“Stay a minute, cabby;”—to the servant—“Annette, put any letters which may come on my desk; if anybody calls, say I shall be here to-morrow or next day at the latest.”
“Very well, sir, I will do so.”
On my arrival at the station, I merely had time to take my ticket and run to the train, which was just on the move. In a few seconds we were flying over rows of houses like vampires, leaving the then desolate Royal property, Vauxhall tumble-down theatre, with its skeleton firework frame, on the left. We passed through Chiswick, Barnes, Mortlake, Kew, with its toyish pagoda, leaving to the left Richmond, with its picturesque banks, cheerful villas, heroine of the hill, and its exquisite maids of honour; at the same time crossing the Thames, cheerfully smiling beneath us in its serpentine bed. Its limpid currents flowed merrily downwards to the mighty ocean through green bushes, aquatic plants, and the alabaster-coloured plumage of hundreds of swans. In twenty-five minutes we arrived at Staines station. I descended and immediately ascended again, but on the top of the Virginia Water coach, which generally waits for the special train. “Very frosty this morning, coachman.”
“Hallo, Mr. Soyer! is that you? We have not seen you God knows how long. I suppose you have left us for good now?”
“No, not quite; but your flat and unpicturesque country looks so dull and unsociable at this time of year.”
“Then you prefer town just now?” said he.
“I certainly do; there is always something to be seen there, and to keep one alive, morning, noon, and night.”
“Very true, Mr. Soyer; we are very dull here in winter.” The top of the coach was loaded with passengers. “Well, boy, what are you about below?”
“All right, coachman,” cried the parcel-boy. “Pst! pst! Go it, my Britons!”
We were now at full trot, the north wind in our faces, and a kind of heavy sleet, which in a few minutes changed the colour of our noses to a deep crimson, very much like the unfashionable colour of beet-root, freezing our whiskers and moustaches like sugar-candy, but by no means quite so sweet-tasted. By way of a joke, I said to the coachman, “This is the good old English way of travelling, is it not?”