“Guard! What place is this?”
“Mugby Junction, sir.”
“A windy place!”
“Yes, it mostly is, sir.”
“And looks comfortless indeed!”
“Yes, it generally does, sir.”
“Is it a rainy night still?”
“Pours, sir.”
“Open the door. I’ll get out.”
“You’ll have, sir,” said the guard,
glistening with drops of wet, and looking at the tearful
face of his watch by the light of his lantern as the
traveller descended, “three minutes here.”
“More, I think.—For I am not going
on.”
“Thought you had a through ticket, sir?”
“So I have, but I shall sacrifice the rest of
it. I want my luggage.”
“Please to come to the van and point it out,
sir. Be good enough to look very sharp, sir.
Not a moment to spare.”
The guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller
hurried after him. The guard got into it, and
the traveller looked into it.
“Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner
where your light shines. Those are mine.”
“Name upon ’em, sir?”
“Barbox Brothers.”
“Stand clear, sir, if you please. One.
Two. Right!”
Lamp waved. Signal lights ahead already changing.
Shriek from engine. Train gone.
“Mugby Junction!” said the traveller,
pulling up the woollen muffler round his throat with
both hands. “At past three o’clock
of a tempestuous morning! So!”
He spoke to himself. There was no one else to
speak to. Perhaps, though there had been any
one else to speak to, he would have preferred to speak
to himself. Speaking to himself he spoke to a
man within five years of fifty either way, who had
turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire; a man
of pondering habit, brooding carriage of the head,
and suppressed internal voice; a man with many indications
on him of having been much alone.
He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except
by the rain and by the wind. Those two vigilant
assailants made a rush at him. “Very well,”
said he, yielding. “It signifies nothing
to me to what quarter I turn my face.”
Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o’clock
of a tempestuous morning, the traveller went where
the weather drove him.
Not but what he could make a stand when he was so
minded, for, coming to the end of the roofed shelter
(it is of considerable extent at Mugby Junction),
and looking out upon the dark night, with a yet darker
spirit-wing of storm beating its wild way through
it, he faced about, and held his own as ruggedly in
the difficult direction as he had held it in the easier
one. Thus, with a steady step, the traveller
went up and down, up and down, up and down, seeking
nothing and finding it.
