IT was on a cold, damp, raw December morning, before the
emancipating civilisation of railways, that our hero’s father,
then returning from a trading tour, after stamping up and down
the damp flags before the Lion and Unicorn hotel and
posting-house at Slopperton, waiting for the old True Blue
Independent coach “comin’ hup,” for whose cramped inside he had
booked a preference seat, at length found himself bundled into
the straw-bottomed vehicle, to a very different companion to what
he was accustomed to meet in those deplorable conveyances.
Instead of a fusty old farmer, or a crumby basket-encumbered
market-woman, he found himself opposite a smiling, radiant young
lady, whose elegant dress and ring-bedizened hand proclaimed, as
indeed was then generally the case with ladies, that she was
travelling in a coach “for the first time in her life.”
This was our fair friend, Miss Willing.
The Earl and Countess Delacey had just received an invitation to
spend the Christmas at Tiara Castle, where the countess on the
previous year had received if not a defeat, at all events had not
achieved a triumph, in the dressing way, over the Countess of
Honiton, whose maid, Miss Criblace, though now bribed to secrecy
with a full set of very little the worse for wear Chinchilla fur,
had kept the fur and told the secret to Miss Willing, that their
ladyships were to meet again. Miss Willing was now on her way to
town, to arrange with the Countess’s milliner for an annihilating
series of morning and evening dresses wherewith to extinguish
Lady Honiton, it being utterly impossible, as our fair friends
will avouch, for any lady to appear twice in the same attire. How
thankful men ought to be that the same rule does not prevail with
them!
Miss Willing was extremely well got up; for being of nearly the
same size as the countess, her ladyship’s slightly-worn things
passed on to her with scarcely a perceptible diminution of
freshness, it being remarkable how, in even third and fourth-rate
establishments, dresses that were not fit for the “missus” to be
seen in come out quite new and smart on the maid.
On this occasion Miss Willing ran entirely to the dark colours,
just such as a lady travelling in her own carriage might be
expected to wear. A black terry velvet bonnet with a single
ostrich feather, a dark brown Levantine silk dress, with rich
sable cuffs, muff, and boa, and a pair of well-fitting
primrose-coloured kid gloves, which if they ever had been on
before had not suffered by the act.
Billy—old Billy that is to say—was quite struck in a heap at such
an unwonted apparition, and after the then usual salutations, and
inquiries how she would like to have the window, he popped the
old question, “How far was she going?” with very different
feelings to what it was generally asked, when the traveller
wished to calculate how soon he might hope to get rid of his
_vis-à-vis_ and lay up his legs on the seat.
“To town,” replied the lady, dimpling her pretty cheeks with a
smile. “And you?” asked she, thinking to have as good as she
gave.
“Ditto,” replied the delighted Billy, divesting himself of a
great coarse blue and white worsted comforter, and pulling up his
somewhat dejected gills, abandoning the idea of economising his
Lincoln and Bennett by the substitution of an old Gregory’s
mixture coloured fur cap, with its great ears tied over the top,
in which he had snoozed and snored through many a long journey.
Miss Willing then drew from her richly-buckled belt a beautiful
Geneva watch set round with pearls, (her ladyship’s, which she
was taking to town to have repaired), and Billy followed suit
with his substantial gold-repeater, with which he struck the
hour. Miss then ungloved the other hand, and passed it down her
glossy brown hair, all smooth and regular, for she had just been
scrutinising it in a pocket-mirror she had in her
gold-embroidered reticule.
Billy’s commercial soul was in ecstacies, and he was fairly over
head and ears in love before they came to the first change of
horses. He had never seen sich a sample of a hand before, no, nor
sich a face; and he felt quite relieved when among the
multiplicity of rings he failed to discover that thin plain gold
one that intimates so much.
Whatever disadvantages old stage coaches possessed, and their
name certainly was legion, it must be admitted that in a case of
this sort their slowness was a recommendation. The old True Blue
Independent did not profess to travel or trail above eight miles
an hour, and this it only accomplished under favourable
circumstances, such as light loads, good roads, and stout steeds,
instead of the top-heavy cargo that now ploughed along the woolly
turnpike after the weak, jaded horses, that seemed hardly able to
keep their legs against the keen careering wind. If, under such
circumstances, the wretched concern made the wild-beast-show
looking place in London, called an inn, where it put up, an hour
or an hour and a half or so after its time, it was said to be all
very well, “considering,”—and this, perhaps, in a journey of
sixty miles.
