I had, in all my twenty years of lecturing, failed only
twice to reach the platform. In one instance a bridge was washed away,
and in the other my special train (the price I paid for that train still
keeps me hot against the Trusts) ran into a snowdrift and stayed there
until after midnight, instead of delivering me on time, as agreed. I had
arrived late, of course, many times, gone without my supper often, and
more than once had appeared without the proper habiliments--and I am
particular about my dress coat and white waistcoat--but only twice had
the gas been turned off and the people turned out. Another time I had--

"Sheffield! Shef-fie-l-d! All out for Shef-f-i-e-l-d!" yelled the
conductor.

The two bags once more, the conductor helping me on with my overcoat,
down the snow-blocked steps and out into the night.

"Step lively!--more'n an hour late now."

I looked about me. I was the only passenger. Not a light of any
kind--not a building of any kind, sort, or description, except a box-car
of a station set up on end, pitch dark inside and out, and shut tight.
No carriage. No omnibus; nothing on runners; nothing on wheels. Only a
dreary waste of white, roofed by a vast expanse of black.

"Is this Sheffield?" I gasped.

"Yes,--all there is here; the balance is two miles over the hills."

"The town?"

"Town?--no, the settlement;--ain't more's two dozen houses in it."

"They were to send a carriage and--"

"Yes--that's an old yarn--better foot it for short." Here he swung his
lantern to the engineer craning his head from the cab of the locomotive,
and sprang aboard. Then this fragment came whirling through the steam
and smoke:--"There's a farmhouse somewhere's over the hill,--follow the
fence and turn to--" the rest was lost in the roar of the on-speeding
train.

I am no longer young. Furthermore, I hate to carry things--bags
especially. One bag might be possible--a very small one; two bags, both
big, are an insult.

I deposited the two outside the box-car, tried the doors, inserted
my fingers under the sash of one window, looked at the chimney with a
half-formed Santa Claus idea of scaling the roof and sliding down to
some possible fireplace below; examined the wind-swept snow for carriage
tracks, peered into the gloom, and, as a last resort, leaned up against
the sheltered side of the box to think.

There was no question that if a vehicle of any kind had been sent to
meet me it had long since departed;