He stopped to put on his overcoat.

Then he took another sip from the flat bottle to keep the cold out.

Then he slowly grasped the lantern and, whistling, moved leisurely down the track.
He had not gone ten paces before he heard the puffing of the express.
Then he ran for the curve, but it was too late.

In a horrible minute the engine of the express had telescoped the standing train, and the shrieks of the mangled passengers mingled with the hissing escape of steam.
Later on, when they asked for Joe, he had disappeared; but the next day he was found in a barn, delirious, swinging an empty lantern in front of an imaginary train, and crying, "Oh, that I had!" He was taken home, and afterwards to an asylum, and there is no sadder sound in that sad place than the unceasing moan, "Oh, that I had! Oh, that I had!" of the unfortunate brakeman, whose criminal indulgence brought disaster to many lives.
"Oh, that I had!" or "Oh, that I had not!" is the silent cry of many a man who would give life itself for the opportunity to go back and retrieve some long-past error.
"There are moments," says Dean Alford, "which are worth more than years.

We cannot help it.