The Early Train.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 235, 12 May 1874, Page 7

The Early Train.

(Daiiibury News.) HOW MK AND MliS PRINCE PASSBD AN ANXIOUS NIGHT. The early morning train from ;Panbitry starts at half-past six. This is a very seasonable hour in the summer, when people are stirring, birds carrolling their melodies, and the incense from the newly-awakened flowers, filling the air and inspiring the senses. Bat in the winter time with animal and vegetable life dead, tlio air.raw and chilly, the matches mislaid, and a gloomy darkness wrapping the face of the earth as if with a pall, half-past 6 o'clock a.m. is a very unreasonable and disagreeable hour, and the man who has occasion to leave home on that train may easily be pardoned the uneasiness unavoidable the d;!y before. .Our, legal friend, .Prince, received information on Friday wliich'nVade it necessary that he should be in New York before Saturday noon. He contemplated the start with some misgiving and'determined to make the best preparations for it by going to bed early.* Some people would rn>% have thought of this, and remained up until their usual hour, and have either overslept themselves or awakened unref reshed and depressed. Mr Prince went to bed at 9 o'clock and got to sleep about half-past 11. When he awoke it was at the earnest solicitation of Mrs Prince's toes, which were digging vigorously into his back, while Mrs Prince's hands and Mrs Prince's voice were otherwise engaged in his interests. Mr Prineo jumped up at once, and inquired the time, which Mrs Prince was not able to inform him exactly, but was quite confident by the general feeling and looks that it was hard on the car time. Mr Prince snatched up his' clothes a f this, and flew into the sitting-room, and straightway got into his clothes, and thm examining his watch, found that it was ten minutes past 12. "By cracky!" said Mr Prince, and immediately returned to bed, and encasing his head beneath the clothes, preserved a moody silence in answer to Mrs Prince's inquiries. It finally dawned on that excellent lady that the hour was too early, and she soon went to sleep. But there was no immediate sleep for her husband. He felt gloomy and dissatisfied,.and. seemed weighed down with the impression that he was. to miss the train in spite of all he could do to avert the calamity. He carefully reviewed his past life, arraigning himself as a student, a lawyer, a citizen and a husband, to sec if there was anywhere in his record an act, a word, or a thought, which by the'finest ingenuity could be distorted into a crime for which this loosing the train might be considered a fitting judgment. But in vain he went over the past for such a provocation,' and, finally assigning the cause to a dispensation of fate none of us can avert, he, too, fell asleep. When he awoke again he found Mrs Prince's hands at his shoulders, and Mrs Prince's voice in his ear, and a vivid impression that the train had gone, or that the whistle would sound before he could get out of bed. But he arose and hurried into the sitting-room with a show of interest, and drawing on his clothes, again consulted his watch with an air of desperation, and ascertained that it was just 2 o'clock. He didn't say, "By cracky !" this time. But it is no matter what he said. He skipped back to the bedroom without any loss of time, and appeared before Mrs Prince with a lamp in one hand and a lot of clothes in the other, and with a great deal of fire in his eye. But •he blew out the light in silence, and then getting back into bed, gloomily urged her not to do that again or her ofheiousness might cost her pain. The next time he aroused himself, it was 4 o'clock. This was a little earlier than was absolutely necessary, but for fear of missing the train he remained up. First carefully dressing himself, he kindled the fire in the kitchen, and thought of the excellent breakfast.he was to carry with him, while Mrs Prince lay and slept. A t half-past 7 she awoke <>f her own accord, and pictured to herself during the toilet the aching void he would carry with him through the streets and metropolis. Then she thought of the vexation, and the tears came into her eyes. And then she went into the kitchen, and was struck motionless at the sight before her. For there was Prince, with a carpet-bag clutched tightly in one hand, and a roll of legal documents in the other, sitting bolt upright in a chair—fast asleep. Astonished and confused at this spectacle, and hardly knowing what she was doing, Mrs Prince got the woman in the other part of the house to arouse Mr, Prince, while she stole to her mother's lo see about something.'