"Perhaps to-night!" exclaimed Mrs Merryboy.
"Oh! _how_ nice!" murmured Martha, her great brown eyes glittering with joy at the near prospect of seeing that Hetty about whom she had heard so much.
"Impossible!" said Tim Lumpy, coming down on them all with his wet-blanket of common-sense. "They would never come on without dropping us a line from Quebec, or Montreal, to announce their arrival."
"That"s true, Tim," said Mr Merryboy, "but you"ve not finished the letter, Bob--go on. Mother, mother, what a variety of faces you _are_ making!"
This also was true, for old Mrs Merryboy, seeing that something unusual was occurring, had all this time been watching the various speakers with her coal-black eyes, changing aspect with their varied expressions, and wrinkling her visage up into such inexpressible contortions of sympathetic good-will, that she really could not have been more sociable if she had been in full possession and use of her five senses.
"As I had already," continued Bob, reading, "taken our pa.s.sages in the _Amazon_ steamer, Sir Richard thought it best that we should come on before, along with his agent, who goes to see after the land, so that we might have a good long stay with you, and dear Mr and Mrs Merryboy, who have been so kind to you, before going on to Brandon--which, I believe, is the name of the place in the backwoods where Sir Richard means us all to go to. I don"t know exactly where it is--and I don"t know anybody who does, but that"s no matter. Enough for mother, and Matty, and me to know that it"s within a few hundred miles of you, which is very different from three thousand miles of an ocean!
"You"ll also be glad to hear that Mr Twitter with all his family is to join this band. It quite puts me in mind of the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, that I once heard in dear Mr Holland"s meeting hall, long ago.
I wish he could come too, and all his people with him, and all the ladies from the Beehive. Wouldn"t that be charming! But, then,--who would be left to look after London? No, it is better that they should remain at home.
"Poor Mr Twitter never quite got the better of his fire, you see, so he sold his share in his business, and is getting ready to come. His boys and girls will be a great help to him in Canada, instead of a burden as they have been in London--the younger ones I mean, of course, for Molly, and Sammy, and Willie have been helping their parents for a long time past. I don"t think Mrs Twitter quite likes it, and I"m sure she"s almost breaking her heart at the thought of leaving George Yard. It is said that their friends Mrs Loper, Mrs Larrabel, Stickler, and Crackaby, want to join, but I rather think Sir Richard isn"t very keen to have them. Mr Stephen Welland is also coming. One of Sir Richard"s friends, Mr Brisbane I think, got him a good situation in the Mint-- that"s where all the money is coined, you know--but, on hearing of this expedition to Canada, he made up his mind to go there instead; so he gave up the Mint--very unwillingly, however, I believe, for he wanted very much to go into the Mint. Now, no more at present from your loving and much hurried sister, (for I"m in the middle of packing), Hetty."
Now, while Bob Frog was in the act of putting Hetty"s letter in his pocket, a little boy was seen on horseback, galloping up to the door.
He brought a telegram addressed to "Mr Robert Frog." It was from Montreal, and ran thus: "We have arrived, and leave this on Tuesday forenoon."
"Why, they"re almost here _now_," cried Bob.
"Harness up, my boy, and off you go--not a moment to lose!" cried Mr Merryboy, as Bob dashed out of the room. "Take the bays, Bob," he added in a stentorian voice, thrusting his head out of the window, "and the biggest wagon. Don"t forget the rugs!"
Ten minutes later, and Bob Frog, with Tim Lumpy beside him, was driving the spanking pair of bays to the railway station.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
HAPPY MEETINGS.
It was to the same railway station as that at which they had parted from their guardian and been handed over to Mr Merryboy years before that Bobby Frog now drove. The train was not due for half an hour.
"Tim," said Bob after they had walked up and down the platform for about five minutes, "how slowly time seems to fly when one"s in a hurry!"
"Doesn"t it?" a.s.sented Tim, "crawls like a snail."
"Tim," said Bob, after ten minutes had elapsed, "what a difficult thing it is to wait patiently when one"s anxious!"
"Isn"t it!" a.s.sented Tim, "so hard to keep from fretting and stamping."
