He knows full well that the slow, stopping train despatched just after it will not reach his station for at least an hour.
Outside the 'Hotel' stands a pony cart--a gaily coloured travelling rug lies across the seat, and the pony, a perfect little beauty, is cropping the grass by the hedge side.

By-and-by a countryman comes up the road, evidently a labourer dressed in his best--he hastens to the 'Hotel,' instead of to the station, and finds from the porter that he is at least twenty minutes too soon.

Then a waggon arrives, and stops while the carter drinks.

Presently the porter and the labourer stroll together over to the platform, and after them a young fellow--a farmer's son, not yet a man but more than a boy--comes out and re-arranges the travelling rug in the pony cart.

He then walks on to the platform, whistling defiantly with his hands in his pockets, as if he had got an unpleasant duty to perform, but was not going to be intimidated.