it."

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, the
dust of the station, the moving carriages with their various colours,
the shouts of railway officials, the recurring panics of fussy
passengers, begin to affect the nerves. Conversation becomes broken,
porters are beset on ev