"Once more, hip, hip, hurrah!" and how the twenty or thirty bumpers were swept down the twenty or thirty throats with alcoholic fervor.

It may be mentioned that the Rev. Mr. Mitchell did not seem, while this ceremony was going on, to be nearly so happy as he ought to have been. Possibly he may have thought that some more appropriate way might have been devised of introducing a Christian minister to his work of reclaiming the lost.

After a few more toasts, Campbell, sober enough as yet, but with that old and dangerous appetite stirring again within him, had to slip away to attend to his duties.

He had to run a damaged engine to Stirling that afternoon, and bring back another for the night Parliamentary train to Edinburgh. Blacklock, as usual, was with him as stoker. On reaching Stirling, Campbell went to the refreshment-room, and came back after a time with such a smell of drink upon him that Blacklock challenged him about it; but Campbell passed it off with a growl. They were soon bowling along on the way back to Perth.

"So, Jenny's comin' wi' us the nicht," said Blacklock. "Ay."

"Goin' to be wi' her auntie noo till the wedding, she wis tellin' me."

"Ay."

Campbell, usually cheerful and vivacious, was turning sullen under the influence of the liquor he had taken. They got back to Perth soon after nightfall, and prepared to start with the night Parliamentary to Edinburgh.

A few minutes before the hour of starting, Jenny made her appearance on the platform, with several of her special friends.

It was close on the time for starting, and Jenny took her seat.

Was there nothing ominous that night in the murky sky? Were there no strange sounds in the outer air? Was there nothing portentous in the thrum of that

monster engine, looking out with its fiery eyes into the dark and stormy night?

All was bustle and stir along the platform; people running up and down, and taking their seats; while here and there, others were bidding good-by to friends in the train.

"Now, then, seats! seats!" cried the guard, as he passed along, slamming the open doors.

All right! The bell was rung, the signal given, and the monster engine, drawing after it that long train of crowded carriages, moved away with quickening speed into the darkness.

In the bright red glare of the furnace-fire stood Campbell and Blacklock. Blacklock shoveled in a quantity of coals, and slammed the iron door.

"It's like we'll hae a scoury night," he said, as he looked up into the dark, portentous sky.

Campbell made no reply. The drink he had taken was beginning to stupefy him. He sat on the sliding seat under the storm-board, and seemed more inclined to sleep than talk. They stopped first at Dunning, where three or four people, muffled well up to protect themselves from the night air, were waiting for the train. They stopped again at Auchterarder, where they had to shunt on to the down-line, a little beyond the station, till the night mail for the west should pass.

The mail came up about five minutes after, sharp upon its time, stopped for a minute to take in the bags, and then, with an impatient snort, passed on into the darkness. Campbell and Blacklock thereupon prepared to re-shunt to their proper line. They put on the steam and reversed the engine; but there was a slight incline at the spot, the train was heavy, and they could not get it to move. After one or two attempts, anxious to get off that line as quickly as possible, in case any train should be coming from the south, Blacklock went back for assistance to another engine they had passed on the

siding near the platform, while Campbell sluggishly continued his attempts to give his train a start. When Blacklock got to the other engine, Sinclair, the engineer, who was reading a crumpled newspaper by the light of an oil-lamp, suggested that he should get a crowbar and apply it to the wheel. He had no crowbar himself, but thought there was one in the shed. As he said so, he looked carelessly round towards the train which Blacklock had just left, and saw in the dim light from the platform, that it had got a start already, but was moving in the wrong direction. He continued watching it for a few seconds, expecting to see it stop and come back; but still it kept moving away and away.

"Hollo! what does the fellow mean?" he cried, rising to his feet. He's going off on the down-line !"

Blacklock looked and turned white as death. The awful truth flashed upon him. Campbell was drunk : he was moving off on the wrong line, and did not know what he was about! Blacklock ran swiftly along the line in pursuit, but a full head of steam was on, and the train was quickening its pace every moment. The heads that had been popping out from some of the carriagewindows to ascertain the cause of detention were drawn in and the windows pulled up again, under the impression, no doubt, that the train was again upon its way. The guard in the break evidently knew by this time that something was wrong, and began to make his way hurriedly from carriage to carriage towards the engine, but missed his footing and fell to the ground.

The other guard had been standing on the platform with the station-master, waiting till the train should come back alongside. The moment they saw that it was moving away on the wrong track they cried to the pointsman, and the guard sprang out upon the line.

The pointsman shouted, waved the red lamp, ran and turned on the distance danger-signal, which faced north, so that Campbell could see it. No attention was paid to

these signals; and away the long train went, thundering into the darkness.

Blacklock was still running along the line, in the desperate hope that he might overtake the train; and, in his agony, crying to God to stop it. But its red lights were growing smaller and smaller, and hope was gone. Blacklock stood for a moment like one bereft of his senses; when suddenly bethinking himself of the other engine, he ran back.

"Yes, yes! let us dash on, for God's sake, after him, and get him stopped!"

Sinclair plucked out his watch, and, bending down, looked at it in the light of his lamp. Instantly an expression of horror came into his face.

"The night express from the South is coming on that line," he said hurriedly. "She is due here in sixteen minutes! She must be passing Blackford now.”

"Quick, then, quick!" cried Blacklock, springing up beside him. Fortunately steam was already up. They backed the engine, got upon the up-line, only paused to pass a hurried word with the station-master, and then away they dashed full speed into the wild dark night. The other engine and train had got the start of them by nearly two miles. If the express was true to her time, there was no hope. In five or six minutes there would be a collision. But if the express was in the least behind, there was still a desperate chance. Away, then, and away!

On they went with thundering crank and grinding steel. The tender quivered and rocked; the ground, lit by the glare of the engine lamps, swept like lightning under them. There was a terrible voice in the quick, clanking wheels,-"Life or death!-life or death!-life or death!" Away and away, like a fiery meteor through the driving storm and darkness! The telegraph poles flew past like frighted spirits.

"There!-there she is!-thank God!" burst from the lips of both men, as they caught sight at last of the red lights shining far ahead upon the line.

They dashed with a shattering roar between the rocks at Elmslie's farm, burst forth again, and away on the wild and terrible pursuit. They were gaining rapidly on the train ahead. There was hope. They dashed with another roar under the beetling bridge beyond the junction, and still away and away. "Life or death!life or death!-life or death!" clanked the wheels.

Just as the long train was thundering along the iron bridge near Blackford, they dashed alongside. The Parliamentary train was bowling along the parallel rails at the velocity of nearly thirty miles an hour; and as Sinclair and Blacklock passed carriage after carriage, they could see, in the dusky light of the lamps within, the dim rows of passengers, many of them asleep, and all unconscious that they were on the wrong line, bowling, quick and fast, into the jaws of death.

On they thundered till they came abreast of the engine. Campbell was there, but apparently stupefied with drink, sitting on the seat under the storm-board, with his head hanging down nearly to his knees.

Blacklock shouted and yelled at the pitch of his voice; Sinclair blew the whistle; but Campbell could not be roused.

"Let's dash ahead and signal the express to stop," cried Sinclair, excitedly.

He pulled out his watch and stooped to see the time. Eight minutes to eleven! The express was two minutes behind her time already. There was not a moment to lose.

"God ha' mercy!" gasped Blacklock, clutching Sinclair's arm convulsively; here she comes!"

He was right. Far ahead along the line, two points of light, like the eyes of a basilisk, had glided into view, and were fast dilating and growing brighter and fiercer