How It Happened

She was a writing medium. This is what she wrote: –

I can remember some things upon that evening most distinctly, and others are like some vague broken dreams. This is what makes it so difficult to tell a connected story.

Then I remember the big motor, with its glaring headlights and glitter of polished brass, waiting for me outside. It was my new thirty-horse-power Robur, which had only been delivered that day.

“I’ll try her myself,” said I, and I climbed into the driver’s seat.

“The gears are not the same,” said he. “Perhaps, sir, I had better drive.”

“No; I should like to try her,” said I.

It was foolish, no doubt, to begin to learn a new system in the dark, but one often does foolish things, and one has not always to pay the full price for them.

“I’ll keep her steady,” said he, “if you care to jump and chance it. We can never get round that curve. Better jump, sir.”

“No,” said I; “I’ll stick it out. You can jump if you like.”

“I’ll stick it out with you, sir,” said he.

I remember thinking what an awful and yet majestic sight we should appear to any one who met us. It was a narrow road, and we were just a great, roaring, golden death to any one who came in our path.

At the present moment I was surprised to see him, but I was like a man in a dream, giddy and shaken and quite prepared to take things as I found them without questioning them.

“Here I am,” I answered, but they did not seem to hear me. They were all bending over something which lay in front of the car.

“Stanley! I cried, and the words seemed to choke my throat – “Stanley you are dead.”

He looked at me with the same old gentle, wistful smile.

“So are you,” he answered.