SNOWED UP

A jollier going away for the Christmas holidays had not taken place for an age.

An old Amorian had done “something good” in India, which had obtained an extra week’s holiday for his old school, and the Amorians, a day or so before, had beaten the Carthusians, whose forwards had been led to the slaughter by an International whose very initials spell unapproachable football.

The station of St. Amory’s was crowded with the fellows, all sporting rugs of vivid patterns on their arms, and new and of-the-latest-shape “bowlers” on their heads, and new and fancy trouserings on their emancipated legs. No more Amorian cap peak pointing well down the neck no more trouserings of sober grey-and-black, no more beakish restraint for five weeks! Couples strolled up and down arm-in-arm; knots of the Sixth and Fifth discussed matters of high state interest, and the worthies of the lower forms made the lives of the perspiring porters a misery and a burden to them. Prominent Amorians were cheered, and when those old enemies, John Acton and Phil Bourne, tumbled out of their cab as the greatest of chums, the fags quavered out their shrill rejoicings, honouring the famous school backs who had stemmed the sweeping rush of the Carthusians a day or so before.

There was a rumour that Acton had been asked to play for the Corinthians, and the other athletes on the platform pressed round the pair for information.

Our old friends, Wilson and Jack Bourne, had shut up by stratagem B.A.M. Cherry in the lamp-room, and the piteous pleadings of that young Biffenite were listened to with ecstacy by a crowd of a dozen, who hailed the promises and threats of the prisoner with shouts of mocking laughter.

W.E. Grim, Esq., explained to a few of his particular chums, Rogers among them, the wonderful shooting he was going to have “up at Acton’s place” in Yorkshire, and they listened with visible envy.

“Look here, Grimmy, if you tell us next term that you bagged two woodcock with one barrel, we’ll boot you all round Biffen’s yard so there.”

Acton had, as a matter of fact, invited Dick Worcester, Gus Todd, Jack Senior, of Merishall’s house, and Grim, to spend Christmas with him at his mother’s place, and they had all accepted with alacrity.

The northern express rolled into the station, and Grim was hurriedly informed by Rogers that he was to bag the end carriage for Acton under pain of death. Grim tore down the platform, and, encouraged by the cheerful Rogers, performed prodigies of valour, told crams to groups of disgusted Amorians, who went sighing to search elsewhere for room, engaged in single combat with one of Sharpe’s juniors, and generally held the fort. And then, when Acton came running down, and wanted to know what the deuce he was keeping him waiting for, Grim realized that Rogers had “done” him to a turn. He shouted weird threats as he was hurried away, to the bubbling Rogers, and that young gentleman lifted his hat in ironical acknowledgment. There was the warning shriek from the engine, and then the train crawled out, taking toll of all the Amorians going north, and leaving the others to shout after them endearing epithets and clinching witticisms.

For two days before the Amorians were on the wing home there had been heavy falls of snow, culminating, on the going-away day, in a heavy snow-storm. All the way from St. Amory’s the express had been held up by doubtful signals, and in the deeper cuttings the snow had piled up in huge drifts. The express had toiled on its northern journey, steadily losing time at every point. At Preston Acton had telegraphed home that probably they would arrive quite three hours late. Thus it was that, tired but jolly, the party of five Amorians got out of the main line express at Lowbay, and, each laden with rugs and magazines, stumbled light-heartedly across the snow-sodden platform into the local train, which had waited for the express nearly three hours. They found themselves sixteen miles from home, and with no prospect of reaching it before midnight.

“Raven Crag,” the name of Acton’s home, was situated just within the borders of Yorkshire. A single line of rails takes you from Lowbay Junction up the Westmoreland hills to the top of the heaviest gradient in the kingdom, and then hurtles you down into the little wayside station of Lansdale, the station for “Raven Crag.”

The sturdy tank engine coupled to the short local train was steaming steadily and noisily, and when the express had rolled heavily out for Carlisle, the station-master hastily beat up intending passengers for the branch line. Besides Acton’s party, there were only two passengers, a lady and a little girl.

“I’ll give the old tank a good half-hour to crawl the eight miles to the top of the fells,” said Acton, “and then we’ll rattle into Lansdale in ten minutes. But she will cough as she crawls up. Look here, Dick, I’ll have a whole rug, please. This carriage is as cold as a refrigerator.”

The fellows made themselves as comfortable as an unlimited supply of rugs and a couple of foot-warmers would admit of. Dick Worcester, without a blush, propped his head against a window and said: “Grim, there’s a lingering death for you if you fail to wake me five minutes from Lansdale.” The others exchanged magazines and yawned hopefully, whilst Acton took out his Kipling, and straightway forgot snow, home, and friends.

