We remember hearing a story of an old Highland peasant who happened to
see a railway engine for the first time. He was coming down from the
Grampians into Perthshire, and he thus described the novel monster as it
appeared in his astounded Celtic imagination:—“I was looking doon the
glens, when I saw a funny beast blowing off his perspiration; an’ I ran
doon, an’ I tried to stop him, but he just gave an awfu’ skirl an’
disappeared into a hole.”—(meaning, of course, a tunnel).
—_Once a Week_.