'Unless!' A romance

Chapter I

"JUMP in here, sir. All right ! " And the brown bearded Great Western guard shut me into a second-class compartment in the last carriage but one of an evening train leaving Birmingham for London. I was the latest passenger, and the man's whistle was at his mouth as I hurried up. His words, familiar as they were to an habitual breaker of companies' bye-laws, and a frequent stepper into trains in motion, rested on my ear because of a little uncertainty in their utterance unusual with the fine fellows to whom the Great Western Railway Company intrusts its fast trains. A " UNLESS ! " 2 We were off before I could note, as I did with satisfaction, that I was alone. A pencil and a bundle of proof-sheets were in my hands before long, and my neglected duties were soon being rapidly overtaken by the dim light of the oil-lamp.

As we rushed on, the rain came beating heavily against the glass, and caused me to close the windows tight and take little notice of what was passing outside. I did not know the line I was travel ling on at all well, and the knowledge that I was in a London train was enough for me : still, as we came near to Warwick, I observed that the car riage, which had been charmingly steady, suddenly became affected with the swaying motion which the tail-end of a train often adopts. " Surely we parted with the slip-coach there," I muttered to myself. "Lucky I didn't jump into it." So I returned to my proof-sheets with a vague sense of danger escaped, not even raising my eyes from them when we pulled up at Leamington with a jarring brake, or when we left with a prolonged whistle. Then came a few more minutes of work, and then the usual vibration of the brake, followed by "unless!" 3 a bumping sensation and a decided heeling over of the carriage, which had evidently left the line.

The whole affair took five seconds, though it seemed as many minutes before the vehicle, finally losing its balance, deposited itself and its contents shaken, but as it proved unhurt, on a low grassy bank. The lights went out at once, as they always do when most wanted, and I had to feel my way up wards to the door, which now nearly occupied the position which the roof should have maintained. I managed to open the window and turn the handle, and then climbed outside. "Any one else here? " I shouted " Yessir, I'm here," replied my friend the guard, similarly, though much more slowly, emerging from his brake - compartment. As he spoke I thought I also heard a feminine voice, and shout ing out again, found that I was answered by a young lady from the first-class compartment. I opened the door, and after inquiring as to her safety, and assuring her that the worst was over, told her that the carriage was lying in a secure position, and advised her to wait until the guard could help me to lift her out.

This we effected, "UNLESS !" 4 and then by our joint efforts dropped her to the ground safely. The next thing was to dive for the guard's lantern, which was still alight, and to get out the lady's travelling-bag and wraps. This done, we held a council under the lee of the carriage. " How did this happen, guard ? Were there two slip-coaches to this train ? " " Yessir. Machinery out of order ; and then we was a bumpin' so when we parted, that we went off the rails." " So it seems," I replied, satisfied for the moment with the explanation ; " but isn't it the machinery inside your head that's a trifle wrong ? " " No, sir. I'm all right. But this here's a bad business," continued he, as his professional instincts began to rise superior to his liquor. " You pulled the cord too early, didn't you ?

Where ought you have done it ? " " This side of Banbury," he answered, musingly. " Should have chucked off at 9.48 or thereabouts when I saw the signals. Thought I saw 'em, but there are none here. 'Spose I must have put my watch on too much." " UNLESS ! " 5 " And yourself ' on ' too, at the last refreshment room," I answered, without due regard for the man's feelings. " Where are we ? " " Dunno, sir. What's the time ? " "The true time is 9.35," I said in severe tones ; " so whereabouts are we ? " " Nearabouts Fenny Compton, I think." "Well, then, we must try and walk on there," said I, " and get another train." " No train stops there to-night." " Can't you tell us by any signs about the place where we really are ? " He took his lantern, and I accompanied him. Very soon we found the indication we wanted, though it gave us little consolation.

We learned, however, at the same moment, why, instead of merely stopping, we had turned over. There was a temporary siding made to get ballast from a large gravel-pit formed in the side of the embank ment, and the points leading to it had been left im perfectly closed, some gravel having fallen between the switch and the main rail. The weight and force of the engine had carried the train with "UNLESS ! " 6 nothing more than a jolt past the obstacle, while our unlucky coach had only enough impulse left to strike hard against the end of the switch and then fall over. Small comfort coming from the search, I asked when the express would be due. "About 10.5," he answered. " Then," I said to the young lady, " perhaps we had better camp under the shelter of the carriage, and try and stop the train by signal ling with this lamp."

