[Illustration: 628]
Amblers have not more prejudices and superstitions than railroad
travellers. All the preferences for the winning places, the lucky pack,
the shuffling cut, &c., have their representatives among the prevailing
notions of those who “fly by steam.”
“I _always_ sit with my back to the engine,” cries one.
“I _always_ travel as far from the engine as possible,” exclaims
another.
“I _never_ trust myself behind the luggage train,” adds a third.
“There ‘s nothing like a middle place,” whispers a fourth: and so on
they go; as if, when a collision does come, and the clanking monster has
taken an erratic fit, and eschews the beaten path, any precautions or
preferences availed in the slightest degree, or that it signified a
snort of the steam, whether you were flattened into a pancake, or blown
up in the shape of a human _soufflé_. “The Rail” is no Whig politician,
no “bit-by-bit” reformer. When a smash happens, skulls are as fragile
as saucers, and bones as brittle as Bohemian glass. The old “fast coach”
never killed any one but the timid gentleman that jumped off. To be
sure, it always dislocated the coachman’s shoulder; but then, from old
habit of being shot out, the bone rolled in again, like a game of
cup and ball. The insides and out scraped each other, swore fearful
intentions against the proprietors, and some ugly fellow took his action
of damages for the loss his prospects sustained by disfigurement. This
was the whole extent of the mishap. Not so now, when four hundred souls
are dashed frantically together and pelt heads at each other as people
throw _bonbons_ at a carnival.
Steam has invented something besides fast travelling; and if it
has supplied a new method of getting through the world, it has also
suggested about twenty new ways of going out of it. Now, it’s the old
story of the down train and the up, both bent on keeping the same line
of rails, and courageously resolving to see which is the “better man,”
a point which must always remain questionable, as the umpires never
survive. Again, it is the engine itself, that, sick of straight lines,
catches a fancy for the waving ones of beauty, and sets out, full
speed, over a fine grass country, taking the fences as coolly as Allan
M’Donough himself, and caring just as little for what “comes behind:”
these incidents being occasionally varied by the train taking the sea or
taking fire, either of which has its own inconveniences, more likely to
be imagined than described.
I remember once hearing this subject fully discussed in a railroad
carriage, where certainly the individuals seemed amateurs in accidents,
every man having some story to relate or some adventure to recount,
of the grievous dangers of “The Rail.” I could not help questioning to
myself the policy of such revelations, so long as we journeyed within
the range of similar calamities; but somehow self-tormenting is a very
human practice, and we all indulged in it to the utmost. The narratives
themselves had their chief interest from some peculiarity in the mode of
telling, or in the look and manner of the recounter; all save one, which
really had features of horror all its own, and which were considerably
heightened by the simple but powerful style of him who told it. I feel
how totally incapable I am of conveying even the most distant imitation
of his manner; but the story, albeit neither complicated nor involved,
I must repeat, were it only as a reminiscence of a most agreeable
fellow-traveller, Count Henri de Beulivitz, the Saxon envoy at Vienna.
“I was,” says the Count--for so far I must imitate him, and speak in the
first person--“I was appointed special envoy to the Austrian court about
a year and a half since, under circumstances which required the utmost
despatch, and was obliged to set out the very day after receiving my
appointment. The new line of railroad from Dresden to Vienna was only in
progress, but a little below Prague the line was open, and by travelling
thither _en poste_, I should reach the Austrian capital without loss of
time. This I resolved on; and by the forenoon of the day after, arrived
at Trübau, where I placed my carriage on a truck, and comfortably
composed myself to rest, under the impression that I need never stir
till within the walls of Vienna.
