To a great degree, it is to the
English and to those who are in England the gate to Scotland.
The little hansoms are continually speeding through the gate, dashing
between the legs of the solemn temple; the four-wheelers, their tops
crowded with luggage, roll in and out constantly, and the footways beat
under the trampling of the people. Of course, there are the suburbs and
a hundred towns along the line, and Liverpool, the beginning of an
important sea-path to America, and the great manufacturing cities of the
North; but if one stands at this gate in August particularly, one must
note the number of men with gun-cases, the number of women who surely
have Tam-o'-Shanters and plaids concealed within their luggage, ready
for the moors. There is, during the latter part of that month, a
wholesale flight from London to Scotland which recalls the July throngs
leaving New York for the shore or the mountains.
The hansoms, after passing through this impressive portal of the
station, bowl smoothly across a courtyard which is in the center of the
terminal hotel, an institution dear to most railways in Europe. The
traveler lands amid a swarm of porters, and then proceeds cheerfully to
take the customary trouble for his luggage. America provides a
contrivance in a thousand situations where Europe provides a man or
perhaps a number of men, and the work of our brass check is here done by
porters, directed by the traveler himself.
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