Posterity will know nothing of the misery their forefathers
underwent in the travelling way; and whenever we hear—which we
often do—unreasonable grumblings about the absence of trifling
luxuries on railways, we are tempted to wish the parties
consigned to a good long ride in an old stage coach. Why the
worst third class that ever was put next the engine is infinitely
better than the inside of the best of them used to be, to say
nothing of the speed. As to the outsides of the old coaches, with
their roastings, their soakings, their freezings, and their
smotherings with dust, one cannot but feel that the establishment
of railways was a downright prolongation of life. Then the coach
refreshments, or want of refreshments rather; the turning out at
all hours to breakfast, dine, or sup, just as the coach reached
the house of a proprietor “wot oss’d it,” and the cool incivility
of every body about the place. Any thing was good enough for a
coach passenger.
On this auspicious day, though Miss Willing had her reticule full
of macaroons and sponge biscuits, and Fine Billy the first had a
great bulging paper of sandwiches in his brown overcoat pocket,
they neither of them felt the slightest approach to hunger, ere
the lumbering vehicle, after a series of clumsy,
would-be-dash-cutting lurches and evolutions over the rough
inequalities of the country pavement, pulled up short at the
arched doorway of the Salutation Inn—we beg pardon, hotel—in
Bramfordrig, and a many-coated, brandy-faced, blear-eyed guard
let in a whole hurricane of wind while proclaiming that they
“dined there and stopped half an hour.” Then Fine Billy the first
had an opportunity of showing his gallantry and surveying the
figure of his innamorata, as he helped her down the perilous
mud-shot iron steps of the old Independent, and certainly never
countess descended from her carriage on a drawing-room day with
greater elegance than Miss Willing displayed on the present
occasion, showing a lettle circle of delicate white linen
petticoat as she protected her clothes from the mud-begrimed
wheel, and just as much fine open-worked stocking above the
fringed top of her Adelaide boots. On reaching the ground, which
she did with a curtsey, she gave such a sweet smile as emboldened
our Billy to offer his arm; and amid the nudging of outsiders,
and staring of street-loungers, and “make way"-ing of inn
hangers-on, our Billy strutted up the archway with all the
dignity of a drum-major. His admiration increased as he now
became sensible of the lady’s height, for like all little men he
was an admirer of tall women. As he caught a glimpse of himself
in the unbecoming mirror between the drab and red fringed window
curtains of the little back room into which they were ushered, he
wished he had had on his new blue coat and bright buttons, with a
buff vest, instead of the invisible green and black spot
swansdown one in which he was then attired.
The outside passengers having descended from their eminences,
proceeded to flagellate themselves into circulation, and throw
off their husks, while Billy strutted consequentially in with the
lady on his arm, and placed her in the seat of honour beside
himself at the top of the table. The outsides then came swarming
in, jostling the dish-bearers and seating themselves as they
could. All seemed bent upon getting as much as they could for
their money.
Pork was the repast. Pork in varions shapes: roast at the top,
boiled at the bottom, sausages on one side, fry on the other; and
Miss Willing couldn’t eat pork, and, curious coincidence! neither
could Billy. The lady having intimated this to Billy in the most
delicate way possible, for she had a particular reason for not
wishing to aggravate the new landlord, Mr. Bouncible, Billy
gladly sallied forth to give battle as it were on his own
account, and by way of impressing the household with his
consequence, he ordered a bottle of Teneriffe as he passed the
bar, and then commenced a furious onslaught about the food when
he got into the kitchen. This reading of the riot act brought
Bouncible from his “Times,” who having been in the profession
himself took Billy for a nobleman’s gentleman, or a house-steward
at least—a class of men not so easily put upon as their masters.
