Away with four fresh horses from the Bald-faced Stag, where the
village idlers congregate about the door admiring; and the last
team, with traces hanging loose, go roaming off toward the pond,
until observed and shouted after by a dozen throats, while
volunteering boys pursue them. Now, with a clattering of hoofs
and striking out of fiery sparks, across the old stone bridge,
and down again into the shadowy road, and through the open gate,
and far away, away, into the word. Yoho!
See the bright moon! High up before we know it: making the earth
reflect the objects on its breast like water. Hedges, trees, low
cottages, church steeples, blighted stumps, and flourishing young
slips, have all grown vain upon the sudden, and mean to
contemplate their own fair images till morning.
The poplars yonder rustle, that their quivering leaves may see
themselves upon the ground. Not so the oak; trembling does not
become him; and he watches himself in his stout old burly
steadfastness, without the motion of a twig. But, leaving oaks
and poplars to their own devices, the stage moves swiftly on,
while the moon keeps even pace with it, gliding over ditch and
brake, upon the plowed land and the smooth, along the steep
hillside and steeper wall, as if it were a phantom Hunter.
Clouds too! And a mist upon the hollow! Not a dull fog that hides
it, but a light airy gauzelike mist, which in our eyes of modest
admiration gives a new charm to the beauties it is spread before.
Yoho! Why now we travel like the moon herself. Hiding this minute
in a grove of trees; next minute in a patch of vapor; emerging
now upon our clear broad course; withdrawing now, but always
dashing on, our journey is a counterpart of hers. Yoho! A match
against the moon!
The beauty of the night is hardly felt, when Day comes leaping
up. Yoho! Two stages, and the country roads are almost changed to
a continuous street. Yoho, past market gardens, rows of houses,
villas, crescents, terraces, and squares; past wagons, coaches,
carts; past early workmen, late stragglers, and sober carriers of
loads; past brick and mortar in its every shape; and in among the
rattling pavements, where a jaunty seat upon a coach is not so
easy to preserve! Yoho, down countless turnings, and through
countless mazy ways, until an old innyard is gained, and Tom
Pinch, getting down, quite stunned and giddy, is in London!
--Adapted from "Martin Chuzzlewit."
DEFINITIONS:--Swells, self-important personages. Guard,
conductor. Legacy, something left by will. Boot, a place for
baggage at either end of a stagecoach. Dip, slope. Dowager, an
English title for widow.