The station master, and the driver, and the guard held an animated conversation round the engine. “Strikes me, Bill, the old engine’ll never get t’ top of t’ bank to-night!” said the guard. “The snow must be terrible thick in Hudson’s cutting.”

“She’ll do it,” said the driver, “wi’ luck.”

“Got another engine with steam up,” inquired the guard, “to give us a lift behind?”

“No, they’re all shut down, and we couldn’t wait now. You’ll have to run her through yourselves,” said the station-master. “Nearly four hours late already! Off with you!”

“I’m doubting we can’t do it,” said the guard, thoughtfully. “To-night is the worst night I can remember for years. The expresses could just manage it.”

“Oh, well,” said the driver, “we’re down to run it, and we’re going to try.”

“There’ll be drifts twenty feet deep in the cutting, and it’ll be like running into a house,” said the guard, slowly, “but I suppose we’ve got to try, anyhow.”

He walked away thoughtfully to his van, and a moment later there was a shrill whistle, and the Lansdale local ran out into the night.

And it was a night! There was no moon, and not the least glimmer of a star overhead; an utter darkness shrouded the world. The wind was high and steady, and its mournful howling through the rocky cuttings of the railway sounded unspeakably melancholy. Driven by the gale, the snowflakes had in five minutes covered the windward side of the train with a winding-sheet, inches deep, and when Gus Todd, from curiosity, opened the window to peer out into the night, the flakes, heavy, large, and soft, whirled into the carriage a very cataract of snow.

“Don’t, Gus, please,” pleaded Acton, looking up from his book in astonishment at the snow glittering in the lamp-light; “I prefer that outside, thanks.”

“It’s an awful storm, Acton,” said Gus, hastily drawing up the window. “Allah! how it snows!”

“Is this up to the usual sample here?” asked Senior, nestling nearer the dozing Dick.

“Well,” said Acton, listening a moment to the stroke of the engine, and the roar of the wind, “I think we may say it is.”

“Blizzard seems nearer the word, old man. The flakes come at you like snowballs.”

“Shan’t be sorry when we tread your ancestral halls. This weather is too-too for comfort. And don’t we crawl!”

“We’re rising,” said Acton, “and it is uphill work. Hear the old tank groaning?”

In fact, the train, labouring up the heavy gradient, did barely more than crawl through the snow and wind, and the slow beat of the engine told how hard it was even to do that. Acton added thoughtfully, “We’ve quite four miles yet to the summit, and there’s a chance we mayn’t

“Mayn’t what, Acton, please?” said Grim, putting down his magazine.

“Get there, Grimmy.”

“To the top? Oh, rot!” said Senior.

“I can’t quite remember such a crawl as this, Jack; listen how the engine coughs.”

“If we can’t get to the top of the incline what then?” asked Grim.

“Go back, I should say.”

“To Lowbay?”

“Yes. But while we do crawl there’s no need to fret.”

“That would mean goodbye for the present to your place, old man?”

“Yes. ’Twould be a horrid nuisance, wouldn’t it?”

The Amorians listened anxiously to the engine toiling up the incline; but the howling of the wind almost drowned every other sound. The pace was still a crawl, but it was a steady one.

“Oh! she’ll worry through after all,” said Acton.

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when the train pulled up with a jerk that sent Senior and Grim flying forward into the unexpectant arms of the dozing Dick and Gus Todd. The luggage rattled out of the rack in instantaneous response, and whilst all the fellows were staring blankly at each other they heard the crunching of the brake, and felt that the train had come to a dead stop.

“What ever is the matter?” gasped Worcester, quite wide awake by now.

“We’ve landed into a drift, I fancy,” said Acton, “and there’s no home for us to-night. What beastly luck!”

There was now no sound but the roaring of the storm; the engine gave no sign that they could hear, and Acton impatiently let down the window, but was instantly almost blinded by the snow, which whirled through the open window. Crossing over, he tried the other with better success, and the first thing he saw was the guard, waist deep in snow, trying to make his way forward, and holding his lamp well before him. “What’s happened, guard?” he asked.

“Matter! why, we’re off the line for one thing, and

Forward, they could hear the shouts of the driver above the hiss of escaping steam.

“Let me have your cap, Grim,” said Acton, all energy in a moment. “I’m going forward to see what is up. Back in a minute.”

