My plan had been to get out at some station down the line, but the train

suddenly gave me a better chance, for it came to a standstill at the end of a

culvert which spanned a brawling porter-coloured river. I looked out and saw

that every carriage window was closed and no human figure appeared in the

landscape. So I opened the door, and dropped quickly into the tangle of hazels

which edged the line.

 

It would have been all right but for that infernal dog. Under the impression

that I was decamping with its master’s belongings, it started to bark, and all

but got me by the trousers. This woke up the herd, who stood bawling at the

carriage door in the belief that I had committed suicide. I crawled through the

thicket, reached the edge of the stream, and in cover of the bushes put a

hundred yards or so behind me. Then from my shelter I peered back, and saw the

guard and several passengers gathered round the open carriage door and staring

in my direction. I could not have made a more public departure if I had left

with a bugler and a brass band.

 

Happily the drunken herd provided a diversion. He and his dog, which was

attached by a rope to his waist, suddenly cascaded out of the carriage, landed

on their heads on the track, and rolled some way down the bank towards the

water. In the rescue which followed the dog bit somebody, for I could hear the

sound of hard swearing. Presently they had forgotten me, and when after a

quarter of a mile’s crawl I ventured to look back, the train had started again

and was vanishing in the cutting.