II
It was just as dark as though it had been midnight—dark and excessively cold; not a ray of hope in the sky; not a sign of life in the street. All Bursley, and, indeed, all the Five Towns, were sleeping off the various consequences of Christmas on the human frame. Trafalgar Road, with its double row of lamps, each exactly like that one in front of the house of the Cotterills, stretched downwards into the dead heart of Bursley, and upwards over the brow of the hill into space. And although Arthur Cotterill knew Trafalgar Road as well as Mrs Hopkins knew the hundred and twenty-first Psalm, the effect of the scene on him was most uncanny. He watched Simeon persuade the loaded barrow down the step into the tiny front garden, not daring to help him, because Simeon did not like to be helped by clumsy people in delicate operations. Mrs Hopkins was rapidly pouring all the goodness of her soul into his ear, when Simeon and the barrow reached the pavement, and Simeon staggered and recovered himself.
"Look out, Arthur," Simeon cried. "The road's like glass. It's rained in the night, and now it's freezing. Come along."
Arthur bade adieu to Mrs Hopkins.
"Eh, Mr Arthur," said she. "Things'll be different when ye come back, this time a month."
He said nothing. The pincers and the anvil were at him again. He thought of falls, torn garments, broken legs.
Simeon lifted the arms of the barrow, and then dropped them.
"Have you got it?" he demanded of Arthur.
"Got what?"
"It."
"Yes," said Arthur, comprehending.
"Are you sure? Show it me. Better give it me. It will be safer with me."
Arthur unbuttoned his overcoat, took off his left glove, and drew from one of his pockets a small, bright object, which shone under the street lamp. Simeon took it silently. Then he definitely seized the arms of the barrow, and the procession started up the street.
No time had been lost, for Simeon had an extraordinary gift of celerity. It was eleven minutes to seven. Nevertheless, Arthur felt the pincers, and the feel of the pincers made him look at his watch.
"See here," said Simeon, briefly. "You needn't worry. We shall catch that train. We've got twenty minutes, and we shall get to the station in nine." The exertion of wheeling the barrow over what was practically a sheet of rough ice made him speak in short gasps.
Impossible for the pincers and the anvil to remain in face of that assured, almost god-like tone!
"Good!" murmured Arthur. "By Jove, but it's cold though!"
"I've never been hotter in my life," said Simeon, puffing. "Except in my hands."
"Can't I take it for a bit?"
"No, you can't," said Simeon. At the robust finality of the refusal Arthur laughed. Then Simeon laughed. The party became gay. The pincers and the anvil were gone for ever. Simeon turned gingerly into Pollard Street-half-way to the station. They had but to descend Pollard Street and climb the path across the cinder-heaps beyond, and they would be, as it were, in harbour. In Pollard Street Simeon had the happy idea of taking to the roadway. It was rougher, and, therefore, less dangerous, than the pavement. At intervals he shoved the wheel of the barrow by main force over a stone.
"Put my hat straight, will you?" he asked of Arthur, and Arthur obeyed. It was becoming a task under the winter stars.
Then Arthur happened to notice the wheel of the barrow—its sole wheel.
"I say," he said, "what's up with that wheel?"
"It's rocky, that's what that wheel is," replied Simeon. "I hope it will hold out."
Instead of pushing the barrow he was now holding it back, down the slant of Pollard Street. The mist had cleared. And Arthur could see the red gleam of a signal in the neighbourhood of the station. But now the pincers and the anvil were at him again, for Simeon's tone was alarming. It indicated that the wobbling wheel of the barrow might not hold out.
The catastrophe happened when they were climbing the cinder-slope and within two hundred yards of the little station. Simeon was propelling with all his might, and he propelled the wheel against half a brick. The wheel collapsed. There was a splintering even of the main timbers of the vehicle as the immense weight of the trunk crashed to the solid earth.
Simeon fell, and rose with difficulty, standing on one leg, and terribly grimacing.
He said nothing, but consulted his watch by the aid of a fusee.
"We must carry it," Arthur suggested wildly.
"We can't carry it up here. It's much too heavy."
Arthur remembered the tremendous weight of even his share of it as they had slid it down the stairs.
No. It could not be carried.
"Besides," said Simeon, "I've sprained my ankle, I fear." And he sat down on the trunk.
"What are we to do?" Arthur asked tragically.
"Do? Why, it's perfectly simple! You must go without me. Anyhow, run to the station, and try to get the porter down here with another barrow."
Man of infinite calm, of infinite resource. Though the pincers and the anvil were horribly torturing him at that moment, Arthur could not but admire his younger brother's astounding sangfroid.
And he set off.
"Here!" Simeon called him peremptorily. "Take this—in case you don't come back."
And he handed him the small bright object.
"But I must come back. I can't possibly go without the trunk. All my things are in it."
"I know that, man. But perhaps you'll have to go without it. Hurry!"
Arthur ran. He encountered the senior porter at the gate of the station.
"Where's Merrith?" he began. "He was to have—"
"Merrith's mother is dead—died at five o'clock," said the senior porter. "And I'm here all alone."
Arthur stopped as if shot.
"Well," he recovered himself. "Lend me a barrow."
"I shall lend ye no barrow. It's against the rules. Since they transferred our stationmaster to Clegg there's been an inspector down here welly [well nigh] every day."
"But I must have a barrow."
"I shall lend ye no barrow," said the senior porter, a brute.
A signal close to the signal-box clattered down from red to green.
"Her's signalled," said the senior porter. "Are ye travelling by her?"
Arthur had to decide in a moment. Must he or must he not abandon Simeon and the trunk? The train, a procession of lights, could be seen in the distance under the black sky. He gave one glance in the direction of Simeon and the trunk, and then entered the station.
Simeon had been right. He did catch the train.
It was fortunate that there was a wide margin between the advertised time of arrival of the Loop-Line train at Knype and the departure therefrom of the London express. For, beyond Hanbridge, the Loop-Line train came to a standstill, and obstinately remained at a standstill for near upon forty minutes. Dawn began and completed itself while that train reposed there. Things got to such a point that, despite the intense cold, the few passengers stuck their heads out of the windows and kept them there. Arthur suffered unspeakably. He imparted his awful anxiety to an old man in the same compartment. And the old man said:
"They always keep the express waiting for the Loop. Moreover, you've plenty o' time yet."
He knew that the Loop was supposed to catch the express, and that in actual practice it did catch it. He knew that there was yet enough time. Still, he continued to suffer. He continued to believe, at the bottom of his heart, that on this morning, of all mornings, the Loop would not catch the express.
However, he was wrong. The Loop caught the express, though it was a nearish thing. He dashed down into the subterranean passage at Knype Station, reappeared on the up-platform, ran to the fore-part of the express, which was in and waiting, and jumped; a porter banged the door, a guard inspired the driver by a tune on a whistle, and off went the express. Arthur was now safe. Nothing ever happened to a North-Western express. He was safe. He was shorn of his luggage (almost, but not quite, indispensable) and of Simeon; but he was safe. He could not be disgraced in the world's eye. He thought of poor, gallant, imperturbable, sprained Simeon freezing on the trunk in the middle of the cinder-waste.