He slipped out carefully, but seeing the predicament of the guard, he did not jump out into the snow, but advanced carefully along the footboards, feeling his way forward by the brass-work of the carriages. To the leeward the bulk of the train gave comparative shelter from the fury of the storm, and Acton was in a minute abreast of the guard, floundering heavily in the drifts.

“This is a better way, guard. Take my hand, and I’ll pull you up.”

“All right, sir. Here’s the lamp.”

Acton’s hand closed on the guard’s wrist, and in a moment the young athlete had the man beside him. Together they made their way forward, and by the light of the lamp they saw what had happened. The engine had taken a drift edge-way, had canted up, and then rolled over against the walls of the cutting. Luckily, the carriages had kept the rails. The driver was up to his neck in the snow, but the fireman was not visible.

Acton availed himself of the overturned engine, which was making unearthly noises, and reached out a hand for the driver. The latter clutched it, and scrambled out.

“Where’s your mate?”

“Tom jumped the other way, sir.”

Acton swung the lamp round, sending its broad sheet of light into the driving snow. For a moment he could see nothing but the dazzling white floor, but next instant perceived the fireman, whose head rested against the horizontal wheel of the overturned engine.

“This man is hurt,” he said, when he saw a crimson stain on the snow. “Take the lamp, guard.”

Acton clambered over the short tender, seized the man by the shoulder, and, with an immense effort of strength, pulled him partly up. The man gave no signs of life.

“Bear a hand, driver, will you? He’s too much for me alone.”

The driver hastily scrambled beside Acton, and in a minute or so they had the insensible man between them.

“He hurt himself as he jumped,” said Acton, looking with concern at a gaping cut over the man’s eye. “Anyhow, our first business is to bring him round.”

It was a weary business lifting the unconscious fireman into an empty compartment, and still more weary work to bring him round, but at last this was done. Acton tore up his handkerchief, and with melted snow washed clean the ugly cut on his forehead, and then left the fireman in charge of his mate.

“We’ll have to roost here, sir, all night. There’s no getting out of this cutting, nohow. Thank you, sir; I’ll see to Tom.”

Acton and the guard made their way back to the rear of the train, where the Amorians were awaiting their schoolfellow with impatience and anxiety.

“The engine is off the rails and the stoker is damaged above a bit,” said Acton, seriously, “and we’re fixtures here until the company comes and digs us out. There’s only one thing to do: we must make ourselves as comfy as possible for the night. I must see that lady, though, before we do anything for ourselves. Back in a moment.”

Acton sallied out once more and devoted a good ten minutes to explaining matters to the very horrified and nervous lady and her tearful little twelve-year-old girl.

“I’ll bring you some cushions, and I’ll steal Dick Worcester’s pillow for the little girl,” he explained cheerfully. “You have one rug, I see. We can spare you a couple more. No danger at all, really, But isn’t it really horrid? We have not a morsel of food to offer you, but I dare say you can, if you don’t worry over it, put up with a makeshift bed only for one night, I’m sure.”

Acton relieved Dick Worcester who plumed himself on his pillow of that article, and one of Senior’s rugs.

On his return he confronted the dubious looks of his chums with his invincible cheerfulness.

“Now, you fellows! we’re to sleep here. Two on a seat is the order, and one on the floor, that’s me. Dicky, darling, please don’t roll off your perch. We’ve plenty of rugs and overcoats: enough to stock Nansen, Grim, so we shan’t all wake up frozen to death.”

Gus Todd smiled dutifully at this bull.

The guard came with a modest request.

“Can you roost with us? Oh! certainly. Bag another cushion for the floor, and then you’re all right. More, the merrier; and let the ventilation go hang. If Mr. Worcester doesn’t fall on you, guard, I dare say you’ll live to tell the tale.”

The Amorians, who trusted to Acton as they would have trusted to no one else on earth, entered into the fun of the thing, and the last joke of the night was a solemn warning to Grim from Dick Worcester to avoid snoring, as he valued his life.

“We can manage like this for one night, anyhow,” whispered Acton to the guard, “for we really keep each other warm. We’ll get out of this to-morrow.”

The guard did not reply to this for fully a minute. He whispered back, “Listen to the wind, sir. The storm isn’t half over yet. I’ve got my doubts about to-morrow. We’re snowed up for more’n a day.”

OVER THE FELLS

When day dawned, and the snowed-up travellers began to look around them, they found that, though the snow was not descending nearly as heavily as on the night before, the wind was still strong and the weather bitterly cold.

