hour yet; and perhaps my story may help as well as anything else to kill time. Fill your glass, then, and draw nearer to the fire; for that drifting snow outside does not make this winter night too warm.
You say you knew at once, when first you saw me, that I had served. Well, no doubt the soldier who has been in active service always bears the stamp of his profession about him. I have smelt powder on more than one field. I was nine years in the —th Fusiliers. I served in Canada; and, after reaching the grade of sergeant, I was dangerously wounded in a rencontre with the Kaffirs at the Cape, and was sent home with a pension. The restoration of health brought back my constitutional antipathy to idleness; and, after knocking about in sore discontent for some time, I at last succeeded in procuring occupation as ticket-clerk at the Longley station on this line.
You don’t know the country about Longley? No. You lose nothing thereby; for a more miserable district of bleak hills and wild barren moor is not to be found from this to John o’ Groats; and the population, rude and churlish, are as little attractive as the country they dwell in.
Amongst the few acquaintances I made during the one year I spent there, was a young fellow named Carston, the son of a wealthy sheep-farmer, who lived some six miles from the station. A clever fellow he was—the real manager of the farm—and on market-days, and such like, he was a frequent traveller on our line. Young Carston and I had come to be great friends, and more than one pleasant holiday I spent with him (for even we railway officials have holidays now and again) up amongst the hills, bleak and barren as they were. I dwell upon all this (rather tediously, perhaps) because it is to Frank Carston I owe this bald crown.
It was a cold, cheerless winter evening, as I stood upon the platform waiting for the mail train from the north, which was a little behind its time. There was no passenger from Longley: the train would not wait two minutes, and my work would be over when it had passed on. I was pleasantly anticipating a quiet night by my own fire-side, with a hot cup of tea and the London morning paper, when the train came dashing in and pulled up with a shriek, and a head was thrust out from one of the carriages, whilst the familiar voice of my friend Carston hailed me.
“Ned, old follow,” he said, as I hurried up to him, “I want you to do me a great favour. You see this bag: it contains two hundred sovereigns. To-morrow is rent-day, and I got this cash for the old man this morning. You know the craze he has for paying in gold. I am going through to London on urgent business, and what I want you to do for me is to take charge of the money and this letter, and carry them out to our place. Get any sort of conveyance and drive out: don’t mind the expense—I’ll settle all that. I know that, as a friend, you’ll do this carefully for me. Tell father I’ll be home to-morrow night, if possible.”
Off went the train, and, before I could utter a word} I was left alone on the platform with the heavy bag of gold in my hand. The commission with which I had been so unexpectedly entrusted was a very disagreeable one that bleak winter night; but it would be churlish to disappoint a friend. I went to my lodgings, got some tea, loaded a small double-barrelled pistol (an unusual precaution suggested by the thought of the gold), put it in my pocket, and wrapped my great-coat round me. It was no easy thing to get carriage, fly, or gig, in a little place like Longley at that hour; and what was a walk of four miles to me, when I was sure of a stiff glass of something warm and a good bed, that night, and a pleasant canter on a sure-footed nag back to the station in the morning?
The night, though cold, was dry, and the moon was up. To be sure, some ominous clouds were gathering round her, and she was, not rising, but steadily sinking, and would soon be hidden behind the hills. No matter: I should be far on my way before her light was gone, and those clouds, I thought, were not likely to change into what they promised—a snow-shower—till I was safely ensconced by old Carston’s hospitable fire-side. All went well enough for the first half-hour; and as the brisk walk made the blood course warmly through my veins, I thought how much pleasanter this was than to be jolted and bruised in some such crazy lumbering old vehicle as the Longley Inn was capable of supplying, over that rough, wild, mountain road. But my anticipation of the weather proved sorely deceptive. Before the half-hour had well gone by, the snow-storm came down fierce and fast, and the moon was no longer visible. There was no help now, however, but all the more need to get to my journey’s end as soon as possible; so I clutched my stick with a firmer grasp, and quickened my pace. But the thick, steady fall of snow so darkened the air that I could not see twice my arm’s length before me; and I had not been walking many minutes when the apprehension stole upon me that I was fast losing my way. It was a dangerous locality I was in just then, in the midst of that snow-storm; for the road wound over hill and moor, without wall or fence; and, where the snow was rapidly covering heath and path alike, to trace my route with accuracy became impossible. Human life had been sacrificed more than once, amid the snow-drift, on that wild moor-land, and sheep innumerable had been lost. To make my danger greater, the place was full of pits and hollows, where mining speculators had tried to sink shafts in former years. Should I wander off the beaten track, the chances were I might meet a broken neck in one of those confounded holes.
I stumbled on at random. I had lost my bearings utterly; and in a few minutes I knew as little where I was as if I had been suddenly set down bound and blind-folded in the middle of the moor. I was making way, surely, as best I could, through the snow-drift; but, for all I knew, I might be going in any direction but the right one. Was I on the beaten road, or was I on the heath? Another moment cruelly settled my doubts. One step more—my foot found no rest; and I fell headlong into a broad, deep pit. Stunned by the fall, I lay there I know not how long. Bruised and giddy, I tried at last to regain my