Country Life
READ the other day of a branch line of a railway in Devon that passes through remote moorland places where nothing ever happens. It was said that this line is under continual threat of being closed down and this reminded me of a similar railway that ran through the countryside where I spent part of my childhood. Most of the way this railway was a single track and ran over wild terrain Where the engine rocked and swayed. The last stages of my journey home were usually on this train, which travelled at perhaps twenty or twenty-five miles an hour when it was in a hurry, but the whole rickety concern shook so much, and trees and banks flashed past in such an alarming way as a result, that one became convinced that there was a madman up front, driving through the country like a fiend. When the war came, a few big guns were transported down the line and one of them, I heard, cut neatly through a hump-backed bridge in the best Heath Robinson manner. Now the line is closed. It ceased to pay, but while it did, or while the accountants mistook debit and credit, what an adventure it was to ride on that railway 1
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