We took our meals now in our own parlor, trying the solitary confinement system of the English during our two days' stay. It seemed a month. Not a sign of life was there, save the landlady's pleasant face behind the bar and the waiter who answered our bell, with the exception of a pair of mammoth shoes before the next door, mornings, and the bearded face of a man that startled us, once, upon the stairs. And yet the house was full. It was a relief when our two days of banishment Mere over, when in Mrs. B.'s pretty drawing-room, and around her table, we could again meet friends, and realize that we were still in the world.
CHAPTER III.
EXCURSIONS FROM LONDON.
Strange ways.—"The bears that went over to Charlestown."—The delights of a runaway without its dangers.—Flower show at the Crystal Palace.—Whit-Monday at Hampton Court.—A queen baby.—"But the carpets?"—Poor Nell Gwynne.—Vandyck faces.—Royal beds.—Lunch at the King's Arms.—O Music, how many murders have been committed in thy name!—Queen Victoria's home at Windsor.—A new "house that Jack built."—The Round Tower.—Stoke Pogis.—Frogmore.—The Knights of the Garter.—The queen's gallery.—The queen's plate.—The royal mews.—The wicker baby-wagons.—The state equipages.
WE bought an umbrella,—every one buys an umbrella who goes to London,—and this, in its alpaca glory, became our constant companion. We purchased a guide-book to complete our equipments; but so disreputable, so yellow-covered, was its outward appearance, so suggestive of everything but facts, that we consigned it to oblivion, and put ourselves under the guidance of our Boston friends, the Good Man and his family.
For two busy weeks we rattled over the flat pavings of the city in the low, one-horse cabs. We climbed towers, we descended into crypts, we examined tombstones, we gazed upon mummies. Everything was new, strange, and wonderful, even to the little boys in the street, who, as well as the omnibus drivers, were decked out in tall silk hats—a piece of absurdity in one case, and extravagance in the other, to our minds. The one-horse carriages rolled about upon two wheels; the occupants, like cross children, facing in every direction but the one they were going, and everybody, contrary to all our preconceived ideas of law and order, turned to the left, instead of to the right,—to say nothing of other strange and perplexing ways that came under our observation. We had come abroad upon the same errand as the bears who "went over to Charlestown to see what they could see," and so stared into every window, into every passing face, as though we were seeking the lost. We became known as the women who wanted a cab; our appearance within the iron posts that guard the entrance to Queen's Square from Southampton Row being the signal for a perfect Babel of unintelligible shouts and gesticulations down the long line of waiting vehicles, with the charging down upon us of the first half dozen in a highly dangerous manner. Wisdom is sometimes the growth of days; and we soon learned to dart out in an unexpected moment, utterly deaf and blind to everything and everybody but the first man and the first horse, and thus to go off in triumph.
But if our exit was triumphant, what was our entry to the square, when weary, faint with seeing, hearing, and trying in vain to fix everything seen and heard in our minds, we returned in a hansom! English ladies do not much affect this mode of conveyance, but American women abroad have, or take, a wide margin in matters of mere conventionality,—and so ride in hansom cabs at will. They are grown-up baby perambulators upon two wheels; the driver sitting up behind, where the handle would be, and drawing the reins of interminable length over the top of the vehicle. Picture it in your mind, and then wonder, as I did, what power of attraction keeps the horse upon the ground; what prevents his flying into the air when the driver settles down into his seat. A pair of low, folding doors take the place of a lap robe; you dash through the street at an alarming rate without any visible guide, experiencing all the delights of a runaway without any of its dangers.
FLOWER SHOW AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.