e country
(which was utterly unknown to him), he had no watch, and it would be
only too easy to lose his way, or miscalculate time and distance in the
darkness.

To miss the next train would be absolutely fatal.

He walked out upon the platform, and on past the refreshment and waiting
rooms, past the weighing machine, the stacked trucks and the lamp-room,
meeting and seen by none--even the boy at the bookstall was busy with
bread and butter and a mug of tea in a dark corner, and never noticed
him.

He went on to the end of the platform where the planks sloped gently
down to a wilderness of sheds, coaling stages and sidings; he could just
make out the bulky forms of some tarpaulined cattle-vans and open
coal-trucks standing on the lines of metals which gleamed in the scanty
gaslights.

It struck him that one of these vans or trucks would serve his purpose
admirably, if he could only get into it, and very cautiously he picked
his way over the clogging ballast and rails, till he came to a low
narrow strip of platform between two sidings.

He mounted it and went on till he came to the line of trucks and vans
drawn up alongside; the vans seemed all locked, but at the end he found
an empty coal-waggon in which he thought he could manage to conceal
himself and escape pursuit till the longed-for 7.25 train should arrive
to relieve him.

He stepped in and lay down in one corner of it, listening anxiously for
any sound of search, but hearing nothing more than the dismal dirge of
the telegraph wires overhead; he soon grew cold and stiff, for his
enforced attitude was far from comfortable, and there was more coal-dust
in his chosen retreat than he could have wished. Still it was secluded
enough; it was not likely that it would occur to anyone to look for him
there. Ten days ago Mr. Paul Bultitude would have found it hard to
conceive himself lying down in a hard and grimy coal-truck to escape his
son's schoolmaster, but since then he had gone through too much that was
unprecedented and abnormal to see much incongruity in his situation--it
was all too hideously real to be a nightmare.

But even here he was not allowed to remain undisturbed; after about half
an hour, when he was beginning to feel almost secure, there came a sharp
twanging of wires beneath, and two short strokes of a bell in the
signal-box hard by.

He heard some one from the platform, probably the station-master,
shout, "Look alive, there, Ing, Pickstones,