By the second challenge Jim had risen to the situation and formed his counterplot. He saw and heard her in stony silence, apparently as indifferent to her tactics as she to his presence, but he was only biding his time. No sooner did passengers alight and enter the refreshment room, than, having just given them time to be seated, he rushed up, threw open the door of his enemy’s headquarters, and, putting in his cried, cried:—
“Take yer places, gintlemin immaydiately. The thrain’s just off. Hurry up, will yez? She’s away!”
The hungry and discomfited passengers hurried out, pell mell, and Mrs. Macfarlane was left speechless with indignation.
“I bet I’ve got the whip hand ov her this time,” chuckled Jim, as he gave the signal to start.
Mrs. Macfarlane’s spirit, however, was not broken. From morning until night, whether the day was wet or fine, she greeted the arrival of each train with loud cries for “King William,” and on each occasion Jim retorted by bundling out all her customers before they could touch bite or sup.
The feud continued.
Each day Mrs. Macfarlane, gaunter, fiercer, paler, and more resolute in ignoring the stationmaster’s presence, flaunted her principles up and down the platform. Each day did Jim hurry the departure of the trains and sweep off her customers. Never before had there been such punctuality known at Toomevara, which is situated on an easy-going line, where usually the guard, when indignant tourists point out that the express is some twenty minutes’ late, is accustomed to reply,
“Why, so she is. ’Tis thrue for ye.”
One day, however, Mrs. Macfarlane did not appear. She had come out for the first train, walking a trifle feebly, and uttering her war cry in a somewhat quavering voice. When the next came, no Mrs. Macfarlane greeted it.