[Ill.u.s.tration: Tom leaning half his body out of the window with the wind whistling in his ears.]

"I forbid you to open that window again," she said with such severity that even Tom was cowed, and sat meekly down with a somewhat sulky air.

Miss Clark had thus time to turn her attention to the other children, when, to her horror, she found that Flossie was not only emulating but far surpa.s.sing her brother, not contenting herself with leaning well out of the window, but was actually standing on the seat that she might push herself out the farther. To pull her in and put her down on her seat with a b.u.mp was the work of but a moment.

"If I have to speak to you again, Flossie," she said in accents of solemn warning, "I shall get out at the next station and take you to your father's carriage. I fancy you will sit quiet there."

Flossie thought so too, and sat quietly enough till the next station was pa.s.sed; but after that May complained so bitterly of the closed windows and the horrid stuffiness of the carriage that Miss Clark's sternness relented a little, and she allowed the window beside which May was sitting to be let down. And the very fact of the window being open seemed to set all Tom's nerves, and muscles, and longings tingling. He moved about uneasily in his seat, kept dodging round to look sideways through the gla.s.s at the side, and finally jumped up in a hurry and pushed his head and shoulders through the window. In vain did Miss Clark tug and pull at him and his garments alike. Tom had his elbows out of the window this time, and, as he chose not to give way, not all the combined strength of Miss Clark and May, with such help as Sarah and Minnie could give, had the smallest effect upon him. At last Miss Clark, who, as I have said, was not very strong, sat down and began to sniff in a way which sounded very hysterical, for she really was horribly afraid some dreadful accident would happen long before they got to their destination. However, as the suspicious little sob was heard and understood by May, that young lady took the law into her own hands and administered a sharp corrective immediately.

"Tom," she shouted, "come in."

Tom did not hear more than that he was being shouted at, and, as a natural consequence, did not move. Whereupon May quietly reached up to the rack and fished out Tom's own, his very own, riding-whip, and with that she began to belabour him soundly.

It had effect! After half a dozen cuts, Tom began to struggle in, but May was a stout and heavily-set young lady, and as resolute in will as ever was her father, when she was once fairly roused. So she calmly held him by his neck and went on administering her corrective until she was utterly tired.

Then she let him go, and when he, blind with rage and fury, and vowing vengeance upon her, made for her, and would have fought her, she sprang up at the k.n.o.b by which you can signal to the driver and stop a train, and threatened to pull it if he touched her.

And oh, Tom was angry! Angry--he was furious; but he was mastered. For it happened that on the very day that he and Johnnie had gone with Charles to Seven Dials, he had asked Charles all about the alarm bell, by means of which trains may be stopped if necessary, and Charles had explained the matter in a clear and lucid way peculiar to himself--a talent which made him especially valuable in a home where there were boys.

"Why, Master Tom," he exclaimed, "you see that's a indicator. If you wants to storp the trayin you just pulls that k.n.o.b, and it rings a bell on the engine somewhere, and the driver storps the trayin at once."

"Let's stop it," suggested Tom, in high glee at the prospect of a walk through a dark and dangerous tunnel.

It must be admitted that Charles's heart fairly stood still at the thought of what his explanation had suggested.

"Master Tom," said he, with a face of horror which was so expressive that Tom was greatly impressed by it, "don't you go for to do nothing of the kind! It's almost a 'anging matter is storping of trayins--useless like. If you was took ill, or 'ad a fit, or somebody was a-murdering of you, why, it would be all right; but to storp a trayin when there's naught wrong, is--well, I believe, as a matter of fact, it's seven years."

"Seven years--seven years what?" Tom asked, thinking the whole thing a grand joke.

"Prison," returned Charles laconically; "that is, if it was me. If it was you, Master Tom, it would mean reformatory school, with plenty of stick and no meat, nor no 'olidays. No, I wouldn't go for to storp no trayins if I was you, Master Tom."

"But we needn't say it was us that rang," pleaded Tom, whose fingers were just itching to ring that bell.

Charles laughed. "Lor! Master Tom, they're up to that game!" he answered. "Bless you! they 'ave a lot of numbers, and they'd know in a minute which carriage it was that rang. No, Master Tom, don't you go for to ring no bells and storp no trayins. I lived servant with a young fellow once as had had five years of a reformatory school, and the tales he used to tell of what went on there was enough to make your blood curdle and your very 'air stand on end--mine did many a time!"

"Which--your blood or your hair, Charles?" Tom inquired, with keen interest.

"Both!" returned Charles, in a tone which carried conviction with it.

Thus Tom had no further resource, when May vowed to ring the bell and stop the train if he touched her, but to sit down and bear his aches and his defeat in silence. But, oh, he was angry! To be beaten and beaten again by a girl! It was too humiliating, too lowering to bear. Yet poor Tom had to bear it--that was the worst of it. So they eventually got to Brighton in safety.

CHAPTER XI

AUNT GEORGE

It would be hard for me to tell of all the joys and pleasures which Brighton gave to the Stubbs family and to Sarah in particular. To the younger of the Stubbs children all was joy and delight, though they had been there several times before; to Miss Clark it was rest and peace, because she was not much troubled with Tom; and Flossie, too, was allowed to go about with him and Johnnie a great deal more freely than she ever was at home. May--always Miss Clark's favourite--spent much of her time beside her, though she went shopping sometimes with her mother, and also driving. But, on the whole, Mrs. Stubbs did not give up very much of her time just then to her children.