On the windward side of the train the snow had drifted almost up to the window panes, but on the leeward there was considerably less. Looking up and down the line, they could see their train surrounded by its dazzling environment, and the drifts were so high that they had filled the low cutting stretching towards Lowbay level to its top.

The train was an island in a sea of snow.

The Amorians, stiff and cramped with their narrow quarters of the night, dropped off into the snow on the sheltered side and explored as far as the overturned engine, now stark and cold, with wonder and awe.

“Why, we’re like rats in a trap!” exclaimed Gus Todd.

“We’ll have a council of war now,” said Acton, as he saw the driver and his mate floundering towards them, “and then we can see what’s to be done if anything can be done.”

It seemed the result of the council was to be the decision that there was nothing to be done. To go back to Lowbay, or forward to Lansdale, was plainly impossible, and neither guard nor driver thought they could be ploughed out under two days at the earliest. “And yet,” concluded Acton, “we can’t starve and freeze for two days. Look here, guard, isn’t there a fell farm somewhere hereabouts? I begin to fancy

“There’s one over the hills yonder, three or four miles away. Might as well be three hundred, for they’ll never dream of our being snowed up here.”

“Well, but can’t we go to them, if you know the way?”

“That’s just what I don’t know, with all this snow about. The farm is behind that hill somewhere; but I could no more take you there than fly. Besides, who could wade up to their necks in snow for half a mile, let alone three?”

“But the snow won’t be so deep on the fells as in these cuttings.”

“That’s true, I suppose. But get into a drift on the fell and, Lord, that would be easy enough you’re done. And there’s becks deep enough to drown a man, and you’ll never see them till you’re up to your chin in their icy waters. I wouldn’t chance it for anything. We mun wait here till we’re dug out, sir, and that’s all about it.”

“Where is that farm, guard? Behind which shoulder of the fell?”

“Look here, Acton,” began Dick Worcester, apprehensively, “I’m hanged if we’re going to let you go groping about for any blessed farm in this storm. We’ll eat the coals in the tender first!”

“Thanks, Dick. Which shoulder, guard?”

The man explained as fully and elaborately as if he might as well talk as think. The shoulder of the fell was noted by Acton exactly and carefully, even to borrowing a compass pendant off Todd’s historic watch chain.

“It lies exactly N.N.E., and one could find one’s way in the dark if that were all.”

“But it isn’t, Acton,” said Grim, anxiously, “not by a long chalk. Oh, Acton, don’t go!”

“I’m going to turn over the idea, Grim. But, anyhow, I don’t stir out of this cutting until the snow’s out of the sky.”

Acton and the guard talked long and seriously, whilst the Amorians put into practical working Senior’s idea of a fire beside the van. There were coals galore.

Half an hour afterwards the snow ceased. “Now,” said Acton, quietly, “I know exactly where that farm is. I’m going to go now and have a try for it. I’ll move the farm people, if I reach ’em, double quick back again with food, for they’re used to these fells, and then we can all go back to the farm together. The fact is,” said Acton, hurriedly, as he saw a chorus of dissent about to break out, “we must get out of this very soon. There’s the lady and the child and even more than that, there is the fireman, who is downright ill. We cannot wait till we’re dug out; that is absolutely certain. I’m not going to run any danger, and if I find I’m likely to, I’m coming back. I fancy, really,” he added, laughing, “that the most difficult part of the business will be to get out of this cutting.”

The fellows all knew Acton; they knew that when he said things in a certain tone there was no good arguing. That was why Grim, with a white face, hurriedly left stoking the blazing fire and retired in dismay to the guard’s van, and why Gus Todd, in an access of angry impatience, shied the magazine he had been turning over into the middle of the flames.

Jack Senior said, “This is just like you, Acton. You will fight more than your share of bargees, but this time I’m going to go one and one with you. If you like to risk being drowned in those beastly moorland streams, or to fall into some thirty-feet drift, I’m going to go too. That is final. Kismet, etc.!”

Acton looked narrowly at Senior. “All right, Jack. Get your coat on; but, honour bright, I’d rather go alone.”

“Couldn’t do it, old man,” said Senior, whilst Worcester nodded approvingly. “What would Phil Bourne say, if he heard we’d let you melt away into I’m going too.”

