"Third single--anywhere--Fleetwood!" I shouted, flinging down a couple of sovereigns.
I was vaguely aware of seizing the ticket, of hearing some one call after me something about "change," of a whistle, the waving of a flag, and a shout, "Stand away from the train." Next moment I was sprawling on all fours on the knees of a carriage full of pa.s.sengers; and before I had time to look up the 1:30 train was outside Euston station.
It took me some time to recover from the perturbation of the start, and still longer to overcome the bad impression which my entry had made on my fellow-pa.s.sengers.
Indeed I was made distinctly uncomfortable by the att.i.tude which two, at any rate, of these persons took up. One was a young man of the type which I usually connect with detectives. The other was a rollicking commercial traveller.
"You managed to do it, then?" said the latter to me when finally I had shaken myself together and found a seat.
"Yes, just," said I.
The other man looked hard at me from behind a newspaper.
"Best to cut your sort of job fine," continued the commercial, knowingly. "Awkward to meet a friend just when you"re starting, wouldn"t it?" with a wink that he evidently meant to be funny.
I coloured up violently, and was aware that the other man had his eye on me. I was being taken for a runaway!
"Worth my while to keep chummy with you," said the heartless man of the road. "Start a little flush, don"t you?"
I ignored this pointed inquiry.
"Not bank-notes, I hope--because they"ve an unkind way of stopping them.
Not but what you might get rid of one or two if you make haste. But they"re ugly things to track a chap out by, you know. Why, I knew a young fellow, much your age and build, borrowed a whole sheaf of "em and went up north, and made up his mind he"d have a high old time. He did slip through a fiver; but--would you believe it?--the next he tried on, they were down on him like shooting stars, and he"s another two years to do on the mill before he can come another trip by the 1:30. They all fancy this train."
This style of talk, much as it amused my fellow-pa.s.sengers and interested the man in the corner, made me feel in a most painful position. My looks and blushes, I am aware, were most compromising; and my condition generally, without luggage, without rug, without even a newspaper, enveloped me in such an atmosphere of mystery and suspicion that I half began to wonder whether I was not an absconding forger myself.
Fortunately the train stopped at Willesden and I took advantage of the halt to change my carriage, explaining clumsily that I should prefer a carriage where I could sit with my face to the engine, whereat every one smiled except myself and the man in the corner.
I tried hard to find an empty carriage; but the train was full and there was no such luxury to be had. Besides, guards, porters, and station- masters were all shouting to me to get inside somewhere, and a score of heads attracted by the commotion appeared at the windows and added to my discomfort. Finally I took refuge in a carriage which seemed less crowded than the rest--having but two occupants.
Alas! to my horror and dismay I discovered when the train had started that I had intruded myself on a palpably honeymoon couple, who glared at me in such an unfriendly manner that for the next hour and a half, without respite, I was constrained to stand with my head out of the window. Even in the tunnels I had no encouragement to turn my head round.
This was bad enough, but it would have been worse had it not happened that, in craning my head and neck out of the window, I caught sight, in the corner of the carriage--next to mine, of half of the back of a head which I felt sure I knew. It belonged, in fact, to Michael McCrane, and a partial turn of his face left no doubt on the matter. I had run my man down already! I smiled to myself as I contemplated the unconscious nape of that neck and recalled the gibes of the commercial traveller and the uncomfortable stare of the man in the corner.
What should I do? The train would stop for two minutes at Bletchley, and not again until we reached Rugby. Should I lay my hand on his shoulder at the first place or the second?
I wished I could have dared to retire into my carriage and consult my timetable about trains back. But the consciousness of the honeymoon glare at my back glued me to the window. I must inquire at Bletchley and act accordingly.
We were beginning to put on the break, and show other signs of coming to a halt, when I was startled by seeing McCrane stand up and put his head out of the window. I withdrew as hastily as I could; not daring, of course, to retreat fully into the carriage, but turning my face in an opposite direction, so as to conceal my ident.i.ty. I could not guess whether he had seen me or not, it had all occurred so quickly. If he had, I might have need of all my strategy to run him to earth.
As the train pulled up I saw him lower his window, and, with anxious face, make a sudden bolt across the platform.
That was enough for me. I darted out too, much to the satisfaction of my fellow-travellers.
"When"s the next train back to Euston?"
"Take your seats!" bawled the guard, ignoring me.
"When does the next train go to Euston?"
"There"s a time-table there."
I went; keeping one eye on the train, another on the spot where my man had vanished, and feeling a decided inconvenience from the lack of a third with which to consult the complicated doc.u.ment before me. In a rash moment I ventured to concentrate my whole attention on the timetable. I had found Bletchley; and my finger, painfully tracing down one of the long columns, was coming very near to the required lat.i.tude, when I became aware of a whistle; of a figure, bun in hand, darting from the refreshment-room to a carriage; of a loud puff from the engine.
