Not long after the opening of the North British line to Dolphinton, I spent a day at the southern end of the Pentland Hills, and in the evening, making my way to the village, found the train with its engine attached. The station was as solitary as a churchyard. After I had taken my seat in one of the carriages, the guard appeared from some doorway in the station, and I heard the engine-driver shout out to him, ‘Weel, Jock, hae ye got your passenger in?’ [Sidenote: EARLY DAYS OF RAILWAYS] The opening of a railway through some of these lonely upland regions was a momentous event in their history. Up till then many districts which possessed roads were not traversed by any public coach nor by many private carriages, while in other parishes, where roads either did not exist or were extremely bad and unfit for wheeled traffic, the sight of a swiftly-moving train was one that drew the people from far and near. Some time, however, had to elapse before the country-folk could accustom themselves to the rapidity and (comparative) punctuality of railroad travelling. When the old horse-tramways ran, it was a common occurrence for a train to be stopped in order to pick up a passenger, or to let one down by the roadside, and it is said that this easy-going practice used to be repeated now and then in the early days of branch-railways. An old lady from Culter parish, who came down to the railway not long after it was opened, arrived at the station just as the train had started. When told that she was too late, for the train had already gone beyond the station, she exclaimed, ‘Dod, I maun rin then,’ and proceeded at her highest speed along the platform, while the station-master shouted after her to stop. She was indignant that he would not whistle for the train to halt or come back for her. Railway construction in the Highlands came later than it did in the Lowlands, and entered among another race of people with different habits from those of their southern fellow-countrymen. The natural disposition of an ordinary Highlander would not often lead him to choose the hard life of a navvy, and volunteer to aid in the heavy work of railway construction. The following anecdote illustrates a racial characteristic which probably could not have been met with in the Lowlands. During the formation of one of the lines of railway through the Highlands a man came to the contractor and asked for a job at the works, when the following conversation took place: ‘Well, Donald, you’ve come for work, have you? and what can you do?’ ‘’Deed, I can do onything.’ ‘Well, there’s some spade and barrow work going on; you can begin on that.’ ‘Ach, but I wadna just like to be workin’ wi’ a spade and a wheelbarrow.’ ‘O, would you not? Then yonder’s some rock that needs to be broken away. Can you wield a pick?’ ‘I wass never usin’ a pick, whatefer.’ ‘Well, my man, I don’t know anything I can give you to do.’ [Sidenote: LIGHT LABOUR]