ess with a wail. "Sall, 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,
forr