Grandpa and I took a less circuitous, though, perhaps, not less difficult route.
I sat with Grandpa on the "front" seat—it may be remarked that the "front" seat was very much front, and the "back" seat very much back—there was a kind of wooden shelf built outside as a resting-place for the feet, so that while our heads were under cover, our feet were out, utterly exposed to the weather, and we must either lay them on the shelf or let them hang off into space.
Madeline and the children stood at the door to see us off.
"All aboard! ship ballasted! wind fa'r! go ahead, thar', Fanny!" shouted Grandpa, who seemed quite restored in spirits, and held the reins and wielded the whip with a masterful air.
He spun sea-yarns, too, all the way—marvellous ones, and Grandma's reproving voice was mellowed by the distance, and so confusedly mingled with the rumbling of the wheels, that it seemed hardly to reach him at all. Not that Grandma looked discomfited on this account, or in bad humor. On the contrary, as she sat back there in the ghostly shadows, with her hands folded, and her hair combed out in resplendent waves on either side of her head, she appeared conscious that every word she uttered was taking root in some obdurate heart. She was, in every respect, the picture of good-will and contentment.
But the face under Grandpa's antiquated beaver began to give me a fresh shock every time I looked up at him, for the light and air were rapidly turning his rejuvenated locks and his poor, thin fringe of whiskers to an unnatural greenish tint, while his bushy eyebrows, untouched by the hand of art, shone as white as ever.
In spite of the old sea-captain's entertaining stories, it seemed, indeed, "a long jaunt" to West Wallen.
To say that Fanny was a slow horse would be but a feeble expression of the truth.
A persevering "click! click! click!" began to arise from Grandma's quarter. This annoyed Grandpa exceedingly.
"Shet up, ma!" he was moved to exclaim at last. "I'm steerin' this craft."