"You be off, and make way for your betters! This way, my Lady!"
he added in a perfectly different tone. "If your Ladyship will take a
seat, the train will be up in a few minutes." The cringing servility of
his manner was due, no doubt, to the address legible on the pile of
luggage, which announced their owner to be "Lady Muriel Orme, passenger
to Elveston, via Fayfield Junction."
As I watched the old man slowly rise to his feet, and hobble a few
paces down the platform, the lines came to my lips:-
"From sackcloth couch the Monk arose,
With toil his stiffen'd limbs he rear'd;
A hundred years had flung their snows
On his thin locks and floating beard."
[Image...'Come, you be off!']
But the lady scarcely noticed the little incident. After one
glance at the 'banished man,' who stood tremulously leaning on his
stick, she turned to me. "This is not an American rocking-chair, by any
means! Yet may I say," slightly changing her place, so as to make room
for me beside her, "may I say, in Hamlet's words, 'Rest, rest--'"
she broke off with a silvery laugh.
"--perturbed Spirit!"' I finished the sentence for her. "Yes, that
describes a railway-traveler exactly! And here is an instance of it,"
I added, as the tiny local train drew up alongside the platform,
and the porters bustled about, opening carriage-doors--one of them
helping the poor old man to hoist himself into a third-class carriage,
while another of them obsequiously conducted the lady and myself into a
first-class.
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