INN-YARDS.
For the Table Book.
It was a November morning—sullen and lowering. A dense fog left the houses but half distinguishable on either side the way, as I passed through Holborn to the Saracen’s Head, Snow-hill, where I had taken my place the preceding evening in the —— coach, in order to pay a long-promised visit to my friend and schoolfellow T——. My feelings were any thing but enviable. They were in a state of seasonable and almost intolerable irritation, resulting from all successive evils of a shivering and early resignation of enveloping bed-clothes, a hurried dressing, (productive of an utter failure in the arrangement of the bow of my neckcloth,) a trembling hand that caused a gash in my chin with a blunt razor, (all my others had been officiously packed up by Mrs. Sally,) a breakfast swallowed standing, (which I abominate, as it stands to reason it must be unwholesome,) tea that seemed “as if it never would grow cool,” though poured out in the saucer, and sundry admonitory twitchings of the bit of court-plaster on my sliced chin, threatening the total discomfiture of my habilimentary economy. All these things tended but little towards rendering my frame of mind peculiarly equable, while hurrying forward towards the point of destination, gulping down fresh (no not fresh) mouthfuls of the thick yellow atmosphere, at each extorted exclamation of disgust and impatience.
At last I arrived in the inn-yard, fully prepared for an expected look of surprise, and accompanying exclamation of—“The —— coach, sir! why, Lord bless you, sir, it’s off long ago; it leaves here at seven precisely, and it’s now nearly half past.” Conceive then what was my agreeable astonishment when I learned that the real time was only half past six! I found that, owing to my anxious fears lest I should be too late, I had neglected to perceive that my watch had gained half an hour in the course of the night; and the shame I now felt at having thus suffered my irritability to get the better of me, led me to reflect upon the patient gentleness of the mild and amiable Fanny, (my friend’s wife,) who is indeed a perfect specimen of a delightful woman. In her are joined those two qualities so rarely united (yet, which, when they are so, form a gem)—a truly feminine and gentle heart, and a strong and well-informed mind. It is truly delightful to see her blend the domestic duties of a housewife, (the fulfilment of which is ever graceful in a female,) and the affectionate attentions of a mother and wife, with literary information and attainments.
I was called off from this pleasing subject of reflection by a view of the scene before me. The coach, a handsome, well-built vehicle, stood on one side of the yard in all the brilliancy of a highly-varnished claret ground, and burnishe The four beautiful, spirited animals belonging to it, with their glossy bright skins covered with cloths till the moment of “putting to,” were then led forth by a fellow in corduroy breeches, laying in massive rolls on his large muscular limbs, and terminating in a pair of dull and never-shining top-boots—a waistcoat which had been of red plush, spotted with black; but the glories of its gules and sable were well nigh effaced by the long line of successive cross-quarterings of grease and mud—a face hard and liny, that looked impenetrable, and certainly conveyed no idea to my mind of a “Robin Ostler,” who “never joy’d since the price of oats rose,” much less could it have ever been “the death of him.” He came forward with that slouching gait and hoarse rasping voice, so well personified by the admirable and all-observing Matthews.
Then the coachman appeared—well buttoned up to the throat in an enormous box-coat of a whitish drab colour, fastened with immense mother-o’-pearl buttons—a yellow silk handkerchief round his neck, reaching just under the nether lip, and covering the tips of his ears—a hat with brims, like the walls of Babylon—and an air of affected nonchalance, which tells you, that you are expected to look upon him in a very different light from the attentive “coachee” of some few years back. He is now a complete fine gentleman; for as the gentleman affects the coachman, why should not the coachman affect the gentleman? They are now not to be known apart.
The “luggage” is then brought forth and “loaded”—and all the passengers installed in their different places. The last directions are given. “More last words,” and a paper of biscuits is handed in at the coach-window to the little boy who is going to ——, under the special care of the coachman, and, as his mamma delightedly observes, is already become a favourite with the “kind-looking lady” opposite to him. The small parcel “to be left at Mr. K——’s at the small white cottage” is snugly slipt into the coach-pocket—and the final “all right” is given from the impatient passengers “behind.” How different is the quiet and orderly manner in which a vehicle is thus despatched to go hundreds of miles, from the dire bustle and utter “confusion of tongues” attendant upon the departure of a French diligence.——
Imagine a spacious yard, paved with stones shaped like enormous “sugared almonds,” jutting out in all directions to the utter annoyance of the five poor animals, or rather skeletons, in rope harness, which are about to be yoked to an uncouth machine, looking the complete antipodes of rapidity of motion—of a colour perfectly indescribable, but something approaching to a dingy red, intermixed with a rusty, dusty black—straw peeping out in every direction; whether from roof, or sides, or entangled among the broken, rickety steps, which project in awful forewarning of grazed shins and sprained ancles. The Conducteur in his dark blue jacket turned up with scarlet—leather breeches shining with the perpetual friction of the saddle—boots, like brewing vats—a hat, very nearly a “perfect cone,” with a rim, set in the middle of a regular copse-wood of coal black hair, surmounting a face whose dark complexion, fiercely sparkling eyes, and stiff mustachios, help to give force to the excessive tension of muscle in his countenance, which is actually convulsed with ire, as he sends forth volleys of sacrés and morbleus at the maudit entêté on the roof, who persists in loading the different articles in exact opposition to all the passionate remonstrances and directions of poor Monsieur le Conducteur. Femmes de chambres shrieking at the very top of their voices—“Garçons of fifty” equally vociferous in bawling “On vient! on vient!” though no one calls—Commissionaires insisting upon the necessity of passports to incredulous Englishmen, with an incessant “Mais que diable donc, Monsieur!”—Hordes of beggars shouting forth their humble petitions of “Pour l’amour du bon Dieu un petit liard, Monsieur.” “Ah! Seigneur, qu’est-ce que j’ai fait de mes clefs!” screams the landlady. “Sacré nom de tonnerre! tais-toi, donc,” growls the landlord, in a voice like the thunder he invokes.
At last the ponderous vehicle is set in motion amid the deafening clamour of the surrounding group, and the hideous, unrelentingly, eternal cracking of the Conducteur’s detested fouet!
M. H.
For the Table Book.