I SUPPOSE that when little boys made their journeys by coach with David
Copperfield or Tom Brown and his pea-shooting comrades they did in truth
find adventure easier to achieve than we who were born in an age of
railways. But though the rarer joys of far travel by road were denied
us, it did not need Mr. Rudyard Kipling in a didactic mood to convince us
that there was plenty of romance in railway journeys if you approached
them in the right spirit. We were as fond of playing at trains as most
small boys, and a stationary engine with the light of the furnace glowing
on the grim face of the driver was a disquieting feature of all my
nightmares. So when the grown-up people announced that one of us was to
make a long journey young Ulysses became for the moment an envied and
enchanted figure. Our periodical excursions to London were well enough
in their way; noisy, jolly parties in reserved carriages to pantomimes
and the Lord Mayor’s Show, or matter-of-fact visits to the dentist or the
shops. But we all knew the features of the landscape on the way to
London by heart, and it was the thought of voyaging through the unknown
that fired our lively blood, our hazy sense of geography enabling us to
believe that all manner of marvels were to be seen by young eyes from
English railway-carriages. Also we did not feel that we were real
travellers until we had left all our own grown-ups behind, though in such
circumstances we had to put up with the indignity of being confided to
the care of the guard. Until children have votes they will continue to
suffer from such slights as this!
One morning in early spring I left London for the north. The adult who
saw me off performed his task on the whole very well. True, he
introduced me to the guard, a bearded and sinister man; but, on the other
hand, he realised the importance of my having a corner seat, and only
once or twice committed the error of treating me as if I were a parcel.
For my part, I was at pains to conceal my excitement beneath the
mannerisms of an experienced traveller. I put the window up and down
several times and read aloud all the notices concerning luncheon-baskets
and danger-signals. Then my companion shook hands with me in a sensible,
manly fashion, and the train started. I sat back and examined my
fellow-travellers, and found them rather disappointing. There were three
ladies, manifestly of the aunt kind, and a stiff, well-behaved little
girl who might have stepped out of one of my sister’s story-books. She
was reading a book without pictures, and when I turned over the pages of
my magazines she displayed no interest in them whatever. I could never
read in the train, so, with a tentative effort at good manners, I pushed
them towards her, but she shook her head; to show her that I did not
think this was a snub I pulled out my packet of sandwiches and had my
lunch. After that I played with the blind, which worked with a spring,
until one of the aunts told me not to fidget, although she was no aunt of
mine. Then I looked out of the window, a prey to voiceless wrath.
By now we had left London far behind, and when I had finished composing
imaginary retorts to the unscrupulous aunt I was quite content to see the
wonders of the world flit by. There were hills and valleys decked with
romantic woods and set with fascinating and secretive ponds. To my eyes
the hills were mountains and the valleys perilous hollows, the accustomed
lairs of tremendous dragons. I saw little thatched houses wherein swart
witches awaited the coming of Hansel and Gretel, and fairy children waved
to me from cottage gardens and the gates of level-crossings, greetings
which I dutifully returned until the aunt made me pull up the window.
After a while a change came over the scenery. The placid greens and
browns of the countryside blossomed to gold and purple and crimson. I
saw a roc float across the arching sky on sluggish wings, and my eyes
were delighted with visions of deserts and mosques and palm-trees. That
my fellow-passengers would not raise their heads to behold these marvels
did not trouble me; I beat on the window with delight, until, like little
Billee in Thackeray’s ballad, I saw Jerusalem and Madagascar and North
and South Amerikee.
Then something surprising happened. I saw the earth leap up and invade
the sky and the sky drop down and blot out the earth, and I felt as
though my wings were broken. Then the sides of the carriage closed in
and squeezed out the door like a pip out of an orange, until there was
only a three-cornered gap left. The air was full of dust, and I sneezed
again and again, but could not find my pocket-handkerchief. Presently a
young man came and lifted me out through the hole, and seemed very
surprised that I was not hurt. I realised that there had been an
accident, for the train was broken into pieces and the permanent way was
very untidy. Close at hand I saw the little girl sitting on a bank, and
a man kneeling at her feet taking her boots off. I would have liked to
speak to her, but I remembered how she had refused the offer of my
magazines, and was afraid she would snub me again. The place was very
noisy, for people were calling out, and there was a great sound of steam.
I noticed that everybody’s face was very white, especially the guard’s,
which made his beard seem as black as soot. The young man took me by the
hand and led me along the uneven ground, and there was so much to see
that my feet kept stumbling over things, and he had to hold me up. On
the way we passed the body of a man lying with a rug over his head. I
knew that he was dead; but I had seen drunken men in the streets lie like
that, and I could not help looking about for the policeman. Soon we came
to a little station, and the platform was crowded with people who would
not stand still, but walked round and round making noises. When I
climbed up on the platform a woman caught hold of me and cried over me.
One of her tears fell on my ear and tickled me; but she held me so
tightly that I could not put up my hand to rub it. Her breath was hot on
my head.
Then I heard a detested voice say, “Poor little boy, so tired!” and I
shuddered back into consciousness of the world that was least interesting
of all the worlds I knew. I need not have opened my eyes to be sure that
the aunts were at their fell work again, and that the little girl’s snub
nose was tilted to a patronising angle. Had I awakened a minute later
she, too, would have joined in the auntish chorus of compassion for my
weakness. As it was, I looked at her with drowsy pity, finding that she
was one of those luckless infants who might as well stay at home for all
the fun they get out of travelling. She knew no better than to scream
when the train ran into a tunnel; what would she have done if she had
seen my roc?
The train ran on and on, and still I throned it in my corner, awake or
dreaming, indisputably master of all the things that counted. The three
aunts faded into antimacassars; the little girl endured her uninteresting
life and became an aunt and an antimacassar in her turn, and still I
swung my legs in my corner seat, a boy-errant in the strange places of
the world. I do not remember the name of the station at which the
bearded guard ultimately brought me out of my dreams. I do remember
standing stiffly on the platform and deciding that I had been travelling
night and day for three hundred years. When I communicated this fact to
the relatives who met me they were strangely unimpressed; but I knew that
when I returned home to my brothers they would display a decent interest
in the story of my wanderings. After all, you can’t expect grown-up
people to understand everything!