The first sign of life which I meet on the
ruined line is a small side-station, once bright,
clean, and new, but now damp and mouldy.
Seeing smoke ascend from the short chimney
of this hut, I look through the window, and
find an old woman in dirty rags crouching
over a wood fire, formed of parts of the
building, rocking her bent body to and fro,
and chanting a low wail. Before I can retire
from the window, a dwarfed boy, whose huge
head, with a long pale oval face and large
watery eyes, forms one half of his withered
body, rushes to the door of the hut, and
draws the attention of the woman to my
presence by uncouth gestures, and a wild,
babbling noise. The woman rises quickly, and I
see from her eyes and manner, that her mind
has sunk under the pressure of some heavy
affliction. Something tells me they are
mother and son, and sufferers by the ruin
which is before us, and behind us, and around
us. A vague notion enters their minds that
I have either come to molest them, or that I
am a member of that class which has been
the cause of all their misfortunes. Their
actions become gradually more frantic and
hostile; and their aspect is at once so
melancholy and so hideous, that I fairly turn
away, and run along the line. They do not
attempt to follow me; but their voices,
which at first were raised in triumph at my
flight, become by degrees fainter and fainter,
until at last they are lost in the distance at
which I leave them behind.

Passing along the line, and under many
broken arches, I come to more life, of a much
more agreeable character. Beneath a lofty
iron bridge, which spans the once busy
Burygold Railway, I find a group of healthy
country children playing on a swing, formed
of ropes tied firmly in the open spaces
between the girders. Other country children
look down from the roadway on the top of
the arch, and drop small pebbles upon the
heads of the children beneath; aiming
especially at the child in the swing, as the
motion of the ropes sends him beyond the
shelter of the arch. Sometimes those above
raise a mocking cry of danger from a coming
train, which is received with shouts of
merriment below,

I proceed a little further, when I come
upon the broken parts of an old rotten
locomotive engine, lying half-embedded in a
side embankment. The boiler has been
half-eaten away. Rats have made it their
home. While I am gazing at this picture,
an old man in mean clothing, leaning on a
crutch, has joined me by climbing up the
embankment on the other side.

"Ah!" he says, with a deep, heavy sigh,
"Wenus isn't what she was when you an'
me was younger, mate?"

"No, indeed," I reply, cautiously, not
knowing what he refers to, and judging him
to be another maniac victim of the
surrounding railway ruin.

"When I ran away with 'er," he continues,
"acos they wanted to sell 'er in a sale, more
than twenty year ago, she was young an'
'ansome. Look at 'er now!"

"Exactly," I return, thinking he alludes
to some romantic elopement.

"I took 'er hout o' the station at night,"
he resumes, "afore the brokers 'ad put 'er
in the hinventory; got hup 'er steam, an'
bowled 'er here, when she bust her biler, an'
sent me flyin' into the ditch,—a cripple for life."

Close to this spot is the entrance of a
long tunnel, the mouth of which is covered
with a dense cobweb, whose threads are
thicker than stout twine. In the centre of
this cobweb are several huge, overgrown
spiders.

"Is there no passage through this place?"
I ask of the old engine-driver.

"What, the haunted tunnel?" he
answers, with horror and astonishment. "No
man's dared to go through that for twenty
year!"

Curiosity prompts me to advance nearer the
great cobweb, and look through its open
spaces into the dark cavern beyond. Perhaps
the words of the old engine-driver have acted
upon my excited imagination; but I think
I see the outlines of smoke-coloured human
monsters, who coil round each other, and
seem hungry for prey. There is nothing
fierce and active about their savagery,
but it has that dreamy, listless, quiet, bone-
crushing appearance of destructive power,
so fearful to contemplate in bears, and
certain monsters of the deep. Perhaps I
am gazing upon the spirits of departed
directors.

Declining to go through this passage of
horrors, I ascend the sides of the cutting;
and, leaving the aged engine-driver mourning
over the shattered remains of his Venus, I
pass along the roads on the top of the
haunted tunnel, and descend upon the line,
once more, at the other side.

Here I again come upon life of a more
genial kind. Squatters have taken possession
of many side-stations. Some stations
that I pass are more neatly kept than others,
showing the different character of the tenants.
Some are quite unoccupied; and one is in
the temporary possession of a band of travelling
showmen, whose caravans of wild beasts
and curiosities are placed across the line.
Pursuing the same route for some hours—
always with the same prospect on either side
—I pass under rotten bridges, and through
groups of women and children assembled in
the centre of the line, until, at last, day
dwindles into twilight, and twilight gives
place to a cold, clear sky, and a large moon.
I come, after some time, to a deep cutting
through a lofty, wooded hill, the sides
of which are rendered more gloomy by dark,
overhanging fir-trees. Winding along this
narrow, artificial valley for a considerable