A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.

Patea Mail, Volume X, Issue 1316, 4 March 1885, Page 4

A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.

LITERATURE.

We young engineers had many good friends in Bradford, 10 miles away, and would often run down there to dinner or other attraction!, returning by a luggage train which started from Bradford to wend its way everywhere at the witching hour getting knocked about here and there, nntil i!s dismembered components would find their way to the uttermost ends of the earth. I never looked King Death so fully in the face ns from that night luggage train. We had on our staff an architect, who designed the stations, lodges, &c. This architect lived at Br dford, and being an hospitable man, we dined with him frequently, returning ns 1 have said. Now this long, lumbering luggage train: passed in its course within two or three hundred yards of the residences of most of us, whilst the station was much further away. The gradient was un-; favourable, the train heavy, and it was an understood thing that the engine driver was not to stop to put ns down, but slacken speed to some five or six miles an hour, when we might get ont as beat we could. V

On this occasion we had a carriage next the engine, and a long line of luggage trucks, say 40, 50, or 60, behind us. We arrived at the spot where I meant to descend. The train slackened, and I opened the carriage door. It was very dark. I conld not see the ground, but I swung my right toot lightly as I hung on the carriage, roy left hand on the door handle, my left foot on the step, and looked earnestly down betore jumping. I conld not see, but I knew we were passing the proper place, and the rest urged me on ; so I jumped and pitched upon a raised heap of fresh ballast. The ballast yielded under me; I slipped and fell rolling towards the train. Inside the carriage they shout and scream to the driver to stop the train, but the ratlle overpowers their voices and he does not hear them. If they had succeeded they would have killed me. with their kindness. Bat they failed, and I, of coarse, knew nothing about it. They decided to say no word at the station, wisely enough ; of course they knew I did not wish the affair to be noised about if I were safe, and if, as they all felt sure was the case, I was cut to pieces, they conld do nothing for me. So, when the train pulled up—for .be sure no one else jumped down that night—they got lights from the lamp room and hurried back. They found the crushed remains of my hat. They searched the line at the embankment foot, and,the slope nil over, and then they decided to go first to my room, to see if by any chance I had escaped. They did so, and entering found me seated before the fire, a churchwarden in xny mouth, a glass of brandy and water on the table at my side, and my feet on the bob, contemplating n bright fire. The fact was that when I fell and rolled towards the train, expecting nothing but instant death, I tumbled into a hole eight inches deep, alongside of and indeed almost under the rail. My bead fitted into this hole as the passing wheel brushed off my hat. My body and feet lay away from the traip over the six-foot. Was I safe ? The first waggon did not touch me, although the rattle from the loosened rail joint as the wheels crossed it, jarred me terribly, striking terror into my very soul. Clank, clank, clank, the coupling chains passed over, and the leading wheels of the second waggon shook me again as they rolled over the loose joints. Then I began to feel safe; but anon I remembered that a hanging coupling or a , dragging tarpaulin would be fatal to me. I listened painfully for the jangle of loose chain, bnt ere half a dozen waggons had passed, I was unconscious of all . but the great fact that the footboards were travelling three inches or less above my head, and travelling, oh so slowly ! Would they never be past ? A horrible desire to raise my head took possession of roe. I felt that I must raise it, even though it were to be sliced in two the next instant in consequence of my doing so. I clenched my teeth and fists and tried to pray that I might have to resist the infernal temptation. Just when that temptation had become positively agonising in its strength, and when I was on the point of succumbing to it, I saw a red glare above my head. It was the “ tail lamp/ and the train had passed 1 But not for me; it was all going on just the same. More waggons, and still more, seemed to be rolling above me, and at last I lifted my head ! As I live to write this, I solemnly declare it was with a sort of wonder as to what it would all feel like soon where I was going to. Nothing touched me, however. I stared wildly around, and then fainted, Presently the air and the stillness revived me, and I knew that I was safe. Bnt at first I felt almost disappointed. I know that had there been half a score more of carriages to that train my head would have gone up and gone off, for my presence of mind bad left me. I could barely stagger home, when I drank a tumbler of brandy quite full at a draught; it steadied me. The rest—the pipe, &c—were mere bravado. But I paid for it. That night, or morning rather, after I had gone to bed, and my rejoicing companions bad left mo, I started shivering, rattling the very bed with my shaking, my teeth chattering, and ray heart beating in violent terror. It was long before I left that bed.— “ Francis Grundy.”