“If you have ever travelled in this part of Europe, I need not remind
you of the sad change of prospect which ensues after you pass the
Bohemian frontier. Saxony, rich in picturesque beauty; the valley of the
Elbe, in many respects finer than the Rhine itself; the proud summit of
the Bastey; the rock-crowned fortress of Koenigstein,--are all succeeded
by monotonous tracts of dark forest, or still more dreary plains,
disfigured, not enlivened by villages of wretched hovels, poor, I have
heard, as the dwellings of the Irish peasant. What a contrast, too! the
people, the haggard faces and sallow cheeks of the swarthy Bohemian,
with the blue eye and ruddy looks of the Saxon! ‘Das Sachsenland wo
die hübsche mädchen auf die Baüme wachsen.’ Proud as I felt at the
superiority of my native country, I could not resist the depression,
suggested by the monotony of the scene before me, its dull uniformity,
its hopeless poverty; and as I sunk into a sleep, my dreams took
the gloomy aspect of my waking thoughts, gloomier, perhaps, because
unrelieved by all effort of volition,--a dark river unruffled by a
single breeze.
“The perpetual bang! bang! of the piston has, in its reiterated stroke,
something diabolically terrible. It beats upon the heart with an
impression irresistibly solemn! I remember how in my dreams the
accessories of the train kept flitting round me, and I thought the
measured sounds were the clickings of some infernal clock, which meted
out time to legions of devils. I fancied them capering to and fro amid
flame and smoke, with shrieks, screams, and wild gestures. My brain grew
hot with excitement. I essayed to awake, but the very rocking of the
train steeped my faculties in a lethargy. At last, by a tremendous
effort, I cried out aloud, and the words broke the spell, and I
awoke--dare I call it awaking? I rubbed my eyes, pinched my arms,
stamped with my feet; alas! it was too true!--the reality announced
itself to my senses. I was there, seated in my carriage, amid a darkness
blacker than the blackest night. A low rumbling sound, as of far-distant
thunder, had succeeded to the louder bang of the engine. A dreadful
suspicion flashed on me,--it grew stronger with each second; and, ere a
minute more, I saw what had happened. The truck on which my carriage was
placed had by some accident become detached from the train; and while
the other portion of the train proceeded on its way, there was I, alone,
deserted, and forgotten, in the dark tunnel of Trübau,--for such I at
once guessed must be the dreary vault, unillumined by one ray of light
or the glimmering of a single lamp. Convictions, when the work of
instinct rather than reflection, have a stunning effect, that seems to
arrest all thought, and produce a very stagnation of the faculties.
Mine were in this state. As when, in the shock of battle, some
terrible explosion, dealing death to thousands at once, will appall
the contending hosts, and make men aghast with horror, so did my ideas
become fixed and rooted to one horrible object; and for some time I
could neither think of the event nor calculate on its consequences.
Happy for me if the stupefaction continued! No sooner, however, had my
presence of mind returned, than I began to anticipate every possible
fatality that might occur. Death I knew it must be, and what a
death!--to be run down by the train for Prague, or smashed by the
advancing one from Olmutz. How near my fate might be, I could not guess.
I neither knew how long it was since I entered the tunnel, nor at what
hours the other trains started. They might be far distant, or they
might be near at hand. Near!--what was space when such terrible power
existed?--a league was the work of minutes--at that very moment the
furious engine might be rushing on! I thought of the stoker stirring the
red fire. I fancied I saw the smoke roll forth, thicker and blacker, as
the heat increased, and through my ears went the thugging bang of the
piston, quicker and quicker; and I screamed aloud in my agony, and
called out to them to stop! I must have swooned, for when consciousness
again came to me, I was still amid the silence and darkness of the
tunnel. I listened, and oh! with what terrible intensity the human ear
can strain its powers when the sounds awaited are to announce life
or death! The criminal in the dock, whose eyes are riveted in a glazy
firmness on him who shall speak his doom, drinks in the words ere they
are well uttered,--each syllable falls upon his heart as fatal to hope
as is the headsman’s axe to life. The accents are not human sounds; it
is the trumpet of eternity that fills his ears, and rings within his
brain,--the loud blast of the summoning angel calling him to judgment.
