A VISIT TO THE "HAUNT" OF A POETESS. 66 I HAVE rather a leaning to old times and customs, in spite of their inconveniences: the very rubs" that make the rough road long" are not without their charm, and from devouring the way to Gloucester by the Great Western express at fifty miles an hour, I take very kindly to nibbling on to Ross upon the Mazeppa, at the rate of seven. And the comfort is, that this Mazeppa is little likely to be run away with. The Hereford Hetman is horsed with a style of cattle quite different from him of the Ukraine, — is, indeed, altogether a slower coach, as well as far more respectable; but, as chatty and pleasant a conveyance as any one would desire to be connected with. "On we dash! Torrents less rapid and less rash," is not the way to describe his progress at all; and, if the word "headlong" be used with reference to him, it must be understood to apply to the possible proneness of the leader. The reader at once convicts me of a fellow-feeling for slow coaches, -and I admit it. I love the gossip of the road, and the private history that travels about in parcels; trace out my rural Apicius by his London oysters; and muse over "double-barrelled dilettantyism" over a hamper of pheasants. I watch, not obtrusively, the flirtations of the coachman,—his imparted and received confidences,-his mysteries with the turnpike-man or woman,-his oracular nods, and jerks, and winks, and the eloquence of his elbow. I see into his tricks, too; his passenger set down short of the town,-his little breast-pocket parcels delivered with his own hand, his haggling with the seedy ones, and his basket of glass with a hare's fur sticking through the wicker. He is best without a guard; for when his own guard, he is off his guard, and you see deeper through the millstone of his Chesterfield. Then, his judgment of character is a thing to study. His banter is irrespective of dress; chains, and breastpins, flaming waistcoats, and flaunting bonnets have no weight with him. His eye penetrates to the gentleman through the oldest boat-cloak, and he recognises respectability under a sixpenny cotton. To say that, "The beau ideal which the mind supposes, Is one who dresses in the clothes of Moses," may go down very well in the Minories; but will never do with him. He dreams of something deeper in his clothes philosophy. "Nice day, sir,"-" for the time of year,-very nice day." "A little wet wouldn't do us no harm."-"We wants rain very bad up our way." (This from a farmer who must throw in his protest: Dissentient, because a fine season brings good crops, and good crops promise no drawback, so he practises croaking all the year, to be perfect on rentday.) How should we ever establish our little casual acquaintances without an atmosphere? and how on earth-or rather on moon-do they manage in the neighbouring planet? How entirely obstructed they must be in their little intercourse by having all nice days, a fortnight long. No "growing day for the turnips,"-no thinking "as we shall have a shower" long after it has begun,-no "roughish day for them as be obliged to be out in it,”— -no "what dreadful changeable weather, sure-ly! nothing but rain, rain, rain!"-no "moistish, ain't it ?" (when we are quite wet through.) Of what use is it for a man in the moon to "look out for squalls," or "to have an eye to windward," or to "keep his weather-eye open," when he has neither wind nor weather (so to speak); and how helpless for a man of fashion to have no clouds to look up to when he meets a country friend in a lunar Pall Mall. We make but an indifferent start of it, for there is rather a deficiency of legs amongst the team, and a strong disposition to keep as many as possible off the ground; and the road into the city might be improved with a little corduroying. We stop for a gossip at "The Bell," (slightly altered since Tom Jones and Partridge ate their beef and greens in the bar with the landlady,) get a summit to the mountain of luggage, and, finding it is " a nice day," from another passenger, bowl on to the Boothall. "Here's a young 'ooman for ye, mister," observes an elderly labouring man, in his Sunday clothes, proffering in the kindest manner a chubby girl and her box to the coachman. "Going far, my dear?" "If you please, sir, I'm going to Mrs. Jenkins's of the Close." Ay, ay; her 'll tell you all about it." "Well, jump up. Nice day, ain't it? Here, sit in the middle." "You'll be sure, if you please, to put me down at Mrs. Jenkins's, at the Close, by Longhope, you know, at the