Many years ago the editor of this book and an elderly lady, the widow of
a well-known farmer, took tickets from Little Bytham for Edenham in
Lincolnshire. They were the only passengers, and as the railway passed
for nearly two miles through Grimsthorpe park, she asked the driver if he
would stop at a certain spot which would have saved us both perhaps
half-a-mile’s walk. The request was politely refused. After going a
good distance the train was suddenly pulled up. I opened the window and
found it had stopped at the very spot we desired. The stoker came
running by with a fine hare which the train had run over. I said we can
get out now and he said, Oh yes. And so through this strange
misadventure to poor pussy our walk was much shortened.
Some years before the above occurrence I was travelling by the early
morning mail train from the Midlands to the West of England. At Taunton
I perceived a crowd of persons gathered at the front of the train. I
went forward and saw a corpse was being removed from the van to a hearse
outside the station. On reading the inscription on the coffin plate I
was somewhat taken aback to find my own name. So Richard Pike living and
Richard Pike dead had been travelling by the same train. Perhaps rarely,
if ever, have two more singular circumstances occurred in connection with
railway travelling.