The passage out of the cutting was not so difficult as Acton had bargained for; but Worcester and Todd did wonders with the fireman’s shovels and made a lane through the drifts. On the firm ground of the fell the two found that, though the snow was deep enough in all conscience, it was not to be compared with the drifts on the line. The wind now, as they started off, was whipping away the loose top layers of snow in cold white clouds, which stung the face and ears with their icy sharpness; but, with caps well down and coats buttoned up to the ears, the two trudged on. The snow had ceased, but it was plain, by the dark and lowering sky, that this might only be temporary, and Acton kept up as smart a pace as he could, heading right for the shoulder of the fell, a couple of miles away, behind which he might, if he were lucky, see that moorland farm. The hill ran down into a valley, towards which the two Amorians hurried, Acton keeping his ears well open for the faintest murmur of water.

“There’s a beck somewhere down here, Jack, but we’ll not see it until we’re almost into it. So look out!”

“All serene! I’m on the qui vive!” Hardly were the words out of Senior’s mouth than he stumbled headlong forward, the ground opening at his feet, and a narrow ribbon of cold grey water, silently sliding under its shrunken banks, caught Acton’s eye. Senior had plumped cleanly into this. Luckily, it was not very deep, and he scrambled out to the other side drenched to the skin, and showing clearly enough, where he had broken through the snow on both sides, that all the care in the world would not prevent them repeating the experience. The snow overhung a yard. Acton had stopped dead when he saw Senior disappear, but in a moment he had sprung clear, and was helping his friend up the bank. The snow slipped silently into the stream as he jumped.

“That’s number one,” said Senior, “and only half an hour from the train! Any more hereabouts?”

“I fancy so, but we may have better luck next time.”

“Hope so. Set the pace, old man, please. It’s b-b-beastly c-c-cold.”

Acton was thoroughly upset by this mishap, and he headed up the opposite slope of the hill with a face that showed how the incident had shaken him. Senior’s teeth chattered, and he looked blue with cold. The two plodded on, Acton insisting on Senior keeping behind. Acton again had the unenviable pleasure of seeing some more of those icy waters, and their slow and deadly stealing under the snow seemed to him sinister and fatal as he pulled himself up on the brink. The care necessary, the cold, cutting wind, and the knee-deep snow, made their progress terribly slow, and Acton began to notice that Senior, despite his anxiety for a sharp pace, was already terribly fagged.

The distance widened between the two, and once, when Acton turned round and found his friend nearly thirty yards behind, his heart almost stopped beating.

“This will never do! Heaven help us if he cracks up!” He waited for the weary Senior, and then said gently, “Pace too hot, old fellow?”

“Rather. So sorry, but you seem to run almost.”

“Run!” smiled Acton, bitterly. “Why, we’re not doing a mile an hour. Put your heart into it, Jack, and for Heaven’s sake don’t let me get too much in front!”

“All serene!” said Senior, gamely.

To Acton’s intense alarm, the snow had recommenced, and the wind swept it down the fells full into their faces. Acton was afraid that he might make a mistake if the snow became so heavy as to blot out the landscape, and, knowing that to do so might have terrible consequences, he nervously forced the pace.

Senior responded gamely.

“Keep well behind, old man. You’ll dodge the snow better. Can you do a wee sprint? We’re not far from the top of the ridge, and then we’ve only to work down the hill and bear to the left, and there we are.”

“Only!” said Senior, wearily. “How far?”

“A bare mile. Step it out for all you’re worth.”

By this time it was obvious that the storm had recommenced in all its fury, and Acton, in an ecstasy of horror and anxiety lest he should turn the shoulder of the hill too late to see anything of the farm, almost ran forward. He had thrust out his head, and his eyes anxiously peered forward. They were now almost on the top of the shoulder of the fell. Acton turned round with eagerness.

“Five minutes more and we’re He’s gone!”

Senior, indeed, was not in sight. With a groan of despair, Acton ran back down the slope.

“Jack! Jack! Jack!” he howled above the wind, “Where are you?”

There was no reply

“He’s lost!”

Further down the slope ran Acton, shouting into the storm. He heard nothing; not a sound. Then, and his heart almost burst with joy, his eye caught sight of a moving, staggering figure, drifting aimlessly across his path. Senior, half his senses beaten out of him by cold, wet, the wind, and lack of food, looked at the screaming Acton with uncomprehending eyes, and was aimlessly shaking off his grasp to lounge easily to death.

“He has cracked up,” said Acton, in despair, and he gripped the half-senseless youth with frenzied strength.

“This is the way you’re to go with me!” he yelled.

Half-dragging, half-coaxing, uttering strange promises, to which Senior smiled stupidly, Acton regained those few but terrible yards to the top of the ridge. Then his heart almost died within him: there was nothing to be seen, as, half-blinded by the snow, he tried to peer down the valley.

“Nothing!”