“Terrible as the thunder of coming destruction is, there is yet a sense
more fearfully appalling in the unbroken silence of the tomb,--the
stillness of death without its lethargy! Dreadful moment!--what
fearful images it can call up!--what pictures it can present before the
mind!--how fearfully reality may be blended with the fitful forms of
fancy, and fact be associated even with the impossible!
“I tried to persuade myself that the bounds of life were already past,
and that no dreadful interval of torture was yet before me; but this
consolation, miserable though it was, yielded as I touched the side of
the carriage, and felt the objects I so well knew. No; it was evident
the dreaded moment was yet to come,--the shocking ordeal was still to be
passed; and before I should sink into the sleep that knows not waking,
there must be endured the torture of a death-struggle, or, mayhap, the
lingering agony of protracted suffering.
“As if in a terrible compensation for the shortness of my time on earth,
minutes were dragged out to the space of years,--amid the terrors of the
present, I thought of the past and the future. The past, with its varied
fortune of good and ill, of joy and sorrow,--how did I review it now!
With what scrutiny did I pry into my actions, and call upon myself to
appear at the bar of my conscience! Had my present mission to Vienna
contained anything Machiavelic in its nature, I should have trembled
with the superstitious terror that my misfortune was a judgment of
Heaven. But no. It was a mere commonplace negotiation, of which time was
the only requisite. Even this, poor as it was, had some consolation in
it,--I should, at least, meet death without the horror of its being a
punishment.
“I had often shuddered at the fearful narratives of people buried alive
in a trance, or walled up within the cell of a convent. How willingly
would I now have grasped at such an alternative! Such a fate would steal
over without the terrible moment of actual suffering,--the crash and the
death struggle! I fancied a thousand alleviating circumstances in the
dreamy lethargy of gradual dissolution. Then came the thought--and how
strange that such a thought should obtrude at such a time!--what will
be said of me hereafter?--how will the newspapers relate the occurrence?
Will they speculate on the agony of my anticipated doom?--will they
expatiate on all that I am now actually enduring? What will the
passengers in the train say, when the collision shall have taken place?
Will there be enough of me left to make investigation easy? How poor
G------will regret me! and I am sure he will never be seen in public
till he has invented a _bon mot_ on my destiny.
“Again, I recurred to the idea of culpability, and asked myself whether
there might not be some contravention of the intentions of Providence by
this newly invented power of steam, which thus involved me in a fate
so dreadful? What right had man to arrogate to himself a prerogative
of motion his own physical powers denied him; and why did he dare to
penetrate into the very bowels of the earth, when his instinct clearly
pointed to avocations on the surface? These reflections were speedily
routed; for now, a low, rumbling sound, such as I have heard described
as the premonitory sign of a coming earthquake, filled the tunnel. It
grew louder and louder; and whether it were the sudden change from the
dread stillness, or that, in reality, it were so, it sounded like the
booming of the sea within some gigantic cavern. I listened anxiously,
and oh, terrible thought! now I could hear the heavy thug! thug! of the
piston. It was a train!
“A train coming towards me! Every sob of the straining engine sent a
death-pang through me; the wild roar of a lion could not convey more
terror to my heart! I thought of leaving the carriage, and clinging to
the side of the tunnel; but there was only one line of rails, and the
space barely permitted the train to pass! It was now too late for any
effort; the thundering clamor of the engine swelled like the report of
heavy artillery, and then a red hazy light gleamed amid the darkness,
as though an eye of fire was looking into my very soul. It grew into a
ghastly brightness, and I thought its flame could almost scorch me.
It came nearer and nearer. The dark figures of the drivers passed and
re-passed behind it. I screamed and yelled in my agony, and in the
frenzy of the moment drew a pistol from my pocket, and fired,--why, or
in what direction, I know not. A shrill scream shot through the gloom.
Was it a death-cry? I could not tell, for I had fainted.
