Wilton, Q.C. - Or, Life in a Highland Shooting Box

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ABOUT 7.55 p.m. on the 10th of August, in a recent year of grace, all was turmoil and confusion at Kings Cross Station. Eight oclock, when the night mail starts for Scotland, is always a pretty busy time but, on the evening of that loth, the platform was a surging, seething mass of humanity. Strangers were hustling one another, friends were tearing hither and thither with hardly time to nod and enquire Where are you going, old fellow Barely waiting for the reply, they tore off to the booking-office to get their tickets, then back to the carriages to see about sleeping berths, or scrimmage for a porter to label their luggage, their dogs, or their guns, to some out of the way Highland station, for which the authorities hadn't even provided a proper printed address. The train was immensely long, and two engines were required to drag the heavy freight of humanity and luggage hundreds of miles through the darkness to bonnie Scotland. At the door of one of the compartments was gathered a little group, of three persons. Lorna Stracey-a tall, handsome girl of about twenty years of age, whose fine carriage was even more noticeable than her beauty, had such a distinctly aristocratic air that every one who observed her intuitively felt she was indeed a gentlewoman. The almost defiant pose of her head commanded respect from the porters, who, as they passed, said for the hundredth time, with marked deference, By yr leave. Mother, darling the girl exclaimed, in a few minutes I shall be actually off to Scotland Yes, my child, where I hope you will thoroughly enjoy your first glimpse of the Highlands. A young fellow, who completed the party, stood at the door motionless, his gaze rivetted on Lorna he appeared to be drinking to the last dregs the cup of admiration. His eyes seemed to say You are my ideal-my god Lorna, pity me But the girl paid no heed, her attention being arrested by a leash of lovely setters that a porter was dragging along the platform, while another man, running beside the dogs, was trying to stick a label on the reverse side of the address attached to their collars. Are they not beauties cried the girl. What lovely red coats they have I wonder where the porter is going to put them, Into the dog van, answered the young man, speaking for the first time come and see. In her eagerness to follow the dogs, the girl forgot how angry she had felt when she beheld Alf Curtis at the station, where she wished to be alone with her mother, whom she was leaving for some weeks, and, smiling graciously, walked down the platform after the setters, accompanied by her devoted admirer......