She agreed, as did the guard, and a very bad time we spent in the cold and wet, waiting on the chance of being noticed. At last the lights of the coming train were seen in the distance. I seized the lamp and waved it wildly ; but engine driver and stoker were sheltering from the rain and wind, and the train, sweeping past, left us in blank despair. " We've saved their lives by tumbling over instead of stopping in the way, so they might have been just a thought more grateful," was my half-jocular remark, as I turned to hold a brief council of war in the rain and dismal darkness. " UNLESS ! " 7 We decided naturally to plash along the six-foot way to the nearest station ; but before starting I paid a visit to the wrecked carriage, and con trived by the light of the lamp to find my own small valise.

We had no compunction about making the author of our troubles stumble along with our luggage, and we set our faces to the rain. Our wraps kept us from serious wetting, but our boots at each step made that unpleasant noise which betokens a more than ordinary soak ing, so at last we walked straight through the pools which we encountered at short intervals, cheerily defying them to do more than had been done already. " Friends were going to meet you at Banbury, no doubt ? " I said inquiringly to the sharer of my miseries, assuming that she had not, like myself, been betrayed into the fatal slip-coach. "I was for London, and my father will be at Paddington before long, waiting for me. He will be terribly frightened, and I shall be scolded, for he would not approve of my coming by such a late train at all ; but I was persuaded to stop, and now I am punished."

"unless!" 8 "We must telegraph to the station-master at Paddington when we get to the next station, and your father will be sure to make inquiries if you do not appear." " Shall we ever reach the next station ? " said the poor girl, dolefully. She had borne up bravely, but the wretched ness of the position and the thoughts of more misery to come were beginning to tell on her. "You will reach it if we have to carry you," I replied, warmly. " We are not tired." "No, sir, not a bit — we'll carry her," struck in the miserable guard, whose wits were not so muddled as to prevent him from seeing that his only chance of getting out of his ugly scrape lay in the direction of making us his friends. " Hope you'll say a word for me, sir," he began. "Well, that depends upon whether you land this young lady and me in safety or not."

"I'll do my level best, sir. But d'ye happen to know any gentleman pretty high up in the company ? " "Perhaps I might claim acquaintance with the maiden aunt of one of the directors," I said ; " but " unless ! " 9 it's rather a bad business you know, and they may be needing a fearful example just now in order to keep their rules in working order." " Was the carriage much smashed, sir ? I didn't see." " Well, pretty badly. It seemed to have a few hedge-stakes through it here and there." " The breakdown gang will put it on its legs again, sir," said the wretched fellow ; and thus we talked on until the now suffering girl suddenly said — " There are lights over there, I am sure." There certainly were lights on ahead to the left. This put new life into us, and we stumbled on till we came to a place at which the line traversed a small bridge over a road.

The road plainly led to a large village, whose lights were now clearer and more numerous. Climbing down the embankment, we delightedly gained the level of the muddy road. Here I turned to the guard, and, giving him the light, told him he must go on to the still distant station and telegraph to Paddington that the occupants of the slip-coach were in safety. I drummed the "unless ! " 10 message into him, and then made him repeat it, which he did quite correctly, though in a beery voice which disturbed our gravity. Then taking the baggage, I walked slowly onwards. "We shall have a curious story to tell at the inn — that is, if we meet with such a blessed shelter," I said ; " but if we are to help our unlucky guard we mustn't say too much." "You said, I think, that you knew a relation of one of the directors," replied my companion, who had taken my words seriously, or at least now pretended to do so; "but I think I can get a little more directly at the powers that be, and I will do my best for the wretched fellow.

He did all he could after his mistake." " I don't quite know why we should take so much trouble," I answered, " seeing the plight he has brought us into, and seeing that we might very well have been sent rolling down an em bankment." "We are unhurt, and can afford to be generous ; but how it all happened I cannot quite make out. Were we shown into the second of two slip-car riages, instead of being put into the main train?" "unless !" 11 " Yes ; and then this protege of ours pulled the cord at the wrong moment, when we were getting close to some imperfectly closed points. We struck them and went over. I knew there was one slip-coach to the train, and avoided it, but I never dreamed of two." " Oh, but there are two or three Great Western trains that slip two in the course of a journey, and a capital idea it is when properly managed."

