thousand wheels, glints like silver under the rays. The red brick of the
booking-office looks redder and more staring under the fierce light. The
door is locked, and there is no waiting-room in which to take shelter;
nothing but a projecting roof over a part of the platform. On the lintel
is the stationmaster's name painted in small white letters, like the name
of the landlord over the doorway of an inn. Two corded boxes lie on the
platform, and near them stand half a dozen rusty milk tins, empty. With
the exception of a tortoiseshell cat basking in the sunshine, there seems
nothing living in the station, and the long endless rails stretching on
either side in a straight line are vacant. For hours during the day the
place slumbers, and a passenger gliding by in the express may well wonder
why a station was built at all in the midst of trees and hedges without so
much as a single visible house.

But by night and very early in the morning there is bustle enough. Then
the white painted cattle pen yonder, from which the animals are forced
into the cattle trucks, is full of frightened beasts, lowing doubtfully,
and only goaded in by the resounding blows upon their backs. Then the
sheep file in in more patient ranks, but also doubtful and bleating as
they go. An engine snorts to and fro, shunting coal waggons on to the
siding--coal for the traction engines, and to be consumed in threshing out
the golden harvest around. Signalmen, with red and green lights, rush
hither and thither, the bull's-eyes now concealed by the trucks, and now
flashing out brightly like strange will-o'-the-wisps. At intervals long
and heavy goods trains go by, causing the solid earth to tremble.

Presently the sun rises over the distant hills, and the red arms of the
signals stand out clearly defined, and then the noise of wheels, the
shouts of the drivers, and the quick sound of hoofs betoken the approach
of the milk carts with their freight for the early morning train. From the