The Sandboys, however, were all too well pleased with their recent good fortune to do other than laugh at the little mishaps of the tea-table; and Mr. Sandboys himself had been so often in hot water of late, that after the first smart of that from the urn, he could afford to chuckle over the accident almost as heartily as his son Jobby, who no sooner saw his father start up, and wildly drag the front of his trousers from his knee, than guessing what had happened, the lad was seized with a comic convulsion while in the act of drinking his fourth cup, and spurted the entire contents of it over the clean cap of Mrs. Coddle as she rushed frantically to the urn to stay the scalding torrent that was pouring from the tap.
When the tea-things had been removed, and the party had settled themselves down for a friendly chat, Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys recounted to the Major all the adventures they had gone through since their departure from Buttermere; and the Major, in his turn, when he had sympathized and laughed with them at their many troubles, ran over the several feats of arms performed by himself and their mutual friend, the Colonel, in India. He told them how they had gouged a diamond worth several lacs of rupees out of the eye of one of the idols they had taken;—and the Sandboys, on the other hand, informed him how they had been defrauded of their season ticket for the Great Exhibition by a scoundrelly Frenchman styling himself the Count de Sangshimmy. And thus they continued, each narrating to the other the several scenes in which they had figured as principal actors, till Mr. Sandboys, in summing up the long list of mishaps he had experienced in his endeavours to get a sight of the contents of the Great Exhibition, was irresistibly led to the conclusion that the whole series of events was the work of a stony-hearted Fate, and that it formed part of the records of Destiny, as kept by the Registrar-General of Calamities-to-come, that neither he nor any member of his family should ever set foot in the interior of the Crystal Palace. He began to regard himself as the hero in some Greek tragedy, which he had a faint remembrance of reading in his college days at St. Bees. Accordingly, he communicated to his dear Aggy the resolution which the recapitulation of his many trials had induced in his mind—namely, that it was sheer pig-headedness on their part to attempt to swim against the current of events, or to play the Canute of 1851, and seek to drive back the tide in their affairs.
Mrs. Sandboys did not require much persuasion to bring her to the same opinion. She was sick and tired of t’wretched place, she said, and would gladly send, “t’first thing” on t’morrow to Mrs. Wewitz for their boxes, so that they might start for Cockermouth by that evening’s train. Major Oldschool did all he could to laugh the Cumberland couple out of their fatalistic fancies, but his gibes and jests were of no avail. Mr. Sandboys assured him he was as immoveable as the Great Pyramid, and that Archimedes himself, even with his huge lever and the required fulcrum, would find that something more than a straw was needed to stir him. And thus the evening passed, the Major striving by every means to induce them to prolong their visit, telling them of the many wonders of the “Great Show”—at one moment describing to them the splendour of the glass fountain—and the next, picturing the beauty of the Veiled Vestal;—now speaking in hyperbolical raptures to Mrs. Sandboys of the magnificence of the silks and velvets from Lyons, and the ribbons from Coventry,—then turning to Elcy, and descanting on the size and value and brilliance of the far-famed Koh-i-noor, and the admired jewels of the Queen of Spain,—and afterwards trying to excite the curiosity of Mr. Sandboys with a glowing detail of the marvels of machinery in motion—the self-acting mules, and the Jacquard lace machinery, and the centrifugal pumps, and the steam printing-press, and the envelope machine—but despite the enthusiasm of his friend, Cursty remained fixed in his determination; and so as not to allow the Major even the chance of shaking it, the resolute Mountaineer took his chamber candlestick, and retired with his family to the apartments that the Major had directed Mrs. Coddle to have prepared for them.
In the morning, Mr. Sandboys, having slept upon his determination of the previous evening, and being several hours nearer to the time which he had fixed for his return to Buttermere, began to think what his neighbours down there would say, when they heard that he and his whole family had been up to London to see the Great Exhibition, and had come away again without ever setting foot in the place. He would be the laughing-stock of the country for miles round; there wouldn’t be a keeping-room far or near but what would have some cock-and-a-bull story or other to tell about them. Besides, why should he deprive the children of the sight? If Fate had decreed he was never to witness it, that was no reason why Elcy and Jobby should be kept away; and after all that dear girl had gone through for him, he was sure she deserved some little return for her goodness. Then again, he knew Jobby, poor boy, was mad to have a peep at the machinery room, which he had heard and read so much about; and it would be something for him to talk about when he got to be an old man, that he had seen the first Exhibition of Industry in this country: besides, the lad was naturally of a mechanical turn of mind; he had spoilt no less than three Dutch clocks out of the kitchen in trying to clean them; and then at making bird-traps and artificial flies for fishing, there wasn’t a boy in the village could come near him. Who could say what effect the Great Exhibition might have on such a mind? And thus Mr. Sandboys continued inwardly framing excuses to himself why they should delay their departure to Buttermere for four-and-twenty hours longer at least.
