"Instead of a bashful youth
and maiden, gasping out monosyllables at awful intervals, here we have
an old man and a child, quite at their ease, talking as if they had
known each other for years! Then you think," I continued aloud,
"that we ought sometimes to ask a Ghost to sit down? But have we any
authority for it? In Shakespeare, for instance--there are plenty of
ghosts there--does Shakespeare ever give the stage-direction 'hands
chair to Ghost'?"
The lady looked puzzled and thoughtful for a moment: then she almost
clapped her hands. "Yes, yes, he does!" she cried.
"He makes Hamlet say 'Rest, rest, perturbed Spirit!"'
"And that, I suppose, means an easy-chair?"
"An American rocking-chair, I think--"
"Fayfield Junction, my Lady, change for Elveston!" the guard announced,
flinging open the door of the carriage: and we soon found ourselves,
with all our portable property around us, on the platform.
The accommodation, provided for passengers waiting at this Junction,
was distinctly inadequate--a single wooden bench, apparently intended
for three sitters only: and even this was already partially occupied by
a very old man, in a smock frock, who sat, with rounded shoulders and
drooping head, and with hands clasped on the top of his stick so as to
make a sort of pillow for that wrinkled face with its look of patient
weariness.
"Come, you be off!" the Station-master roughly accosted the poor old
man.
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