Then, as if in reward of my optimism, I began to scent the odor of escaping coffee.
"It is inhabited!" I cried.
Springing up, I darted around to the other side of the station, and there, in a clump of trees, lying snug and humane-looking in the morning light, was a tiny cottage. I waited, and presently there issued from the doorway a man—wiping his mouth reminiscently.
He espied me at once and came up, cap in hand.
"Was you wanting something, miss?" he asked.
"A train," I replied, trying to sound inconsequential with the lordliness that comes of intense disgust. "I have a ticket to Bannerley—and I have friends there waiting!"
The man dared to smile.
"Since the coal strike that's mostly what folks does, miss," he explained.
There was a moment of strained silence, which was broken by the appearance of a young boy—an eerie creature who had seemed to glide straight out of the eastern horizon on a bicycle. The station-master turned to him.
"Take this here parcel up to Lord Erskine—and be quicker than you was yesterday!" he said.