A RAILROAD JOURNEY.
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“Will you mind having the window up, old fellow?” said I to Charley Howard, one foggy afternoon as we were travelling down to Scotland together, “it is a precious raw day this same twenty-ninth of February.”
“Twenty-ninth of February!” repeated Charley, like a parrot, pausing with the window half up in his hand, “is it possible?”
“Possible, albeit improbable, I admit, seeing it comes but once in four years. But what on earth is the matter with you, Charley? It is Leap-year certainly, but what of that, unless you have been trifling with the affections of some fair damsel who will pursue you to make you an offer, which she is entitled to do this year! Is she after you? By Jove! I believe you are afraid she will come after you here.”
“Fred,” said Charley, in a subdued, quiet way very unlike himself, for he is a noisy fellow is Charley, six foot high, and always in the open air. I believe he thinks a house need only consist of a bed-room and dining-hall, with perhaps a lean-to for a billiard-table on a wet day. “You know I am not a fellow to take nervous fancies into my head; don’t laugh now, if I tell you a very strange thing that happened to me on this very line, four years ago this very day.”
“You nervous! well I should not have thought it certainly, although I wish my best ties were ever as white as your blessed face is at this very moment. Go a-head, Charley! but let me light my cigar to keep my spirits up; nothing like a story for sending a man to sleep—particularly yours”—which last utterance was sotto voce.
“Four years ago, to-day,” began Charley, in such a solemn tone. Upon my life! I felt rather inclined to kick the fellow for making me feel drowsy before my time. “Four years ago, I was travelling on this very line—”
“You told me that before,” said I; “get on—do!”
“—and, as I wanted to have a quiet smoke—”
“No harm in that,” said I, approvingly; “a thing I am not averse to myself.”
“—I bribed the guard to lock me in a carriage by myself—”
“Your foresight was good,” said I again, “though tampering with the company’s servants is forbidden.”
“I had performed about half the journey in much comfort,” resumed Charley, “when the train stopped at a junction station about five o’clock in the afternoon. There was a good deal of crowd on the platform, and, secure in the purchase I had made of the guard’s promise, I amused myself by watching the people elbowing and pushing each other about. There was one figure, however, which attracted my attention by the contrast it formed to the rest. It was a lady, wrapped in a long white bournous, which looked cold and chilly that foggy afternoon.”
“Possibly her dressing-gown,” said I; “an ill-judged costume, certainly.”
“She was apparently young, for the tall figure was very slender; but she had so thick a veil on her face I could not distinguish the features. She alone seemed to know neither bustle nor hurry;