A Double Knot

by George Manville Fenn

As he spoke he climbed into the compartment, which proved to be empty; and then, with a smile of triumph, he thrust his head out of the window to gaze back at his discomfited pursuer; for the engine was now rapidly gathering speed, and being one of the long-distance trains, it would probably run ten or a dozen miles without stopping.

As he looked out, though, his eyes became fixed and his teeth chattered together with horror, for there, far back, standing on the footboard of the guard’s break, was John Huish, and as the young men’s eyes met there was a strange kind of fascination which held the fugitive to the window, while his pursuer seemed to come nearer and nearer till their eyes almost touched.

Occurring as these incidents did on the off side of the train, they had not been seen by the guard, who was in profound ignorance of what had taken place, while the officials at the terminus gave him the credit of seeing the strange passengers, and taking such steps as were necessary at the first stopping station. But he saw nothing till, looking out, about a couple of miles down the line, he saw John Huish standing on the footboard, and the next minute he entered the brake.

To the guard’s remarks there was no reply, and finding himself in company with a wild-looking man, with closely cut hair, his head bleeding, and who paid no heed to his words, he was about to check the train; but as his hand was stretched out to the wheel that bore the line, John Huish’s eyes blazed up and he shrank back, afraid to enter into an encounter with one whom he looked upon as mad.

“Where do you stop first?” said Huish at last.

“Bulter Lane,” replied the man, naming a station some fourteen miles down the line; and John Huish was silent during the half-hour’s run, while the guard kept glancing anxiously out at the stations they passed, and longed for help to rid him of his strange companion.

They were over two miles from their destination when, before he could arrest him, the guard saw Huish—who had been leaning out of the window, first on one side, then on the other—suddenly open the door, step down, and leap from the train.

“Why, there’s another!” he cried, looking out. “I wonder they haven’t broken their necks.”

Had he been gazing out as the train ran on through the pretty country place, he would have seen the fugitive, after anxiously looking ahead, suddenly step down upon the footboard, leap forward, stagger as his feet touched the ballast, and then go down on hands and knees, but to get up and begin walking fast to the boundary hedge, which he crossed just as John Huish also took his leap from the train, alighted in safety, and once more began the pursuit.

“Why, the hunt’s t’other way on,” cried the guard excitedly, as he looked back. “Madman’s hunting his keeper, I think; and he’ll have him too,” he added, as the train thundered rapidly along, and they glided into the station, his last glimpse of the two strange passengers being as they ran across a meadow nearly two miles back. He gave information to the station-master, and two or three passengers who had seen the fugitive leave the carriage, and whose destination this proved to be, set off at a trot in the direction taken by the hunted man, while, after telling the engine-driver and stoker that it was a rum start, the guard resumed his place and the train continued its way.