THE OLD STATION-MASTER 79- 



present to run by, a vaguely disturbing current, but 

 outside himself. He believed himself at length to be 

 again a station-master, and when a cart rumbled 

 distantly on the road below, he would start up, crying 

 that the express was coming and that he must get 

 tlic line clear. It was especially his torment that 

 the people who passed near his cabin must be saved 

 from the approaching train. The whistle of the 

 genuine train, half a mile away, was for him the voice 

 of a friend, the cry of hounds to the old hunter, and 

 seemed to soothe rather than distress him; yet he 

 said he did not care to go down to the station and see 

 it. It was not difficult to imagine that the smart 

 young station-master, full of the business of the day, 

 would have been the bitterest sight earth could offer 

 to the old man in the worn-out blue clothes that 

 were all that remained of the occupation of a life. . . . 



