"Fearloe," I remarked, after a pause, "I think we will neither of us relate our funny encounter with Steavens any more. What did we, with all our fancied supremacy, gain by going to Europe, compared with this man? After all, it was a real inspiration of his to 'strike right down to Bad Peppers'!"
THREE BRIDGES.
I.
THE IMPORTANCE OF A HAT.
Within a distance of about ten miles Shagford River makes three long curves, each of which is crossed by a bridge.
The first is for the railroad. The second, thrown across at a point where the ground is lower, carries a country road from bank to bank. Still further down is the third, which is of stone, and forms a paved street connecting the two parts of the factory town of Shagford.
On the afternoon of a superb summer day a fast train from the north-west swept around the curve leading to the bridge-head, and emerged upon the open iron-work structure which bore the double track above the water. The fireman was shovelling coal, and the engineer had just withdrawn his hand from a cord which blew the whistle when he caught sight of a man, in a round Bombay hat, half way across and walking in the same direction the train was taking. Again he pulled the string, sending out four hoarse notes: "Lo-ook oout, a-head!" But the man did not step aside, as would have been expected, on to the line of plank provided for foot passengers between the tracks. The engineer turned on the air-brake and shouted; but there was a strong breeze blowing against him; and at best a voice could hardly rouse a traveller deaf to the steam notes. The last chance of escape appeared to have passed when the stranger, moved by an instinct of danger, though hearing nothing, turned his head.
For the space of a second he confronted the swift, trembling glitter of steel and brass and the pallid face of the engineer at the cab-window. A look of unutterable horror convulsed his own features, and he sprang wildly into the air. Falling again, without being hit by the engine, he went tumbling down through an interstice of the iron beams into the muddy water below. The train was soon stopped and reversed. Slowly the wheels revolved backward—with a solemn, funereal movement, as if conscious of the inanimate body that might soon be added to their freight.