While the preceding train of thoughts had been passing through the mind of the wavering Cursty, a like chain of reasoning had been going on in Mrs. Sandboys’ brain, unknown to her husband. She, too, had been asking herself “how it would look,” when the neighbours came to know that they had never so much as put their heads inside the doors of the very place they had come hundreds of miles to see; and she, like her lord and master, had been persuading herself, that at least, if she chose to keep away, it was her bounden duty to let the “dear” children see the grand sight.
Neither, however, ventured to give the least hint to the other as to the nature of their morning’s reflections; and it was only when Mr. Sandboys sat in front of the looking-glass, rubbing the lather over his chin previously to shaving, till he looked like a twelfth-cake, that he communicated to his darling Aggy, while she was in the act of hunting after the grey hairs among her front curls, his doubts as to the propriety of their quitting London for Buttermere that evening. After he had exhausted the arguments in favour of the children—to all of which Mrs. Sandboys, as she poked the top part of her head close against the looking-glass over the mantelpiece, the better to find the stray silver threads she was searching for, gave her most cordial assent—the Cumberland gentleman touched upon the point which constituted, as it were, the fulcrum upon which his moral lever turned, and confessed that he did not like to be beaten in the object he had undertaken. If they had tried to gain admittance to the Exhibition only once, he urged, and had been prevented by some unforeseen accident, it would not have mattered so much, and they might have returned then with even a good grace; but now that they had made so many attempts, and failed so repeatedly, they would naturally look ridiculous in every person’s eyes, provided they left London without succeeding in their purpose, after all the pains they had taken, and the sufferings they had endured to accomplish it. Of course, all the neighbours would say, “Well, hang it! I wud ha’seen t’ pleace, if I’d died for it!” and only laugh at them for their weakness.
Aggy, who seemed to have excellent sport that morning, and kept twitching out the grey hairs like a Thames angler does gudgeons, fully concurred with all the sapient Cursty uttered, and expressed her approbation with each fresh jerk, though with greater warmth, perhaps, than she otherwise might have done, owing to the sharp twinge which accompanied the delicate operation in which she was engaged.
But Mr. Christopher Sandboys had yet to tackle the moral part of his subject; and as, in the process of shaving, he laid hold of himself by the nose the better to accomplish the razorial fancy-work round the corners, he frankly acknowledged, that to run away from the metropolis, after what they had experienced, would betray a deficiency of moral courage on their parts, which would be utterly unworthy of the sturdy mountain race to which they belonged. Besides, it was the sure criterion of a weak mind to give way to the force of circumstances; and he asked himself and his wife, what was nobler than to see an honest man driving his head, like a moral battering-ram, against a thick wall of difficulties, and ultimately overthrowing it. Then, as he called to mind the fortitude of the Grecian and Roman heroes of his college days, he added—“Did not moral greatness consist merely in bearing and subduing the misfortunes that beset us, and certainly not in packing up our boxes and running from them by the first express train.” And as Mr. Sandboys delivered himself of this heroic sentiment, he, in the ardour of his enthusiasm, gave his head so self-satisfied a jerk, that, forgetting the perilous act in which he was engaged, he inflicted a gash that put his powers of endurance severely to the test, and immediately dissipated the whole of the stock of courage upon which he was priding himself.
The upshot of the above conjugal consultation was, that there was passed that morning at the breakfast-table a resolution, proposed by Mr. Sandboys, seconded by his darling Aggy, and carried with acclamations by the Major and the entire family, declaring that one more attempt should be made to visit the Great Exhibition, and expressive of the opinion of the meeting, that the sooner such attempt was made the better. Accordingly, it was finally arranged, as the weather at that time looked particularly promising, that the whole family should “slip on their things” immediately after breakfast, and start for the Crystal Palace by the first omnibus.
Again the Sandboys were, one and all, in high glee at the prospect of witnessing the “World’s Show” at last, and Elcy and Jobby immediately lost their appetite in expectation of the coming treat.