Our conversation lasted in a broken sort of way until we reached the door of the inn, then closing for the night ; but my companion was evidently not one of those who are free of speech with any stranger. It was a larger house than I had hoped for — evidently an old posting-inn — and the host and hostess were more sympathetic than I had dared to anticipate. Not only did they believe our story, but, with a womanly tact for which I blessed her in my heart, the hostess took imme diate charge of my fair companion, who, I now for the first time saw, was a very handsome girl. She showed her to a wing of the house which seemed shut off from the rest, and formed the abode of her own family, while she relegated me "unless!" 12 to an inferior room in a distant corner. The boots at the adjoining door were certainly those of a bagman, and the snore which traversed the lath-and-plaster was a very seal of his brother hood.

He eyed me suspiciously next morning; and my anger was not long after nearly bursting into a blaze when, palpably after hearing our thrilling tale from the landlord, he said audibly, " Rum story that : runaway couple, I'll bet." 1 think the noodle just succeeded in making the landlord a little uncomfortable about us, for he drove us himself to the station, which was fully four miles distant. When there, a word in a corner with the officials must have convinced him that his over-sagacious friend was wrong, for he brought us word that the station-master had received a message that the young lady's father would meet her at Didcot, coming from London by the earliest train to relieve his mind as to her complete safety. As the train drew up, we shook hands with a laughing but unhappily prophetic word as to possible misfortunes to come, and separ ated, bound, one for her first-class carriage, the " unless !

" 13 other for an empty compartment of a humbler grade. Again my pet proof-sheets were in my hand, though the adventures of the past evening made my mind wander sadly at first ; but before long a delicious passage, which the printer had made a veritable museum of typographical blunders, finally enchained my attention, and I went on steadily marking the margins until we reached Didcot. Then a silly thought crossed my brain that I should like to see what manner of man that pretty girl's papa might be ; but to my credit I had just snubbed it soundly, when all at once a feminine voice near the window uttered the words, " This is the gentleman," and before I could realise the position the door was opened, and father and daughter entered the compartment. I guessed that, as a man versed in the ways of the world, he had decided to learn something of the person who had shared his daughter's adventure.

In her frank innocence she had obviously intended to cast off the whole affair as a disagreeable epi sode, and to cast me aside with it. Not so her father ; and I shyly endured a searching look "unless ! " 14 from a pair of the keenest though kindliest eyes I have ever encountered. A handsome man certainly, with an almost close-shaven face — one of those on which nature has condescended to use her artistic power in earnest, and one therefore which ought never to be covered up with bristles. Each person has his own definition of strength of character. The modern philosophical historian amusingly classifies all unsuccessful people as weak, and attributes strength of character only to those whose luck it is to ride on a tide of success which overwhelms their blunders. Some people confound strength with obstinacy ; others conclude that the strong man is he who, seeing far ahead, persists in taking his own course with out caring for incidental results or for other people's feelings.

Others, perhaps more wisely, say that he is truly strong who ahvays contrives to have precise knowledge, and acts resolutely upon a definite plan. Whatever view we may take, or however we may haggle over definitions, most will agree in saying that it is one of the peculiarities of the "unless!" 15 quality that it may be detected in the face of its possessor. Few, too, could deny that it height ened the charm felt by all to whom Mr Keith Clinton cared to make himself agreeable. For myself, I know that I am one of the weaklings, though I believe that I usually mask the defect tolerably well. This, however, is mere practical deceit ; and when I am confronted with one of the genuine race, my conscious inferiority, linked to my shyness, makes me quail and quaver, and not unfrequently stammer badly.

This I did in my best style when Mr Clinton opened upon me with courteous words of thanks. " I have not yet had time to hear much about what happened last night, though I know that I have to thank you for taking such kind care of my daughter." I had stammered out half a commonplace, and had turned very red, when he resumed — "You will be able to tell me the whole story much better than my daughter can, for I think she was pardonably frightened. Kate, my dear," turning to his daughter, " you did not tell me this gentleman's name." " UNLESS ! " 16 " Hunter— Paul Hunter," I interjected hurriedly, while searching to find one last crumpled card in my purse. It bore my address ; but in my con fusion I totally forgot that its back also bore some quaint and curious memoranda. " Well, Mr Hunter, to what do you attribute the contretemps ?

