man can never come"----

"Excuse me," interrupted Lionel, who had finished his ablution, and now stepped out of the bath, "but how can a man herd by himself alone? It's singular, but I've always thought that herd was plural; and how could he herd by himself alone upon that solitary desert, if to that solitary desert the foot of man could never come? This is not a riddle; it's an inquiry."

"I'm not going to split straws with you," Penharden was beginning, when the waiter with the promised clothes arrived. Odd fits they were. Judging from their apparel, the two "promising young fellers" must have been either twins or very nearly of a size. The only one to whom they were in any way adapted was Marmaduke, and he was hardly suited. The "promising young fellers" were apparently about his height; but, unless their tailor greatly wronged them, possessed of proportions very different to Tregowan's light and supple figure. They hung upon him like a sack. They were ridiculously bulky; indeed, Pollyon was not greatly exaggerating when he said that there was room for another one in front of him, and another one behind as well. As for the others, the case was hopeless. They turned up their sleeves, they turned up their trousers, they braced them up as high as they would go, they strapped them around their waists; but all was in vain. Two more extraordinary figures were surely never seen.

But despite the figures they presented, they were better for their bath--better in body, better in mind as well. Who does not know, yet who can adequately describe, the exquisite sense of refreshment which, when you are thoroughly tired out and worn, comes after bathing? They were hungry too. Their appetites forced themselves on their attention, and since it was plain they could get nothing served to them to eat up there, downstairs they went in search of food.

All the house was in disorder. There was hurrying and scurrying everywhere. The other passengers had all come in. The injured, since there was no hospital in the immediate neighbourhood, were also claiming shelter. It was well for the lads that they had been foremost in the field, for to expect the "Station Arms," which was by no means a mighty edifice, to accommodate all who required accommodation, was to expect what was impossible. But it was difficult to make the disappointed passengers see it.

"Landlord! landlord! Waiter! waiter!" cried a thin, rasping voice, as the lads came down the stairs, and they had no difficulty in recognising the passenger who had come with them in the open truck. "Really, landlord, am I never to be attended to? This is a most awkward position which you place me in. I ask you for a bedroom"----

"Yes, sir; and you can't have it," said a frantic waiter, whom the speaker had seized by the coat-tail, so that it was impossible, without using actual violence, for him to free himself. "If you was to go to the 'Pot and Kettle,' or to the 'Old Tin Whistle,' sir, I shouldn't be surprised if they could put you up; but we haven't got half a bed, let alone a whole one, which isn't full up to the brim."

What state of plenitude that is in which a bed may be said to be "full up to the brim" is difficult to say; but the description by no means satisfied the passenger.

"I insist upon it," he continued, in more querulous tones than ever. "I insist upon your giving me a bed. I will not be turned out into the streets of a strange town at this hour of the night. I have already suffered sufficient inconvenience--sufficient positive suffering. You are bound to take me in, and I insist upon you giving me a bed."

"But, sir, we really haven't got"----

What they really had not got the waiter never said, for just then a fresh procession entered bearing still another of the injured passengers. Before it every one gave way, and the waiter took advantage of the opportunity to make an effectual escape.

But confusion still reigned worse confounded. The lads were amazed at the extraordinary din. Nothing could induce the major portion of the disappointed passengers to believe that it was impossible to take them in. They stamped and stormed, and generally behaved as though the fact that the "Station Arms" was not a dozen times as large as it actually was, was the most flagrant piece of wickedness of which they had ever chanced to hear. To such an extent did this proceed, that the landlord was finally compelled to tell them that if they would not go, he should be obliged to get the police to turn them out; and this in the end was done. Such members of the force as the neighbourhood could boast appeared upon the scene, and a clearance was speedily effected.

"But," not unnaturally demanded the passenger with the rasping voice, "if you turn us out from here, where else is there where we can go to?"

"Oh, you'll find plenty of places," replied the constable. "I'll take you somewhere else if you like; plenty of private houses, let alone hotels. But you see, sir, the thing is, that there are a lot of injured passengers upstairs, and it's as much as their lives are worth for you to make a noise down here."