"Tim," said Bob, after twenty minutes had pa.s.sed, "I wonder if the two or three dozen people on this platform are all as uncomfortably impatient as I am."
"Perhaps they are," said Tim, "but certainly possessed of more power to restrain themselves."
"Tim," said Bob, after the lapse of five-and-twenty minutes, "did you ever hear of such a long half-hour since you were born?"
"Never," replied the sympathetic Tim, "except once long ago when I was starving, and stood for about that length of time in front of a confectioner"s window till I nearly collapsed and had to run away at last for fear I should smash in the gla.s.s and feed."
"Tim, I"ll take a look round and see that the bays are all right."
"You"ve done that four times already, Bob."
"Well, I"ll do it five times, Tim. There"s luck, you know, in odd numbers."
There was a sharpish curve on the line close to the station. While Bob Frog was away the train, being five minutes before its time, came thundering round the curve and rushed alongside the platform.
Bob ran back of course and stood vainly trying to see the people in each carriage as it went past.
"Oh! _what_ a sweet eager face!" exclaimed Tim, gazing after a young girl who had thrust her head out of a first-cla.s.s carriage.
"Let alone sweet faces, Tim--this way. The third cla.s.ses are all behind."
By this time the train had stopped, and great was the commotion as friends and relatives met or said good-bye hurriedly, and bustled into and out of the carriages--commotion which was increased by the cheering of a fresh band of rescued waifs going to new homes in the west, and the hissing of the safety valve which took it into its head at that inconvenient moment to let off superfluous steam. Some of the people rushing about on that platform and jostling each other would have been the better for safety valves! poor Bobby Frog was one of these.
"Not there!" he exclaimed despairingly, as he looked into the last carriage of the train.
"Impossible," said Tim, "we"ve only missed them; walk back."
They went back, looking eagerly into carriage after carriage--Bob even glancing under the seats in a sort of wild hope that his mother might be hiding there, but no one resembling Mrs Frog was to be seen.
A commotion at the front part of the train, more p.r.o.nounced than the general hubbub, attracted their attention.
"Oh! where is he--where is he?" cried a female voice, which was followed up by the female herself, a respectable elderly woman, who went about the platform scattering people right and left in a fit of temporary insanity, "where is my Bobby, where _is_ he, I say? Oh! _why_ won"t people git out o" my way? _Git_ out o" the way," (shoving a sluggish man forcibly), "where are you, Bobby? Bo-o-o-o-o-by!"
It was Mrs Frog! Bob saw her, but did not move. His heart was in his throat! He _could_ not move. As he afterwards said, he was struck all of a heap, and could only stand and gaze with his hands clasped.
"Out o" the _way_, young man!" cried Mrs Frog, brushing indignantly past him, in one of her erratic bursts. "Oh! Bobby--where _has_ that boy gone to?"
"Mother!" gasped Bob.
"Who said that?" cried Mrs Frog, turning round with a sharp look, as if prepared to retort "you"re another" on the shortest notice.
"Mother!" again said Bob, unclasping his hands and holding them out.
Mrs Frog had hitherto, regardless of the well-known effect of time, kept staring at heads on the level which Bobby"s had reached when he left home. She now looked up with a startled expression.
"Can it--is it--oh! Bo--" she got no further, but sprang forward and was caught and fervently clasped in the arms of her son.
Tim fluttered round them, blowing his nose violently though quite free from cold in the head--which complaint, indeed, is not common in those regions.
Hetty, who had lost her mother in the crowd, now ran forward with Matty.
Bob saw them, let go his mother, and received one in each arm-- squeezing them both at once to his capacious bosom.
Mrs Frog might have fallen, though that was not probable, but Tim made sure of her by holding out a hand which the good woman grasped, and laid her head on his breast, quite willing to make use of him as a convenient post to lean against, while she observed the meeting of the young people with a contented smile.
Tim observed that meeting too, but with very different feelings, for the "sweet eager face" that he had seen in the first-cla.s.s carriage belonged to Hetty! Long-continued love to human souls had given to her face a sweetness--and sympathy with human spirits and bodies in the depths of poverty, sorrow, and deep despair had invested it with a pitiful tenderness and refinement--which one looks for more naturally among the innocent in the higher ranks of life.