the other side of the platform, whither his "good lady" had followed her "things," and scrambled them, despite all remonstrance, into the conveyance indicated.
In an instant after their being seated, the terminus resounded with the slamming of the carriage doors—the large dustman's bell was shaken—the whistle was blown—the engine gave two or three long-drawn sighs—the carriages creaked with the incipient motion, and their intermediate chains rattled loudly as they were successively stretched to their utmost length—a kind of hysteric chuckle from the engine succeeded, as the wheels slipped round upon the rails—then its gasps got shorter and quicker—and then, panting hurriedly, the whole train was borne rapidly along on its way to Whitehaven.
In a few minutes Mr. Sandboys began impressing upon the partner of his bosom how fortunate it was that he had taken the precaution of checking the information that he had received from those mischievous boys at Cockermouth by the statements of the respectable station-master at Workington. Mrs. Sandboys, however, was in a reverie concerning the fate of her luggage. She had seen that impudent fellow of a porter who had seized it and carried it away from her, place it, she was confident, in the carriages on the other side of the station, for, as she said, she had never taken her eyes off it after the man had set hands upon it.
But Mr. Sandboys assured her that she must, in the flurry and the noise, have made some mistake, and that she need be under no apprehension, for the boxes, being all labelled "London," would be sure to have been placed in the London train. Mrs. Sandboys, in reply, however, begged to inform her husband, that the porter had declared that the other train was going to London; upon which Mr. Sandboys observed, that surely the station-master must know better than any one else, and it was from that person's lips he had received the information upon which he had acted.
In little more than three hours from the time of their leaving Workington, the railway-train came to a stoppage in front of an humble little station, along the platform of which a porter in a north country dialect, almost as strong as his corduroy suit, went crying, "Wha's fwor Hobworn Heel?"
"Here!" shouted Mr. Sandboys, wondering at the rapidity of the journey, as he let down the window of the carriage in which he was seated, and stared at the surrounding fields in astonishment at the extremely rural and uninhabited character of the said Holborn Hill. It was nothing at all like what it was when he was there, he said, half to himself; nor could he remember any place in the neighbourhood of London in any way similar to the desolate district at which he and his family were about to be deposited.
"Haista ony looggidge?" inquired the porter.
"Yes, indeed," observed Mrs. Sandboys, sidling up to the porter; "three-an'-twenty packages—three-an'-twenty packages there owt to be, young man."
