Not a thing escaped me.
The outlook for baggage at Waterloo; the feeing of the obsequious porter
expectant of a douceur; the mistake I made in getting my ticket which
had to be rectified at the last moment; the confused ringing of bells
and clattering of trucks up and down the platform; the slamming of doors
and hurrying of feet to and fro:--then, the sudden pause in all these
sounds; the shrill whistle, betokening all was ready; the converting of
all the employes into animated sign-posts, that waved their arms wildly;
the grunt and wheeze from the engine, as if from a giant in pain; the
sharp jerk, and then the steady pull at the carriage in which I was
sitting; the "pant, pant! puff, puff!" of the iron horse, as he buckled
to his work with a will; and then, finally, the preliminary oscillation
of the ponderous train, the trembling and rumbling of creaking wheels
along the rails--as we glided and bumped, slowly but steadily, out of
the terminus--the distance signal showing "all clear" to us, and
blocking the up line with the red semaphore of "danger."
Past Vauxhall, once famed for its revelry--conspicuous, now, only for
its picturesque expanse of candle-factory roofs and the dead boarding
that is displayed skirting the railway:--Clapham, villa-studded and with
gardens laid out in bird's-eye perspective:--Surbiton, dainty in its
pretty little road-side station, all garnished with roses and shell-
walks:--Farnborough, where a large proportion of our passengers, of
military proclivities, alight en route for Aldershot, and celebrated of
yore for the "grand international" contest with fisticuffs between a
British Sayers and a Transatlantic Heenan:--Basingstoke, the great ugly
"junction" of many twisted rails and curiously-intricate stacks of
chimneys; until, at length, Southampton was reached--a town smelling of
docks and coal-tar, and dismal in the evening gloom.
Not a feature of the landscape on my way down was lost to me; although,
as I've said, I was thinking of Min all the time the train was speeding
on.
I was wondering within myself, in a duplicate system of thought, when I
would see the scene again, in all its variations, as I saw it clearly,
now; and whether the green meadows, and fir-summited hills, and shining
water-courses that wandered through and around them--nay, whether the
very telegraph posts and wires, and the country stations we rattled past
so quickly and unceremoniously, as if they were not worth stopping for--
would look the same on my coming back to England and my darling once
more!
But, I was not sad or down-hearted.
Her last words had rendered me almost as hopeful as she professed to be;
so, in spite of my great grief at our parting, a grief which was too
deep for words, I was endeavouring more to look forward sanguinely to
the future than dwell on all our past unhappiness--which I tried to put
away from me as a bad dream.