“The remainder is easily told. The train had, on discovering my being
left behind, sent back an engine to fetch me; but from a mistake of the
driver, who was given to suppose that I had not entered the tunnel, he
had kept the engine at half speed, and without the happy accident of the
pistol and the flash of the powder, I should inevitably have been run
down; for, even as it was, the collision drove my carriage about fifty
yards backwards, an incident of which, happily, I neither was conscious
at the time, nor suffered from afterwards.”
“That comes of travelling on a foreign railroad!” muttered a ruddy-faced
old gentleman in drab shorts. “Those fellows have no more notion of how
to manage an engine--”
“Than the Pope has of the polka,” chimed in a very Irish accent from the
corner of the carriage.
“Very true, sir,” rejoined the former. “English is the only language to
speak to the boiler. The moment they try it on with French or German,
something goes wrong. You saw how they roasted the people at Versailles,
and--”
“Ah! the devil a bit they know about it at all,” interposed the
Emeralder. “The water is never more than lukewarm, and there ‘s more
smoke out of the chap’s pipe that stands in front than out of the
funnel. They ‘ve generally an engine at each end, and it takes twenty
minutes at every station to decide which way they’ll go,--one wanting
this way, and the other that.”
“Is it not better in Belgium?” asked I.
“Belgium, is it?--bad luck to it for Belgium: I ought to know something
of how _they_ manage. There is n’t a word of truth among them. Were you
ever at Antwerp?”
“Yes; I have passed through it several times.”
“Well, how long does it take to go from Antwerp to Brussels?”
“Something more than an hour, if I remember aright.”
“Something more!--on my conscience I think it does. See now, it’s four
days and a half travelling the same journey.”
A burst of laughter irrepressible met this speech, for scarcely any
one of the party had not had personal experience of the short distance
alluded to.
“You may laugh as much as you please,--you’re welcome to your fun; but I
went the road myself, and I ‘d like to see which of you would say I did
n’t.”
There was no mistaking the tone nor the intention of the speech; it was
said without any elevation of voice or any bravado of manner, but with
the quiet, easy determination of a man who only asked reasonable grounds
for an opportunity to blow some other gentleman’s brains out. Some
disclaimed all idea of a contradiction, others apologized for the mirth
at the great disparity of the two statements,--one alleging an hour for
what another said four days were required; while I, anxious to learn
the Irishman’s explanation, timidly hinted a desire to hear more of his
travelling experiences.
He acceded to my wish with as much readiness as he would probably have
done had I made overtures of battle, and narrated the following short
incident, which, for memory’s sake, I have called
“MR. BLAKE IN BELGIUM.”
“I was persuaded,” quoth Mr. Blake,--“I was persuaded by my wife that we
ought to go and live abroad for economy,--that there would be no end to
the saving we ‘d make by leaving our house in Galway, and taking up our
residence in France or Belgium. First, we ‘d let the place for at least
six hundred a year,--the garden and orchard we set down for one hundred;
then we ‘d send away all the lazy ‘old hangers on,’ as my wife called
them, such as the gatekeepers and gardeners and stable boys. These,
her sister told her, were ‘eating us up’ entirely; and her sister was
a clever one too,--a widow woman that had lived in every part of the
globe, and knew all the scandal of every capital in Europe, on less than
four hundred a year. She told my wife that Ireland was the lowest
place at all; nobody would think of bringing up their family there; no
education, no manners, and, worst of all, no men that could afford to
marry. This was a home-stroke, for we had five grown-up girls.
“‘My dear,’ said she, ‘you’ll live like the Duchess of Sutherland,
abroad, for eight hundred a year; you ‘ll have a beautiful house, see
company, keep your carriage and saddle horses, and drink Champagne every
day of the week, like small beer; then velvets and lace are to be had
for a song; the housemaids wear nothing but silk;’ in fact, from my wife
down to little Joe, that heard sugar candy was only a penny an ounce, we
were all persuaded there was nothing like going abroad for economy.
“Mrs. Fitzmaurice--that was my sister-in-law’s name--explained to us how
there was nothing so expensive as Ireland.
