nd covers his face with his
hands. He soon breathes more freely on finding that it is not all over,
but fifteen or twenty miles lie between him and the house he expected to
annihilate, before his nervous system has quite recovered its tone.

This, reader, is a mere sample of the visitations by which that family
was perpetually affected, though not afflicted. Sometimes the rushing
masses were heavy goods trains, which produced less fuss, but more of
earthquake. At other times red lights, intimating equally danger and
delay, brought trains to a stand close to the house, and kept them
hissing and yelling there as if querulously impatient to get on. The
uproar reached its culminating point about 12:45, on the night of which
we write, when two trains from opposite directions were signalled to
wait, which they did precisely opposite John Marrot's windows, and there
kept up such a riot of sound as feeble language is impotent to convey.
To the accustomed ears the whistle and clank of a checked and angry
pilot-engine might have been discerned amid the hullabaloo; but to one
whose experience in such matters was small, it might have seemed as
though six or seven mad engines were sitting up on end, like monster
rabbits on a bank, pawing the air and screaming out their hearts in the
wild delirium of unlimited power and ungovernable fury. Still, although
they moved a little, the sleepers did not awake--so potent is the force
of habit! However, it did not last long. The red lights removed their
ban, the white lights said "Come on," the monster rabbits gave a final
snort of satisfaction and went away--each with its tail of live-stock,
or minerals, or goods, or human beings, trailing behind it.

The temporary silence round the house was very intense, as may well be
believed--so much so that the heavy foot-fall of a man in the bypath
that led to it sounded quite intrusive.

He was a tall broad-shouldered man in a large pilot coat, cap and boots,
and appeared to walk somewhat lame as he approached the door. He tried
the handle. It was locked, of course.

"I thought so," he muttered in a low bass voice; "so much for a bad
memory."

He rapped twice on the door, loudly, with his knuckles and then kicked
it with his boot. Vain hope! If a burglar with a sledge-hammer had
driven the door in, he would have failed to tickle the drum of any ear
there. The man evidently was aware of this, for, changing his plan, he
went round to a