The trunk was now the universal subject of talk, both inside and outside, and every body said he would be surprised if it got to its journey’s end in safety. All agreed that it manifested a most extraordinary disposition to be lost, stolen, or strayed, but yet every one thought that there was a kind of special providence about it, which kept it on the right road after all; and, therefore, it became a fair subject of debate, whether the chances against, or the chances for, were likely to prevail.
Before we arrived at Newport, where we had to go on board the ferry steam-boat for Dundee, the conversation had gone into other channels, and, each being engaged about his own concerns, no one thought any more about the trunk, till just as the barrow was descending along the pier, the eternal long man cried out,
“Guard, have you got my trunk?”
“Oh, yes,” cried the guard very promptly; “I’ve taken care of it now. There it is on the top of all.”
“It’s no such thing,” cried a gentleman who had come into the coach at Cupar; “that’s my trunk.”
Every body then looked about for the enchanted trunk; the guard ran back, and once more searched the boot, which he knew to have been searched to the bottom before; and the tall gentleman gazed over land, water, and sky, in quest of his necessary property.
“Well, guard,” cried he at length, “what a pretty fellow you are! There, don’t you see?—there’s my trunk thrust into the shed like a piece of lumber!”
And so it really was. At the head of the pier at Newport there is a shed, with seats within, where people wait for the ferry-boats; and there, perdu beneath a form, lay the enchanted trunk, having been so disposed, in the bustle of unloading, by means which nobody could pretend to understand. The guard, with a half-frightened look, approached the awful object, and soon placed it with the other things on board the ferry-boat.
On our landing at Dundee pier, the proprietor of the trunk saw so well after it himself, that it was evident no accident was for this time to be expected. However, it appeared that this was only a lull to our attention. The tall gentleman was to go on to Aberdeen by a coach then just about to start from Merchant’s Inn; while I, for my part, was to proceed by another coach, which was about to proceed from the same place to Perth. A great bustle took place in the narrow street at the inn door, and some of my late fellow-travellers were getting into the one coach, and some into the other. The Aberdeen coach was soonest prepared to start, and, just as the guard cried “all’s right,” the long figure devolved from the window, and said, in an anxious tone of voice,
“Guard, have you got my trunk?”