corner of the lane. There'll be one as will meet me there, I expect. You'll be sure not to please to forget." "I know. You live at Mrs. Jenkins's?" "I'm in a situation there. Mother lives at Painswick. Father brought me to Gloucester. Mother have been a'most dead with the influenzy; was obliged to have the doctor, however, for above a fortnight; but a's better now." Soh! she's determined not to be lost for want of a label. She has read in some railway-bill, "Passengers are requested to have their trunks properly directed, as the company cannot, otherwise, be answerable," &c.,-an admirable bit of caution, when people's trunks are difficult to identify after a smash; but surely unnecessary in the case of a living young woman, knowing the road, and able to stop the coachman herself. But she can't trust to herself, with her thoughts far away at the old cottage at Painswick,-or, perhaps, with Bill. She is, no doubt, set in for a reverie. What a fine old street is that down by the Boothall, in spite of the modern smug brick-houses thrusting themselves amongst the old stagers. Poor old fellows! they are getting rather shaky, and some of them seem to have dropped off into a dose, and are leaning their heads on their neighbours' shoulders, and almost dropping their chins upon the passengers. I can't bear the thoughts of parting with them, notwithstanding, or to think of their crazy insides being rummaged by impertinent commissioners, and their poor old drains bored into, and poked about; and themselves, perhaps, sacrificed to some sanitary humbug. I can't, unmoved, look at the wooden old faces that one knew in the glorious days of peashooters and post-chaises, when we saved up our pocket-money to add leaders to the team; and rattled down amongst them after the drunken postboys, as if the very stones were mad, and their old heads shook with the palsy. I can identify the old doors with the wondering faces that came out to see the flags from the chaise-windows, and the ribbons in the postboys' hats, and doubting whether it was a wedding or an express. Nay, I recognise the very window where sat in mellow summer radiance the fat, redfaced old lady, attracted a little forward by the row, and who received on her inflamed features such a shower of hard marrow-fats that she yelled with rage and pain. And remember well how, looking from the small window behind, we saw her excited form protruding into the street, with shaking fists and cap awry; furnishing merriment for the whole half-year, and giving rise to the most anxious wishes that we might renew the acquaintance at the next trip. And who that saw him can ever forget the well-mounted gentleman farmer,-surly with excess of dignity,-rich, no question, a little lord in his village,-hit in the very eyes, and bending down with the smart; then galloping furiously after the chaise, and lashing at the windows till his horse, unable to face the punishment, bolts with his rider, and we see him tearing up the street at full speed, in spite of every effort to pull him up. - And associated with this old street was that extraordinary porter, -built upon the most conflicting principles,-whose legs, without their owner's leave, straddled, like Apollyon, "across the whole breadth of the way;" and whose eyes were of such peculiar construction, that, wishing to identify a parcel on the ground, he was obliged to raise his face towards the sky. Such a fixture was this fellow for thirty years or so, that one can hardly believe in the possibility of his being extinct. Coming from the ends of this earth, this man never failed us; looking, it would seem, towards the roof of the coach, while his eyes were rolling about amongst the packages at his feet. In such old musings we come out upon the causeway, and see a young railway-offspring of the Great Western-just started on his travels towards South Wales. He sets out bravely enough, like many another young fellow; coming over the flats with an imposing air at first, but soon sticking fast in the mud, and ending in a long score that we see no limit to. It would be wise in his parent to stop him before he gets into further mischief. We stop a moment at the turnpike. "Nice day, missis." "Iss, 'tis." "You haven't heard no more o' that paasle, have ye?" "No." "Didn't a call ?" "No." "Never said nothing to me." "Well to be sure." "Ah." 66 Hum." "Well," Then on by the great square red house, that was said to have as many windows as days in the year; and presently old May Hill is before us, with his scalp