Delaware; or, The Ruined Family. Vol. 1

by G. P. R. James

"Hell is a city very much like London!"

The valetudinarian, too, who wakes with nervous punctuality to swallow down the morning draught, prescribed by courtly Henry's bitter-covering skill, may curse the cats that, perched upon the tiles, salute their lady-loves with most discordant cries, and keep him from repose; and, with all the virulence of Despréaux, may exclaim upon the many hateful sounds of a town morning. But besides all these, there are sometimes persons, who, rising five hours before their usual time, come forth in all the freshness of the early day, stimulated by the vast effort that roused them from their beds, proud of a successful endeavour to get up, and excited by the novelty of the circumstance and the scene, and who rush on, admiring all the beauties as they go to take their places in the gay stage-coach.

Fully double the extent of ancient Athens in its days of greatest splendour--at least if the calculation of Aristides be correct--London lies in circuit more than one day's journey, and many a day's journey may be taken in the interior without ever threading the same streets. It would not matter much, therefore, in what corner of the town was placed the coach-office, whence, at an early hour of every lawful day, set forth a smart-looking vehicle, drawn by four fiery bays, for a distant town in ----shire; but nevertheless, as it may be a satisfaction to the reader's mind, it is but fair to state, that the aforesaid four-inside light coach took its departure daily from that wild scene of bustle and confusion, which, within the last century or two, has usurped the site of what a modern writer of ancient romance, terms "the sweet little village of Charing," and which is now popularly called the Golden Cross, Charing Cross.

As the things that were, are now no more, and even three short years have made sad havoc amidst the brick antiquities of dear Pall Mall, it may not be amiss more particularly to commemorate the appearance--at the time our tale commences--of that agglomeration of street corners, Charing Cross, from which--on account I suppose of its beautiful vagueness--all rogues and insolvent debtors were wont to date their letters. But this commemoration had best be given in describing the effect of the whole upon a young and unsophisticated mind.

From a place that they call a hotel, in Piccadilly--Think of a man taking up his abode at a hotel in Piccadilly!--but he knew no better--From a hotel, in Piccadilly, at about half-past five o'clock on the morning of the last day of August, one thousand eight hundred and something, set out a hackney coach, containing within its sphere of rotten wood and rusty leather a small portmanteau on the front seat, and the portmanteau's master on the other. He was a well-made youth, of about five-and-twenty years of age, with firm, graceful, and yet powerful limbs, and a fresh clear complexion--not villainous red and white, but one general tone of florid health. His eye was blue and bright, and the clustering curls of fair hair--as pure Saxon as Sharon Turner's last new book--might have looked somewhat girlish, had it not been for the manly features and the free dauntless look that they overshadowed. At the same time, be it remarked, that there was something of melancholy, if not of gloom, in his aspect; but that did not prevent him--after the chambermaid had been satisfied, and the waiter had been paid, and boots had had his fees, and the porter had claimed more than his due; and, in short, all the exactions of an inn had been played off upon him in succession--that did not prevent him, when fairly rolling away towards the top of the Haymarket, from gazing out upon the scene around him with a sufficient degree of open-eyed curiosity to make the waterman stick his tongue into his cheek, and mentally denominate him "a raw."

It may be necessary to inform the unlearned reader, that the sun rises, in the end of August, a few minutes after five in the morning, and at the time I speak of the great luminary was pouring a flood of radiance through the loaded air of the vast city, filling the long empty perspective of the streets with the golden mistiness of the morning light. Closed within the dull boards which defend the precious wares of many a careful tradesman from the cosmopolite fingers of the liberal Many, the shops exhibited nothing but the names and occupations of their various owners; but the wide streets, with all their irregular buildings, in the broad light and shade, were not without beauty of their own peculiar kind, distinct from all the mighty associations connected with their existence.

The coach rolled at the statute pace along Piccadilly, unobstructed by any thing, and, indeed, unencountered by any thing but two slow market carts, wending heavily towards Covent Garden, and another fac-simile of itself just overcoming--in order to take up some other early passenger--the vis inertiæ which had held it on the straw-littered stand for the last hour. In the Haymarket, however, the progression was more difficult; for there, already had congregated many a loaded cart, the drivers of which, as usual, had, with skilful zeal, contrived to place them as a regular fortification, obstructing every step of the way. Gin and purl, too, were reeking up to the sky from the various temples of the rosy god that line the west side of the street; and amidst the bargainings of some early dealers, and the pœans of the gin-drinkers, no one attended to the objurgations of the embarrassed coachman. Nevertheless, all these difficulties were at length removed by one means or another; and Cockspur Street opened wide before the traveller, exposing at the end, black with the smoke of fires innumerable, the famous Statue and the girthless horse. On one side, wide and open, lay Whitehall, with all those offices whence many a time has issued the destiny of the world; on the other hand, dark and dingy, wound away the Strand, with the house of the Percys maintaining still the last aspect of a feudal dwelling to be found in London. The King's Mews, on which a violating hand had hardly yet been laid, occupied all the space to the left; and the flaming ensign of the Golden Cross, stuck up in front of a tall narrow-fronted house, told that the place of many coaches was before the traveller's eyes.

He found, on alighting, that he had arrived at least ten minutes before the time; and after having been cheated, as usual, by the hackney coachman, and gazed about the dull desolate yard, shut in by the high houses round, in the far shadows of which stood two or three red, blue, and yellow vehicles, all unpacked and unhorsed, he once more sauntered out through the low-browed arch which gave admission to the court, and amused himself with the wider scene exhibited by the street.

At that hour, one-half of Murillo's pictures find living representatives in the streets of London; and when the young traveller had moralized for a minute or two on some groups of beggar-boys playing round the Statue--had marked the sage and solemn pace with which an elderly waterman brought forth his breakfast to a coachman on the stand--and had listened to the Solon-like sayings of each upon the weather and the state of the nation--he was looking back to see whether the coming of the coach was hopeless, when the rushing noise of rapid wheels caught his ear, and he turned his eyes in the direction of the sound.

If people would but remark, they would find that they have presentiments of little events a thousand times more often than they have presentiments of great ones; and the feeling of the gallant Nelson was not more strong, that the sun of Trafalgar was the last that was destined to shine upon his glory, than was at that moment the conviction of the young traveller that those rolling wheels were about to bring him a companion for the stage-coach. Nor, let me tell you, gentle reader, is it a matter of small importance who is to be brought in such close contact with one for the next ten hours. What is life but a chain of those brief portions of eternity which man calls hours, so inseparably linked together that the first and the last, and every link throughout the series, have a mutual dependence and connexion with each other! Oh, let no one despise an hour! It is fully enough to change dynasties and overthrow empires--to make or mar a fortune--to win high renown or stain a noble name--to end our being or to fix our destiny here and hereafter, in time and through eternity. So awful a thing is one hour--ay, one moment of active being!