HAVING spent an hour in vainly trying to couple Irving’s private car
with another in the centre of the train, the guard decides to attach
it to the last one. In this position, which eventually proved an
interesting one, we trundle along through Jersey City, past rows of
shops and stores, on a level with the sidewalks, the snow falling all
the time. Here and there electric arcs are shedding weird illuminations
upon the unfamiliar scenes. By the lights in many of the houses we
can see that the window-panes are coated with a thick frost. Now and
then we stop without any apparent warning, certainly without any
explanation. During one of these intervals we take supper, those of us
who have not retired to seek such repose as may be found in a railroad
sleeping-car,—an institution which some American travellers prefer to
a regular bedroom. Irving, Abbey, Stoker, Loveday, and myself, we sit
down to a very excellent supper,—oyster-pie, cold beef, jelly, eggs,
coffee, cigars.
“It is too late to tell you of our adventures prior to your coming
upon the train,” says Irving. “We will have a long chat to-morrow.
Good-night; I am going to try and get a little rest.”
He lies down upon a couch adjacent to the apartment in which we have
supped. I draw a curtain over him, that shuts off his bunk from the
room and the general corridor of the car. You hear a good deal of talk
in America about “private cars.” Without disparaging the ingenuity and
comfort of the private-car system of American railroad travelling let
me say, once for all, that the term private applied to it in any sense
is a misnomer. There is no privacy about it,—nothing like as much as
you may have in an English carriage, to the sole occupancy of which you
have bought the right for a railway journey. On an American train there
is a conductor to each car. Then there are one or more guards to the
train. Add to these officials, baggage-men, who are entitled to come on
at various stations, and news-boys, who also appear to have special
claims on the railway company; and you count up quite a number of extra
passengers who may appear in your private room at any moment.
It is true that the guard of your car may exclude some of these
persons; but, as a rule, he does not. If he should be so inhospitable
to his fellow-man there are still left the conductors and guards, who
have business all over the train at all hours. There is a passage-way,
as you know, right through the train. On a special car there is a room
at each end; one is a smoking-room. This apartment, with or without
your permission, is occupied by the officials of the train; and on
a cold night not even the most exacting traveller would think of
objecting to the arrangement. But it is easy to see that this does away
with all ideas of privacy.
At 1.30 the train comes to a long stand-still. I am reading. The
colored waiter, a negro with a face given over to the permanent
expression of wonder, has taken a seat near me, in the opposite corner
of the car. The end of the car opens right upon the line; the door is
half glass, so that we can see out into the night and away down the
track. To keep the outlook clear I occasionally rub the frosty rime
from the glass, and now and then open the door and clear it from snow.
The negro contemplates me through his wide, staring eyes. He takes a
similar interest in the guards and other officers of the train, who
come through the cars at intervals, swinging, as they walk, lamps of
singularly artistic patterns when compared with the English railway
lanterns. These guardians of the train pass out of the door of the room
upon the line, and rarely reappear except when they come back again
right through the train, passing most of the would-be sleepers. Irving
does not, however, appear to be disturbed.
It is 2.35 when the train once more begins to move. For nearly an hour
both the colored servant and I have, off and on, been watching a number
of curious demonstrations of lights away down the line behind us. First
a white light would appear, then a red one, then a green light would
be flashed wildly up and down. The negro guesses we must be snowed up.
But he doesn’t know much of this line, he says, in a deprecatory tone;
only been on it once before; doesn’t take much stock in it. Then he
shakes his woolly head mysteriously; and what an air of mystery and
amazement is possible on some dark faces of this African race! We move
ahead for five minutes, and then we stop again. There is a clock on the
inlaid panel of the car over the negro’s head. The time is steadily
recorded on the dial. It is 2.45 when we advance once more. A hoarse
whistle, like a foghorn at sea, breaks upon the solemnity of the night;
then we pass a signal-box, and a patch of light falls upon our window.
This is evidently the signal for another pause. “2.50” says the clock.
The line behind us is now alive with lanterns. White lights are moving
about with singular eccentricity. With my face close against the glass
door-way I count six different lights. I also see dark forms moving
about. All the lights are suddenly stationary. One comes on towards
the train. Our guard frantically waves his light. Presently we stop
with a jerk. The lights we have left in the distance now gyrate with
the same inconsequential motion as the witch-fires of a fairy tale,
or the fiends’ lights in the opera of _Robert le Diable_. Then they
remain still again. I open the door. There is a foot of snow on the
platform, and the feathery flakes are steadily falling. A solitary
light comes towards us. The bearer of it gets upon the platform,—a
solitary sentinel. The negro looks up at me, and asks me in a gentle
kind of way, if I ever use sticking-plaster. “Yes,” I say, “sometimes.”
A strange question. My reply appears to be a relief to him. Do I ever
use sticking-plaster! There is a long pause outside and inside the
car, as if some mysterious conference were going on. “Was you ever on
the cars when they was robbed?” the negro asks. “No,” I say; “I was
not.”—“Been on when there was shooting?” he asks. “No.”—“Has you ever
heard of Jesse James and the book that was written about him?”—“Yes,”
I answer, “but never saw the book.”—“Dark night, eh?”—“Yes, pretty
dark.”—“They would stop de train, and get a shooting right away, would
dem James boys, I tell you! Perfeck terror dey was. No car was safe.
Ise believe dey was not killed at all, and is only waiting for nex’
chance.”—“You are not frightened?” I say. “Well, not zactly; but don’t
know who dis man is standing dere on de platform, and nebber was on any
train of cars dat stopped so much and in such lonely places; and don’t
like to be snowed up eider. I spoke to de brakesman about an hour ago;
but he don’t say much.” Thereupon he flattens his broad nose against
the window, and I take up “John Bull and His Island” at the description
of the Christmas pudding, which sets me thinking of all the gloomy
things that may and do happen between one Christmas Day and another;
and how once in most lifetimes some overwhelming calamity occurs that
makes you feel Fate has done its worst, and cannot hurt you more. This
thought is not _apropos_ of the present situation; for, of course,
there is nothing to fear in the direction suggested by the negro, who
has worked himself up into a condition of real alarm. At the same time
the dangers of snow-drifts are not always confined to mere delays. The
newspapers, on the day following our protracted journey for example,
chronicled the blowing up of a locomotive, and the death of driver and
stoker, through running into a snow-drift. The accident occurred not
far from the scene of one of our longest stoppages.
2.55. The man on the platform cries “Go ahead!” and as the car moves
he steps inside, literally covered with snow. He makes no apology, but
shivers and shakes his coat.
“What is wrong?” I ask.
“Train stuck in the snow ahead of us. It is an awful night.”
“What were those lights in our rear?—one in particular.”
“That was me. I have been out there an hour and a half.”
“You are very cold?”
“Frightful.”
“Have a little brandy?”
“Think I’ll break up if I don’t.”