Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers | Page 3

if they were a' as clever on their
feet as yon box there wud be less tribble," and with two assistants he
falls upon the congested mass within. They perform prodigies of
strength, handling huge trunks that ought to have filled some woman

with repentance as if they were Gladstone bags, and light weights as if
they were paper parcels. With unerring scent they detect the latest label
among the remains of past history, and the air resounds with "Hielant
train," "Aiberdeen fast," "Aiberdeen slow," "Muirtown"--this with
indifference--and at a time "Dunleith," and once "Kildrummie," with
much contempt. By this time stacks of baggage of varying size have
been erected, the largest of which is a pyramid in shape, with a very
uncertain apex.
Male passengers--heads of families and new to Muirtown--hover
anxiously round the outskirts, and goaded on by female commands,
rush into the heart of the fray for the purpose of claiming a piece of
luggage, which turns out to be some other person's, and retire hastily
after a fair-sized portmanteau descends on their toes, and the sharp
edge of a trunk takes them in the small of the back. Footmen with
gloves and superior airs make gentlemanly efforts to collect the family
luggage, and are rewarded by having some hopelessly vulgar tin boxes,
heavily roped, deposited among its initialled glory. One elderly female
who had been wise to choose some other day to revisit her native town,
discovers her basket flung up against a pillar, like wreckage from a
storm, and settles herself down upon it with a sigh of relief. She
remains unmoved amid the turmoil, save when a passing gun-case tips
her bonnet to one side, giving her a very rakish air, and a good-natured
retriever on a neighbouring box is so much taken with her appearance
that he offers her a friendly caress. Restless people--who remember that
their train ought to have left half an hour ago, and cannot realise that all
bonds are loosed on the eleventh--fasten on any man in a uniform, and
suffer many rebuffs.
"There 's nae use asking me," answers a guard, coming off duty and
pushing his way through the crowd as one accustomed to such
spectacles; "a 'm juist in frae Carlisle; get haud o' a porter."
"Cupar Angus?"--this from the porter--"that's the Aiberdeen slow; it's
no made up yet, and little chance o't till the express an' the Hielant be
aff. Whar 'll it start frae?" breaking away; "forrit, a' tell ye, forrit."
Fathers of families, left on guard and misled by a sudden movement

"forrit," rush to the waiting-room and bring out, for the third time, the
whole expedition, to escort them back again with shame. Barrows with
towering piles of luggage are pushed through the human mass by two
porters, who allow their engine to make its own way with much
confidence, condescending only at a time to shout, "A' say, hey, oot o'
there," and treating any testy complaint with the silent contempt of a
drayman for a costermonger. Old hands, who have fed at their leisure in
callous indifference to all alarms, lounge about in great content, and a
group of sheep farmers, having endeavoured in vain, after one tasting,
to settle the merits of a new dip, take a glance in the "Hielant" quarter,
and adjourn the conference once more to the refreshment-room. Groups
of sportsmen discuss the prospects of to-morrow in detail, and tell
stories of ancient twelfths, while chieftains from London, in full
Highland dress, are painfully conscious of the whiteness of their legs.
A handful of preposterous people who persist in going south when the
world has its face northwards, threaten to complain to headquarters if
they are not sent away, and an official with a loud voice and a subtle
gift of humour intimates that a train is about to leave for Dundee.
During this time wonderful manoeuvres have been executed on the
lines of rail opposite the platform. Trains have left with all the air of a
departure and disappeared round the curve outside the station, only to
return in fragments. Half a dozen carriages pass without an engine, as if
they had started on their own account, break vans that one saw
presiding over expresses stand forsaken, a long procession of horse
boxes rattle through, and a saloon carriage, with people, is so much in
evidence that the name of an English Duke is freely mentioned, and
every new passage relieves the tedium of the waiting.
Out of all this confusion trains begin to grow and take shape, and one,
with green carriages, looks so complete that a rumour spreads that the
Hielant train has been made up and may appear any minute in its place.
The sunshine beating through the glass roof, the heat of travel,