who had seen better days, if he was not
moved to swear at the clumsy fingers of the
inexperienced agricultural groom, relapsed
into a moody silence, only broken by a sigh
that was heart-rending in its depth and
intensity. As we passed through long,
straggling villages, there was none of that
excitement at our approach which had
marked our triumphal progress years before.
No crowds were waiting to receive us as
we rolled down the hill or up the hill,
as the case might be; past the finger-post;
past the duck-pond, scattering the affrighted
poultry right and left; along the cottage-
bordered street, round by the little
tree-sheltered, square-towered church, and away
again into the open country. A few
bare-footed, dusty children watched us slily; some
with their fingers in their mouths; some
with their ragged pinafores thrown over
their heads; some with their faces half
averted, turned towards the wall. Our
approach to my nameless country town was
not, by a great way, the splendid entry that
it used to be. There was no horn to blow,
and no guard to blow it. At the hotel,
too, things had vastly changed. It was
still neat and clean, as it always would be
in the possession of the buxom landlady,
now growing a little old, a little grey, and
very care-worn; but it wanted customers, it
wanted bustle, and it wanted life. In the
smoking-room the same company still
assembled, with one or two exceptions caused
by death, bankruptcy, or emigration; and
the same engrossing topic—railway prospects
and designs—was discussed with the same
earnestness; but with a little less obstinacy,
and a little more knowledge and experience,
than a few years before. Mr. Burleigh still
endeavoured to keep up his important
position amongst his fellow townsmen; but
evidently with less ease and more opposition,
than formerly. I was constituted a kind of
umpire or referee for the little group; and
many men who had doubted most energetically
whether they should ever see a railroad within
a hundred miles of my nameless country
town, now appealed to me in the most
bare-faced manner to know if they had ever had
the slightest misgivings about the ultimate
establishment and development of railway
enterprise. " Mr. Burleigh," they said,
confidentially, " had not seen it—in fact, could
not see it now; but they had seen it all
along; although they did not like to make
much noise about it for fear of alarming
their neighbours."

It was about this period that Sir Boxer
Bully, Baronet, died suddenly one morning.
It was well for his credit with his tenants
and townspeople that he did die; for he
was just upon the point of acceding to the
renewed offers of the railway directors, and
allowing them to bring the railway through
his property up to the town. Mr. Burleigh
would never believe this, but it was the
fact, nevertheless. Not that the deceased
baronet was suddenly afflicted with any
compunctious visitings for the injury that
his six years' silent, sulky opposition had
done to my nameless country town, but
that the living board of directors had just
then thought proper to make an increased
offer to the lately deceased baronet. All
eyes—especially those connected with the
fast-fading, dry-rotting coaching interest—
were turned with anxiety to young Bully,
who succeeded by his father's death to
the entire property and the baronetcy. He
was a tall, thin, mild, clerical-looking gentleman,
as unlike his late lamented father as it
was possible to be. He had spent much of
his time in schools and universities, and
had the most singular notions about literary
institutions, dispensaries, public baths, and
other novelties. The belt and purse of guineas
for the best pugilist in the county were very
quickly done away with, as well as a number
of other similar footprints left by the late
lamented fine old English baronet. The son's
movements were so rapid, and his opinions
were so peculiar, that the debate in the
smoking-room assumed for several nights the
form of whether the young baronet was
sane or insane, and his sanity was, at last,
only carried, after a severe struggle, by a
small majority of two. Mr. Burleigh, although,
as usual, he did not say anything, was
evidently in the minority upon the question.
He had his doubts about the young
man, and they were well-founded; better
founded than his faith in the unswerving
protection-to-old-established-native-industry-
spirit of the deceased baronet. Before the
remains of the late lamented Sir Boxer
Bully, Baronet, were decently covered, the
pickaxes of the railway navigators were
rooting up the turf of his sacred acres.
Still Mr. Burleigh was not quite capable of
seeing it.

Another period passed by, much as the
periods had passed before, and we arrived
at last within a day of the opening of the
railway direct from my nameless country
town to the metropolis. A business appointment
in London which I could not neglect,
prevented my being present at this ceremony,
although I had been in the neighbourhood
for a fortnight previously. At four o'clock in
the afternoon of the day before the opening, I
took my seat upon the box-seat of the
Quicksilver coach (the Highflyer had gone the way
of the Lightning) to honour with my patronage
the last journey it was intended to make.
Mr. Burleigh mounted by my side to take
the reins—for he had been reduced to act as
his own coachman for some mouths past—
and he shook me by the hand in a manner
that he, no doubt, intended to be warm, out
of gratitude for my thoughtful kindness in
supporting him on this trying and melancholy
occasion.

It was no ordinary journey. It was a