othic arch that spanned a pavered alley, I saw the
little window of a little house of rubble, and between the two
diamond-paned sashes rags tightly beaten in, the idea evidently being to
make the place air-tight against the poison. When I went in I found the
door of that room open, though it, too, apparently, had been stuffed at
the edges; and on the threshold an old man and woman lay low. I
conjectured that, thus protected, they had remained shut in, till either
hunger, or the lack of oxygen in the used-up air, drove them forth,
whereupon the poison, still active, must have instantly ended them. I
found afterwards that this expedient of making air-tight had been widely
resorted to; and it might well have proved successful, if both the
supply of inclosed air, and of food, had been anywhere commensurate with
the durability of the poisonous state.

Weary, weary as I grew, some morbid persistence sustained me, and I
would not rest. About four in the morning I was at a station again,
industriously bending, poor wretch, at the sooty task of getting another
engine ready for travel. This time, when steam was up, I succeeded in
uncoupling the carriages from the engine, and by the time morning
broke, I was lightly gliding away over the country, whither I did not
know, but making for London.

* * * * *

Now I went with more intelligence and caution, and got on very well,
travelling seven days, never at night, except it was very clear, never
at more than twenty or twenty-five miles, and crawling through tunnels.
I do not know the maze into which the train took me, for very soon after
leaving Canterbury it must have gone down some branch-line, and though
the names were marked at stations, that hardly helped me, for of their
situation relatively to London I was seldom sure. Moreover, again and
again was my progress impeded by trains on the metals, when I would have
to run back to a shunting-point or a siding, and, in two instances,
these being far behind, changed from my own to the impeding engine. On
the first day I travelled unhindered till noon, when I stopped in open
country that seemed uninhabited for ages, only that half a mile to the
left, on a shaded sward, was a large stone house of artistic design,
coated with tinted harling, the roof of red Ruabon tiles, and timbered
gables. I walked to it after another row with putting out the fire and
arranging for a new one, the day being bright and mil