I should like to hear your opinion, as I must take some measures either for or against the guard." I told all just as my reader knows it, and, warm ing to my work, told it, as I hoped, rather favour ably for the man. " Thank you ; you have given me all the points very clearly — everything I could wish to know ; in fact, just as a lawyer would have done." " I'm not a lawyer, though," I replied. And I showed the fact by slipping into his obvious trap, and adding, with feeble jocularity, " I'm a surgeon, and might possibly have been more useful than a lawyer in a railway accident." " Yes, indeed. Then you've been taking a holi day at an unusual time. All you doctors are bound to be in London at this time of year, are you not ? " " UNLESS !" 17 " I had to take a patient down to Birmingham for a physician, an old friend of mine, and I ought to have been back last night.

I hope I've not been wanted this morning." " You had to leave your practice to take care of itself, then ? " " No ; I have no practice in the ordinary sense of physicking all mankind within a given area," I replied. " I am a surgeon, and do my work, at present at least, within office hours." " Ah ! much pleasanter and more profitable in the end : and you get your evenings for reading and society ? Well, as you are one of the few professional men who have some hours to spare to their fellow-creatures, perhaps you will now and then give us the pleasure of your company." I smiled the usual smile, and made also the conventional professions of delighted willingness, receiving: a card, from which I learned the number in the Cromwell Road at which I should find Mr Robert Keith Clinton. Some general conversa tion ensued till we reached Paddington, and farewells being duly exchanged, we went our respective ways. B

Chapter II. Having

when a student, carried off all the chief prizes for surgical work at St Didymus', and having served my six months as house-surgeon, I had re mained as a sort of hanger-on, doing substitute duty, and gradually working my way up in the favour of the great Sir Ramsden Parry, for whom, after I had taken my F.R.C.S., I did a gradually increas ing amount of private work. I kept myself up in medical knowledge as well, and was always ready if our other great star, Sir Eusebius Johnson, the famous physician, wanted a case looked after. I thus had something like what I had described to Mr Clinton as office hours, and could often read or study as I chose in the long dull evenings. On the second evening after the events of the last chapter I was sitting in a greasy arm-chair, "unless!" 19 and turning over the leaves of the last volume of the ' Guy's Reports,' when a friend's voice was heard below, and its owner, in the shape of Oswald Stanton, was soon in the companion chair, which was more greasy and had a more disorganised set of springs than my own.

" Got your case down all right, then ? " " Well, indeed, if hysterics at Banbury, fainting at Leamington, and screaming now and then all the rest of the way, be what you call well. I had a lively crowd round the carriage at one place, and there was some casual reference to lynching ; but the maid was a little trump, and explained matters to the over-righteous population." " Ah, yes, the dear public has a kind heart, a ready fist, and no understanding whatever," said Stanton, meditatively; and then, turning to another theme, "Do you know about poor Ned Kennedy?" " No. What's up ? Taken a turn for the worse ? " " I hope not, but he's decided to try Italy. Throws up all his work here, and joins a medical school, at Pisa, I think, just to qualify under the Italian laws." " UNLESS ! " 20 " Not a bad idea either," I said.

" It will give him a chance, poor chap. How is it he never told me about it ? " " Well, it was all settled for him in a hurry by Johnson last night." " Who is going to take his work ? " " Why don't you try for it ? " " No. Don't think it would square with my ideas at all. But to go back to what I was saying just now. If my journey down was streaked with sorrow, the tale of my journey up in the evening was rising fast towards high tragedy." Once more I told the story— this time at my case, and between puffs of smoke. " Well, that's a rum go," said Stanton, when I produced the card. " I know something of those people. By no means a bad sort of house to go to either, my child ; but there's no use in looking after the daughter." " Who said anything about looking after any daughters anywhere?" I inquired, with virtuous indignation.

" Nobody said anything ; but knowing your sus ceptibility, I did just dare to say one word. And " UNLESS ! " 21 I'll venture on another. Miss Katherine Keith Clinton is engaged to be married." " Good job, too ; shall be able to go without being supposed to have any intentions, or such like nonsense. Who's the happy man ? " " Mr Stuart Ainslie of the Lancers, or the Dragoons, or the something, second son of Sir— — Can't remember his blessed name. I know nothing of the peerage or baronetage, and the Snob's Bible is a sealed book to me." " Nonsense. You'll be a baronet yourself before you die — Serjeant -Surgeon to the Queen or the King or the President of the Britannic Republic." " An it were the latter, I'd see if that venerable tractate called ' Killing no Murder ' could supply me with justification for one little error of treatment at an opportune moment."