He therefore, after sundry regrets at the fare not being ‘zactly
to their mind, which he attributed to its being washing-day,
offered to let them have the first turn at a very nice dish of
hashed venison that was then simmering on the fire for Mrs. B.
and himself, provided our travellers would have the goodness to
call it hashed mutton, so that it might not be devoured by the
outsiders, a class of people whom all landlords held in great
contempt. To this proposition Billy readily assented, and
returned triumphantly to the object of his adoration. He then
slashed right and left at the roast pork, and had every plate but
hers full by the time the hashed mutton made its appearance. He
then culled out all the delicate tit-bits for his fair partner,
and decked her hot plate with sweet sauce and mealy potatoes.
Billy’s turn came next, and amidst demands for malt liquor and
the arrival of smoking tumblers of brown brandy and water,
clatter, patter, clatter, patter, became the order of the day,
with an occasional suspicious, not to say dissatisfied, glance of
a pork-eating passenger at the savoury dish at the top of the
table. Mr. Bonncible, however, brought in the Teneriffe just at
the critical moment, when Billy having replenished both plates,
the pork-eaters might have expected to be let in; and walked off
with the dish in exchange for the decanter. Our friends then
pledged each other in a bumper of Cape. The pork was followed by
an extremely large strong-smelling Cheshire cheese, in a high
wooden cradle, which in its turn was followed by an extremely
large strong-smelling man in a mountainous many-caped greatcoat,
who with a bob of his head and a kick out behind, intimated that
paying time was come for him. Growls were then heard of its not
being half an hour, or of not having had their full time,
accompanied by dives into the pockets and reticules for the
needful—each person wondering how little he could give without a
snubbing.
027m
_Original Size_
Quite “optional” of course. Billy, who was bent on doing the
magnificent, produced a large green-and-gold-tasseled purse,
almost as big as a stocking, and drew therefrom a great
five-shilling piece, which having tapped imposingly on his plate,
he handed ostentatiously to the man, saying, “for this lady and
me,” just as if she belonged to him; whereupon down went the head
even with the table, with an undertoned intimation that Billy
“needn’t ‘urry, for he would make it all right with the guard.”
The waiter followed close on the heels of the coachman, drawing
every body for half-a-crown for the dinner, besides what they had
had to drink, and what they “pleased for himself,” and Billy
again anticipated the lady by paying for both. Instead, however,
of disputing his right so to do, she seemed to take it as a
matter of course, and bent a little forward and said in a sort of
half-whisper, though loud enough to be heard by a twinkling-eyed,
clayey-complexioned she-outsider, sitting opposite, dressed in a
puce-coloured cloth pelisse and a pheasant-feather bonnet, “I
fear you will think me very troublesome, but do you think you
could manage to get me a finger-glass?” twiddling her pretty
taper fingers as she spoke.
“Certainly!” replied Billy, all alacrity, “certainly.”
“With a little tepid water,” continued Miss Willing, looking
imploringly at Billy as he rose to fulfil her behests.
“Such airs!” growled Pheasant-feathers to her next neighbour with
an indignant toss of her colour-varying head.
Billy presently appeared, bearing one of the old deep
blue-patterned finger-glasses, with a fine damask napkin, marked
with a ducal coronet—one of the usual perquisites of servitude.
Miss then holding each pretty hand downwards, stripped her
fingers of their rings, just as a gardener strips a stalk of
currants of its fruit, dropping, however, a large diamond ring
(belonging to her ladyship, which she was just airing) skilfully
under the table, and for which fat Billy had to dive like a dog
after an otter.
“Oh, dear!” she was quite ashamed at her awkwardness and the
trouble she had given, she assured Billy, as he rose red and
panting from the pursuit.
“Done on purpose to show her finery,” muttered Pheasant-feather
bonnet, with a sneer.
Miss having just passed the wet end of the napkin across her
cherry lips and pearly teeth, and dipped her fingers becomingly
in the warm water, was restoring her manifold rings, when the
shrill _twang, twang, twang_ of the horn, with the prancing of
some of the newly-harnessed cripples on the pavement as they
tried to find their legs, sounded up the arch-way into the little
room, and warned our travellers that they should be reinvesting
themselves in their wraps. So declining any more Teneriffe, Miss
Willing set the example by drawing on her pretty kid gloves, and
rising to give the time to the rest. Up they all got.