Archie heard the distant whistle of a train.
“I knows this place,” Tom burst out, in vast excitement. “’Tis Mind-Your-Eye. They’s a cut road from here t’ the railway. ’Tis but half a mile, lad.”
Followed by Archie, Tom Topsail plunged into the bush. They did not need to be told that the mixed accommodation was labouring on 310 a steep grade from Red Brook Bridge. They did not need to be told that a little fire, builded by the track before she ran past, a flaring signal in the fog, would stop her. With them it was merely a problem of getting to the track in time to start that fire.
CHAPTER XXXVI
And Last: In Which Archie Armstrong Hangs His Head in His Father’s Office, the Pale Little Clerk Takes a Desperate Chance, Bill o’ Burnt Bay Loses His Breath, and there is a Grand Dinner in Celebration of the Final Issue, at Which the Amazement of the Crew of the “Spot Cash” is Equalled by Nothing in the World Except Their Delight
It was the first of September. A rainy day, this, in St. John’s: the wind in the east, thick fog blowing in from the open. Sir Archibald’s grate was crackling in its accustomed cheerful way. Rain lashed the office windows at intervals; a melancholy mist curtained the harbour from view. Sir Archibald was anxious. He drummed on the desk with his finger-tips; he paced the office floor, he scowled, he pursed his lips, he dug his restless hands deep in his pockets. The expected had not happened. It was now two o’clock. Sir Archibald was used to going home at three. And it was now two o’clock––no, by Jove! it was eight after. Sir Archibald walked impatiently to the window. It was evident that the fog was the cause of his 312 impatience. He scowled at it. No, no (thought he); no schooner could make St. John’s harbour in a fog like that. And the winds of the week had been fair winds from the French Shore. Still the expected had not happened. Why had the expected not happened?
A pale little clerk put his head in at the door in a very doubtful way.
“Skipper of the Black Eagle, sir,” said he. “Clerk, too,” he added.