“Ho, ho, ho, the-at be a good un,” laughed the old man from his vantage-ground on the opposite platform. “I thinks I say un neow, an’ you a-talkin’ ’bout I!”
However, as I stamped my foot and repeated my order in a tone of command, he, evidently much surprised and obeying from the force of habit in one accustomed to yield to others, crossed over the line, the broad country yokel grin with which he had received my first reply, giving place to a surly look.
“Y’er a foine young bantam,” he muttered grumblingly in his wheezy cracked voice, as he stooped to raise my precious box, “but I specs, young maister, yer’ll soon ha’ yer comb cut, sure-ly!”
I said nothing further to this sally, my anger having by this time evaporated; and the old man, poising the light load easily on one shoulder, walked leisurely out of the station without uttering another word, I following him also in silence.
Proceeding along a straggling street, which was more like a country lane than anything else, with a few shops scattered about here and there at intervals, for more than half a mile or more—he in front with my box, I closely stepping in the rear—after turning sharp round to the right and then to the left, past a little corner building which seemed to be a wayside inn, but was triumphantly lettered “hotel” along the top of its gable end, we at length debouched on to a solitary-looking semi-deserted row of red-brick houses that occupied one side of a wild-looking, furze-grown common, which I could perceive faced the sea; the sound of the low murmurs of the waves on the beach alone breaking the stillness of the desolate scene.
This terrace apparently consisted entirely of lodging houses, and it being the month of November, and the “season” of the little watering-place having closed, bills with “Apartments to Let” were exposed in the windows of almost all; almost, but not quite all, for my crack-voiced friend when he arrived about the middle of the row stopped in front of one of the most unprepossessing habitations of the lot, without any notice displayed like the others. Here, putting down my box on the steps, he rang a side-bell that gave out a melancholy clang for a moment, and caused quite a bustle of excitement in the two adjacent houses, heads being popped out to see who the unexpected new-comers might be.
“Here be un,” said the old porter, taking off his leathern cap, and wiping his forehead with what looked like a tattered “Danger” flag that had been used up on the line and discarded from further service.
“Oh!” I ejaculated, having nothing further to say, for, on seeing the grand establishment I had anticipated dwarfed to such very humble proportions, I felt terribly small and contemptible in my own sight. The dignity that I had so recently aired at the old man’s expense shrank into nothingness, and I was quite relieved that he did not take advantage of the opportunity to “put me down a peg or two.”
As a sort of sop to Cerberus, and in order to try and maintain my position of independence a few moments longer, I drew out the odd sixpence which Uncle George had put into my hand along with the two shillings of my tip, giving it to the old porter with the air of one with whom such trifling coins were as plentiful as blackberries!
“Take that, my good man,” said I, “for your trouble in showing me the way.”