For some time they had the platform to themselves. Then the moor began to give forth its living: young men and maidens, old men and wives, all going a-fairing, some treating the matter irreverently with unmusical laughter, others regarding the occasion as meet for an austere countenance. Peter was among those who cackled, while Mary was on the side of the anxious. She had to remind herself continually that she was enjoying life, although she would much rather have been at home chasing Old Sal among the furze-bushes. When the signals fell, and the bell rang, and the station began to rumble as the train approached, she clutched Peter and suggested they should return home. "Don't ye get mazed," said Peter crossly. "Come along wi' I." Mary endeavoured to do so, but lost her head entirely when the train drew up, and went on to behave very much like a dog at a fair. She lost sight of her brother, scurried up and down the platform looking for him, and became still more confused when the cry, "Take your seats, please," sounded in her ears. The guard, who was used to queer passengers, took her by the arm with the idea of putting her into a carriage, but Mary defended herself against his designs with her umbrella, and breaking loose endeavoured to join the engine-driver. Meeting with no encouragement there she turned back, and was seized by Peter, who told her plainly she was acting foolishly, and again commanded her to come along with him. Mary obeyed, and everything was going favourably, and they were just about to enter a compartment when the umbrella slipped oat of her nervous hand, bumped upon the edge of the platform, and slid beneath the train. Mary resumed her normal condition at once, caring no longer for train, crowd, or fair, while the fear of travelling ceased to trouble when she perceived that the umbrella had departed from her. She stood upon the platform, and declared with an oath that the system of the railway should work no more until the umbrella had been restored to her hands. Time was of no account to Mary. She refused to enter the train without her umbrella; neither should the train proceed, for she would hold on to it. Peter upheld his sister. The umbrella was a family heirloom. The station-master and guard urged and blasphemed in vain. The homely epithets of the porter were received with contempt and the response, "Us bain't a-going. Us be going to bide." Passengers in the adjoining compartment were perturbed, because it was rumoured among them that the poor woman had dropped a baby beneath the train, and they believed that the officials were contending that there was nothing in the regulations about ordinary humanity, and it was therefore their duty to let the child remain there. The guard and station-master became unpopular. The passengers were in no great hurry to proceed, as they were out for a day's enjoyment; and as for Mary, great was her lamentation for the lost umbrella.