The dismal rain still fell in a drizzle, the flaring lights in the public house at the corner of Wild Street were reflected garishly in the wet pavement. A little further on as he crossed London Road he came upon a small crowd grouped about a tram car, and paused listlessly to see what was wrong. The horses were vainly struggling to make good their footing on the slippery road; they stumbled and plunged and strained, but the uphill way was too much for them, the car slipped back and for a minute the passengers seemed in some peril.
Macneillie drew nearer and spoke to the conductor who was at the horses’ heads doing his utmost to urge them on.
“Is the load too heavy for them?” said Macneillie.
“Bless you, no sir,” said the man, “they’ve done it scores of times, but it’s a strain on ’em when the road’s slippery, and this ’ere roan ’e’es afraid of coming down. It’s just panic sir, nothing more, ’e can do it fast enough.”
Macneillie stroked the neck of the frightened horse, he had a fellow feeling for it.
“We can’t have the line blocked or the passengers upset,” said the driver, with an oath which appeared to refresh him greatly. “Come on mate, he must do it. Take the whip and keep alongside of him thrashing him as we go.”
At last with much ado the car was in motion once more, and the poor roan, kicking and plunging, was dragged and flogged up the hill.
“Oh, how could you let them be so cruel, Mr. Macneillie!” said Ivy who, on her way back to her rooms with Helen Orme, had witnessed the same scene.
“Well my dear, I liked it as little as you did,” said the Manager. “But what was to be done? The load was not too great, it was merely that the horse was frightened, and there was no persuading it that it would not come to grief. Like the rest of us it would insist on thinking of the hill in front of it, instead of concentrating its mind on the next step. You see while you anathematised the driver I, like the melancholy Jaques, did ‘moralize this spectacle.’”
They laughed and bade him good night, but Ivy looked rather anxiously after him as, having seen them to their door, he recrossed Seymour Street to his lodgings a little further up.