Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/153

Rh travelled until we reached the Port, where empty locks open upon the derelict and silted harbour. Three miles lower down the Solway the Caledonian viaduct crosses, and it was the construction of this railway that finally shattered the hopes of Port Carlisle; shipping to the port was obstructed. The old sandstone quay is weathered and crumbling; it is already cut off from the land, and the redshank whistles as it paddles in the mud of the boatless harbour. No old salts, red and weathered as the sandstone, lean on the rope-covered bollards to watch the flatmen transfer their cargoes to the schooners, for flats, ships, and ancient sailors have departed for ever; it is Port in name only. The heron can catch dabs in the gutters on the marsh a few yards from the railway, but the screaming gull finds no fisherman's offal to reward his scrutiny of the harbour.

Port Carlisle boasts that theirs is the last dandy, the last one-horse railway; but rumour has it that another survives at the other extremity of England—in far Cornwall. Possibly, but does it also combine railroad and canal? The day of the dandy, however, is drawing to a close. Even as we passed on our speedy journey we saw signals lying ready to be put up, sleepers being replaced, and safety rails laid at the worst curves. Within three months other work will be found for the horse, and the dandy will cease its diurnal trips; an engine and carriage, perhaps a train, will ply between Drumburgh and Port Carlisle; the summer visitors to Solway shore must do without their dandy. Probably it will stand, wheelless, beside its old canal bed to serve as a shelter for platelayers, and the passing tourist will remark: "What a funny old carriage!" As we travelled down the line the platelayers at work cracked jokes with the driver; to them the dandy was amusing. To some of us there is pathos in the passing of the dandy.