The English Illustrated Magazine/In the Permanent Way

IN THE PERMANENT WAY
By MRS. STEEL*
I HEARD this story in a rail-trolly on the Pind-Dadur line, so I always think of it with a running-accompaniment. A rhythmic whirr of wheels in which, despite its steadiness, you feel the propelling impulse of the unseen coolies behind; or the swift skimming as they set their feet on the trolly for a brief rest merging at the first hint of lessened speed, into the old racing measure. Whirr and slide, racing and resting, while the wheels spin like bobbins and the brick rubble in the permanent way slips under your feet giddily, until you could almost fancy yourself sitting on a stationary engine, engaged in winding up an endless red ribbon. A ribbon edged as if with tinsel by steel rails stretching away in ever narrowing lines to the level horizon. Stretching straight as a die across a sandy desert, rippled and waved by wrinkled sand hills into the semblance of a sandy sea.
And that, from its size, must be a seventh wave. I was just thinking this when the buzz of the brake jarred me through to the marrow of my bones.
“What's up? A train?” I asked of my companion who was giving me a lift across his section of the desert.
“No!” he replied laconica

Đọc bản gốc tại Wikisource tiếng Anh