LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1542, 28 January 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

♦ THE MASTER OF THE GOLDEN HOUSE. [“London Society.”] ( Continued.) Now things were befalling me ratheroddly this memorable night. In the ordinary course of matters 1 should have partaken of my simple meal, written a letter or two, read a book or a newspaper, and have gone to roost, Next morning I ahould have arisen late, made a leisurely breakfast, and have strolled on afoot to Brettingham. But this night a strange wakefulness beset all my faculties. I wondered what on earth should bring Simpson into this region of the earth. I wondered what could induce him to drop his own name and take that of Johnson. Somehow tno thought of Krettingham became paramount in my mind. Instead of thinking it a remote matter that could be done at any time, a sort of imperious necessity seemed to drive me off into the night to visit Brettingham I tried to subdue this vague feeling, and to compose my-clf for a nap, but it was impossible; at last this vague feeling became so urgent and imperious, that I got up quite fresh on my feet, and rang the bell for the waiter. ‘Waiter,’ I said, ‘I want a carriage for Brettingham.’ ‘ Carriage for Brettingham, sir ? Yessir. Lestways, I’ll go and ask, sir.’ Presently the waiter returned. * Very sorry, sir ; but the last gent’s been and got a carriage for Brettingham.’ ‘Got a carriage for Brettingham!’ I exclaimed, in amazement. ‘ Vessir. At least, for Brettingham road station. The gent said he wanted to catch the down train for the next village.’ Of course it was. quite conceivable that railway exigencies might cause him to do so, though it was not easy to understand how. I listened for the inner voice that should prompt my actions —that was an idea which I had picked up from Blogram—and the unabated impulse was still to proceed to Brettingham, ‘ But surely,’ I said, 1 you must have more carriages than one, I don’t at all mind paying extra,’ ‘ Yessir; but they’ve all been out to some of the grand places. The horses are tired, and the men gone home. Besides, sir, we like to do things regular. All our work here is day-work, sir, not night-work, except of course a gent like you goes to a party, and gives orders beforehand to be fetched home.’

I found that nothing I could say was likely to have any effect. 1 was very vexed that I could not get any horses. People in these days prefer their comforts to their profits. All working people are getting mighty independent; but although this is often a drawback, on the whole it works well.

I proceeded to the railway station. The down express would get there about one in the morning. The retreshment-room would be open, and there is always a certain amount of bustle aud excitement in the five minutes granted for refreshments. Some how the thought of going to bed never presented itself to my mind that night. Neither did I have any clear notion why I went to the station at all. But this is not an uncommon mental phase. We act half blindly in obedience to some thought which is beginning to stir the mind, to which we have not as yet given definite expression. I think my Idea was, that if I got out at the next station, I might get horses there and return to the village of Brettingham. A wild idea also occurred to me. The train would pass Hrettingham. Was it possible in the nature of railway things that the train should st"*p there ? I took my ticket first-class some forty miles away to the next station where the train would stop. I akked the guard whether by signalling the train would stop there, or at any station near there. The guard laughed at my simplicity. The train did not stop till we came to Coketown, forty miles from where I was, five-and-twenty from Brettingham, ‘ I will give you a sovereign.’ The guard shook his head. ‘Two sovereigns.’ The guard shook his head with extra severity. The door was slammed, the flag waved, the whistle sounded, and the train plunged into the moorland and the darkness.

I sat in my seat restless and excited. I had no more idea than the stoker where I was going to rest my bones that night. I had left all my traps at the Casterton Station. I opened the window and enjoyed the cold night air. ’] he moon was shining down in full beauty. Its silvery light Hooded all the landscape' The swift streams, the fields and wolds, the village churches, the abodes of men fleeted swiftly by. Then suddenly came a scene which I instively recognised from Blogram’s description. The clear rock in a deep cutting came sharply out. Then the line bisected the fir plantation. Then, in the moonlight, on the high board, I just distinguished the fret three letters Bre Now, just opposite to me, my rye lighted upon a little glass globe, which was to form, I presumed, by the medium of electricity a mode of communication with the guard of the train. At this time everybody was on the alert about railway outrages. A solitary lady would not enter a railway carriage if there were only a gentleman ; and a gentleman, if wise, would not enter a carnage with a solitary lady. Ladies even carried revolvers in their pockets, “to protect themselves from insult," with every chance of sitting down on a drawn trigger and causing a general explosion. I read a notice that in case of a great emergency one had to break the glass and press a knob. The curt intimation was added, that if the bell was sounded without adequate excuse a penalty of five pounds would be incurred.

I instinctively felt that I must ring that bell and stop the train. But was I so certain that the train would really stop ? The distant image presented itself to my mind of an intrepid guard moving along the footrail till he entered my carriage, even while the train was in full motion: of that guard entering the carriage, and deciding then and there that my smashing the glass was frivolous and vexatious ; of his sitting by my side and holding me as a prisoner, and then bearing heavy witness against me that I had sought to bribe him ; and of a Khadamanthine magistrate committing me to prison under these aggravating cirouimtances without the option of paying a fine But I was fully prepared, for Bleauor’s sake, to run the risk of all this. With the knob of my stick I smashed the glass, and, to my infinite dismay, set a whole lot of bells ringing, this being the particular device employed on this railway. 1 folt in a considerable quandary. Would the guard come along the footboard while the train was in motion, or would the train stop ? To my infinite relief I found that the motion of the carriages was perceptibly slackeniug. 1 did not wish to cheat fhe company out of their time or their money ; but 1 feit that time at thi i juncture was ui >: c importance to me than it could be to them. 1 flung my ticket and also ray address card on a cushion, having p ncilied on it ‘All right.’ Then 1 opened the door of the carriage with a key which 1 always ca i'icd with me, and jumped out of the train.

X noticed that there were one or two faces at the windows, as I scrambled down, of people who always will look out of the window when a train stops. I had fully taken in the geography of the spot. Above the steep cutting was a wood, and climbing this cutting I found a much more arduous and troublesome business than I had expected. Bat I breathlessly climbed it whore it lay in shadow, and plunged into a woo-1, and seeing a small hollow., lay quite still. There was a little delay, which I fancied was spent in deliberating whether some one should follow me; but presently, to my great relief, tho train moved on, and there were no accusing footsteps. (To ho cont nuod.)