“The ‘Maryland,’” I say, addressing the officer; “I want to get on board her special train from Boston.”
“Guess I can’t help that! I want to get some cars off her, that’s all I know,” is the response, the speaker eying me loftily, and then pushing his way towards a lookout window on the other side of the cabin.
“Oh, thank you very much!” I say. “You are really too good. Is there any other gentleman here who is anxious to tell me where I shall find the ‘Maryland’s’ quay, and explain how I am to get on board the special express, which takes a day to do a five hours’ journey?”
“I’ll show you,” says my surly friend, turning round upon me and looking me all over. “I am the guard.”
“Thank you.”
“Here she comes!” he exclaims.
I forgive him, at once, his brusqueness. He, too, has, of course, been waiting six hours for her.
A hoarse whistle is heard on the river. The guard opens the cabin-door. In rushes the snow and the wind. The guard’s lantern casts a gleam of light on the white way.
“Be careful here,” he says, assisting my girls over a rough plank road.
It is an open quay over which we are pushing along. The guard, now full of kind attention, holds up his lamp for us, and indicates the best paths, the snow filling our eyes and wetting our faces. Now we mount a gangway. Then we struggle down a plank. There are bustle and noise ahead of us, and the plash “of many waters.”