The curate finally ran him to earth in Buckingham Palace Road, which is a long chase from Soho, where he was sitting on the pavement, to the grave inconvenience of the inhabitants of Pimlico, and refusing to be comforted. It took his new master the best part of an hour to get him to Euston Road, where it was discovered they had missed the night mail to the north. Accordingly they walked to a rival station and took another train.
In all this Excalibur was the instrument of Destiny, as you shall hear.
VII
The coroner's jury was inclined at the time to blame the signalman, but the Board of Trade inquiry established the fact that the accident was due to the engine-driver's neglect to keep a proper lookout. However, as the driver was dead and his fireman with him, the law very leniently took no further action in the matter.
About three o'clock in the morning, as the train was crossing a bleak Yorkshire moor seven miles from Tetley Junction, the curate suddenly left the seat on which he lay stretched dreaming of Eileen and flew across the compartment on to the recumbent form of a stout commercial traveler. Then he rebounded to the floor and woke up—unhurt.
"'Tis an accident, lad!" gasped the commercial traveler as he got his wind.
"So it seems," said the curate. "Hold tight! She's rocking!"
The commercial traveler, who was mechanically groping under the seat for his boots,—commercial travelers always remove their boots in third-class railroad compartments when on night journeys,—followed the curate's advice and braced himself with his feet against the opposite seat for the coming bouleversement.
After the first shock the train had gathered way again—the light engine into which it had charged had been thrown clear off the track—but only for a moment. Suddenly the reeling engine of the express left the rails and staggered drunkenly along the ballast. A moment later it turned over, taking the guard's van and the first four coaches with it, and the whole train came to a standstill.