Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall “Christmas Stories”edition , email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
“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, glisteningwith drops of wet, and looking at the tearful face of his watch by thelight of his lantern as the traveller descended, “three minuteshere.”
“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 wantmy luggage.”
“Please to come to the van and point it out, sir. Begood enough to look very sharp, sir. Not a moment to spare.”
The guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller hurried afterhim. The guard got into it, and the traveller looked into it.
“Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where yourlight 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. Shriekfrom engine. Train gone.
“Mugby Junction!” said the traveller, pulling up thewoollen muffler round his throat with both hands. “At pastthree 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 havepreferred to speak to himself. Speaking to himself he spoke toa man within five years of fifty either way, who had turned grey toosoon, like a neglected fire; a man of pondering habit, brooding carriageof the head, and suppressed internal voice; a man with many indicationson him of having been much alone.
He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain andby the wind. Those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him. “Very well,” said he, yielding. “It signifiesnothing to me to what quarter I turn my face.”
Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o’clock of a tempestuousmorning, the traveller went where the weather drove him.
Not but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, for, comingto the end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerable extent at MugbyJunction), and looking out upon the dark night, with a yet darker spirit-wingof storm beating its wild way through it, he faced about, and held hisown as ruggedly in the difficult direction as he had held it in theeasier one. Thus, with a steady step, the traveller went up anddown, up and down, up and down, seeking nothing and finding it.
A place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction in the blackhours of the four-and-twenty. Mysterious goods trains, coveredwith palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, conveying themselvesguiltily away from the presence of the few lighted lamps, as if theirfreight had come to a secret and unlawful end. Half-miles of coalpursuing in a Detective manner, following when they lead, stopping whenthey stop, backing when they back. Red-hot embers showering outupon the ground, down this dark avenue, and down the other, as if torturingfires were being raked clear; concurrently, shrieks and groans and grindsinvading the ear, as if the tortured were at the height of their suffering. Iron-barred cages full of cattle jangling by midway, the drooping beastswith horns entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths too: at leastthey have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their lips. Unknown languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white character