Mo was indignant. ‘As if I would,’ she said. ‘But there were a man, Jimmy – he shouted “come here” at me, sounding rare angry, and I thought he’d tell the station people that I were thievin’ their water, so I ran into the trees. He followed me for a bit, but then he give up and I thought I’d come back to the station and see if I could catch the next train.’

‘Well, why didn’t you, then?’ the porter said, in a grumbling voice. ‘That would ha’ been the sensible thing to do.’ He was swinging the lighted lantern as he spoke, and Mo gave him a brilliant smile.

‘I couldn’t find my way out of the wood,’ she said simply. ‘I walked around for ages, and then I sat down on a log and had a bit of a weep, and then I heard Jimmy’s voice and ran towards it, and the rest you know.’

‘But who was the feller what chased you into the wood?’ the porter grumbled.

‘We’ve no idea, have we, you two?’ Glenys said quickly. ‘But I do believe that you should report him as dangerous.’ She lowered her voice. ‘What might have happened had he caught up with my niece, before she hid in the trees? I shudder to think!’

The porter nodded, and lowered his voice in his turn. ‘You are very right, miss. Happily, we found the child before harm could come to her, but the feller must be reported. Do you think she will be able to describe him?’

Jimmy started to say that he could describe the man perfectly well himself, which caused the porter’s eyebrows to shoot up his forehead once more. ‘That is, it must have been the man Auntie Glenys saw through the window of the train,’ Jimmy gabbled. ‘He almost pressed his nose against the glass, didn’t you say, Auntie Glenys? He had these thick eyebrows . . .’ He gave the same description of the man that Glenys had given him, though Mo stuck out her lower lip.

‘I saw him first, and I was the one he chased so I should be the one to tell the scuffers, not you,’ she said mulishly. ‘He had this big scar on his cheek and a black patch over one eye . . .’

Everyone laughed. ‘And a parrot on his shoulder shouting Pieces of eight, pieces of eight,’ Jimmy said. ‘Oh, Mo, I think you ought to leave descriptions for someone who wasn’t frightened out of their life at the time.’

‘I wasn’t frightened,’ Mo said belligerently. ‘I’m brave as a lion I am! Why, I only cried a little bit.’

Jimmy gave her a playful shake. ‘Course you did,’ he said comfortably. ‘And now let’s get back down to the station, otherwise we’ll arrive in town too late to buy fish and chips for our supper.’

Mo was about to argue when she caught Jimmy’s eye and subsided, realising that he had described Cyril Huxtable as exactly as was possible.