Great trouble with his tenants, they tell me. I've driven
the fam'ly for years. I drove a cab at his father's waddin'.
What'll your name be? - I should ken your face. Baigrey, ye
say? There were Baigreys about Gilmerton; ye'll be one of
that lot? Then this'll be a friend's portmantie, like? Why?
Because the name upon it's Nucholson! Oh, if ye're in a
hurry, that's another job. Waverley Brig? Are ye for away?'
So the friendly toper prated and questioned and kept John's
heart in a flutter. But to this also, as to other evils
under the sun, there came a period; and the victim of
circumstances began at last to rumble toward the railway
terminus at Waverley Bridge. During the transit, he sat with
raised glasses in the frosty chill and mouldy fetor of his
chariot, and glanced out sidelong on the holiday face of
things, the shuttered shops, and the crowds along the
pavement, much as the rider in the Tyburn cart may have
observed the concourse gathering to his execution.
At the station his spirits rose again; another stage of his
escape was fortunately ended - he began to spy blue water.
He called a railway porter, and bade him carry the
portmanteau to the cloak-room: not that he had any notion of
delay; flight, instant flight was his design, no matter
whither; but he had determined to dismiss the cabman ere he
named, or even chose, his destination, thus possibly balking
the Judicial Error of another link.
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