ouse that
evening for dinner; what she would think--the speculation nearly drove
him mad--when he did not appear in the church next day. He put on an
overcoat, took an umbrella and set off for the engine driver's cottage.
He had to climb down a steep embankment and then cross a wire fence. He
found it impossible to keep his umbrella up, which distressed him, for
he was totally unaccustomed to getting wet.

He found the driver, who seemed to be a good and domesticated man,
sitting at his fireside with a baby on his knee. His wife was washing
clothes in a corner of the kitchen.

"Excuse me," said Sir James, "but my business in Dunadea is very
important. There will be serious trouble if----"

"There's no use asking me to go on with the train," said the driver,
"for I can't do it. I'd never hear the last of it if I was to be a
blackleg."

The woman at the washtub looked up.

"Don't be talking that way, Michael," she said, "let you get up and take
the gentleman along to where he wants to go."

"I will not," said the driver, "I'd do it if I could but I won't have it
said that I was the one to break the strike."

It was very much to the credit of Sir James that he recognised the
correctness of the engine driver's position. It is not pleasant to be
held up twenty-four hours in the middle of a bog. It is most unpleasant
to be kept away from church on one's own wedding day. But Sir James
knew that strikes are sacred things, far more sacred than weddings. He
hastened to agree with the engine driver.

"I know you can't go on," he said, "nothing would induce me to ask you
such a thing. But perhaps---"

The woman at the washtub did not reverence strikes or understand the
labour movement. She spoke abruptly.

"Have sense the two of you," she said, "What's to hinder you taking the
gentleman into Dunadea, Michael?"

"It's what I can't do nor won't," said her husband.

"I'm not asking you to," said Sir James. "I understand strikes
thoroughly and I know you can't do it. All I came here for was to ask
you to tell me where I could find a telegraph office."

"There's no telegraphic office nearer than Dunadea," said the engine
driver, "and that's seven miles along the railway and maybe nine if you
go round by road."

Sir James looked out at the rain. It was thick and persistent. A strong
west wind swept it in sheets across the bog. He was a man of strong will
and great intellectual power; but he doubted if he could walk even