When that train arrived at the station it was touching to witness the pale anxious faces that crowded the platform as the doors were opened and the dead and sufferers carried out; and to hear the cries of agony when the dead were recognised, and the cries of grief, strangely, almost unnaturally, mingled with joy, when some who were supposed to have been killed were carried out alive. Some were seen almost fondling the dead with a mixture of tender love and abject despair. Others bent over them with a strange stare of apparent insensibility, or looked round on the pitying bystanders inquiringly, as if they would say, “Surely, surely, this cannot be true.” The sensibilities of some were stunned, so that they moved calmly about and gave directions in a quiet solemn voice, as if the great agony of grief were long past, though it was painfully evident that it had not yet begun, because the truth had not yet been realised.
Among those who were calm and collected, though heart-stricken and deadly pale, was Loo Marrot. She had been sent to the station by her father to await the arrival of the train, with orders to bring Will Garvie home. When Will was carried out and laid on the platform alive, an irresistible gush of feeling overpowered her. She did not give way to noisy demonstration, as too many did, but knelt hastily down, raised his head on her knee, and kissed his face passionately.
“Bless you, my darling,” said Will, in a low thrilling voice, in which intense feeling struggled with the desire to make light of his misfortune; “God has sent a cordial that the doctors haven’t got to give.”
“O William!” exclaimed Loo, removing the hair from his forehead—but Loo could say no more.
“Tell me, darling,” said Garvie, in an anxious tone, “is father safe, and mother, and Gertie?”
“Father is safe, thank God,” replied Loo, with a choking voice, “and Gertie also, but mother—”
“She is not dead?” exclaimed the fireman.
“No, not dead, but very very much hurt. The doctors fear she may not survive it, Will.”
No more was said, for at that moment four porters came up with a stretcher and placed Garvie gently upon it. Loo covered him with her shawl, a piece of tarpaulin was thrown over all, and thus he was slowly borne away to John Marrot’s home.