Now, if Id been as wide-awake as I should have been, I might have known as there was a screw loose. What should a strange gent give me arf a crown for if there wasnt? But, bless you, clever and cunning as I thought myself, I was that innercent that I pockets the coin, grins to myself, and took no farther notice till, about arf an hour after, I happens to look along the up line, when I turns sick as could be; for I sees my gentleman walking between the rails, and the up express just within a few minutes of being due.
Even then hed so thrown me off my guard that I never thought no Wrong, only that he was looking on the railway banks for rhodum siduses, and plants of that kind.
So I shouts to him
Get off that ere! and waves my hands.
But he takes no notice; and then, all at once, just as the wind brought the sound of the coming express, if he didnt go down flat, and lay his neck right on the off up-rail, ready for the engine-wheels to cut it off.
It was like pouring cold water down my back, but I was man enough to act; and, running as hard as I could, I got up to where he lay about three hundred yards from the station.
I makes no more ado, but seizes his legs, and tries to drag him away; but hed got tight hold of the rail with both hands for it was where the ballast was dear away from it, to let the rain run off and I couldnt move him; sides which,
he began to kick at me fierce, roaring at me to get away.
Finding as I couldnt move him, and the train coming nearer, and being afraid that I should get in danger myself if I got struggling with him, I thought Id try persuasion.
What are you going to do? I says.
Tired of life tired of life tired of life, he kept on saying, in a curious, despairing way.
Get up get up.
For the train was coming on. I could hear it roaring in the distance; and I knew it would spin round the curve into sight, and then dash along the straight to where we were.
Go away, he cried, hoarsely; tired of life.
There was another fellow cut all to pieces there, I says, to frighten him.
I know I know, he said; three hundred yards north of the station.
He must have read that in a noosepaper, and saved it up, you know.
What to do I couldnt tell. I wasnt able to move him, for he clung to the rails as if he grew there, and the train was coming.
All I could see to do was to run on and try to stop it; but that wouldnt have done, for the engine would have been over the poor wretch before the breaks would have acted; and at last, with the roar coming on I stood there in the six foot, and I says, savage like
Its too bad; see what a mess youll make.
What? he says, lifting up his head, and staring at me a horribly stiff, hard look, as of one half-dead.
See what a mess youll make, I says, and I shall have to clean it up.
Mess? he says, raising himself, and kneeling there in the six-foot on the ballast.
Yes, mess, I says, tatters, rags of clothes, and something so horrid all over the line, that its enough to make a strong man sick.
I never thought of that, he says, putting his hands to his head.
And as he did so there was a shriek, a rush, a great wind, which sent the dust and sticks flying, and the express thundered by, with that poor chap staring hard.
As it passed, he looked at it with a sort of shudder.
You dont know what a mess it makes, I said, as he got slowly up.
No, he says, in a curious way no, I never thought of that. And he began to brush the dirt and dust off his clothes. But I thought it would not hurt.
Not you, perhaps, I said, trying to keep his attention; but how about me?
Yes, yes, he muttered, I never thought of that.
He stooped down, touched the rail with his finger, looked at it, shuddered, and then looked up the line.
I tell you its horrid, I said; and its cowardly of a fellow to come here for that. Now, then, youd best come on to the station.
Yes, he said again, I never thought of that. And he let me brush him down, and followed me like a lamb to the station, where, unbeknown to him, I telegraphed to the town, and a constable came and took him by the next train, with all the spirit regularly took out of him by my words.
Id about forgotten that poor chap till about six months after, when he came down by the stopping train, and shook hands with me, and gave me a five pound note.
I was afraid he was going to try it on again, but no, bless you. He thanked me with tears in his eyes, for saving his life, telling me he was half-mad at the time, and determined something polling him like to end his life. He had felt no fear, and was glad the train was coming, when my words sounded so queer and strange to him that they seemed, as he said, to take all the romance out of the thing, and show it to him in, to use his words, its filthy, contemptible, cowardly shape. If men could see, he said, they would never commit such an act.
I saw him off again in the train, and was very glad when he was gone.
That affair about settled me. I was sick of it; and as soon as I could close upon a year arter, though I came up to London and took to cabbing, for Id had quite enough of our old station.