“‘‘T is not, my dear,’ said she, ‘that things are not cheap; but that’s
the reason it’s ruinous to live here. There’s old Molly the cook uses
more meat in a day than would feed a foreign family for a month. If you
want a beefsteak, you must kill a heifer. Now abroad you just get the
joint you want, to the very size you wish,--no bone, if you don’t ask
for it. And look at the waste. In the stables you keep eight horses, and
you never have a pair for the carriage. The boys are mounted; but you
and the girls have nothing to drive out with. Besides, what can you do
with that overgrown garden? It costs you £50 a year, and you get nothing
out of it but crab-apples and cabbages. No, no; the Continent is the
place; and as for society, instead of old Darcy, of Ballinamuck, or
Father Luke, for company, you ‘ll have Prince this, and Count that,
foreign ministers and plenipotentiaries, archdukes, and attachés without
end. There will be more stars round your dinner-table than ever you saw
in the sky on a frosty night And the girls. I would n’t wonder if the
girls, by giving a sly hint that they had a little money, might n’t
marry some of the young Coburgs.’
“These were flattering visions, while for me the trap was baited with
port, duty free, and strong Burgundy, at one and sixpence a bottle. My
son Tom was taught to expect cigars at twopence a dozen; and my second
daughter, Mary, was told that, with the least instruction, her Irish jig
could be converted into a polka. In fact, it was clear we had only to
go abroad to save two-thirds of our income, and become the most
accomplished people into the bargain.
“From the hour this notion was mooted amongst us, Ireland became
detestable. The very pleasures and pastimes we once liked, grew
distasteful; even the society of our friends came associated with ideas
of vulgarity that deprived it of all enjoyment.
“‘That miserable satin-turque,’ exclaimed my wife, ‘it is a mere
rag, and it cost me five and ninepence a yard. Mrs. Fitz. says that a
shop-girl would n’t wear it in Paris.’
“‘Infernal climate!’ cries Tom; ‘nothing but rain above and mud
beneath.’
“‘And, dear papa,’ cries Sophy, ‘old Flannigan has no more notion
of French than I have of fortification. He calls the man that sells
sausages the ‘Marchand de combustibles.’
“If these were not reasons for going abroad, I know nothing of Ireland;
and so we advertised ‘Castle Blake’ to be let, and the farming-stock to
be sold. The latter wasn’t difficult. My neighbors bought up everything
at short bills, to be renewed whenever they became due. As for the
house, it was n’t so easy to find a tenant. So I put in the herd to take
care of it, and gave him the garden for his pains. I turned in my cattle
over the lawn, which, after eating the grass, took to nibbling the
young trees and barking the older ones. This was not a very successful
commencement of economy; but Mrs. Fitz. always said,--
“‘What matter? you ‘ll save more than double the amount the first year
you are abroad.’
“To carry out their economical views, it was determined that Brussels,
and not Paris, should be our residence for the first year; and thither
my wife and two sons and five daughters repaired, under the special
guidance of Mrs. Fitz., who undertook the whole management of our
affairs, both domestic and social. I was left behind to arrange certain
money matters, and about the payment of interest on some mortgages,
which I consoled myself by thinking that a few years of foreign economy
would enable me to pay off in full.
“It was nearly six months after their departure from Ireland that I
prepared to follow,--not in such good spirits, I confess, as I
once hoped would be my companions on the journey. The cheapness of
Continental life requires, it would appear, considerable outlay at the
first, probably on the principle that a pastry-cook’s apprentice is
always surfeited with tarts during the first week, so that he never
gets any taste for sweetmeats afterwards. This might account for my wife
having drawn about twelve hundred pounds in that short time, and always
accompanying every fresh demand for money with an eloquent panegyric
on her own economy. To believe her, never was there a household so
admirably managed. The housemaid could dress hair; the butler could
drive the carriage; the writing-master taught music; the dancing-master
gave my eldest daughter a lesson in French without any extra charge.
