Mugby Junction | Page 3

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This etext was prepared from the 1894 Chapman and Hall "Christmas Stories" edition by

David Price, email [email protected]

MUGBY JUNCTION




CHAPTER I
--BARBOX BROTHERS

"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