What the constable said soon proved to be the case; every one of them speedily found in other places shelter; not only hostelries, but many private householders, not a few of them Good Samaritans in Christ's sense of the term, were willing and ready to take them in. But though one eager crowd had gone, and the doors of the hotel were shut in the faces of the curious throng which filled the street without, quietude and order were by no means yet attainable. Waiters were rushing here, the landlord rushing there, chamber-maids were at their wits' ends; surgeons and doctors were upstairs driving the landlord to distraction by sternly insisting on his preserving instantaneous silence, threatening him with all sorts of pains and penalties if a sound was heard by the patients in their charge.

The boys, after vainly seeking for some one to be their guide, sought for the coffee-room themselves, finding it at last, after wandering into several wrong apartments, from which they were unceremoniously ejected, by means of the very audible sounds which came from its interior. It was a fair-sized room, well adapted to the ordinary requirements of a country tavern, but altogether unsuited to the strain which was being put upon its holding capacities now. A dozen would have fairly filled it; at present forty or fifty were vainly striving to persuade themselves that it was large enough to hold them all. The hubbub was surprising; no wonder the surgeons asked in vain for silence. Eight or nine were round the fireplace; there were twenty round a table which would not comfortably seat ten; five or six were squatted on the floor; more were trying to cheat themselves into the belief that it rested them to lean themselves against the wall. One couch there was, and six or seven were on that; in short, there was hardly a square foot which was not occupied by some one in one position or another.

To add to the confusion, every one seemed filled with a frantic desire to speak at once. Some were famishing, and demanded food; some were hurt, or thought they were, and bewailed their injuries; some exclaimed against the bitter wrong which had been done them by so breaking in upon their journey, as though they alone were sufferers; all were full of wrath against the railway company, the waiters, and, in particular, the unoffending landlord.

"Call this an hotel!" shouted one indignant gentleman. "It's a pigstye! that's what they should call it. A den of swindlers, full of as insolent a set of rascals as ever I saw in all my life!"

Whether this was true or not, the speaker altogether failed to see that it was hardly complimentary to his fellow-passengers, for if the house was filled by any one, it was certainly by them.

"Pretty lively," said Pollyon drily, when they had managed to squeeze themselves inside the door; "looks promising for supper. All I can say is, that I hope our friend Robbins has not let himself run short of eatables. I don't care what it is in my present state of mind; anything's the same to me."

"We'd better see what they can give us," suggested Marmaduke; "and as it strikes me that we shan't do much good by stopping here, I vote that we go and rout up the landlord, or the cook, or somebody, and take what they have got to eat by storm."

"I'm game for anything," was Lionel's reply; "to steal, beg, or borrow. Self-preservation is the first law of nature; and as I happen to be just upon the verge of starving, why I'm quite willing to give the most liberal interpretation to that most natural of laws."

Bent upon procuring by some means, either fair or foul, what there seemed little probability of their obtaining if they stayed where they were, they sallied forth in search of whatever they might find. Hardly had they left the coffee-room behind them than a waiter came tearing along the passage, all anxiety to learn the wishes of an individual who made his or her presence conspicuous by continually ringing an unpleasantly loud bell; him, wholly regardless of the haste which he was in, they stopped in full career by the simple process of standing right in front of him.

"Now, gents," exclaimed the waiter, who, in spite of the state of the elements outside, was perspiring copiously, "I'll attend to you in half a minute. It's as much as my place is worth for you to keep me here. There's that party a-ringing of that bell there just like mad, and the master's given strict instructions that there ain't to be no bell-ringing allowed on no account whatever."

"Never mind that party, and never mind your master either," said Marmaduke, looking the man full in the face; "and as to your attending to us in half a minute, we're rather too old birds to be caught with salt. You'll attend to us now before you go. What can you give us to eat?"

"What would you like, sir?" replied the waiter, adopting, in spite of the excitement under which he laboured, the stereotyped reply; then, as the bell continued to be rung as furiously as ever, "I really can't stop talking here, sir," he cried, and, taking them by surprise, he made a sudden dash and passed between them; and as he tore onwards on his wild career, they heard him mutter, "Break the bell, that's what he'd like to do; I'd like to break his head for him."

"Well," said Duke, smiling in spite of his disappointment at the ease with which they had been baffled, "it strikes me that it is no use persevering in that quarter. If we have to wait till he has leisure to attend upon us, we shall have to wait some time, I fancy."