Senior, bereft of his companion’s arm, had sunk down happily upon the snow and looked at Acton, stupidly trying to make head or tail out of the situation. His face was darkly flushed; his lips were swollen; and his eyes were heavy with sleep.

Roused from his momentary despair by these terrible signs, Acton seized his friend by the throat of his overcoat, and jerked him to his feet. He shook him savagely until some sign of intelligence glimmered in the sleepy eyes.

“Jack! Jack! Keep awake! We’ll win out yet if you do.”

“All right, old man: my head buzzes awf’ly, Where are we? What are you doing?”

“We’re going down the hill. Don’t leave go of me whatever you do, and oh, keep awake.”

“Serene,” said Senior, closing his eyes again peacefully.

With a sob of horror and despair, Acton lurched down the hill, dragging his companion with him. He kept repeating, as though it were a formula: “Down the slope and bear to the left” again and again.

What the next half-hour held of misery, horror, and utter despair, Acton cannot, even now, recall without a shudder. They stumbled and staggered downwards like drunken men. The snow blinded him, and the dragging weight of Senior on his arm was an aching agony, from which, above all things, he must not free himself.

Then, as the very climax to hopeless despair, Senior rolled heavily forward and lay prone, as helpless as a log, his face buried in the snow! His cap had fallen off, and Acton watched the black curls whitening in the storm.

How long he remained there, crouched before the motionless body, he does not know; only that he tried many times to shake the dying youth from the terrible torpor in vain. Senior breathed heavily, and that was all.

All hope had died in Acton’s breast. He threw himself forward beside his friend, and sobbed, with his face in the snow.

A sound reached Acton’s ears which brought him to his feet with a bound. He placed his hand to his ear, and sent his very soul to the effort to fix the sound again, above the roar of the wind. It was the deep, but not distant, low of cattle.

A third time did the low boom through the storm.

Almost frantic with a living hope, Acton turned to Senior. He raised the unconscious youth, and, by a mighty effort, got him upon his shoulders, and then staggered off in the direction of the sound. He has a faint recollection that he rolled over into the snow twice, that he waded across a river, with the water up to his arm-pits, and always that there was a weight on his neck that almost throttled him.... He felt that he was going mad. Then at last it seemed many hours a building, wreathed in white, seemed to spring up out of the storm. Delirious with joy, Acton staggered towards it with his burden. Some figures moved towards him, and Acton shouted for help as he pitched forward for the last time into the snow. He dimly remembers strong hands raising him up and helping him through a farmyard, which seemed somehow to tremble with the low of cattle, and then he was in a chair, and a fire in front of him.

An hour or two afterwards, Acton was seated before a table, and, in the intervals of gulping down hot coffee and swallowing food, told his tale. The peasant farmer and his wife listened open-eyed with astonishment. The farmer, from sheer amazement, dropped into the broadest Westmoreland dialect.

“How far did thoo carry t’other yan?”

“Don’t know, really. Seemed an awful way. I went through a river, I know. The water guggled under my arms.”

“River!” said the farmer, rising up and running his hand over Acton’s clothes. “He has, wife; he’s waded through t’ beck! Man, give us thee hand! Thoo’s a thoo’s a good ’un. Noa! thoo shan’t stir. I’ll bring t’folk over t’fell mysel’!”

And he did the farmhouse, a few hours afterwards, giving the snowed-up passengers a hospitality which none of them ever forgot.

There was the jolliest Christmas at “Raven Crag” that had ever been known. Mrs. Acton had whipped up a cohort of cousins et cousines as they say in the French books and even Grim found a partner, who didn’t dance half bad for a girl. Did I say a jolly Christmas? Well, even jolly doesn’t quite do it justice.

Letters dropped in upon Acton in the course of the week. There was one from Senior’s father, which made Acton blush like a school-girl. There was another, a very stately one, from the board-room of St. Eustis, wherein the secretary of the Great North and West Railway, on behalf of the directors, tendered him hearty thanks for his great services to themselves and their employees. There was another from a lady, which simply gushed. There also arrived a small lock of child’s hair, which Mr. Acton was begged to accept from a little girl, who slept “on Mr. Acton’s pillow.” Dick Worcester claimed this, but Acton was adamant.

“I say, Todd,” said Grim, earnestly, “don’t you think we fellows might give Acton some memorial or other, just to show what we think of him?”

“Good, Grimmy! Trot out suggestions.”

“Well, I had thought of a stained-glass window in

Todd couldn’t look at W.E.G.’s face for days after without a quiver.