So I went along the gravel path of our garden that ran parallel with the line, climbing up the gentle slope to the level top of the embankment. The line curved away from our station both ways. The express was to come from the east, on the nearer rails; and there was a pretty sharp ascent going up all the way from our station to the next station in the westerly direction—a sharper ascent than one often sees on a railway. I used often to notice how the trains seemed to labour and drag going that way, and how merrily they would spin down the other way. It made a lot of difference in the amount of coal used. Well, I reached the end of our little gravel path, walking slowly, with my back to the station, where a gate opened out on a rough path that went along the top of the embankment. I noticed carelessly, as one notices things without much caring, that mother's old red shawl, which father gave her long ago, was lying in a heap on the little bench. Mother must have been out for something with it over her shoulders, for she often felt chilly; and she must have let it drop, and forgotten it. I went three steps, and picked up the shawl. Then I turned, and looked up and down the rail. In a moment I saw something which filled me with horror. Just where I stood, I could see farther along the line, towards the west and south-west, than any one within the station could see. And my eyes fell upon a big empty truck, slowly running down the nearer rails towards the station—the very rails upon which the express train must almost directly pass. A little while before, an engine had passed, drawing a large number of empty trucks. These would, I knew, be put upon a siding at the next station, until the express should have gone by. The hindermost empty truck had plainly broken loose from its couplings, and, after coming to a standstill, had begun to run gently down the slope. There had been worse than carelessness for such a thing to come about. A guard's van has to be always at the end of a train; and for it not to be there is against the law. But in those days folks weren't so careful nor particular as in these; and accidents from carelessness do sometimes happen even now. If the guard's van had been in its right place, such an accident could never have happened unknown to the guard. The fact was, they had put on two or three empty trucks at the last station before ours, behind the guard's van, in a hurry, thinking it would not matter for just two stations, after which they had to shunt. And here was the consequence!