time without turning his head. one way or the other, except now and then to peer into the deserted stable, or to glance mournfully at the whip he held in his hand: at last the sound of the arrival of a train struck upon his ear!
He drew himself up to his full height, slowly and solemnly shook his clenched fist in the direction of the sound and looked—Oh that look! it spoke annihilation to the mightiest engine upon the rail, it scoffed at steam, and flashed furious derision at the largest terminus that ever was erected; it was an awfully comprehensive look—the concentrated essence of the fierce and deadly enmity of all the stage coachmen in England to steam conveyance.
To my utter astonishment, not, it must be owned, unmixed with fear, he suddenly turned his eyes towards my place of shelter, and walked up to me.
“That’s the rail,” said he, between his set teeth.
“It is,” said I, considerably embarrassed.
“Damn it!” returned the excited Stage Coachman. There was something inexpressibly awful about this execration; and I confess I felt a strong internal conviction that the next day’s paper would teem with horrible railway accidents in every column.
“I did my utmost to hoppose ’em,” said the Stage Coachman, in softened accents. “I wos the last that guv’ in, I kep’ a losing day after day, and yet I worked on; I wos determined to do my dooty, and I drove a coach the last day with an old hooman and a carpet bag inside and three little boys and seven whopping empty portmanteaus outside. I wos determined my last kick to have some passengers to show to the rail, so I took my wife and children ’cos nobody else would’nt go, and then we guv’ in. Hows’ever the last time as I wos on the road I did’nt go and show ’em an empty coach—we wasn’t full, but we wasn’t empty; we wos game to the last!”
A grim smile of triumph lit up the features of the deposed Coachman as he gave vent to this assertion. he took hold of me by the button-hole, and led the way into the house.
“This landlord wos an austerious sort of a man,” said he; “he used to hobserve, that he only wished a Railway Committee would dine at his house, he’d pison ’em all, and emigrate; and he’d ha’ done it, too!”
I did not venture to doubt this, so the stage coachman continued.
“I’ve smoked my pipe by the hour together in that fire-place, I’ve read ‘The Times’ adwertisements and Perlice Reports in that box till I fell asleep; I’ve walked up and down this here room a saying all sorts of things about the rail, and a busting for happiness. Outside this wery door I’ve bin a drownded in thankys from ladies for never lettin’ nobody step through their band-boxes. The chambermaids used to smile, and the dogs used to bark, wherever I came.—But it’s all hover now—the poor feller as kep’ this place takes tickets at a Station, and the chambermaids makes scalding hot tea behind a mahuggany counter for people as has no time to drink it in!”
As the Stage Coachman uttered these words, a contemptuous sneer puckered his sallow cheek, he led me back into the yard; the ruined appearance of which, looked doubly mournful, under the faint rays of moonlight that every here and there stole through the dilapidated walls of the stable. An owl had taken up his abode, where the chief oastler’s bedroom had once rejoiced in the grotesque majesty of huge portraits of every winner of every “Derby,” since the first days of Epsom. The bird of night flew heavily off at our approach, and my companion pointed gloomily up to the fragments of mouldy, worm-eaten wood, the last relics of the stable loft.
“He wos a great friend of mine, was that h’ostler,” said the Coachman, “but he’s left this railway-bothered world—he was finished by the train.”
At my earnest entreaty to hear further, he continued,
“When this h’old place, wos guv ’up and ruinated; the h’oastler as ’ud never look at the rail before, went down to have a sight of it, and as he wos a leaning his elbows on the wall, and a wishing as how he had the stabling of all the steam h’ingines (he’d ha’ done ’em justice!) wot should he see, but one of his osses as wos thrown out of employ by the rail, a walking along jist where the train was coming. Bill jumped down, and as he wos a leading of him h’off, up comes the train, and went over his leg and cut the ’os in two—‘Tom,’ says he to me when we picked him up; ‘I’m a going eleven mile an hour, to the last stage as is left for me to do. I’ve always done my dooty with the osses; I’ve bin and done it now—bury that ere poor os and me out of the noise of the rail.’ We got the surgeons to him, but he never spoke no more, Poor Bill! Poor Bill!”
This last recollection seemed too much for the Stage Coachman, he wrung my hand, and walked abruptly to the furthest corner of the yard.
I took care not to interrupt him, and watched him carefully from a distance.
At first, the one expression of his countenance was melancholy; but by degrees, other thoughts came crowding from his mind, and mantled on his woe-begone visage. Poor fellow, I could see that he was again in imagination the beloved of the ladies and the adored of the chambermaids: a faint reflection of the affable, yet majestic demeanour, required by his calling, flitted occasionally over his pinched, attenuated features: and brightened the cold, melancholy expression of his countenance.
THE TWIN SISTERS (1851)
A True Story
Originally published Bentley’s Miscellany
*
Among those who attended the first of the King’s levées, during the London season of 18—, was an unmarried gentleman of large fortune, named Streatfield. While his carriage was proceeding slowly down St. James’s Street, he naturally sought such amusement and occupation as he could find in looking on the brilliant scene around him. The day was unusually fine; crowds of spectators thronged the street and the balconies of the houses on either side of it, all gazing at the different equipages with as eager a curiosity and interest, as if fine vehicles and fine people inside them were the rarest objects of contemplation in the whole metropolis. Proceeding at a slower and slower pace, Mr Streatfield’s carriage had just arrived at the middle of the street, when a longer stoppage than usual occurred. He looked carelessly up at the nearest balcony; and there, among some eight or ten ladies, all strangers to him, he saw one face that riveted his attention immediately.
He had never beheld anything so beautiful, anything which struck him with such strange, mingled, and sudden sensations, as this face. He gazed and gazed on it, hardly knowing where he was, or what he was doing, until the line of vehicles began again to move on. Then—after first ascertaining the number of the house—he flung himself back in the carriage, and tried to examine his feelings, to reason himself into self-possession; but it was all in vain. He was seized with that amiable form of social monomania, called “love at first sight.”
He entered the palace, greeted his friends, and performed all the necessary Court ceremonies, feeling the whole time like a man in a trance. He spoke mechanically, and moved mechanically—the lovely face in the balcony occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. On his return home, he had engagements for the afternoon and evening—he forgot and broke them all; and walked back to St. James’s Street as soon as he had changed his dress.
The balcony was empty; the sight-seers who had filled it but a few hours before, had departed—but obstacles of all sorts now tended only to stimulate Mr Streatfield; he was determined to ascertain the parentage of the young lady, determined to look on the lovely face again—the thermometer of his heart had risen already to Fever Heat! Without loss of time, the shopkeeper to whom the house belonged was bribed to loquacity by a purchase. All that he could tell, in answer
