So deeply had I become absorbed that when Fribscombe, whose existence I had totally forgotten, suddenly awakening from a cosey slumber, shouted in a very excited tone: “I say, Dawkins, jump out, man! This is your station. We’re moving off,” I could scarcely realize the fact of its proximity, and that two hours had rolled by, compressed into so many minutes.
My first thought was to journey onwards with my fair vis-à-vis—I cared not whither; my second, that Fribscombe would laugh me to death at the “Hall.” With a sense of sorrow—I might almost say of agony—in my heart at the idea of parting from her, I seized upon my portmanteau, and just succeeded in alighting without accident as the train moved rapidly away.
I stood upon the platform like a person just aroused from a deep slumber. I was purposeless. The tide had receded, and the bleak barrenness of my shore life confronted me. The fair enchantress whose wand had conjured up a new order of being within me had departed.
“Ye’ll have for to come inside the station, sir. I’m goin’ for to lock the doore,” observed a porter, as he significantly pointed in the direction of the exit.
“Can I get a car over to Rathdangan Castle?”
“Sorra a wan, sir. Billy Heffernan dhrew two gintlemin over there that come be this thrain.”
“Will he return here?”
“Sorra a fear av him. Ketch him lavin’ a house where there’s such lashins as at the Castle! Ow! ow! sez the fox.”
“How am I to get across?” I asked in some trepidation.
“Shure, it’s only a nice little taste av a walk—nothin’ less.”