" But, by the way, as you know so much about the Clinton family, perhaps you can tell me the calling in life, if any, of Clinton pere." " Russia merchant, I've heard say. Hides tallow " " Bother your tallow. Is he well off ? " " Most uncommonly, my disinterested friend. " UNLESS !" 22 Is it with an eye to possible professional advan tages that you inquire? or do you, in spite of my ? " Here we were interrupted by a knock at my door. " Here's a man, sir, gives his name as Seth Martin, wants to see you," said Mrs Botley, my respected landlady. " Seth Martin ? What's he like ? Not a patient, is he?" " No, sir ; seems a respectable man. Looks a railway porter or guard, or that sort." " Oh, perhaps it's my friend of the other night. Show him in." " Ha ! what brings you here so soon, my man ? " " Suspended, sir." Not sacked ?

" " No, sir ; ' suspended pending inquiry,' the assistant-manager told me; and I've just come to look you up, sir. You said, sir, you had a maiden aunt " " Good gracious, Hunter ! what next will you aver with respect to your family ? " broke in my inopportune friend. " unless!" 23 " No, no, Martin," 1 said, laughing, " I didn't quite say that ; and the fact is, that what I did say was chaff. Still, you've done no harm by coming to me, for I can put you on the right track. That young lady told me she could do something for you in earnest, and so did her father. I'll just give you his address." I gave him Mr Clinton's address and sent the poor fellow away, greatly comforted by the as surance that I believed something would be managed for him. When he left me, as I afterwards learned, he went straight to Cromwell Road and asked to see Mr Clinton.

" Tell him," he said to the footman, " I'm the guard of that train." " Ha, ha ! I guess he'll know what you mean by that train," said the footman, who, strange to say, was a real human being, with a warm heart and a discreet liking for little jokes in lieu of absurd airs. "Just one pull too much, first at a bottle and then at a string, eh ? " "Yes, it's too true, and a bad job for me. D'ye think your master will speak for me ? " "Well, I know my master pretty well, being "UNLESS !" 24 here these ten years, and I should say that he'll give you just a bit of a talking to first, and then go and do what he can for you afterwards. He's that sort." The suspended guard was just going to ask a little more about the master when a loud knock came at the door. "Sit you down here. That's my young lady's young gentleman, if I know one knock from another."

The door was opened, and there entered an athletic young fellow of sixor seven-and-twenty, neither dark nor fair, with a face which left no doubt as to his ideas of his personal superiority to his fellows, but perhaps let some other points remain uncertain. He was walking carelessly along the hall when his eye fell on the guard. A transient look of something very like fear crossed his face, and before he could collect his thoughts he had angrily blurted out — "What! you here?" To the footman's utter astonishment the guard's manner showed no traces of anything approaching to awe or deference, but something very much the reverse. " UNLESS !" 25 " Yes, I'm here sure enough," the man growled, as he glared savagely at and after the young officer, who, unable to retrieve his stupid mistake, disappeared as quickly as possible from sight.

Had he only had his senses about him, he re flected, he might have passed unnoticed, for Martin's head was bent down, and he was rumin ating over his own troubles. It was a confounded stupid slip of the tongue, and might have bad results. Before the footman returned Martin had had time to decide that, seeing what he had come for, he had best dissemble ; so when he was eagerly asked how he came to be known to Mr Ainslie, he simply but truly said that he had been the guard of an Oxford train for many years, had seen the gentleman often on the line, and had a bit of a shindy with him once. Then Martin was called into the library, and after a brief in terview came out again with an obviously light ened heart. Bidding good-night to the sympa thising footman, he left the house as quickly as he could.

The Clinton household, as I afterwards came to know very well, was one of those which have " UNLESS ! " 26 just a little of the appearance of a pleasant sur vival of a past day. Some families cast off skins of fashion every three or four years, and con stantly appear in the latest developments of a fast - moving age. The more intelligent change more slowly, adopting only that which they see by the experience of others to be lasting and desirable ; and while always in the forefront of intellectual life, prefer in other matters to remain at some distance behind the vain crowd which loves to be daring in small things, and finds in petty singularities a never-failing delight. All the servants were old servants. The butler had been footman to Mr Clinton's father, and the furniture had only been added to or changed to meet the more reasonable of modern requirements.