A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the honour of jining, but also of lengthening it out.
"Where there were," Our Missis added, "not only eatable things to eat, but also drinkable things to drink?"
A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, trembling with indignation, called out: "Name!"
"I _will_ name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls, hot and cold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was hot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was-mark me!-_fresh_ pastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of fruit. There was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every size and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply to brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help themselves."
Our Missis"s lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them.
"This," proceeds Our Missis, "was my first unconst.i.tutional experience.
Well would it have been, if it had been my last and worst. But no. As I proceeded further into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not explain to this a.s.sembly, the ingredients and formation of the British Refreshment sangwich?"
Universal laughter-except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the wall.
"Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh crisp long crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flower. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision."
A cry of "Shame!" from all-except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach with a soothing hand.
"I need not," said Our Missis, "explain to this a.s.sembly, the usual formation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room?"
No, no, and laughter. Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin the wall.
"Well," said Our Missis, "what would you say to a general decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public and making the Beast thinking itself worth the pains?"
Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody else looking as if they"d rayther not.
"Three times," said our Missis, working herself into a truly terrimenjious state, "three times did I see these shamful things, only between the coast and Paris, and not counting either: at Hazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, what would you call a person who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an a.s.sorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each within a pa.s.senger"s power to take away, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred miles further on?"
There was disagreement what such a person should be called. Whether revolutionist, atheist, Bright (_I_ said him), or Un-English. Miss Piff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: "A malignant maniac!"
"I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set upon such a person by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff. A malignant maniac. Know then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of France, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this same part of my journey."
I noticed that Sniff was a rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff had got her eye upon him. But I did not take more particular notice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl.
"On my experience south of Paris," said Our Missis, in a deep tone, "I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But fancy this. Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward, the number of diners. Fancy every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party.
Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned for the honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap. Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be done for it!"
A spirited chorus of "The Beast!"
I noticed that Sniff was agin a rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn"t take particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimilate public feeling. It being a lark besides.
"Putting everything together," said Our Missis, "French Refreshmenting comes to this, and O it comes to a nice total! First: eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink."
A groan from the young ladies, kep" up by me.
"Second: convenience, and even elegance."
Another groan from the young ladies, kep" up by me.
"Third: moderate charges."
This time, a groan from me, kep" up by the young ladies.
"Fourth:-and here," says Our Missis, "I claim your angriest sympathy-attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!"
Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together.
"And I cannot in conclusion," says Our Missis, with her spitefullest sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what I have related), than a.s.suring you that they wouldn"t bear our const.i.tutional ways and n.o.ble independence at Mugby Junction, for a single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put another system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice."
The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head.
It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep" her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. Our Missis followed them both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.
You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, making believe you don"t know me, and I"ll pint you out with my right thumb over my shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff; and which is Miss Piff; and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won"t get a chance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces, I cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the servility of his disposition.
NO. 1 BRANCH LINE THE SIGNAL-MAN
"Halloa! Below there!"
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but, instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said, for my life, what. But, I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.
"Halloa! Below!"
From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.
"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?"
He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a repet.i.tion of my idle question. Just then, there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When such vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train, had pa.s.sed me and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again and saw him re-furling the flag he had shown while the train went by.
I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zig-zag descending path notched out: which I followed.
The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone that became oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.
When I came down low enough upon the zig-zag descent, to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately pa.s.sed, in an att.i.tude as if he were waiting for me to appear.
He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand crossed over his breast. His att.i.tude was one of such expectation and watchfulness, that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.
I resumed my downward way, and, stepping out upon the level of the railroad and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way, only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction, terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose ma.s.sive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.
Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and lifted his hand.
This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the terms I used, for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man that daunted me.
He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel"s mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me.
That light was part of his charge? Was it not?