MOUNTAIN-TOP AND VALLEY 51 



music. When he spoke, which was seldom, it was 

 in a muffled voice and with funereal moderation. 

 In the midst of all that bustle he was cahn — 



" Calm as to suit a calmeT grief." 



You might say what you pleased to him, be 

 urgently argumentative, or plaintive even to 

 wheedling, it was all one. Your eloquence was 

 wasted. It was like nudging a graven image, or 

 crying haste in the ear of Death. Not a feature 

 of his countenance altered, not a muscle quick- 

 ened. Who ever knew the hands of a clock to 

 accelerate their pace in response to human im- 

 patience ? Time and tide — and a baggage-mas- 

 ter — hurry for no man. 



" Two trunks for Bethlehem," you say. No 

 answer. By and by, meekly insistent, and think- 

 ing that by this time your turn must surely have 

 come, you repeat the words. No answer. But the 

 man is taking down checks from their peg, and 

 in due time, stepping as to the measure of a 

 dirge, he marches with them down the platform. 

 " These are mine," you say, keeping an uneasy 

 pace or two in advance and pointing to the 

 trunks on the truck. No answer — not so much 

 as a look. Nor is there need of any. You are 

 silenced. That implacable manner carries aU 

 before it. You could not speak again, even to 