I abandoned the time-table, and rushed in the same direction. Alas! the train was in full motion; a porter was standing forbiddingly between me and my carriage, and the honeymoon couple were blandly drawing down the blinds in my very face! Worst of all, I saw the half-profile of Michael McCrane, inflated with currant bun, vanish; and as the end carriage whirled past me I received a friendly cheer from the commercial traveller, and a particularly uncomfortable smile from his silent companion in the corner.
I was left behind! The bird had flown out of my very hand; and there was nothing now but to return in confusion and report my misfortunes at the bank.
Stay! I could telegraph to detain my man at Rugby. Let me see. "To Station Master, Rugby. Detain Michael McCrane--bank robbery--tall, dark--third-cla.s.s--left Euston 1:30--I follow--Samuels." How would that do? I was pleased with the look of it; and, in the fullness of my heart, consulted the station-master.
He eyed me unfavourably.
"Who are you?" he had the boldness to inquire.
"I"m from the bank."
"Oh!" he said; and added, "your best plan is to follow him in the supplemental. It will be up in five minutes. He"s sure to be bound for Fleetwood, and you"ll catch him on the steamer. They won"t stop him on the road without a warrant. They don"t know you."
I admitted the truth of this, and, after some inward debate-- particularly as I had a ticket through--I decided to take advice, and avail myself of the "Supplemental."
It was painfully supplemental, that train--a string of the most ramshackle carriages the line could muster, and the carriage in which I found myself smelt as if it had been in Billingsgate for a month.
However, I could sit down this time. There was neither honeymoon, commercial traveller, nor man in the corner to disturb my peace; only a rollicking crowd of Irish harvest men on their way home, in spirits which were not all of air.
I was claimed as one of their n.o.ble fraternity before we were many stages on the road; and although I am happy to say I was not compelled to take part in their potations, for the simple reason that they had none left to offer me, I was constrained to sing songs, shout shouts, abjure allegiance to the Union Jack, and utter aspirations for the long life of Charlie Parnell and Father Mickey (I believe that was the reverend gentleman"s name), and otherwise abase myself, for the sake of peace, and to prevent my head making acquaintance with the shillalahs of the company. I got a little tired of it after a few hours" incessant bawling, and was rather glad, by the a.s.sistance of a few half-crowns (which I fervently trusted the manager would allow me to charge to his account), to escape their company at Preston, and seek the shelter of a more secluded compartment for the rest of the way.
I found one occupied by two files of soldiers in charge of a couple of deserters, and in this genial company performed the remainder of the journey in what would have been something like comfort but for the ominous gusts of wind and rain which, as we neared the coast, buffeted the carriage window, and promised a particularly ugly night for any one contemplating a sea voyage.
Sub-Chapter II.
BOWLED OUT.
When we reached Fleetwood it was blowing (so I heard some one say) "half a cap." I privately wondered what a whole cap must be like; for it was all I could do, by leaning hard up against the wind, and holding on my hat--a chimney-pot hat, by the way--to tack up the platform and fetch round for the Belfast steamer, which lay snorting and plunging alongside.
It takes a very good sailor to be cheerful under such circ.u.mstances. I felt profoundly melancholy and wished myself safe at home in my bed.
The sight of the black and red funnel swaying to and fro raised qualms in me which, although still on _terra firma_, almost called for the intervention of a friendly steward. Alas! friend there was none.
In my desperation I was tempted basely to compromise with duty. How did I know Michael McCrane was on the steamer at all? He might have dropped out at any one of a dozen wayside stations between Bletchley and here.
Indeed the probability was that he had. Or--and I felt almost affectionately towards him as the thought crossed my mind--even if he had come so far, he, like myself, might be a bad sailor, and prefer to spend the night on this side of the angry Channel. I could have forgiven him much, I felt, had I been sure of that.
In any case, I asked myself earnestly, was I justified in running my employers into the further expense of a return ticket to Belfast without being reasonably sure that I was on the right track? And _was_ I reasonably sure? Was I even--
On the steerage deck of the steamer below me, with a portmanteau in one hand and a brand-new hat-box and a rug in the other, a figure staggered towards the companion ladder and disappeared below. That figure, even to my unwilling eyes, was naught else but a tragic answer to my own question.
Michael McCrane was on board, and going below!
A last lingering hope remained.
"Hardly put off to-night, will you?" said I to a mate beside me, with the best a.s.sumption of swagger at my command.