




Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall "Christmas Stories" edition by
David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk





MUGBY JUNCTION


CHAPTER I--BARBOX BROTHERS


I.


"Guard!  What place is this?"

"Mugby Junction, sir."

"A windy place!"

"Yes, it mostly is, sir."

"And looks comfortless indeed!"

"Yes, it generally does, sir."

"Is it a rainy night still?"

"Pours, sir."

"Open the door.  I'll get out."

"You'll have, sir," said the guard, glistening with drops of wet, and
looking at the tearful face of his watch by the light of his lantern as
the traveller descended, "three minutes here."

"More, I think.--For I am not going on."

"Thought you had a through ticket, sir?"

"So I have, but I shall sacrifice the rest of it.  I want my luggage."

"Please to come to the van and point it out, sir.  Be good enough to look
very sharp, sir.  Not a moment to spare."

The guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller hurried after
him.  The guard got into it, and the traveller looked into it.

"Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where your light
shines.  Those are mine."

"Name upon 'em, sir?"

"Barbox Brothers."

"Stand clear, sir, if you please.  One.  Two.  Right!"

Lamp waved.  Signal lights ahead already changing.  Shriek from engine.
Train gone.

"Mugby Junction!" said the traveller, pulling up the woollen muffler
round his throat with both hands.  "At past three o'clock of a
tempestuous morning!  So!"

He spoke to himself.  There was no one else to speak to.  Perhaps, though
there had been any one else to speak to, he would have preferred to speak
to himself.  Speaking to himself he spoke to a man within five years of
fifty either way, who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire; a
man of pondering habit, brooding carriage of the head, and suppressed
internal voice; a man with many indications on him of having been much
alone.

He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain and by the
wind.  Those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him.  "Very well,"
said he, yielding.  "It signifies nothing to me to what quarter I turn my
face."

Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o'clock of a tempestuous morning,
the traveller went where the weather drove him.

Not but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, for, coming to
the end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerable extent at Mugby
Junction), and looking out upon the dark night, with a yet darker spirit-
wing of storm beating its wild way through it, he faced about, and held
his own as ruggedly in the difficult direction as he had held it in the
easier one.  Thus, with a steady step, the traveller went up and down, up
and down, up and down, seeking nothing and finding it.

A place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction in the black
hours of the four-and-twenty.  Mysterious goods trains, covered with
palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, conveying themselves
guiltily away from the presence of the few lighted lamps, as if their
freight had come to a secret and unlawful end.  Half-miles of coal
pursuing in a Detective manner, following when they lead, stopping when
they stop, backing when they back.  Red-hot embers showering out upon the
ground, down this dark avenue, and down the other, as if torturing fires
were being raked clear; concurrently, shrieks and groans and grinds
invading the ear, as if the tortured were at the height of their
suffering.  Iron-barred cages full of cattle jangling by midway, the
drooping beasts with horns entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths
too: at least they have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their
lips.  Unknown languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white
characters.  An earthquake, accompanied with thunder and lightning, going
up express to London.  Now, all quiet, all rusty, wind and rain in
possession, lamps extinguished, Mugby Junction dead and indistinct, with
its robe drawn over its head, like Caesar.

Now, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and