“Well, I don’t know much about them,” said she.
“But in the university. Even Bracton itself. We all knew it was a horrible College, of course. But did they really mean any great harm with all their fussy little intrigues? Wasn’t it more silly than anything else?”
“Och aye,” said MacPhee. “They were only playing themselves. Kittens letting on to be tigers. But there was a real tiger about and their play ended by letting her in. They’ve no call to complain if, when the hunter’s after her, he lets them have a bit of a lead in their guts, too. It’ll learn them not to keep bad company.”
“Well, then, the fellows of other colleges. What about Northumberland and Duke’s?”
“I know,” said Denniston. “One’s sorry for a man like Churchwood. I knew him well; he was an old dear. All his lectures were devoted to proving the impossibility of ethics, though in private life he’d have walked ten miles rather than leave a penny debt unpaid. But all the same . . . was there a single doctrine practised at Belbury which hadn’t been preached by some lecturer at Edgestow? Oh, of course, they never thought anyone would act on their theories! No one was more astonished than they when what they’d been talking of for years suddenly took on reality. But it was their own child coming back to them: grown up and unrecognisable, but their own.”
“I’m afraid it’s all true, my dear,” said Dimble.
“Trahison des clercs. None of us are quite innocent.”
“That’s nonsense, Cecil,” said Mrs. Dimble.
“You are all forgetting,” said Grace, “that nearly everyone except the very good (who were ripe for fair dismissal) and the very bad, have already left Edgestow. But I agree with Arthur. Those who have forgotten Logres sink into Britain. Those who call for Nonsense will find that it comes.”
At that moment she was interrupted. A clawing and whining noise at the door had become audible.
“Open the door, Arthur,” said Ransom. A moment later the whole party rose to its feet with cries of welcome, for the new arrival was Mr. Bultitude.
“Oh, I never did,” said Ivy. “The pore thing! And all over snow, too. I’ll just take him down to the kitchen and get him something to eat. Wherever have you been, you bad thing? Eh? Just look at the state you’re in.”
V
For the third time in ten minutes the train gave a violent lurch and came to a standstill. This time the shock put all the lights out.
“This is really getting a bit too bad,” said a voice in the darkness. The four other passengers in the first-class compartment recognised it as belonging to the well-bred, bulky man in the brown suit; the well-informed man who at earlier stages of the journey had told everyone else where they ought to change and why one now reached Sterk without going through Stratford and who it was that really controlled the line.
“It’s serious for me,” said the same voice. “I ought to be in Edgestow by now.” He got up, opened the window, and stared out into the darkness. Presently one of the other passengers complained of the cold. He shut the window and sat down.
“We’ve already been here for ten minutes,” he said presently.
“Excuse me. Twelve,” said another passenger. Still the train did not move. The noise of two men quarrelling in a neighbouring compartment became audible.
Suddenly a shock flung them all together in the darkness. It was as if the train, going at full speed, had been unskilfully pulled up.
“What the devil’s that?” said one.
“Open the doors.”
“Has there been a collision?”
“It’s all right,” said the well-informed man in a loud, calm voice. “Putting on another engine. And doing it very badly. It’s all these new engine-drivers they’ve got in lately.”
“Hullo!” said someone. “We’re moving.” Slow and grunting, the train began to go.
“It takes its time getting up speed,” said someone.
“Oh, you’ll find it’ll start making up for lost time in a minute,” said the well-informed man.
“I wish they’d put the lights on again,” said a woman’s voice.
“We’re not getting up speed,” said another.
“We’re losing it. Damn it! Are we stopping again?”
“No. We’re still moving-oh!! “-once more: violent shock hit them. It was worse than the last one. For nearly a minute everything seemed to be rocking and rattling.
“This is outrageous!” exclaimed the well-informed man, once more opening the window. This time he was more fortunate. A dark figure waving a lantern was walking past beneath him.
“Hi! Porter! Guard!” he bellowed.
“It’s all right, ladies and gentlemen, it’s all right, keep your seats,” shouted the dark figure, marching past and ignoring him.
“There’s no good letting all that cold air in, sir,” said the passenger next the window.
“There’s some sort of light ahead,” said the well-informed man.
“Signal against us?” asked another.
“No. Not a bit like that. The whole sky’s lit up. Like a fire, or like searchlights.”
“I don’t care what it’s like,” said the chilly man.
“If only-oh!”
Another shock. And then, far away in the darkness, vague disastrous noise. The train began to move again, still slowly, as if it were groping its way.
“I’ll make a row about this,” said the well-informed man. “It’s a scandal.”
About half an hour later the lighted platform of Sterk slowly loomed alongside.
“Station Announcer calling,” said a voice. “Please keep your seats for an important announcement. Slight earthquake shock and floods have rendered the line to Edgestow impassable. No details available. Passengers for Edgestow are advised . . .”
The well-informed man, who was Curry, got out. Such a man always knows all the officials on a railway, and in a few minutes he was standing by the fire in the ticket-collector’s office getting a further and private report of the disaster.
“Well, we don’t exactly know yet, Mr. Curry,” said the man. “There’s been nothing coming through for about an hour. It’s very bad, you know. They’re putting the best face on it they can. There’s never been an earthquake like it in England from what I can hear. And there’s the floods, too. No, sir, I’m afraid you’ll find nothing of Bracton College. All that part of the town went almost at once. It began there, I understand. I don’t know what the casualties’ll be. I’m glad I got my old Dad out last week.”
Curry always in later years regarded this as one of the turning-points of his life. He had not up till then been a religious man. But the word that now instantly came into his mind was “Providential.” You couldn’t really look at it any other way. He’d been within an ace of taking the earlier train: and if he had . . . why, he’d have been a dead man by now. It made one think. The whole College wiped out! It would have to be rebuilt. There’d be a complete (or almost complete) new set of Fellows, a new Warden. It was Providential again that some responsible person should have been spared to deal with such a tremendous crisis. There couldn’t be an ordinary election, of course. The College Visitor (who was the Lord Chancellor) would probably have to appoint a new Warden and then, in collaboration with him, a nucleus of new Fellows. The more he thought of it, the more fully Curry realised that the whole shaping of the future college rested with the sole survivor. It was almost like being a second founder. Providential-providential. He saw already in imagination the portrait of that second founder in the new-built hall, his statue in the new-built quadrangle, the long, long chapter consecrated to him in the College History. All this time, and without the least hypocrisy, habit and instinct had given his shoulders just such a droop, his eyes such a solemn sternness, his brow such a noble gravity, as a man of good feeling might be expected to exhibit on hearing such news. The ticket-collector was greatly edified.
“You could see he felt it bad,” as he said afterwards.
“But he could take it. He’s a fine old chap.”
“When is the next train to London?” asked Curry.
“I must be in town first thing to-morrow morning.”