With a further view to effecting that financial reform which is so popular at the present moment, the coal bills of the company recently underwent a minute scrutiny, and the important discovery made—after working several very difficult sums—that the heavy amount of eighteen shillings and a fraction weekly could be saved by using coals instead of coke; whereupon a resolution was immediately passed by the frugal directors, declaring that nothing but the “best Lord Mayor’s” should thenceforth be put into the company’s fires. The result of this wise economy has been, that the engines on this line are perpetually smoking in the faces of the passengers, and pouring forth so lavish a volcanic eruption of “blacks,” that by the time the ladies and gentlemen reach the end of their journey, they are generally as dark-complexioned as if they had been unconsciously working or reading by the light of the very best—patent—warranted infumible—camphine lamps.
At Workington, the Sandboys, who, on their arrival, much to the horror of the cleanly Mrs. S., might have been taken for a family of Ethiopian serenaders, having bleached themselves as well as possible with their pocket handkerchiefs—Mrs. Sandboys standing on tiptoe the while to wipe the nasty, filthy blacks from out the wrinkles and dimples of her dear Cursty’s face—proceeded to make the necessary inquiries touching the continuation of their journey to London.
At the station, all was confusion and bustle, and noise and scrambling, and bewilderment. Porters in green velveteen jackets, with the shoulders worn white with repeated loads, were hurrying to and fro—some with carpet-bags in their hands—others with boxes on small-wheeled trucks, rattling over the flooring through the office. Impatient groups were gathered close round the pay-clerk—steam-engines, eager to start, were fizzing violently, as if a thousand knives were being ground at once—and large bells were ringing quickly to announce the arrival of some train which presently came bumping heavily alongside the station. Mrs. Sandboys had pursued some porter who, much to her astonishment and indignation, had, without a word, walked away with the united luggage of the family, immediately on its being deposited outside the station door; while Mr. Sandboys himself had gone to learn how he and his party were to proceed.
“Where are you going to?” rapidly inquired the good-tempered and bustling station-master, as he squinted at the clock.
“T’ Bull and Mouth, Holborn Hill, London,” answered Mr. Cursty Sandboys, giving the whole address of his proposed resting-place in the metropolis.
“Don’t know any Bull and Mouth at Holborn Hill,” replied the busy official, who, called off by the guard, had not caught the last word of Mr. Sandboys’ answer.
“Dustea say tha dunnet ken t’ Bull an’ Mouth,” exclaimed the anxious Cursty, lifting up his bushy eyebrows with evident astonishment. “I thowt aw t’ warl was kenning t’ Bull an’ Mouth, Holborn Hill.”
Mr. Sandboys having, during his first and only visit to London (whither he had been summoned on a trial concerning the soundness of some cattle that he had sold to one of the dealers who yearly visited Buttermere), resided with the rest of the witnesses for some ten days at the Bull and Mouth Inn, and knowing that it was a place of considerable reputation, could not help expressing his surprise that a person filling a situation which brought him into almost daily communication with the metropolis, should be unacquainted with one of the most celebrated of its public inns.
The Workington station-master, however, unfortunately for Mr. Sandboys, referred to a different quarter of the world. The Holborn Hill he spoke of, as possessing no Bull and Mouth, was not the well-known metropolitan acclivity, so trying to the knees of cab and omnibus-horses, where coal waggons and railway vans are continually “sticking” half-way—where “bachelors’ kettles” are perpetually being boiled in less than five minutes, and where sheets of gutta percha, like hardbake, and tubing of the same material, like rolls of German sausages, for ever meet the eye. No; the Holborn Hill which the Workington official alluded to was an obscure point of land situate at the extremity of the county of Cumberland, on the banks of the Duddon, and with not even so much as a village nearer than half-a-dozen miles. Well therefore might the station-master, thinking only of that Holborn Hill to which the Workington trains daily travelled, make answer to the poor unsophisticated Mr. Sandboys, that he had never heard of any Bull and Mouth in that quarter.
“But if you’re going to Holborn Hill, sir,” he added, squinting at the clock, “you’d better be quick, for in another moment the train will be off.”