Scally Part 5

Her brother-in-law apologetically admitted that he had forgotten Scally.

"Not quite myself at present," he mentioned in extenuation.

"I am going to Aunt Phoebe," announced Eileen.

"You are never going to introduce Scally into Aunt Phoebe's establishment!" cried Eileen's sister.

"No," said Eileen, "I am not." She rubbed Excalibur's matted head affectionately. "But I have arranged for the dear man's future. He is going to visit friends in the north. Aren't you, darling?"

Excalibur, to whom this arrangement had been privately communicated some days before, wagged his tail and endeavored to look as intelligent and knowing as possible. He was not going to put his beloved mistress to shame by admitting to her relatives that he had not the faintest idea what she was talking about.

However, he was soon to understand. The next day Eileen took him up to London by train. This in itself was a tremendous adventure, though alarming at first. He traveled in the guard's van, it having been found quite impossible to get him into an ordinary compartment--or, rather, to get any one else into the compartment after he lay down on the floor. So he traveled with the guard, chained to the vacuum brake, and shared that kindly official's dinner.

When they reached the terminus there was much bustle and confusion. The door of the van was thrown open and porters dragged out the luggage and submitted samples thereof to overheated pa.s.sengers, who invariably failed to recognize their own property and claimed someone else's.

Finally, when the luggage was all cleared out, the guard took off Excalibur's chain and facetiously invited him to alight for London Town.

Excalibur, lumbering delicately across the ribbed floor of the van, arrived at the open doorway. Outside on the platform he espied Eileen.

Beside her stood a tall figure in black.

With one tremendous roar of rapturous recognition, Excalibur leaped straight out of the van and launched himself fairly and squarely at the curate's chest. Luckily the curate saw him coming.

"He knows you, all right," said Eileen with satisfaction.

"He appears to," replied the curate. "Afraid I don't dance the tango, Scally, old man; but thanks for the invitation, all the same!"

Excalibur spent the rest of the day in London, where it must be admitted he caused a genuine sensation--no mean feat in such a blase place.

In Bond Street the traffic had to be held up both ways by benevolent policemen, because Excalibur, feeling pleasantly tired, lay down to rest.

When evening came they all dined together in a cheap little restaurant in Soho and were very gay, with the gayety of people who are whistling to keep their courage up. After dinner Eileen said good-bye, first to Excalibur and then to the curate. She was much more demonstrative toward the former than toward the latter, which is the way of women.

Then the curate put Eileen into a taxi and, having with the aid of the commissionaire extracted Excalibur from underneath--he had gone there under some confused impression that it was the guard's van again--said good-bye for the last time; and Eileen, smiling bravely, was whirled away out of sight.

As the taxi turned a distant corner and disappeared from view, it suddenly occurred to Excalibur that he had been left behind. Accordingly he set off in pursuit.

The curate finally ran him to earth in Buckingham Palace Road, which is a long chase from Soho, where he was sitting on the pavement, to the grave inconvenience of the inhabitants of Pimlico, and refusing to be comforted. It took his new master the best part of an hour to get him to Euston Road, where it was discovered they had missed the night mail to the north. Accordingly they walked to a rival station and took another train.

In all this Excalibur was the instrument of Destiny, as you shall hear.

VII

THE coroner's jury was inclined at the time to blame the signalman, but the Board of Trade inquiry established the fact that the accident was due to the engine-driver's neglect to keep a proper lookout.

However, as the driver was dead and his fireman with him, the law very leniently took no further action in the matter.

About three o'clock in the morning, as the train was crossing a bleak Yorks.h.i.+re moor seven miles from Tetley Junction, the curate suddenly left the seat on which he lay stretched dreaming of Eileen and flew across the compartment on to the rec.u.mbent form of a stout commercial traveler. Then he rebounded to the floor and woke up--unhurt.

"'Tis an accident, lad!" gasped the commercial traveler as he got his wind.

"So it seems," said the curate. "Hold tight! She's rocking!"

The commercial traveler, who was mechanically groping under the seat for his boots,--commercial travelers always remove their boots in third-cla.s.s railroad compartments when on night journeys,--followed the curate's advice and braced himself with his feet against the opposite seat for the coming _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_.

After the first shock the train had gathered way again--the light engine into which it had charged had been thrown clear off the track--but only for a moment. Suddenly the reeling engine of the express left the rails and staggered drunkenly along the ballast. A moment later it turned over, taking the guard's van and the first four coaches with it, and the whole train came to a standstill.

It was a corridor train, and unfortunately for Gerald Gilmore and the commercial traveler their coach fell over corridor side downward. There was no door on the other side of the compartment--only three windows, crossed by a stout bra.s.s bar. These windows had suddenly become sky-lights.

They fought their way out at last. Once he got the window open, the curate experienced little difficulty in getting through; but the commercial traveler was corpulent and tenacious of his boots, which he held persistently in one hand while Gerald tugged at the other. Still, he was hauled up at last, and the two slid down the perpendicular roof of the coach to the permanent way.

"That's done, anyway!" panted the drummer; and sitting down he began to put on his boots.

"There's plenty more to do," said the curate grimly, pulling off his coat. "The front of the train is on fire. Come!"

He turned and ran. Almost at his first step he cannoned into a heavy body in rapid motion. It was Excalibur.

"That you, old friend?" observed the curate. "I was on my way to see about you. Now that you are out, you may as well come and bear a hand."

The pair sprinted along the line toward the blazing coaches.

It was dawn--gray, weeping, and cheerless--on Tetley Moor. Another engine had come up from behind to take what was left of the train back to the Junction. Seven coaches, including the lordly sleeping saloon, stood intact; four, with the engine and tender, lay where they had fallen, a ma.s.s of charred wood and twisted metal.

A motor car belonging to a doctor stood in the roadway a hundred yards off, and its owner, with a brother of the craft who had been a pa.s.senger on the train, was attending to the injured. There were fourteen of these altogether, mostly suffering from burns. These were made as comfortable as possible in sleeping berths their owners had vacated.

"Take your seats, please!" said the surviving guard in a subdued voice.

He spoke at the direction of a big man in a heavy overcoat, who appeared to have taken charge of the salvage operations. The pa.s.sengers clambered up into the train.

Only one hesitated. He was a long, lean young man, black from head to foot with soot and oil. His left arm was badly burned; and seeing a doctor disengaged at last, he came forward to have it dressed.

The big man in the heavy overcoat approached him.

"My name is Caversham," he said. "I happen to be a director of the company. If you will give me your name and address I will see to it that your services to-night are suitably recognized. The way you got those two children out of the first coach was splendid, if I may be allowed to say so. We did not even know they were there."

The young man's teeth suddenly flashed out into a white smile against the blackness of his face.

"Neither did I, sir," he said. "Let me introduce you to the responsible party."

He whistled. Out of the gray dawn loomed an eerie monster, badly singed, wagging its tail.

"Scally, old man," said the curate, "this gentleman wants to present you with an illuminated address. Thank him prettily!" Then, to the doctor: "I'm ever so much obliged to you; it's quite comfortable now."

He began stiffly to pull on his coat and waistcoat. Lord Caversham, lending a hand, noted the waistcoat and said quickly:--

"Will you travel in my compartment? I should like to have a word with you if I may."