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  A RAILWAY ROMANCE.


  MY ADVENTURE

  IN

  THE FLYING SCOTSMAN.




  MY ADVENTURE

  IN

  THE FLYING SCOTSMAN:

  _A ROMANCE OF_

  London and North-Western Railway Shares.

  BY

  EDEN PHILLPOTTS.


  LONDON:
  JAMES HOGG AND SONS,
  7 LOVELL'S COURT, PATERNOSTER ROW.
  1888.

  _All Rights reserved._




  Richard Clay & Sons,

  BREAD STREET HILL, LONDON;

  _Bungay, Suffolk_.




INTRODUCTION.


The following story was told me by that meek but estimable little
man who forms the central figure in it. I have made him relate the
strange vicissitudes of his life in the first person, and, by doing
so, preserve, I venture to believe, some quaintness of thought and
expression that is characteristic of him.




MY ADVENTURE

IN

THE FLYING SCOTSMAN.




CHAPTER I.

A DANGEROUS LEGACY.


The rain gave over about five o'clock, and the sun, having struggled
unavailingly all day with a leaden November sky, burst forth in fiery
rage, when but a few short minutes separated him from the horizon. His
tawny splendour surrounded me as I trudged from Richmond, in Surrey, to
the neighbouring hamlet of Petersham. Above me the wet, naked branches
of the trees shone red, and seemed to drip with blood; the hedgerows
sparkled their flaming gems; in the meadows, which I struck across to
save time, parallel streaks of crimson lay along the cart-ruts. All
nature glowed in the lurid light, and, to a mind fraught with much
trouble and anxiety, there was something sinister in the slowly dying
illumination, in the lowering, savage sky, in the bars of blood that
sank hurtling together into the west, and in the vast cloudlands of
gloom that were now fast bringing back the rain and the night.

Should you ask what reason I, John Lott, a small, middle-aged, banking
clerk, who lived in North London, might have for thus rushing away from
the warm fire, good wife, pretty daughter, and comforting tea-cake,
that were all at this moment awaiting me somewhere in Kilburn, I
would reply, that death, sudden and startling, had brought about this
earthquake in my orderly existence. Should you again naturally suggest
that a four-wheeled cab might have effected with greater cleanliness
and dispatch, than my short legs, the country journey between Richmond
and Petersham, I would admit the fact, but, at the same time, advance
sufficiently sound reasons why that muddy walk was best undertaken
on foot. For, touching this death, but one other living man could
have equal interest in it with myself; and for me, especially, were
entwined round about it issues of very grave and stupendous moment.
Honour, rectitude, my duty to myself and to my neighbour, together
with other no less important questions, were all at stake; and upon
my individual judgment, blinded by no thoughts of personal danger or
self-interest, must the case be decided. I had foreseen this for some
years, had given much consideration to the matter; but no satisfactory
solution of the difficulties at any time presented itself, and now the
long anticipated circumstance arrived, as it always does with men of
my calibre, to find him most involved and concerned in the conduct of
affairs, least qualified to cope with them. Why I walked to Oak Lodge,
Petersham, then, was to gain a few minutes, to collect my wandering
wits and acquire a mental balance capable of meeting the troubles that
awaited me. What I had been unable to accomplish in two years, however,
did not seem likely to be effected in twenty minutes; and, indeed, the
angry sunset, together with an element of grave personal danger already
mentioned, combined to drive all reasonable trains of thought from my
head. Ultimately I arrived at my destination, with a mind about as
concentrated and purposes about as strong as those of a drowned worm.

And wherefore all this misery, do you suppose? Simply because an
estimable lady had just been pleased to leave me a comfortable matter
of ten thousand pounds. So far good; but when I say that I am not
related to the deceased, that her next of kin has for the past fifteen
years been seeking an opportunity to take my life, and that a meeting
between us is now imminent, it will be noticed the case presents
certain unusual difficulties. This assertion--that a man has sought
to rob me of my insignificant existence for fifteen years--doubtless
appears so preposterous, that it is best I should clearly explain the
matter at once. A scrap of the past must here, then, be intercalated
between my arrival at Oak Lodge and the events which followed it.

Upon my father's death, my mother, who was at that time not much over
twenty years of age, married again with one George Beakbane, a wealthy
farmer and owner of a comfortable freehold estate in Norfolk. This
property had for its title the family name of Beakbane.

My step-father, after one son was born to him, lost his young wife,
and was left with two infants upon his hands. Right well he treated
both, making no sort of distinction, but sharing his love between us,
and, after we were of an age to benefit from a man's training, bringing
us up under his own eye and in his own school. It was a Spartan entry
upon life for young Joshua Beakbane and myself; but whereas I thrived
under