were not very brilliant, and they had plenty
of persons in authority, whose intellects ought
to have been sharpened by early training and
intercourse with the world— even quarterly
reviewers, and the like— to keep them in
countenance, and supply them with arguments
for their nightly gatherings. Everything that
was solemnly launched in type in the metropolis,
against the new gigantic scheme,
was punctually and carefully copied into the
local newspapers of my nameless country
town.

The central figure of most importance in this
little arena of tobacco-smoke and discussion,
was that of the principal coach-proprietor,
Mr. Burleigh, He owned many of the
vehicles and horses, running to and from my
nameless country town, and all the arrangements
for the traffic on the London road. He
was a tall, powerful, red-faced man, who
spoke little or nothing, and drank a good deal
of brandy. He was treated with much respect
in the smoking-room, because of his capital,
and power of giving lifts at any time to his
fellow-townsmen. To do him justice, I do not
believe that any poor man, woman, or child,
ever need have lost a chance of going free to
London or any part of the country, if they
had only asked Mr. Burleigh for leave in a
proper manner. His benevolence was not of
that active, overflowing nature that it burst
out like a pent-up spring without being
solicited; but it was to be got at, like many
another man's in a higher sphere than Mr.
Burleigh, by appealing to his sense of
importance. Mr. Burleigh had not created
his present position,—he had been born
into it.

Whatever hidden stores of wisdom Mr.
Burleigh possessed— and the frequenters of
my hotel smoking-room gave him credit for
possessing a vast fund—he carefully kept
them to himself. The only words that I ever
heard drop from him in the smoking-room,
during the discussion of the great railway
question, were his very favourite and somewhat
oracular remarks of, " Well, it may be
very good, but I can't see it." Then he would
add after a little reflection, "No, I can't
see it."

In this way a few months—a few years—
rolled by me, and I still paid my periodical
visits to my nameless country town. One of
the young ladies behind the bar had got
married (to spite me, I suppose, because I
was not matrimonially inclined); railways had
advanced in the land a huge stride; the
company, with one or two important exceptions,
still assembled in the smoking-room of my
hotel, and Mr. Burleigh still held fast to his
coaches, and could not see it.

Another period of a few years passed;
another young lady behind the bar had got
married; the barber of the town (my barber,
whom I had indoctrinated with my views
upon railways) had died, with opinions far in
advance of his village and his age, leaving his
business to an only son with these memorable
words, " Tummus! a great movement is
coming— keep your heye on it! " Still Mr.
Burleigh held fast to his coaches (although
he might have sold the whole stock over and
over again); drank, if anything, a little more
brandy, and could not see it.

In another year not only was a main line
constructed through a not very distant part
of the country, but (as I said at the opening
of this paper) a branch was positively mapped
out by the energetic directors to my nameless
country-town. I saw with my own eyes,
(and dared not interfere) one of the early
surveyors seized by indignant villagers
connected with the coaching interest, and ducked
in a horse-pond.

That night there was an unusually strong
muster, and great excitement in the smoking-
room; with a powerful disposition to
rally round Mr. Burleigh as the representative
of the coaching interest. No amount
of sympathy, expressed or implied, could,
however, obtain from him more than his
oracular assertion, that he couldn't see it.
What he really thought, he would not say;
but I believe that he rested his faith— as many
of the interested townspeople present did—
upon a local baronet to turn back the
advancing tide of railway encroachment. My
little friend, the job-master, with the two
broughams and the three gigs, thought he
was individually strong enough for the task
without the assistance of any baronet or
nobleman in the country; but he was rather pooh-
poohed than otherwise by the general
company, although he had a small circle of
intense believers, who thought him fully equal
to the undertaking.

The local baronet was one of the good
old school: that is to say, he wore cord
breeches and top-boots, swore every five
minutes, got drunk with ale and brandy
every night, patronised cock-fights when in
London, and had given a belt with a purse
of ten guineas to be annually fought and
pommeled for by the youth of my nameless
country town. His nose had been smashed by a
fall during a fox-hunt, and generally he had
the appearance of a champion of the prize-
ring. His title was Sir Boxer Bully,
Baronet.

Sir Boxer was the largest land proprietor
in the whole county. He owned splendid
parks, splendid forests, extensive acres, and
enormous farms. No branch-line from the
main trunk could possibly reach my nameless
country town, unless it passed for many
miles through the property of the popular
local baronet; in fact, the shortest direct
route would be along a natural valley in
his family park, not far from his family
mansion.

Now, the faith which the townspeople
assembled in the smoking-room of my hotel
had in the anti-railway sentiments of the
popular local baronet was very great; and I