For Mr. Stubbs was taking his holiday, and Mr. Stubbs was troubled with a threatened fit of the gout, and do with the sound of the children's racket and bustle he simply could not. He was often threatened with the gout, though the threatenings seldom came to anything more than temper.

So, whilst they were at Brighton, Mrs. Stubbs--who was as good a wife as she was a mother--devoted herself to him, and left the children to take care of themselves a good deal.

Their life was naturally quite a different one to what it was in town.

They had a furnished house in which they slept and took their meals, but which at other times they did not much affect--they had early dinner there, and a high tea at seven o'clock, at which they all ate like ravenous wolves, Sarah amongst the number. This was a very happy, free-and-easy meal; for, though Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs joined in the early dinner, and called it lunch, they did not go in for the high tea but invariably went to the Grand Hotel and had dinner there.

Oh, what happy, happy days they were! There was the early run out on the Parade or the Sea Wall before breakfast; then the delicious seaside breakfast, with fresh whitings every morning. There was the daily dip in the sea, and the daily donkey ride or goat-chaise drive. There was the ever new and delightful shingle, on which they played and skipped, and dug and delved to their hearts' content. There were the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and the blind man who sang to his own accompaniment on a sort of hand-organ, and wore a smart blue necktie, and a flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole. There was a sweet little child, too, wearing a big sun-bonnet, whom they used to watch for every morning, who came with toddling three-year-old gravity with a penny for the n.i.g.g.e.rs, to the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of the bystanders.

"Here, black man."

"Thank you, my little Snowdrop," was the invariable reply of the n.i.g.g.e.r minstrel; and then the little wee "Snowdrop" would make a stately bow.

The n.i.g.g.e.r would take off his hat with a bow to match it, and the little scene was over till the morrow.

Then there was the Aquarium, and the delightful shop, which they called "The Creameries," a little way past Mutton's; and once or twice they all, except Mr. Stubbs, went for a trip in the steamer, when Mrs. Stubbs took chief charge, and Miss Clark was so horribly ill that she thought she would have died.

And once Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs went to Newhaven, and thence to Dieppe, taking Tom with them--not at all because Tom wanted to go, but because May represented to her mother that neither she nor Miss Clark were feeling very well, and that without "Pa's" restraining influence she was sure Tom would not only worry them all to death, but would also incite Flossie into all manner of dreadful pranks, the consequences of which might be dire and terrible.

So Tom went with them over the water on to French soil, and May remarked, triumphantly, to the governess, "I've got rid of him, Miss Clark, so now we shall have a little peace, and enjoy ourselves."

And so they did. To be without Tom was like the enjoyment of the calm which comes after a storm; and they, one and all, with the exception of Flossie, enjoyed it to the full. Flossie was very much aggrieved at being thus deprived of her playfellow.

"It is too bad that Tom should have to go with Pa and Ma," she complained. "He won't have a soul to speak to or a boy to play with, or anything, except some stupid little French boy, perhaps, who can't speak a word of anything but gibberish. I call it a beastly shame. I suppose it's old Clark's doing, and that she was just afraid Tom would get an extra good time while they were away. Nasty old cat!"

"Miss Clark had no more to do with it than you had," May replied. "Ma chose to take him, and that's enough."

As Tom was actually gone, there was not the smallest use in grumbling.

So Flossie, thus left idle, turned her attention upon Sarah. It is needless to say that very, very soon Flossie also began to tease her, and, in consequence, Sarah's life became more or less of a burden to her. In this way Sarah, who was a singularly uncomplaining child, crept nearer and nearer to Miss Clark and May, as there she was safe from Flossie's taunts and jeers; and it was in this way that some notice was taken of her by one of the great lights of the Stubbs family, Mrs.

George Stubbs, the corn-factor's wife, who lived in great style at Brighton.

It happened that one morning Sarah and May were waiting for Miss Clark to come out with the younger children, when Mrs. George came slowly along in a bath-chair. As she pa.s.sed by them she called to the man to stop. "Dear me, is that you, May?" she remarked; "how you've grown.

Your papa and mamma came to see us the other day, but I was not at home.

I was out."

"They have gone over to Dieppe," said May, "and Tom with them. This is our cousin, Sarah, Aunt George."

"Oh! is it? Yes, your mamma told me when she wrote last that she was coming to live with you. How do you do, Sarah?"

All this was uttered in a languid tone, as if, on the whole, life was too much trouble to be lived at all. Sarah had met with nothing of this kind in all her life before, and looked only impressed; in truth, she looked a good deal more impressed than she was, or rather she looked _differently_ impressed to what she was, and Mrs. George Stubbs was pleased to be a little flattered thereby.

"You must come and have tea with me," she observed graciously to May.

"I have not been able to get out except the day your mamma called--my unfortunate neuralgia has been so very trying. You may bring Sarah.

Would you like to come to-night?

"Very much indeed, thank you, Aunt George," responded May.

"Very much indeed," echoed Sarah.

"Your cousins are, of course, all at school in Paris, and your uncle is in London, so we will have high tea at seven o'clock. Bring your music with you."