“That’s rather hard lines.”
“Don’t pun—fortunately they cannot enforce their by-law by detaining the traveller himself.”[410]
The legal disquisitions on railway companies were suffered to subside for a time, while the train rattled on. I gazed about on my companions. In the seat in front of me sat a young couple, and, judging from the orange blossoms in the bonnet of the one, and the clean shave and kid gloves of the other, not many hours had elapsed since they had stood side by side at Hymen’s altar, and now they were seated inclining towards each other like the slanting sides of the letter A. The male had a little piece of sticking-plaster on his lower lip. As I was staring at the youthful couple, the train dashed into a tunnel and all was darkness. I heard a prolonged sucking sound as of a cow drawing her hind foot out of a mud-hole—to quote a western poet of renown—and when again we emerged into the daylight, ho! presto! the plaster was reposing securely on the ruby lip of the orange-bonneted one; all else was serene and tranquil, and the two looked childlike and bland. How was this? here was a mystery as interesting as any involved in railway law. I meditated deeply on the point until I recollected what in our ante-nuptial days my Elizabeth and myself were wont to do; then all became clear and plain.
“Had a sleep, have you?” I said to my friend, who had been silent an hour and was now yawningly stretching himself.
“A sleep? oh! no! not even a cat-nap, scarcely worthy of the name of a kitten-nap,” was the reply.
“Humph! rather a long kitten! twenty miles or so!”
We stopped at a small wayside station for a few minutes while the engine took a draught of water; a gentleman got out to take a breath of air or something of the sort, and while he was wandering up and down the platform, off started our train without a solitary premonitory screech, leaving the individual wildly waving his arms and frantically shouting after the hindermost car. In thus quietly slipping off, the company were wrong, for a traveller who alights temporarily, but without notice, invitation, or objection, while the train is stopping at an intermediate station, does no unlawful act, and although for a time he surrenders his place and rights as a passenger, he may resume them again before the train starts, and the officers of the railway are bound to give him reasonable notice of starting,[411] and must not steal off silently like a thief in the night. And passengers have a right to perambulate the platforms while the train is stopping for refreshments, and the firemen and stokers should not toss about wood or coal so as to injure the travellers.[412]
FOOTNOTES:
[349] Damont v. N. O. & C. Rw., 9 Lou. Ann. 441; Ill. C. Rw. v. Able, 59 Ill. 131; Redfield on Railways, vol. ii., 276.
[350] Hobbs v. L. & S. W. Rw., L. R., 10 Q. B. 111.