The children hugged themselves and each other in complicated wriggles of silent laughter as they listened on the stairs.They had all forgotten by now that there had ever been any doubt in Peter's mind as to whether coal-mining was wrong.
But there came a dreadful night when the Station Master put on a pair of old sand shoes that he had worn at the seaside in his summer holiday, and crept out very quietly to the yard where the Sodom and Gomorrah heap of coal was, with the whitewashed line round it.He crept out there, and he waited like a cat by a mousehole.On the top of the heap something small and dark was scrabbling and rattling furtively among the coal.
The Station Master concealed himself in the shadow of a brake-van that had a little tin chimney and was labelled:--G.N.and S.R.
34576
Return at once to White Heather Sidings and in this concealment he lurked till the small thing on the top of the heap ceased to scrabble and rattle, came to the edge of the heap, cautiously let itself down, and lifted something after it.
Then the arm of the Station Master was raised, the hand of the Station Master fell on a collar, and there was Peter firmly held by the jacket, with an old carpenter's bag full of coal in his trembling clutch.
"So I've caught you at last, have I, you young thief?" said the Station Master.
"I'm not a thief," said Peter, as firmly as he could."I'm a coal-miner."
"Tell that to the Marines," said the Station Master.
"It would be just as true whoever I told it to," said Peter.
"You're right there," said the man, who held him."Stow your jaw, you young rip, and come along to the station.""Oh, no," cried in the darkness an agonised voice that was not Peter's.
"Not the POLICE station!" said another voice from the darkness.
"Not yet," said the Station Master."The Railway Station first.
Why, it's a regular gang.Any more of you?""Only us," said Bobbie and Phyllis, coming out of the shadow of another truck labelled Staveley Colliery, and bearing on it the legend in white chalk: 'Wanted in No.1 Road.'
"What do you mean by spying on a fellow like this?" said Peter, angrily.
"Time someone did spy on you, _I_ think," said the Station Master.
"Come along to the station."
"Oh, DON'T!" said Bobbie."Can't you decide NOW what you'll do to us? It's our fault just as much as Peter's.We helped to carry the coal away--and we knew where he got it.""No, you didn't," said Peter.
"Yes, we did," said Bobbie."We knew all the time.We only pretended we didn't just to humour you."Peter's cup was full.He had mined for coal, he had struck coal, he had been caught, and now he learned that his sisters had 'humoured'
him.
"Don't hold me!" he said."I won't run away."The Station Master loosed Peter's collar, struck a match and looked at them by its flickering light.
"Why," said he, "you're the children from the Three Chimneys up yonder.So nicely dressed, too.Tell me now, what made you do such a thing? Haven't you ever been to church or learned your catechism or anything, not to know it's wicked to steal?" He spoke much more gently now, and Peter said:--"I didn't think it was stealing.I was almost sure it wasn't.Ithought if I took it from the outside part of the heap, perhaps it would be.But in the middle I thought I could fairly count it only mining.It'll take thousands of years for you to burn up all that coal and get to the middle parts.""Not quite.But did you do it for a lark or what?""Not much lark carting that beastly heavy stuff up the hill," said Peter, indignantly.
"Then why did you?" The Station Master's voice was so much kinder now that Peter replied:--"You know that wet day? Well, Mother said we were too poor to have a fire.We always had fires when it was cold at our other house, and--""DON'T!" interrupted Bobbie, in a whisper.
"Well," said the Station Master, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "I'll tell you what I'll do.I'll look over it this once.But you remember, young gentleman, stealing is stealing, and what's mine isn't yours, whether you call it mining or whether you don't.Run along home.""Do you mean you aren't going to do anything to us? Well, you are a brick," said Peter, with enthusiasm.
"You're a dear," said Bobbie.
"You're a darling," said Phyllis.
"That's all right," said the Station Master.
And on this they parted.
"Don't speak to me," said Peter, as the three went up the hill.
"You're spies and traitors--that's what you are."But the girls were too glad to have Peter between them, safe and free, and on the way to Three Chimneys and not to the Police Station, to mind much what he said.
"We DID say it was us as much as you," said Bobbie, gently.
"Well--and it wasn't."
"It would have come to the same thing in Courts with judges," said Phyllis."Don't be snarky, Peter.It isn't our fault your secrets are so jolly easy to find out." She took his arm, and he let her.
"There's an awful lot of coal in the cellar, anyhow," he went on.
"Oh, don't!" said Bobbie."I don't think we ought to be glad about THAT.""I don't know," said Peter, plucking up a spirit."I'm not at all sure, even now, that mining is a crime."But the girls were quite sure.And they were also quite sure that he was quite sure, however little he cared to own it.
