"Hardly had Julia recovered before the light on the rear car of the express backed past the station. Standing on the platform of the car was old Rawlings. With an imprecation he ran into the station and laid his hand heavily on my shoulder. 'What does all this mean? why did you throw up the semaphore and wave the red light for us to return?' he demanded, his face all aglow with passion. 'Don't talk like that,' I replied; 'thank God for the red lamp and the semaphore! You likely now would have been a corpse were it not for them. There is a crossing order to hold you here. Herbert got it and forgot to enter it in the book and turn the lamp. He will soon be back and tell you whether the crossing is with a freight or passenger special.'
"'Bless me, what an escape!' burst out Rawlings. 'There will be a mighty big row about this. Where is that ass of a fellow?' The question was soon answered. Slowly walking backward, with bent shoulders and arms wrapped around some dark object, entered the driver of the express, while following him and bent in a like manner came the fireman. With a dull foreboding of evil I took a step forward. They were carrying Herbert, all torn and mangled! 'We must have backed over him,' said the driver, quietly as he laid the poor battered burden down. 'There is just a spark of life left in him, nothing more.' I saw the pallid lips move, and kneeling, bent my ear to them. The last words they ever formed came very slow and faint, yet faint as they were I heard them: 'The express must—cross—the—passenger—special. I—loved—her—so.' Then the weary lips were at peace—lasting peace. As I rose, my eyes fell on Julia; she was crouching at the feet of the poor fellow whom, but a few moments ago she had refused to marry. As the driver threw a sheet over the remains he said, 'Poor fellow, his mistake cost him dear.' Then turning to me: 'What a blessing it was that you kept your head and signalled us with the red light; for I had just passed under the semaphore when the arm rose. Consequently I thought nothing of the matter; but the fireman at that moment ran up the back of the tender to throw down some coal near the fire-box, and while doing so he noticed the light. He at once called to me to look behind. The signal, coupled with the arm being thrown up before the whole train had passed under it, made me think something was wrong, so I reversed the engine and came back.'
"It was Julia, then, and not I, who had saved the express!
"On reaching the operating room I found the conductor of the passenger special waiting. He had heard of the forgotten order, and said, 'That is the closest call I have had for years. We should have met about the trestle bridge over the ravine. It would have been a terrible pitch-in, as I have eight cars of excursionists.'
"A few moments later both trains had departed, and the only sounds to be heard were the ticking of the busy instrument and the monotonous hum of the wires. I looked at the clock. It was 9.09—just nine minutes since the regular express had steamed into the station. It seemed impossible to me that so much could have happened in so short a time. Had each minute been a week it could not have seemed longer."
George paused as though his story was done. "And Julia?" I asked, laying my hand lightly on his knee. Without replying, he drew out of his pocket an old frayed pocket-book, took out of it a slip of faded newspaper, and silently handed it to me. The words printed on it were very few; simply these: "Died March 8th, 1874, of rapid consumption, Julia Waine, aged twenty years and five months."
As I raised my head and looked at him, he said as he looked out of the low window, "The cold she took that fearful night killed her."
A Memorable Dinner.
As I often have wondered whether a Christmas dinner ever was so fearfully and wonderfully constructed, and under such novel circumstances, as the one to which I sat down on Christmas Day, 1879, I have decided to relate—in the truthful, unvarnished style that one always looks for in the old railway man—the incidents in which I was fortunate enough to participate on that occasion.