Everything that was expensive was the cheapest in the end. Genoa velvet
lasted for ever; real Brussels lace never wore out; it was only the
‘mock things’ that were costly. It was frightful to think how many
families were brought to ruin by cheap articles!
“‘I suppose it’s all right,’ said I to myself; ‘and so far as I am
concerned I ‘ll not beggar my family by taking to cheap wines. If they
have any Burgundy that goes so high as one and eightpence, I will drink
two bottles every day.’
“Well, sir, at last came the time that I was to set out to join them;
and I sailed from London in the Princess Victoria, with my passport in
one pocket, and a written code of directions in the other, for of French
I knew not one syllable. It was not that my knowledge was imperfect or
doubtful; but I was as ignorant of the language as though it was a dead
one.
“‘The place should be cheap,’ thought I, ‘for certainly it has no charms
of scenery to recommend it,’ as we slowly wended our way up the sluggish
Scheldt, and looked with some astonishment at the land the Dutchmen
thought worth fighting for. Arrived at Antwerp, I went through the
ordeal of having my trunks ransacked, and my passport examined by some
warlike-looking characters, with swords on. They said many things to
me; but I made no reply, seeing that we were little likely to benefit
by each other’s conversation; and at last, when all my formalities were
accomplished, I followed a concourse of people who, I rightly supposed,
were on their way to the railroad.
“It is a plaguy kind of thing enough, even for a taciturn man, not to
speak the language of those about him; however, I made myself tolerably
well understood at this station, by pulling out a handful of silver
coin, and repeating the word Brussels, with every variety of accent I
could think of. They guessed my intentions, and in acknowledgment of my
inability to speak one word of French, pulled and shoved me along till
I reached one of the carriages. At last a horn blew, another replied to
it, a confused uproar of shouting succeeded, like what occurs on board
a merchant ship when getting under weigh, and off jogged the train, at
a very honest eight miles an hour; but with such a bumping, shaking,
shivering, and rickety motion, it was more like travelling over a Yankee
corduroy road than anything else. I don’t know what class of carriage I
was in, but the passengers were all white-faced, smoky-looking fellows,
with very soiled shirts and dirty hands; with them, of course, I had no
manner of intercourse. I was just thinking whether I should n’t take
a nap, when the train came to a dead stop, and immediately after, the
whole platform was covered with queer-looking fellows, in shovelled
hats, and long petticoats like women. These gentry kept bowing and
saluting each other in a very droll fashion, and absorbed my attention,
when my arm was pulled by one of the guards of the line, while he said
something to me in French. What he wanted, the devil himself may know;
but the more I protested that I could n’t speak, the louder he replied,
and the more frantically he gesticulated, pointing while he did so to a
train about to start, hard by.
“‘Oh! that’s it,’ said I to myself, ‘we change coaches here;’ and so
I immediately got out, and made the best of my way over to the other
train. I had scarcely time to spare, for away it went at about the same
lively pace as the last one. After travelling about an hour and a half
more, I began to look out for Brussels, and, looking at my code of
instructions, I suspected I could not be far off; nor was I much
mistaken as to our being nigh a station, for the speed was diminished to
a slow trot, and then a walk, after a mile of which we crept up to
the outside of a large town. There was no nse in losing time in asking
questions; so I seized my carpet-bag, and jumped out, and, resisting all
the offers of the idle vagabonds to carry my luggage, I forced my way
through the crowd, and set out in search of my family. I soon got into
an intricate web of narrow streets, with shops full of wooden shoes,
pipes, and blankets of all the colors of the rainbow; and after walking
for about three-quarters of an hour, began to doubt whether I was not
traversing the same identical streets,--or was it that they were only
brothers? ‘Where’s the Boulevard?’ thought I, ‘this beautiful place
they have been telling me of, with houses on one side, and trees on the
other; I can see nothing like it;’ and so I sat down on my carpet-bag,
and began to ruminate on my situation.
