430
WYLDER'S HAJVD,
"Forgot summat, sir," said the porter, touching his hat.
"Yes — signal — stop him, can you?"
The porter only scratched his head, under his cap, and
smiled sheepishly after the train. Jos Larkin knew, the
next moment, he had talked nonsense.
"I — I — yes — I have — have you an engine here ? —
express — I'll pay anything."
But, no, there was no "engine — not nearer than the
junction, and she might not be spared."
"How far is the junction?"
"Nineteen and a-half."
"Nineteen miles! They'll never bring me there, by
horse, under two hours, they are so cursed tedious. Why
have not you a spare engine at a place like this? Shillings-
worth! Nice management! Are you certain? Where's
the station-master?"
All this time he kept staring after the faint pulsations
on the air that indicated the flight of the engine.
But it would not do. The train — the image upon
earth of the irrevocable, the irretrievable — was gone
neither to be overtaken nor recalled. The telegraph, was
not then, as now, whispering secrets all over England, at
the rate of two hundred miles a second, and five shillings
per twenty words. Larkin would have given large money
for an engine, to get up with the train that was now some
five miles on its route, at treble, quadruple, the common
cost of such a magical appliance; but all was vain. He
could only look and mutter after it wildly. Vain to con-
jecture for what station that traveler in the battered hat
was bound! Idle speculation! Mere distraction!
Only that Mr. Larkin was altogether the man he was,
I think he would have cursed freely.