Mugby Junction | Page 8

until they had all turned at the little garden-gate, and
kissed their hands to a face at the upper window: a low window enough, although the
upper, for the cottage had but a story of one room above the ground.
Now, that the children should do this was nothing; but that they should do this to a face
lying on the sill of the open window, turned towards them in a horizontal position, and
apparently only a face, was something noticeable. He looked up at the window again.
Could only see a very fragile, though a very bright face, lying on one cheek on the
window-sill. The delicate smiling face of a girl or woman. Framed in long bright brown
hair, round which was tied a light blue band or fillet, passing under the chin.
He walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly glanced up again. No change.
He struck off by a winding branch-road at the top of the hill--which he must otherwise
have descended--kept the cottages in view, worked his way round at a distance so as to
come out once more into the main road, and be obliged to pass the cottages again. The
face still lay on the window-sill, but not so much inclined towards him. And now there
were a pair of delicate hands too. They had the action of performing on some musical
instrument, and yet it produced no sound that reached his ears.
"Mugby Junction must be the maddest place in England," said Barbox Brothers, pursuing
his way down the hill. "The first thing I find here is a Railway Porter who composes
comic songs to sing at his bedside. The second thing I find here is a face, and a pair of
hands playing a musical instrument that DON'T play!"
The day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of November, the air was clear and

inspiriting, and the landscape was rich in beautiful colours. The prevailing colours in the
court off Lombard Street, London city, had been few and sombre. Sometimes, when the
weather elsewhere was very bright indeed, the dwellers in those tents enjoyed a
pepper-and-salt-coloured day or two, but their atmosphere's usual wear was slate or snuff
coloured.
He relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day. He was a little earlier at the
cottage than on the day before, and he could hear the children upstairs singing to a
regular measure, and clapping out the time with their hands.
"Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument," he said, listening at the corner, "and
yet I saw the performing hands again as I came by. What are the children singing? Why,
good Lord, they can never be singing the multiplication table?"
They were, though, and with infinite enjoyment. The mysterious face had a voice
attached to it, which occasionally led or set the children right. Its musical cheerfulness
was delightful. The measure at length stopped, and was succeeded by a murmuring of
young voices, and then by a short song which he made out to be about the current month
of the year, and about what work it yielded to the labourers in the fields and farmyards.
Then there was a stir of little feet, and the children came trooping and whooping out, as
on the previous day. And again, as on the previous day, they all turned at the garden-gate,
and kissed their hands--evidently to the face on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers
from his retired post of disadvantage at the corner could not see it.
But, as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler--a brown-faced boy with
flaxen hair--and said to him:
"Come here, little one. Tell me, whose house is that?"
The child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes, half in shyness, and half ready
for defence, said from behind the inside of his elbow:
"Phoebe's."
"And who," said Barbox Brothers, quite as much embarrassed by his part in the dialogue
as the child could possibly be by his, "is Phoebe?"
To which the child made answer: "Why, Phoebe, of course."
The small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely, and had taken his moral
measure. He lowered his guard, and rather assumed a tone with him: as having
discovered him to be an unaccustomed person in the art of polite conversation.
"Phoebe," said the child, "can't be anybobby else but Phoebe. Can she?"
"No, I suppose not."
"Well," returned the child, "then why did you ask me?"
Deeming it prudent to shift his ground, Barbox Brothers took up a new position.
"What do you do there? Up there in that room where the open window is. What do you
do there?"
"Cool," said the child.
"Eh?"
"Co-o-ol," the child repeated in