Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers | Page 2

but a slight price for the sight of the Scottish
Rhine flowing deep, clear, and swift by the foot of its wooded hills, and
the "Fair City" in the heart of her meadows.

"Do you see the last wreath of mist floating off the summit of the hill,
and the silver sheen of the river against the green of the woods? Quick,
dad," and the General, accustomed to obey, stood up beside Kate for
the brief glimpse between the tunnel and a prison. Yet they had seen
the snows of the Himalayas, and the great river that runs through the
plains of India. But it is so with Scottish folk that they may have lived
opposite the Jungfrau at Mürren, and walked among the big trees of the
Yosemite Valley, and watched the blood-red afterglow on the Pyramids,
and yet will value a sunset behind the Cuchullin hills, and the Pass of
the Trossachs, and the mist shot through with light on the sides of Ben
Nevis, and the Tay at Dunkeld--just above the bridge--better guerdon
for their eyes.
"Ay, lassie"--the other people had left at Stirling, and the General fell
back upon the past--"there 's just one bonnier river, and that's the
Tochty at a bend below the Lodge, as we shall see it, please God, this
evening."
"Tickets," broke in a voice with authority. "This is no the station, an' ye
'll hae to wait till the first diveesion o' yir train is emptied. Kildrummie?
Ye change, of coorse, but yir branch 'll hae a lang wait the day. It 'll be
an awfu' fecht wi' the Hielant train. Muirtown platform 'll be worth
seein'; it 'll juist be michty," and the collector departed, smacking his
lips in prospect of the fray.
"Upon my word," said the General, taken aback for a moment by the
easy manners of his countryman, but rejoicing in every new assurance
of home, "our people are no blate."
"Is n't it delicious to be where character has not been worn smooth by
centuries of oppression, but where each man is himself? Conversation
has salt here, and tastes in the mouth. We 've just heard two men speak
this morning, and each face is bitten into my memory. Now our turn
has come," and the train wound itself in at last.
Porters, averaging six feet and with stentorian voices, were driving
back the mixed multitude in order to afford foothold for the new
arrivals on that marvellous landing place, which in those days served

for all the trains which came in and all that went out, both north and
south. One man tears open the door of a first with commanding gesture.
"A' change and hurry up. Na, na," rejecting the offer of a private
engagement; "we hev nae time for that trade the day. Ye maun cairry
yir bags yersels; the dogs and boxes 'll tak us a' oor time." He unlocks
an under compartment and drags out a pair of pointers, who fawn upon
him obsequiously in gratitude for their release. "Doon wi' ye," as one to
whom duty denies the ordinary courtesies of life, and he fastens them
to the base of an iron pillar. Deserted immediately by their deliverer,
the pointers made overtures to two elderly ladies, standing bewildered
in the crush, to be repulsed with umbrellas, and then sit down upon
their tails in despair. Their forlorn condition, left friendless amid this
babel, gets upon their nerves, and after a slight rehearsal, just to make
certain of the tune, they lift up their voices in melodious concert, to the
scandal of the two females, who cannot escape the neighbourhood, and
regard the pointers with horror. Distant friends, also in bonds and
distress of mind, feel comforted and join cheerfully, while a large black
retriever, who had foolishly attempted to obstruct a luggage barrow
with his tail, breaks in with a high solo. Two collies, their tempers
irritated by obstacles as they follow their masters, who had been taking
their morning in the second-class refreshment room, fall out by the way,
and obtain as by magic a clear space in which to settle details; while a
fox-terrier, escaping from his anxious mistress, has mounted a pile of
boxes and gives a general challenge.
Porters fling open packed luggage vans with a swing, setting free a
cataract of portmanteaus, boxes, hampers, baskets, which pours across
the platform for yards, led by a frolicsome black leather valise, whose
anxious owner has fought her adventurous way to the van for the
purpose of explaining to a phlegmatic Scot that he would know it by a
broken strap, and must lift it out gently, for it contained breakables.
"It can gang itsel, that ane," as the afflicted woman followed its
reckless progress with a wail. "Sall,