"And as I don't intend to wait some time, or anytime, if I can help it, I propose we make a sortie;" and Lionel took a bird's-eye view of their surroundings. "I should say that the kitchen lay through there; there's a look about that door which is eloquent of domestic privacy;" and he pointed to a door which was at one end of the passage in which they stood. "But as it's impossible to say without one seeing, I'm going to see."

"But," said Noel, "suppose the landlord doesn't like it? Suppose all those other fellows were to take it into their heads to come routing him out of his kitchen, a pretty state of things then that would be."

"It would, a very pretty state--so pretty that we won't think of it. No one asked you to come, my boy; stay behind, if you prefer it. I am going on my own account," and Lionel marched forward.

"Stay," said Marmaduke, placing his hand upon Pollyon's shoulder; "don't go blundering on like that; let me manage him. I'll smooth him down; but if you treat him to any of your chaff, it's ten to one that he turns rusty."

"Well said, most noble Marmaduke! I don't care who manages it, so long as we do manage to get something to stay this restless clawing at my vitals. Ahem! very well said for me, wasn't it, Penharden?" And Lionel managed to yield the post of honour to Marmaduke, and to wink at Noel both in the same instant.

Upon Tregowan's heels they closely followed. He was certainly the most presentable of the three. Ill-fitting as were his clothes, they were not quite so grotesque as theirs; while even in that mountebank costume his bearing was characteristic in its pride and grace--grace which even that could not entirely conceal. Arrived at the door in question, he knocked, but as there was no immediate response, he turned the handle and went through. It led, as Pollyon expected, into the domestic offices of the hotel; they stood in a sort of lobby, in front of them was the kitchen, on the right the landlord's private parlour, and on the left a door panelled with wire gauze. To this they immediately directed their attention. It was locked, but the key was in the lock. Tregowan turned it, and the door was opened.

"Lor!" cried Lionel, peeping over Duke's shoulder, "here's splendour, boys! Here's the land of milk and honey! Here's the land of Goshen!"

The place on which they had thus unceremoniously intruded was a sort of small room, used evidently as a larder and storehouse for provisions. It was appetisingly filled with all kinds of eatables. Hams were dangling from the ceiling; a fine one, uncut, was on a shelf; a round of beef was by its side; a couple of cold fowls were companions to the beef; bread, cheese, jam, pickles, biscuits, cake, salads, all these were in plentiful profusion. It was a veritable land of Goshen to the hungry-minded.

"Now, boys, in you go," said Pollyon, hustling Tregowan forward; and in they went, and once inside they surveyed the various eatables with approving eyes. "The beef for me," went on Lionel; "my stomach requires something substantial to commence with."

"I'll take the fowls," said Marmaduke, and moved to them.

"Of course, as there is nothing left, I suppose that I must take the ham," growled Noel. "You don't ask me if I like it or if I don't. It's like your selfishness. The man who is habitually selfish"----

"Won't have any beef," struck in Pollyon. "I say, this is rather awkward, don't you know; if there is a knife and fork, it would be better perhaps, because if there isn't, it will have to be a case of fingers."

But of knives and forks there chanced to be abundance. It was the storehouse, probably, for such as were not required in constant use. With one of these the young gentlemen made haste to arm themselves; plates also were close at hand.

"I fancy," said Lionel, as he appropriated one, "that those plates were originally intended by the manufacturer to be used only for dessert. But what's the odds? We're not proud; we'll excuse them; they'll do for meat by way of a little variety."

That they would do for meat was a fact soon placed beyond all sort of doubt. Lionel commenced by carving himself several huge slices of beef, somewhere between half a pound and three-quarters perhaps. Tregowan cut a fowl in two, and placed half upon his plate; while Noel, despite his growling, bade fair, judging from the way in which he began, to make a first-rate meal off ham. Seats they extemporised, Lionel with a beer barrel, Noel by sitting on the bottom of a washing tub, and Duke by scrambling upon the shelf, which was very deep, and sitting there.

"I should think," said Lionel, speaking with his mouth crammed full of beef, "that that waiter is just thinking of attending to us; we shall be much obliged to him for his polite attention."

"I hope those fellows in the coffee-room are not very hungry," remarked Noel, "because if they are," taking a mouthful of ham, "I hope they'll get enough to eat." And he attacked the ham again. But Tregowan said nothing; he was too much occupied to talk.