Here and there and around there is ever a wilderness of waggons, some loaded, some empty, some smoking with close-packed oxen, and others furlongs in length black with coals, which look as though they had been stranded there by chance, and were never destined to get again into the right path of traffic.Not a minute passes without a train going here or there, some rushing by without noticing Tenway in the least, crashing through like flashes of substantial lightning, and others stopping, disgorging and taking up passengers by the hundreds.Men and women,--especially the men, for the women knowing their ignorance are generally willing to trust to the pundits of the place,--look doubtful, uneasy, and bewildered.But they all do get properly placed and unplaced, so that the spectator at last acknowledges that over all this apparent chaos there is presiding a great genius of order.From dusky morn to dark night, and indeed almost throughout the night, the air is loaded with a succession of shrieks.The theory goes that each separate shriek,--if there can be any separation where the sound is so nearly continuous,--is a separate notice to separate ears of the coming or going of a separate train.The stranger, as he speculates on these pandemoniac noises, is able to realize the idea that were they discontinued the excitement necessary for the minds of the pundits might be lowered, and that activity might be lessened, and evil results might follow.But he cannot bring himself to credit that theory of individual notices.
At Tenway Junction there are a half-a-dozen long platforms, on which men and women and luggage are crowded.On one of these for a while Ferdinand Lopez walked backwards and forwards as though waiting for the coming of some especial train.The crowd is ever so great that a man might be supposed to walk there from morning to nigh without exciting special notice.But the pundits are very clever, and have much experience in men and women.A well-taught pundit, who has exercised authority for a year or two at such a station as that of Tenway, will know within a minute of the appearance of each stranger what is his purpose there,--whether he be going or has just come, whether he is himself on the way or waiting for others, whether he should be treated with civility or with some curt command,--so that if his purport be honest all necessary assistance may be rendered him.As Lopez was walking up and down, with a smiling face and leisurely pace, now reading an advertisement and now watching the contortions of some amazed passenger, a certain pundit asked him his business.
He was waiting, he said, for a train from Liverpool, intending, when his friend arrived, to go with him to Dulwich by a train which went round the west of London.It was all feasible, and the pundit told him that the stopping train from Liverpool was due there in six minutes, but that the express from the north would pass first.Lopez thanked the pundit and gave him sixpence,--which made the pundit suspicious.A pundit hopes to be paid when he handles luggage, but has no such expectation when he merely gives information.
The pundit still had his eye on our friend when the shriek and the whirr of the express from the north was heard.Lopez walked quickly up towards the edge of the platform, when the pundit followed him, telling him that this was not his train.Lopez then ran a few yards along the platform, not noticing the man, reaching a spot that was unoccupied:--and there he stood fixed.
And as he stood the express flashed by.'I am fond of seeing them pass like that,' said Lopez to the man who had followed him.
'But you shouldn't do it, sir,' said the suspicious pundit.'No one isn't allowed to stand near like that.The very hair of it might take you off your legs when you're not used to it.'
'All right, old fellow,' said Lopez retreating.The next train was the Liverpool train; and it seemed that our friend's friend had not come, for when the Liverpool passengers had cleared themselves off, he was still walking up and down the platform.
'He'll come by the next,' said Lopez to the pundit, who now followed him about and kept an eye on him.
'There ain't another from Liverpool stopping here till the 2.20,'
said the pundit.'You had better come again if you mean to meet him by that.'
'He has come part of the way, and will reach this by some other train,' said Lopez.
'There ain't nothing he can come by,' said the pundit.
'Gentlemen can't wait here all day, sir.The horders is against waiting on the platform.'
'All right,' said Lopez, moving away as though to make exit through the station.
Now, Tenway Junction is so big a place, and so scattered, that it is impossible that all the pundits should by any combined activity maintain to the letter the order of which our special pundit had spoken.Lopez, departing from the platform which he had hitherto occupied, was soon to be seen on another, walking up and down, and again waiting.But the old pundit had his eye on him, and had followed him round.At that moment there came a shriek louder than all the other shrieks, and the morning express down from Euston to Inverness was seen coming round the curve at a thousand miles an hour.Lopez turned round and looked at it, and again walked towards the edge of the platform but now it was not exactly the edge that he neared, but a descent to a pathway, --an inclined plane leading down to the level of the rails, and made there for certain purposes of traffic.As he did so the pundit called to him, and then made a rush at him,--for our friend's back was turned to the coming train.But Lopez heeded not the call, and the rush was too late.With quick, but still with gentle and apparently unhurried steps, he walked down before the flying engine--and in a moment had been knocked into bloody atoms.