where they attempted to live on their savings; and had been trying vainly and pitifully to struggle with all the little habits that had been their life for thirty-five years, and to adapt them to new quarters.  Their faces were weary, but flushed with expectation.  The man kept looking up the line, and declaring that he heard the rumble of the engine in the distance; and whenever he said this, his wife pulled the shawl more primly about her shoulders, straightened her back, and nervously re-arranged her posy.

When at length the whistle screamed out, at the head of the vale, I thought they were going to tumble off the bench.  The woman went white to the lips, and stole her disengaged hand into her husband’s.

“Startlin’ at first, hey?” he said, bravely winning back his composure:  “but ’tis wunnerful what control the driver has, they tell me.  They only employ the cleverest men—­”

A rattle and roar drowned the rest of his words, and he blinked and leant back, holding the woman’s hand and tapping it softly as the engine rushed down with a blast of white vapour hissing under its fore wheels, and the carriages clanked upon each other, and the whole train came to a standstill before us.

The station-master and porter walked down the line of carriages, bawling out the name of the station.  The driver leaned out over his rail, and the guard, standing by the door of his van, with a green flag under his arm, looked enquiringly at me and at the old couple on the bench.  But I had only strolled up to have a look at the new train, and meant to resume my fishing as soon as it had passed.  And the miller sat still, holding his wife’s hand.

They were staring with all their eyes—­not resentfully, though face to face with the enemy that had laid waste their habitation and swept all comfort out of their lives; but with a simple awe.  Manifestly, too, they expected something more to happen.  I saw the old woman searching the incurious features of the few passengers, and I thought her own features expressed some disappointment.

“This,” observed the guard scornfully, pulling out his watch as he spoke, “is what you call traffic in these parts.”

The station-master was abashed, and forced a deprecatory laugh.  The guard—­who was an up-country man—­treated this laugh with contempt, and blew his whistle sharply.  The driver answered, and the train moved on.

I was gazing after it when a woeful exclamation drew my attention back to the bench.

“Why, ’tis gone!”

“Gone?” echoed the miller’s wife.  “Of course ’tis gone; and of all the dilly-dallyin’ men, I must say, John, you’m the dilly-dalliest.  Why didn’ you say we wanted to ride?”

“I thought, maybe, they’d have axed us.  ‘Twouldn’ ha’ been polite to thrust oursel’s forrard if they didn’ want our company.  Besides, I thought they’d be here for a brave while—­”

“You was always a man of excuses.  You knew I’d set my heart ’pon this feat.”