A RAILWAY ROMANCE.
MY ADVENTURE
IN
THE FLYING SCOTSMAN.
MY ADVENTURE
IN
THE FLYING SCOTSMAN:
A ROMANCE OF
BY
EDEN PHILLPOTTS.
LONDON:
JAMES HOGG AND SONS,
7 LOVELL'S COURT, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1888.
All Rights reserved.
Richard Clay & Sons,
BREAD STREET HILL, LONDON;
Bungay, Suffolk.
INTRODUCTION.
The following story was told me by that meek but estimable littleman who forms the central figure in it. I have made him relate thestrange vicissitudes of his life in the first person, and, by doingso, preserve, I venture to believe, some quaintness of thought andexpression that is characteristic of him.
MY ADVENTURE
IN
THE FLYING SCOTSMAN.
CHAPTER I.
A DANGEROUS LEGACY.
The rain gave over about five o'clock, and the sun, having struggledunavailingly all day with a leaden November sky, burst forth in fieryrage, when but a few short minutes separated him from the horizon. Histawny splendour surrounded me as I trudged from Richmond, in Surrey, tothe neighbouring hamlet of Petersham. Above me the wet, naked branchesof the trees shone red, and seemed to drip with blood; the hedgerowssparkled their flaming gems; in the meadows, which I struck across tosave time, parallel streaks of crimson lay along the cart-ruts. Allnature glowed in the lurid light, and, to a mind fraught with muchtrouble and anxiety, there was something sinister in the slowly dyingillumination, in the lowering, savage sky, in the bars of blood thatsank hurtling together into the west, and in the vast cloudlands ofgloom that were now fast bringing back the rain and the night.
Should you ask what reason I, John Lott, a small, middle-aged, bankingclerk, who lived in North London, might have for thus rushing away fromthe warm fire, good wife, pretty daughter, and comforting tea-cake,that were all at this moment awaiting me somewhere in Kilburn, Iwould reply, that death, sudden and startling, had brought about thisearthquake in my orderly existence. Should you again naturally suggestthat a four-wheeled cab might have effected with greater cleanlinessand dispatch, than my short legs, the country journey between Richmondand Petersham, I would admit the fact, but, at the same time, advancesufficiently sound reasons why that muddy walk was best undertakenon foot. For, touching this death, but one other living man couldhave equal interest in it with myself; and for me, especially, wereentwined round about it issues of very grave and stupendous moment.Honour, rectitude, my duty to myself and to my neighbour, togetherwith other no less important questions, were all at stake; and uponmy individual judgment, blinded by no thoughts of personal danger orself-interest, must the case be decided. I had foreseen this for someyears, had given much consideration to the matter; but no satisfactorysolution of the difficulties at any time presented itself, and now thelong anticipated circumstance arrived, as it always does