“Hatton!” shouts the familiar voice of Bram Stoker, through the darkness.
“Here we are!” is the prompt reply.
A stalwart figure pushes through the snow, and the next moment my wife is under the protection of a new guide. We feel our way along mazy passages,—now upwards, now downwards,—that might be mysterious corridors leading to “dungeons beneath the castle moat,” the darkness made visible by primitive lamps. Presently we are on the floating raft, and thence we mount the steps of a railway car.
What a change of scene it is!—from Arctic cold to summer heat; from snow and rough ways to a dainty parlor, with velvet-pile carpets, easy-chairs, and duplex lamps; and from the Danites to Irving, Abbey, Loveday, and Miss Terry. They welcome us cheerily and with Christmas greetings.
“Oh, don’t mind the snow; shake it off,—it will not hurt us! Come, let me help you. Of course, you all wear snow-boots,—Arctic rubbers, eh? That’s right; off with them first!” And before we have done shaking hands she is disrobing the girls, and helping them off with their wraps and shoes,—this heroine of the romantic and classic drama, this favorite of English play-goers, who is now conquering the New World as surely as she has conquered the Old.
Every one in the theatrical profession knows how kindly and natural and human, as a rule, are, and have ever been, the great women of the English stage. But the outside public has sometimes strange opinions concerning the people of this other side of the curtain, this world of art. Some of them would be surprised if they could see Ellen Terry attending upon my three fellow-travellers; giving them refreshment, and, later on, helping to put them to bed. They would be interested, also, to have seen her dispensing tea to the members of the company, or sitting chatting in their midst about the journey and its incidents. Just as womanly and tender as is her Desdemona, her Portia, her Ophelia; so is she off the stage,—full of sympathy, touched to the quick by a tale of sorrow, excited to the utmost by a heroic story. Hers is the true artistic temperament. She treads the path of the highest comedy as easily and with the same natural grace, as she manifests in helping these girls of mine, from New York, to remove their snowy clothes, and as naturally as she sails through these very practical American cars to make tea for her brother and sister players, who love her, and are proud of her art.
III.
Having spent an hour in vainly trying to couple Irving’s private car with another in the centre of the train, the guard decides to attach it to the last one. In this position, which eventually proved an interesting one, we trundle along through Jersey City, past rows of shops and stores, on a level with the sidewalks, the snow falling all the time. Here and there electric arcs are shedding weird illuminations upon the unfamiliar scenes. By the lights in many of the houses we can see that the window-panes are coated with a thick frost. Now and then we stop without any apparent warning, certainly without any explanation. During one of these intervals we take supper, those of us who have not retired to seek such repose as may be found in a railroad sleeping-car,—an institution which some American travellers prefer to a regular bedroom. Irving, Abbey, Stoker, Loveday, and myself, we sit down to a very excellent supper,—oyster-pie, cold beef, jelly, eggs, coffee, cigars.
“It is too late to tell you of our adventures prior to your coming upon the train,” says Irving. “We will have a long chat to-morrow. Good-night; I am going to try and get a little rest.”
He lies down upon a couch adjacent to the apartment in which we have supped. I draw a curtain over him, that shuts off his bunk from the room and the general corridor of the car. You hear a good deal of talk in America about “private cars.” Without disparaging the ingenuity and comfort of the private-car system of American railroad travelling let me say, once for all, that the term private applied to it in any sense is a misnomer. There is no privacy about it,—nothing like as much as you may have in an English carriage, to the sole occupancy of which you have bought the right for a railway journey. On an American train there is a conductor to each car. Then there are one or more guards to the train. Add to these officials, baggage-men, who are entitled to come on at various stations, and news-boys, who also appear to have special claims on the railway company; and you count up quite a number of extra passengers who may appear in your private room at any moment.