some refreshment-room. But nobody seemed to think of going
away from the station; indeed the only mode of exit and entrance was
through a close-shut iron gate, beside which sat a policeman looking
with enviable coolness on all the bustle around him. There was a ring of
a bell; a banging of doors; a puff of the engine; and off went the train
to Liverpool. Another locomotive now appeared moving cautiously down the
line, and was speedily attached to the Manchester train, which was soon
out of sight. A third came; caught hold of the Chester train, and away
_it_ rushed. The passengers who had journeyed so amicably together from
London were now thoroughly dispersed, and ere the sun set, some would be
crossing the Scotch Border at Carlisle, some embarking at Holyhead for
Dublin, and others attending to their business on the Mersey or the Dee,
or amid the tall chimneys of Manchester. A luggage train came crawling
out from its hiding-place, and finding the coast clear, went thundering
past: the porters wiped their foreheads, and went to have a little rest;
and I, the solitary passenger for Crewe, was left cooling my heels on
the platform.

"Where is Crewe?" I said to the guardian of the iron gate.

"Cross the bridge, go straight on, and turn to the right," was the
concise reply.

So I crossed the bridge, and found myself in a pleasant country road.
The flat rich fields of Cheshire extended on the left and to the right;
at the distance of about half a mile appeared the square massive tower
of a church, surrounded by long ranges of low buildings like work-shops,
and rows of houses evidently quite new. Some neat cottages lined the
sides of the road, and there were two or three inns all bearing marks of
youth; while some zealous people had caused a few bills, bearing the
words "Prepare to meet thy God," printed in conspicuous type, to be
affixed to the walls, giving a stranger not & very high idea of the
character of the people in the habit of using that road. Turning to the
right, I passed a Methodist chapel, bearing the date of its erection,
1848; a new flour-mill driven by water; a new inn with a brave new
sign-board; and, crossing the boundary made by the Chester line, I
arrived in Crewe.

Not many years ago, there were only two or three houses here, and the
land on which the station and the town are built formed part of a good
Cheshire farm. The worthy farmer plowed his fields and reaped his
harvest, his dame made good Ches