He rose from his bed the next morning feeling tired and unrefreshed, dressed, and sent a telegram to Mr. Palmer at Seaton House, asking him to have the train stopped at Wyfold, where he himself would get in, as he wanted to consult with him over the situation. It should reach him in London in plenty of time before he started, and he himself would have the greater part of the morning at Frampton, and would get over to Wyfold in time to take the train there. He wished also to see for himself the condition of the unfinished and abandoned work in the tunnel, and get an estimate, if possible, from the engineer of the shortest time in which it would be possible to finish the work without interrupting traffic, in case he decided to import labour at once. His work in connection with other matters, however, took him rather longer than he had anticipated, and he set off down the mile of line which lay between Frampton and the tunnel to meet the engineer who was appointed to be waiting for him there rather short of time. He had expected to be obliged to go over to Wyfold in the course of the morning, and he had therefore telegraphed to have the train stopped there. This had proved, however, to be unnecessary, but it was too late now to alter the rendezvous to Frampton.
The tunnel in question was a very deep burrow under some mile of hill that rose steeply above it, and its completion—or so close an approach to completion that it could be used—had been the great triumph of speed in the construction of the line. He found that the work remaining to be done was easily compassable within a week or two, if sufficient numbers of men could be brought to the spot, while there was also at the Wyfold end of the tunnel another unfinished piece of less extent, if anything, than this. The report of the engineer also put matters in rather a less serious light: the great beams and timber which supported the wooden arch over which the bricks had to be laid were