“‘Well, this will never do,’ said I, at last; ‘I must try and ask for
the Boulevard de Regent.’ I suppose it was my bad accent that amused
them, for every fellow I stopped put on a broad grin: some pointed this
way, and some pointed that; but they all thought it a high joke. I spent
an hour in this fashion, and then gave up the pursuit. My next thought
was the hotel where my family had stopped on their arrival, which I
found, on examining my notes, was called the ‘Hôtel de Suède.’ Here I
was more lucky,--every one knew that; and after traversing a couple of
streets, I found myself at the door of a great roomy inn, with a door
like a coach-house gate. ‘There is no doubt about this,’ said I; for the
words ‘Hôtel de Suède’ were written up in big letters. I made signs for
something to eat, for I was starving; but before my pantomime was well
begun, the whole household set off in search of a waiter who could speak
English.
“‘Ha! ha!’ said a fellow with an impudent leer, ‘roa bif, eh?’
“I did not know whether it was meant for me, or the bill of fare, but
I said ‘Yes, and potatoes;’ but before I let him go in search of the
dinner, I thought I would ask him a few words about my family, who had
stopped at the hotel for three weeks.
“‘Do you know Mrs. Blake,’ said I, ‘of Castle Blake?’
“‘Yees, yees, I know her very veil.’
“‘She was here about six months ago.’
“‘Yees, yees; she vas here sex months.’
“‘No; not for six months,--three weeks.’
“‘Yees; all de same.’
“‘Did you see her lately?’
“‘Yees, dis mornin’.’
“‘This morning! was she here this morning?’
“‘Yees; she come here vith a captain of Cuirassiers--ah! droll fellow
dat!’
“‘That’s a lie anyhow,’ said I, ‘my young gentleman;’ and with that I
planted my fist between his eyes, and laid him flat on the floor. Upon
my conscience you would have thought it was murder I had done; never
was there such yelling, and screaming, and calling for the police, and
Heaven knows what besides; and sure enough, they marched me off between
a file of soldiers to a place like a guard-room, where, whatever the
fellow swore against me, it cost me a five-pound note before I got free.
“‘Keep a civil tongue in your head, young man, about Mrs. Blake, anyway;
for by the hill of Maam, if I hear a word about the Cuirassier, I’ll not
leave a whole bone in your skin.’
“Well, sir, I got a roast chicken, and a dish of water-cress, and I got
into a bed about four feet six long; and what between the fleas and the
nightmare, I had n’t a pleasant time of it till morning.
“After breakfast I opened my map of Brussels, and, sending for the
landlord, bid him point with his finger to the place I was in. He soon
understood my meaning; but, taking me by the arm, he led me to the wall,
on which was a large map of Belgium, and then, my jewell what do you
think I discovered? It was not in Brussels I was at all, but in Louvain!
seventeen miles on the other side of it! Well, there was nothing for it
now but to go back; so I paid my bill and set off down to the station.
In half an hour the train came up, and when they asked me where I was
going, I repeated the word ‘Brussels’ several times over. This did
not seem to satisfy them; and they said something about my being an
Englishman.
“‘Yes, yes,’ said I, ‘Angleterre, Angleterre.’
“‘Ah, Angleterre!’ said one, who looked shrewder than the rest; and as
if at once comprehending my intentions, he assisted me into a carriage,
and, politely taking off his hat, made me a salute at parting, adding
something about a ‘voyage.’ ‘Well, he ‘ll be a cunning fellow that sees
me leave this train till it comes to its destination,’ said I; ‘I’ll
not be shoved out by any confounded guard, as I was yesterday.’ My
resolution was not taken in vain, for just at the very place I got
out, on the day before, a fellow came, and began making signs for me to
change to another train.
“‘I’ll tell you what,’ says I, laying hold of my cotton umbrella at the
same moment, ‘I ‘ll make a Belgian of you, if you will not let me alone.
Out of this place I ‘ll not budge for King Leopold himself.’
