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This thought called up my own responsibility in the matter; I was glad I had caught the train; it was a bad night to bring people out and then disappoint them, even if most of them did come in their own carriages. Then again, I had kept my word; none of my fault, of course, if I hadn’t–but I had!–that was a source of satisfaction. Now that I thought of it, 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; the trackless roadway showed that. It was equally evident that if one was coming, I had better meet it on the way than stay where I was and freeze to death. The fence was still visible–the near end–and there was a farmhouse somewhere–so the conductor had said, and he seemed to be an honest, truthful man. Whether to right or left of the invisible road, the noise of the train and the howl of the wind had prevented my knowing–but somewhere’s–That was a consolation.

The bags were the most serious obstacles. If I carried one in each hand the umbrella would have to be cached, for some future relief expedition to find in the spring.

There was a way, of course, to carry bags–any number of bags. All that was needed was a leather strap with a buckle at each end; I had helped to hang half a dozen bags across the shoulders of as many porters meeting trains all over Europe. Of course, I didn’t wear leather straps. Suspenders were my stronghold. They might!–No, it was too cold to get at them in that wind. And if I did they were of the springy, wabbly kind that would seesaw the load from my hips to my calves.