He went on to the end of the platform where the planks sloped gently down to a wilderness of sheds, coaling stages and sidings; he could just make out the bulky forms of some tarpaulined cattle-vans and open coal-trucks standing on the lines of metals which gleamed in the scanty gaslights.
It struck him that one of these vans or trucks would serve his purpose admirably, if he could only get into it, and very cautiously he picked his way over the clogging ballast and rails, till he came to a low narrow strip of platform between two sidings.
He mounted it and went on till he came to the line of trucks and vans drawn up alongside; the vans seemed all locked, but at the end he found an empty coal-waggon in which he thought he could manage to conceal himself and escape pursuit till the longed-for 7.25 train should arrive to relieve him.
He stepped in and lay down in one corner of it, listening anxiously for any sound of search, but hearing nothing more than the dismal dirge of the telegraph wires overhead; he soon grew cold and stiff, for his enforced attitude was far from comfortable, and there was more coal-dust in his chosen retreat than he could have wished. Still it was secluded enough; it was not likely that it would occur to anyone to look for him there. Ten days ago Mr. Paul Bultitude would have found it hard to conceive himself lying down in a hard and grimy coal-truck to escape his son's schoolmaster, but since then he had gone through too much that was unprecedented and abnormal to see much incongruity in his situation—it was all too hideously real to be a nightmare.
But even here he was not allowed to remain undisturbed; after about half an hour, when he was beginning to feel almost secure, there came a sharp twanging of wires beneath, and two short strokes of a bell in the signal-box hard by.
He heard some one from the platform, probably the station-master, shout, "Look alive, there, Ing, Pickstones, some of you. There's those three trucks on the A siding to go to Slopsbury by the 6.30 luggage—she'll be in in another five minutes."
There were steps as if some persons were coming out of a cabin opposite—they came nearer and nearer: "These three, ain't it, Tommy?" said a gruff voice, close to Paul's ear.
"That's it, mate," said another, evidently Tommy's—"get 'em along up to the points there. Can't have the 6.30 standing about on this 'ere line all night, 'cos of the Limited. Now then, all together, shove! they've got the old 'orse on at the other end."
And to Paul's alarm he felt the truck in which he was begin to move ponderously on the greasy metals, and strike the next with its buffers with a jarring shock and a jangling of coupling chains.