“And though he looked very savage for a few minutes, the way I handled
my weapon satisfied him that I was not joking, and he gave it up for a
bad job, and left me at peace. The other passengers said something, I
suppose, in explanation.
“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I ‘m an Englishman, or an Irishman,--It’s all
one,--Angleterre.’
“‘Ah, Angleterre!’ said three or four in a breath; and the words seemed
to act like a charm upon them, for whatever I did seemed all fair and
reasonable now. I kept a sharp look-out for Brussels; but hour after
hour slipped past, and though we passed several large towns, there was
no sign of it. After six hours’ travelling, an old gentleman pulled out
his watch, and made signs to me that we should be in in less than ten
minutes more; and so we were, and a droll-looking place it was,--a town
built in a hole, with clay ditches all round it, to keep out the sea.
“‘My wife never said a word about this,’ said I; ‘she used to say Castle
Blake was damp, but this place beats it hollow. Where’s the Boulevards?’
said I.
“And a fellow pointed to a sod bank, where a sentry was on guard.
“‘If it’s a joke you ‘re making me,’ said I, ‘you mistake your man; ‘and
I aimed a blow at him with my umbrella, that sent him running down the
street as fast as his wooden slippers would let him.
“‘It ought to be cheap here, anyhow,’ said I. ‘Faith, I think a body
ought to be paid for living in it; but how will I find out _the_
family!’
“I was two hours walking through this cursed hole, always coming back
to a big square, with a fish-market, no matter which way I turned; for
devil a one could tell me a word about Mrs. Blake or Mrs. Fitz. either.
“‘Is there a hotel?’ said I; and the moment I said the word, a dozen
fellows were dragging me here and there, till I had to leave two or
three of them sprawling with my umbrella, and give myself up to the
guidance of one of the number. Well, the end of it was--if I passed the
last night at Louvain, the present I was destined to pass at Ostend!
“I left this mud town, by the early train, next morning; and having
altered my tactics, determined now to be guided by any one who would
take the trouble to direct me,--neither resisting nor opposing. To be
brief, for my story has grown too lengthy, I changed carriages four
times, at each place there being a row among the bystanders which party
should decide my destination,--the excitement once running so high that
I lost one skirt of my coat, and had my cravat pulled off; and the
end of this was that I arrived, at four in the afternoon, at Liège,
sixty-odd miles beyond Brussels! for, somehow, these intelligent people
have contrived to make their railroads all converge to one small town
called ‘Malines:’ so that you may--as was my case--pass within twelve
miles of Brussels every day, and yet never set eyes on it.
[Illustration: 644]
“I was now so fatigued by travelling, so wearied by anxiety and fever,
that I kept my bed the whole of the following day, dreaming, whenever I
did sleep, of everlasting railroads, and starting put of my slumbers to
wonder if I should ever see my family again. I set out once more, and
for the last time,--my mind being made up, that if I failed now, I ‘d
take up my abode wherever chance might drop me, and write to my wife to
come and look for me. The bright thought flashed on me, as I watched the
man in the baggage office labelling the baggage, and, seizing one of
the gummed labels marked ‘Bruxelles,’ I took off my coat, and stuck
it between the shoulders. This done, I resumed my garment, and took my
place.
“The plan succeeded; the only inconvenience I sustained being the
necessity I was under of showing my way-bill whenever they questioned
me, and making a pirouette to the company,--a performance that kept
the passengers in broad grins for the whole day’s journey. So you see,
gentlemen, they may talk as they please about the line from Antwerp to
Brussels, and the time being only one hour fifteen minutes; but take
my word for it, that even--if you don’t take a day’s rest--it’s a good
three days’ and a half, and costs eighty-five francs, and some coppers
besides.”
“The economy of the Continent, then, did not fulfil your expectations?”
“Economy is it?” echoed Mr. Blake, with a groan; “for the matter of
that, my dear, it was like my own journey,--a mighty roundabout way of
gaining your object, and”--here he sighed heavily--“nothing to boast of
when you got it.”
[Illustration: Last Drawing]