unshaved as of yore. The legs are all down now, and we make up for lost time across the common. At Huntley we change horses. "Nice day, ain't it?" "How's the mare?" "Don't see no difference in her." "Have him seen her?" "Iss, see her last night." "What did a' say?" "Didn't say nothing." "What did a' do ?" "Didn't do nothing." "What did a' think?" "Didn't seem to think as a was much difference in her." "Did a' have a mash ?" "No," "Well, you give her a mash, and"-(whispers). The deuce is in the mares. I never travelled any road in my life that there wasn't a mare ill. "Him" has generally seen her. Sometimes "a's getting on nicely;" but nine times in ten "a' don't see no difference in her." "Him" keeps his own counsel as to the treatment, and the consultation ends in a mash and a whisper. "The old man didn't say nothing to you about sending down no oats with you?" "No, a' didn't." "We be shocking bad off for 'em." This is the way with all the old men: they never do send down no oats. Why persist in keeping these worthless old fellows, instead of putting young stuff in their place? A window opens. "Won't you please to have something to take, Mr. Williams?" "No, ma'am, thank ye, nothing to-day." "Think you'd better, Mr. Williams. Won't you please to walk in?” "No, I'm obleeged to ye, ma'am. I must be going." "Better please to take a glass of ale, Mr. Williams." "Not to-day, ma'am, I thank you.” "Well, would you just step this way, Mr. Williams? I won't de tain you a monent." How's the reverie getting on, I wonder? She looks awake. "You are almost at your journey's end, now ?" "Very near now, sir." "And so you are not in your reverie, after all ?” "No, sir; mother said as it was such a very nice day, sir, she thought as I shouldn't want it, sir." "Oh! and so you left it behind?" "Oh, no, sir; I brought it along with me in my box." "Well, that was right; but I suppose you showed it first to your sweetheart at Painswick ?" "Well, sir, I wore it o' Sunday; but I haven't got no sweetheart, sir. I don't think o' such things as them, sir." "That's right-stick to that." "What did you please to say, sir?" "I didn't think you could have got such a thing in Painswick." "Oh, there's very good drapers in Painswick, sir: Willis and Morgan have as good a shop as any I see in Gloucester, however; and they have all the new things down from London, regular. All the gentlefolks comes to them, sir, for miles and miles. Mother lived in service with old Mr. Morgan, sir, before a' died—-” "Not afterwards, I suppose." "What did you please to say, sir?" "I suppose your mother got it cheaper on that account?" "No, sir, a' didn't,—not a farthing. They never makes two prices to nobody; and what they has marked in their window, they always gives, if you insist upon it, that's the best o' them. They do have beautiful things down as ever you see in your life; not a bit dearer than Jones's, and twice the choice. Mother got a bonnet there, and I'm sure, if you was to go all over Gloucester, you couldn't find nothing better nor cheaper, nor so cheap neither. Oh, no, there ben't no better shops nowhere than Willis and Morgan's." The coachman comes out with a short cough, and wiping his lips, and stuffs a paper parcel into his breast pocket. "You'll be sure to please not to forget the whoats ?" "I'll bring 'em down to-morrow, Jem. Now then, sir, if you please." Just beyond Huntley we pass the little dull red house in which used to live a Catholic family, which, in those old days, before emancipation bills were thought possible, or so much as dreamed of in the wildest fancy, gave an air of mystery to the place. You expected to see stately forms counting beads as they walked about the garden, and cowled monks and friars stealing through the laurestinus, with a whiff of incense coming out of the chimney. Then we get towards a wild and Welshy country, and presently pull up at a corner, where stands a man with a smiling face, and his hand held up, that the coachman may stop in time. "Well, Thomas!" "Well, Sally !" "How be you?" "How be you?" And the owner of the reverie prepares to dis mount. "Thank ye, sir; don't you trouble yourself. I can lean upon this young man, sir.” (Perhaps it is Thomas at Longhope, not Bill at Painswick.) "Well, Sally, you've had a nice day for travelling." "Iss, 'tis. Be you pooty well? You don't look but poorly." (Really, very probably Thomas.) "You havn't nothing but this here box, have you, miss ?" 66 Only that, sir." "Here, just you slip it down a bit, and I'll take it." |