THE YOUNG O'BRIENS

By the same Author

ELIZABETH'S CHILDREN
Fifth Edition

HELEN ALLISTON

THE YOUNG O'BRIENS

CHAPTER I

Inside the hired omnibus there was a dead silence. Outside the rain lashed drearily against the window panes. From the corner where Molly sat there came a dismal, despairing sniffle, drowned, before its finish, by Denis's superlatively cheerful voice.

"Sure, 'tis a rough night entirely!" he observed airily.

Nell gave a sudden quick little laugh with a queer end to it.

"So it is!" she said, and her effort after cheerfulness gave the remark a surprised tone, as if she had not noticed before that the night was rough.

Sheila Pat sat silent in her corner, her slim little body stiff and erect, a bag and a box clutched tight in her small arms. Afterwards, later that night, she found that her arms ached. There was desperation in that tight clutch of the bag and the box.

Suddenly Mr. O'Brien spoke; he recognised the futility of ignoring what was in everyone's mind.

"Well," he said, "a year soon passes, after all, and I hope we shall be back in about ten or eleven months."

"But—but not—" came a watery stammer from Molly's corner, but Nell broke in hurriedly.

"I—I wonder will you look different, dad?"

"Oh, yes," her mother laughed the pretty laugh that was just like Nell's, "I shall be a horrid, stout old woman! Even Sheila Pat won't acknowledge me then!"

Sheila Pat said nothing.

Mrs. O'Brien squeezed Nell's fingers tightly. There was another silence. There was nothing to say. Everything had been said over and over again. The wind sent the rain beating angrily against the closed windows. The omnibus jolted and jarred over the road.

A hoarse shout smote on their ears, and the driver's whip flicked one of the panes.

Denis jumped up and let down the small window in front. Then shouting began; the wind howled derisively, drowning their voices. The driver's hoarse yells, and Denis's impatient shouts, asked and answered questions over and over again. At last Denis drew in his head:

"If that's a specimen of the London driver, I don't think much of 'em! The wind didn't get at you, did it, mother?"

"No, dear, your broad shoulders kept it off."

"Does he seem to understand the way now?" Mr. O'Brien queried.

"I wouldn't like to answer for him. I've explained till I'm hoarse, but the damp seems to have got to his brain—it won't work—rusty, you know."

"Isn't his voice funny?" observed Nell, doing her duty manfully.

"Drivers often have those hoarse voices," responded her father, and for just as long as they could make it last, they used that driver as a topic of conversation. Certainly he did not seem of much use for any other purpose.

It was not long before there came another flick against the window, and on Denis putting forth his head, there ensued more shouts and yells. In a lull of the wind the driver waxed sentimentally despairing. "Never been to these 'ere East Lunnon docks afore—eh, sir? Wot? Which turning? Can't see no turning. It ain't a night as I'd turn a pore blessed cat out—much less a respectable fambly man with little children dependant on 'im! Eh, sir? Can't 'ear, sir! Wot? Poplar? Ain't nowhere's near Poplar!"

Denis drew in his head.

"Of all the old fools! I'd better go up on to the box and direct him. I know my way better than he does, anyway, though I've only been to the docks once."

"It's raining so, Denis," his mother put in.

"But we don't want the death from exposure of the respectable fambly man on our consciences, do we, mother? Not to mention the touching little children—"

It ended in his exit to the box. Nell watched him go with wide, strained eyes; she crushed down a strong impulse to clutch at his coat. Without her twin she felt feeble and deserted.

When the omnibus stopped at last outside the dock gates, no one made a movement towards getting out. Long and dreary as that drive had been, each one, looking out at those gates looming so big and grim in the dim light cast by a solitary lamp, wished it could begin all over again. The parting grew, at that jolting stop, suddenly, acutely nearer. In spite of the dread of it, perhaps no one had quite realised it. To get out of the omnibus was to give it a hideous reality. A cautious voice demanded their business. Denis appeared at the door. One by one they left the omnibus. The policeman, to whom the cautious voice belonged, let them through a wicket; then began a dreary march in the dark; the wind sent the rain beating against them in angry little gusts. Laden with bundles and packages, they stumbled along in the dense darkness, treading into puddles, splashing, slipping. There were no friendly lamps to cast a warning glimmer on the deep puddles left by the rain in the holes of the uneven ground. They could barely distinguish the form of the diminutive guide with whom the policeman had provided them. But they could hear him. He was a small, sharp-looking boy, who heeded neither rain nor wind nor dark, but trudged along, in and out the puddles, up and down the hillocks, emitting a kind of dismal whistling below his breath.

Nell laughed suddenly with an overdone hilarity.

"The water's trickling down my neck!"

Denis seconded her with, "It's running a regular cascade off my hat rim!"

Then the Atom spoke; it was the first remark she had made since they had started from Miss Kezia's house in