“Stand away, there, ma’am. Look out, or there’ll be a circus on this farm!”
* * * * *
What a drive that was! The snow began falling in heavy flakes, and I had only a very slight acquaintance with the road, but we went like the wind. Here we go through a drift! Capsized?—no, another miracle in our favor. The horse stumbles—he’s down? No, Providence again! Shall I be too late for a train? I have not the least idea of the time-table, but drive as if a whole legion of excited women in old huzzar jackets, with streaming hair and vengeance in their hearts, were after me.
Ah! there’s the lake, and over yonder is the railway station. The wind blows in my teeth; my blood tingles with excitement, and the horse, entering into the spirit of the affair—bolts! Yes, I have lost all control over him. He throws up his head, sniffs the keen air, and taking the bit between his teeth, tears through the snow, scattering it in clouds on either side, like a thing possessed. Here is another dilemma. Supposing he should take it into his head to gallop on right past the station, and return home by a short cut known only to himself. I hardly know now whether I should accentuate this period with a mark of interrogation or exclamation. I think a very large? would be the most suitable, as somewhat expressive of the chaos of horrors presented to my mind as the possibility of such a contingency arose. I cannot express what my feelings were at that moment; I leave the reader to draw his own inferences from the—?
The station at last! Thank Heaven! The runaway tears into the yard, but not deeming himself capable of clearing either the fence or the shanty, he comes to a dead standstill. I’m saved! I rush into the shanty, where I find the station-master fast asleep in his chair. My hurried entrance awakes him, and he starts up red in the face with anger and surprise, at such a display of energetic impatience in his private domain.
“What do you want, young man?” he asks, severely.
“I want a ticket for Montreal. When does the next train start?”
“Is that all ye disturbed me for? Well, I guess,” he replied, with provoking deliberateness, again settling himself comfortably in his chair, “I guess you’re afraid of being late, ain’t you? I likes punctual young men, that I do!”
“When does the train start?” I cried, angrily.
“Well, I rather think she’s got to get here first. But, if all’s well, she’ll start from this ’ere dee-pôt in three hours’ time.”