Produced by Al Haines [Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: "I'VE GOT TO GET TO GLOUCESTER, SIR!"] A CHARIOT OF FIRE BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS ILLUSTRATED HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMX Copyright, 1905, 1910, by HARPER & BROTHERS Published October, 1910. _Printed in the United States of America_ ILLUSTRATIONS "I've Got to Get to Gloucester, Sir!" . . . _Frontispiece_ The Flowers in the Front Yard were Knee-Deep in Snow _A CHARIOT OF FIRE_ When the White Mountain express to Boston stopped at Beverly, it slowed op reluctantly, crashed off the baggage, and dashed on with the nervousness of a train that is unmercifully and unpardonably late. It was a September night, and the channel of home-bound summer travel was clogged and heaving. A middle-aged man--a plain fellow, who was one of the Beverly passengers--stood for a moment staring at the tracks. The danger-light from the rear of the onrushing train wavered before his eyes, and looked like a splash of blood that was slowly wiped out by the night. It was foggy, and the atmosphere clung like a sponge. "No," he muttered, "it's the other way. Batty's the other way." He turned, facing towards the branch road which carries the great current of North Shore life. "How soon can I get to Gloucester?" he demanded of one who brushed against him heavily. He who answered proved to be of the baggage staff, and was at that moment skilfully combining a frown and a whistle behind a towering truck; from this two trunks and a dress-suit case threatened to tumble on a bull-terrier leashed to something invisible, and yelping in the darkness behind. "Lord! This makes 'leven dogs, cats to burn, twenty-one baby-carriages, and a guinea-pig travellin' over this blamed road since yesterday--What's that? _Gloucester?_--6.45 to-morrow morning." "Oh, but look here!" cried the plain passenger, "that won't do. I have got to get to Gloucester _to-night_." "So's this bull-terrier," groaned the baggage-handler. "He got switched off without his folks--and I've got a pet lamb in the baggage-room bleatin' at the corporation since dinner-time. Some galoot forgot the crittur. There's a lost parrot settin' alongside that swears in several foreign languages. I wish to Moses I could!" The passenger experienced the dull surprise of one in acute calamity who wonders that another man can jest. He turned without remark, and went to the waiting-room; he limped a little, for he was slightly lame. The ticket-master was locking the door of the office, and looked sleepy and fagged. "Where's the train to Gloucester?" "Gone." "'Tain't _gone_?" "Gone half an hour ago." The official pointed to the clock, on whose face an ominous expression seemed to rest, and whose hands marked the hour of half-past twelve.