"Ay, lassie"--the other people had left at Stirling, and the General fell back upon the past--"there 's just one bonnier river, and that's the Tochty at a bend below the Lodge, as we shall see it, please God, this evening." "Tickets," broke in a voice with authority. "This is no the station, an' ye 'll hae to wait till the first diveesion o' yir train is emptied. Kildrummie? Ye change, of coorse, but yir branch 'll hae a lang wait the day. It 'll be an awfu' fecht wi' the Hielant train. Muirtown platform 'll be worth seein'; it 'll juist be michty," and the collector departed, smacking his lips in prospect of the fray. "Upon my word," said the General, taken aback for a moment by the easy manners of his countryman, but rejoicing in every new assurance of home, "our people are no blate." "Is n't it delicious to be where character has not been worn smooth by centuries of oppression, but where each man is himself? Conversation has salt here, and tastes in the mouth. We 've just heard two men speak this morning, and each face is bitten into my memory. Now our turn has come," and the train wound itself in at last. Porters, averaging six feet and with stentorian voices, were driving back the mixed multitude in order to afford foothold for the new arrivals on that marvellous landing place, which in those days served for all the trains which came in and all that went out, both north and south. One man tears open the door of a first with commanding gesture. "A' change and hurry up. Na, na," rejecting the offer of a private engagement; "we hev nae time for that trade the day. Ye maun cairry yir bags yersels; the dogs and boxes 'll tak us a' oor time." He unlocks an under compartment and drags out a pair of pointers, who fawn upon him obsequiously in gratitude for their release. "Doon wi' ye," as one to whom duty denies the ordinary courtesies of life, and he fastens them to the base of an iron pillar. Deserted immediately by their deliverer, the pointers made overtures to two elderly ladies, standing bewildered in the crush, to be repulsed with umbrellas, and then sit down upon their tails in despair. Their forlorn condition, left friendless amid this babel, gets upon their nerves, and after a slight rehearsal, just to make certain of the tune, they lift up their voices in melodious concert, to the scandal of the two females, who cannot escape the neighbourhood, and regard the pointers with horror. Distant friends, also in bonds and distress of mind, feel comforted and join cheerfully, while a large black retriever, who had foolishly attempted to obstruct a luggage barrow with his tail, breaks in with a high solo. Two collies, their tempers irritated by obstacles as they follow their masters, who had been taking their morning in the second-class refreshment room, fall out by the way, and obtain as by magic a clear space in which to settle details; while a fox-terrier, escaping from his anxious mistress, has mounted a pile of boxes and