You are not so arrant a critic as to damn them [the works of modern poets] […] without hearing.

Go on, go on, she breathed. Make him whole. Make him what he was. More than once, whenever Strang's recuperation permitted, Linday put him under the anæsthetic and did terrible things, cutting and sewing.

A straight = a straighter = a straight cut, une cigarette en tabac de Virginie.]

The journey is worth an article in itself, but all I can give is a flavour of a railway which traverses a bleak but dramatic coastline that's regularly battered by the elements - especially around Parton, where the line is constantly threatened by the sea.