Amongst these last was a young man dressed in a tweed suit, and wearing a travelling cap. His face was handsome, though rather impudent-looking, and there was a half observant, half-merry twinkle in his blue eyes. A long fair moustache partially concealed a firm-looking, clear cut mouth. His auburn hair curled closely over a well-shaped head. It was difficult to tell from his appearance what was his profession, and you might easily have guessed him to be a soldier, or an artist, or a literary man, or perhaps a young gentleman of no profession at all.
He sauntered up and down the platform, arm in arm with a friend who was of quite a different type. He was attired in a black frock coat, and wore the regulation black stove-pipe hat, and from his clean shaven chin and mutton chop whiskers it was easy to guess that he belonged to one of the “discreet” professions, and was either a doctor or a lawyer. The latter surmise would have been the correct one, for Henry Lawrence was a barrister, and though he had not long been called to the bar he was already on the way to secure a large practice.
His friend, whom we first described, was named Robert Brandon, and was an artist. The two had been school-fellows and college chums, but after they left Oxford, their roads in life had separated, and for the next few years they saw little or nothing of each other, but a few months previously Brandon had returned to London, and one of his first acts had been to find out his old friend, and renew their acquaintance. A real affection had sprung up between the two men, who were both of the same age, and had many tastes in common — amongst them being a partiality for “a bit of skirt.”
In the beginning of the spring, Robert Brandon had gone over to the Continent on a sketching tour, and after being absent for three or four months, had returned to London; but a few days after his arrival, an important letter had summoned him to the North, and he was about to start by the Scotch Express.
As the two young men sauntered up and down the platform, the following conversation took place between them.
“Sooner or later I'll serve you out for the trick you play me,” said Henry Lawrence.
“I must tell you for the tenth time, my dear Henry, that I am absolutely forced to return home. I am expected, in order to treat of important business!
“Hum! no doubt, some petticoat business!”
“No, I assure you…”
“Oh! I know you well, you joker,” answered the lawyer, smiling. “You are a dreadful rake, and at the same time the greatest skeptic in love that it is possible to come across. The fair Swiss maidens have been cruel to you, and you are impatient to seek compensation for their harshness; that's why you can give me only half a day.”
“Quite a mistake, old chap, and, if I had only felt so inclined, I could have reaped an ample harvest of hearts and virgin ones, or nearly so, in the midst of the glaciers.”
“In the camp of hotel chambermaids?”
“Naturally so, Switzerland is at present deficient in native or naturalized princesses for the use of tourists.” Lawrence smiled and passed his tongue sensually over his lips.
“I catch you in the very act,” continued Brandon, “and I tremble at the thought of the hecatomb of maidenheads you must have taken among the native girls… But the train will start in five minutes and I must first find a seat, so I have only just time to shake hands once more…”
“What already,” said Lawrence shaking his head, “when shall I see you again?”
“Whenever you like to come and stay with me for a couple of months.”
“You are out of your senses, my poor Brandon.”
“I've been so often told so that I begin to believe it almost.”
At that moment one of the officials shouted in stentorian tones, “Any more passengers for the North? Take your seats please,” and after shaking hands warmly with his friend, Brandon directed his steps towards the train.
Wishing to find a snug corner, in which to pass the night comfortably, Brandon, his travelling rug on his arm, walked rapidly down the train and looked inside the carriages, and found all those at the head of the train chock full.
Brandon, in rather a bad humour, was about to jump into the very first carriage, when he stopped all at once before an empty compartment.
Not quite empty though. There was at the extreme end in the far corner, with her back to the engine, a lady, wrapped up in furs and travelling wraps, and whose face was completely hidden behind a thick veil. All that could be distinguished were two large brilliant eyes, shining from behind the veil like two diamonds set in ivory.
The train was at this time engineless, but presently a railway “flier,” painted a glowing vermilion, slid modestly down and took its place at the head. The guard walked along the platform, and decisively closed each door. He wore a dark blue uniform, thoroughly decorated with silver braid in the guise of leaves. The way of him gave to this business the importance of a ceremony. Meanwhile the fireman had climbed down from the cab and raised his hand, ready to transfer a signal to the driver, who stood looking at his watch. In the interval there had something progressed in the large signal-box that stands guard at Euston. This high house contains many levers, standing in ranks. It perfectly resembles an organ in some great church, if it were not that these rows of numbered and indexed handles typify something more acutely human than does a keyboard. It requires four men to play this organ-like thing, and the strains never cease. Night and day, day and night, these four men are walking to and fro, from this lever to that lever, and under their hands the great machine raises its endless hymn of a world at work, the fall and rise of signals and the clicking swing of switches.
And so, as the vermilion engine stood waiting and looking from the shadow of the curve-roofed station, a man in the signal-house had played the notes which informed the engine of its freedom. The driver saw the fall of those proper semaphores which gave him liberty to speak to his steel friend. A certain combination in the economy, of the London and North Western Railway, a combination which had spread from the men who swept out the carriages through innumerable minds to the general-manager himself, had resulted in the law that the vermilion engine, with its long string of white and bottle-green coaches, was to start forthwith toward Scotland.
Presently the fireman, standing with his face toward the rear, let fall his hand. “All right,” he said. The driver turned a wheel, and, as the fireman slipped back, the train moved along the platform at the pace of a mouse. To those in the tranquil carriages this starting was probably as easy as the sliding of one's hand over a greased surface, but in the engine there was more to it. The monster roared suddenly and loudly, and sprang forward impetuously. A wrong-headed or maddened draft-horse will plunge in its collar sometimes when going up a hill. But this load of burdened carriages followed imperturbably at the gait of turtles. They were not to be stirred from their way of dignified exit by the impatient engine. The crowd of porters and transient people stood respectfully. They looked with the indefinite wonder of the railway-station sightseer upon their faces at the windows of the passing coaches. This train was off for Scotland. It had started from the home of one accent to the home of another accent. It was going from manner to manner, from habit to habit, and in the minds of these London spectators there surely floated dim images of the traditional kilts, the burring speech, the grouse, the canniness, the oatmeal — all the elements of a romantic Scotland.
SIXTY MILES AN HOUR
The painter felt a slight tremor run through his limbs, then, with a toss of his head, he jumped into the compartment in which the lad was seated, saying to himself: “Humph! it smells of odor femina here…”