It was just as dark as though it had been midnight--dark and excessively
cold; not a ray of hope in the sky; not a sign of life in the street.
All Bursley, and, indeed, all the Five Towns, were sleeping off the
various consequences of Christmas on the human frame. Trafalgar Road,
with its double row of lamps, each exactly like that one in front of the
house of the Cotterills, stretched downwards into the dead heart of
Bursley, and upwards over the brow of the hill into space. And although
Arthur Cotterill knew Trafalgar Road as well as Mrs Hopkins knew the
hundred and twenty-first Psalm, the effect of the scene on him was most
uncanny. He watched Simeon persuade the loaded barrow down the step into
the tiny front garden, not daring to help him, because Simeon did not
like to be helped by clumsy people in delicate operations. Mrs Hopkins
was rapidly pouring all the goodness of her soul into his ear, when
Simeon and the barrow reached the pavement, and Simeon staggered and
recovered himself.
"Look out, Arthur," Simeon cried. "The road's like glass. It's rained in
the night, and now it's freezing. Come along."
Arthur bade adieu to Mrs Hopkins.
"Eh, Mr Arthur," said she. "Things'll be different when ye come back,
this time a month."
He said nothing. The pincers and the anvil were at him again. He thought
of falls, torn garments, broken legs.
Simeon lifted the arms of the barrow, and then dropped them.
"Have you got it?" he demanded of Arthur.
"Got what?"
"_It_."
"Yes," said Arthur, comprehending.
"Are you sure? Show it me. Better give it me. It will be safer with me."
Arthur unbuttoned his overcoat, took off his left glove, and drew from
one of his pockets a small, bright object, which shone under the street
lamp. Simeon took it silently. Then he definitely seized the arms of the
barrow, and the procession started up the street.
No time had been lost, for Simeon had an extraordinary gift of celerity.
It was eleven minutes to seven. Nevertheless, Arthur felt the pincers,
and the feel of the pincers made him look at his watch.
"See here," said Simeon, briefly. "You needn't worry. _We shall catch
that train_. We've got twenty minutes, and we shall get to the station
in nine." The exertion of wheeling the barrow over what was practically
a sheet of rough ice made him speak in short gasps.
Impossible for the pincers and the anvil to remain in face of that
assured, almost god-like tone!
"Good!" murmured Arthur. "By Jove, but it's cold though!"
"I've never been hotter in my life," said Simeon, puffing. "Except in my
hands."
"Can't I take it for a bit?"
"No, you can't," said Simeon. At the robust finality of the refusal
Arthur laughed. Then Simeon laughed. The party became gay. The pincers
and the anvil were gone for ever. Simeon turned gingerly into Pollard
Street-half-way to the station. They had but to descend Pollard Street
and climb the path across the cinder-heaps beyond, and they would be, as
it were, in harbour. In Pollard Street Simeon had the happy idea of
taking to the roadway. It was rougher, and, therefore, less dangerous,
than the pavement. At intervals he shoved the wheel of the barrow by
main force over a stone.
"Put my hat straight, will you?" he asked of Arthur, and Arthur obeyed.
It was becoming a task under the winter stars.
Then Arthur happened to notice the wheel of the barrow--its sole wheel.
"I say," he said, "what's up with that wheel?"
"It's rocky, that's what that wheel is," replied Simeon. "I hope it will
hold out."
Instead of pushing the barrow he was now holding it back, down the slant
of Pollard Street. The mist had cleared. And Arthur could see the red
gleam of a signal in the neighbourhood of the station. But now the
pincers and the anvil were at him again, for Simeon's tone was alarming.
It indicated that the wobbling wheel of the barrow might not hold out.
The catastrophe happened when they were climbing the cinder-slope and
within two hundred yards of the little station. Simeon was propelling
with all his might, and he propelled the wheel against half a brick. The
wheel collapsed. There was a splintering even of the main timbers of the
vehicle as the immense weight of the trunk crashed to the solid earth.
Simeon fell, and rose with difficulty, standing on one leg, and terribly
grimacing.
He said nothing, but consulted his watch by the aid of a fusee.
"We must carry it," Arthur suggested wildly.
"We can't carry it up here. It's much too heavy."
Arthur remembered the tremendous weight of even his share of it as they
had slid it down the stairs.
No. It could not be carried.
"Besides," said Simeon, "I've sprained my ankle, I fear." And he sat
down on the trunk.
"What are we to do?" Arthur asked tragically.
"Do? Why, it's perfectly simple! You must go without me. Anyhow, run to
the station, and try to get the porter down here with another barrow."
Man of infinite calm, of infinite resource. Though the pincers and the
anvil were horribly torturing him at that moment, Arthur could not but
admire his younger brother's astounding _sangfroid_.
And he set off.
"Here!" Simeon called him peremptorily. "Take this--in case you don't
come back."
And he handed him the small bright object.
"But I must come back. I can't possibly go without the trunk. All my
things are in it."
"I know that, man. _But perhaps you'll have to go without it_. Hurry!"
Arthur ran. He encountered the senior porter at the gate of the station.
"Where's Merrith?" he began. "He was to have--"
"Merrith's mother is dead--died at five o'clock," said the senior
porter. "And I'm here all alone."
Arthur stopped as if shot.
"Well," he recovered himself. "Lend me a barrow."
"I shall lend ye no barrow. It's against the rules. Since they
transferred our stationmaster to Clegg there's been an inspector down
here welly [well nigh] every day."
"But I must _have_ a barrow."
"I shall lend ye no barrow," said the senior porter, a brute.
A signal close to the signal-box clattered down from red to green.
"Her's signalled," said the senior porter. "Are ye travelling by her?"
Arthur had to decide in a moment. Must he or must he not abandon Simeon
and the trunk? The train, a procession of lights, could be seen in the
distance under the black sky. He gave one glance in the direction of
Simeon and the trunk, and then entered the station.
Simeon had been right. He did catch the train.
It was fortunate that there was a wide margin between the advertised
time of arrival of the Loop-Line train at Knype and the departure
therefrom of the London express. For, beyond Hanbridge, the Loop-Line
train came to a standstill, and obstinately remained at a standstill for
near upon forty minutes. Dawn began and completed itself while that
train reposed there. Things got to such a point that, despite the
intense cold, the few passengers stuck their heads out of the windows
and kept them there. Arthur suffered unspeakably. He imparted his awful
anxiety to an old man in the same compartment. And the old man said:
"They always keep the express waiting for the Loop. Moreover, you've
plenty o' time yet."
He knew that the Loop was supposed to catch the express, and that in
actual practice it did catch it. He knew that there was yet enough time.
Still, he continued to suffer. He continued to believe, at the bottom of
his heart, that on this morning, of all mornings, the Loop would not
catch the express.
However, he was wrong. The Loop caught the express, though it was a
nearish thing. He dashed down into the subterranean passage at Knype
Station, reappeared on the up-platform, ran to the fore-part of the
express, which was in and waiting, and jumped; a porter banged the door,
a guard inspired the driver by a tune on a whistle, and off went the
express. Arthur was now safe. Nothing ever happened to a North-Western
express. He was safe. He was shorn of his luggage (almost, but not
quite, indispensable) and of Simeon; but he was safe. He could not be
disgraced in the world's eye. He thought of poor, gallant,
imperturbable, sprained Simeon freezing on the trunk in the middle of
the cinder-waste.