A very stylish gentleman dressed in black came forward in front of everybody else: Chairman of the Company, I heard whispered—whatever that might mean. He shook hands with several of our dressed-up gentlemen, and then one of the latter, a fat man with a wig and white curls, read to the stylish gentleman from a long roll of paper a very long and very dry speech congratulating him on bringing the railway train to Tawborough and describing his person in very flattering terms. The stylish gentleman made a speech (without roll of paper) in response; it was much shorter, but about as dry.
Then some of the dressed-up members of our side came forward in a body and poured out corn and oil and wine, very solemnly. When the wine had been spilled, a solemn man dressed like a high priest (the Provincial Grand Chaplain of the Order of Freemasons, I discover forty years later from the files of a local paper) lifted up his hands and prayed over the Oblation. So people who were not Saints prayed!
The next thing I remember was our dressed-up people and the visitors moving off the platform to form themselves into a procession to march round the town, and all the rest of us repairing to witness it. In the stampede that ensued Aunt Jael tripped over a beam that was lying on the platform, and went flying.
"A jidgment," began Salvation, triumphant at last; when she tripped on the beam and went flying too—which was a "jidgment."
We were only just in time to get a good view of the procession, as it took Aunt Jael and Miss Salvation some time to limp along. All the Mayors and Oddfellows and Corporations and Freemasons were there, carrying symbols and rods and devices; there were soldiers, Mounted Rifles and officers gay with swords; shipwrights in white trousers, and clergymen in black; uninteresting looking people in ordinary clothes who had no more right to be there, I thought, than I had; and at least four bands of music. The glamour of martial music and brilliant costumes raised me to a pitch of ecstasy and envy; from that moment blare and pomp filled a great place in my hankerings and hopes.
After the procession we took a walk round the streets, which were crowded with people from all North Devon. There were flags at nearly every window. A great triumphal arch was erected in the middle of the bridge inscribed "Success to the North Devon Railway." The High Street was one series of festoons, from upper storey windows of one side to upper storey windows of the other. One said "God Save the Queen," another "Prosperity to our Town," and another which puzzled me a good deal, hanging from the windows of what I now know to have been the local newspaper office, declared in huge red bunting capitals
THE PRESS,
THE RAILROAD OF CIVILIZATION.
We got home to dinner tired and excited. Glory and Salvation left to attend a Tea in the North Walk given by the tradespeople to six hundred poor people, amongst whom the Clinkers had hastened to number themselves.
"It may be the Lord's way after all," said Miss Glory. "God moves in a mysterious way."
Aunt Jael and Grandmother had been asked to take tickets (not gratis) to a great banquet in the Corn Market, but whether for economy's or godliness' sake, decided not to go. I gather from the old local paper before me that they did not miss much; for despite the giant "railway cake," a wonderful affair covered with viaducts and trains and bridges all made of icing sugar, and despite the vicar who ably "performed the devotions of the table," the dinner is candidly described as "poor" and the caterer roundly trounced for her failure.