Perkins hands in his up
bag, receives a bag in exchange, and half his task is done. Forty
minutes to wait before he can perform the other half of it. Then,
having passed over the metals with the cart, he will attend to the
down train; hand in his other bag, receive the London bag; and, as
soon as the people in the signal-box will release the crossing-gates,
he may come home.
Dale knew now that he would not sleep until the cart returned.
When the church clock struck the half-hour after two, he lay straining
his ears to catch the sound of the horse's hoofs. Finally it came to
him, immensely remote, a rhythmic plod, plod, plod. Then in a few more
minutes the cart was at rest under his window again; they were taking
in the bags; bolts shot into their fastenings, a key turned in a lock,
and the clerk went back to bed at the top of the house. All was over
now. Nothing more would happen until the other clerk came down in a
couple of hours' time, until the bags were opened, until Ridgett came
yawning from his hired bedroom at the saddler's across the street, and
the new day's work began. And Dale would be shut out of the work--a
director who might not even assist, a master superseded, a general
under arrest in the midst of his army.
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