"If it wasn't for all this here luggage," said Jehu in a confidential whisper, with a backward jerk of his head towards the moving pyramid behind us; "we might go through the park. The Duke gives permission to gentlemen's carriages."
So the poor man deluded himself with the thought, that if it wer'n't for the bandboxes, we might pass muster as fresh from the hands of Cork and Spain.
"That's very kind of the Duke."
"Oh, he's the best of gentlemen—I hears the best of characters of him from his tenants, and all the poor folks round about." Now here was our driver—rather ragged than otherwise, and as poor as need be—bearing evidence to the character of the greatest man in these degenerate days, on points that are perhaps more important than some that will be dwelt on by his biographers. The best of characters from his tenants and the poor;—well, glorious Duke, I shall always think of this when I read about your victories, and all your great doings in peace and war; and when people call you the Iron Duke, and the great soldier, and the hero of Waterloo, I shall think of you as the hero of Strathfieldsaye, and the best of characters among your tenants and the poor folks round about.
"Does the Duke often come to Reading?"
"No; very seldom."
"I should have thought he would come by the Great Western, and drive across."
"He!" exclaimed the driver, giving a cut to the near horse by way of italicising his observation. "He never comes by none of their rails. He don't like 'em. He posts every step of the way. He's a reg'lar gentleman, he is, the Duke."
And in the midst of conversation like this, we got to Reading. Through some wretched streets we drove, and then through some tolerable ones; and at last pulled up at the Great Western Hotel, a large handsome house, very near the Railway station; and in a few minutes were as comfortably settled as if we had travelled with a couple of outriders, and had ordered our rooms for a month. The sitting-room had three or four windows, of which two looked out upon the terminus. At these the whole party were soon happily stationed, watching the different trains that came sweeping up and down every few minutes; long luggage trains, pursuing their heavy way with a business-like solidity worthy of their great weight and respectability; short dapper trains, that seemed to take a spurt up the road as if to try their wind and condition; and occasionally a mysterious engine, squeaking, and hissing, and roaring, and then, with a succession of curious jumps and pantings, backing itself half a mile or so down the course, and then spluttering and dashing out of sight as if madly intent upon suicide, and in search of a stone wall to run its head upon. As to feeling surprise at the number of accidents, the only wonder a sensible man can entertain on the subject is, that there is any thing but accidents from morning to night. And yet, when you look a little closer into it, every thing seems so admirably managed, that the chances are thousands to one against any misfortune occurring. Every engine seems to know its place as accurately as a cavalry charger; the language also of the signals seems very intelligible to the iron ears of the Lucifers and Beelzebubs, and the other evil spirits, who seem on every line to be the active agents of locomotion. Why can't the directors have more Christianlike names for their moving power? What connexion is there between a beautiful new engine, shining in all its finery—the personification of obedient and beneficent strength—with the "Infernal," or the "Phlegethon," or the "Styx?" Are they aware what a disagreeable association of ideas is produced in the students of Lemprière's classical dictionary by the two last names? or the Charon or Atropos? Let these things be mended, and let them be called by some more inviting appellations—Nelson, St Vincent, Rodney, Watt, Arkwright, Stephenson, Milton, Shakspeare, Scott;—but leave heathen mythology and diabolic geography alone. As night began to close, the sights and sounds grew more strange and awful. A great flaming eye made its appearance at a distance; the gradual boom of its approach grew louder and louder, and its look became redder and redder; and then we watched it roll off into the darkness again, on the other side of the station, on its way to Bath—till, tearing up at the rate of forty miles an hour, came another red-eyed monster, breathing horrible flame, and seeming to burn its way through the sable livery of the night with the strength and straightness of a red-hot cannon-ball. And then we called for candles and went to bed.
The train was to pass on its way to Bristol at half-past eleven, so we had plenty of time to see the lions of Reading—if there had been any animals of the kind in the neighbourhood—but after a short detour in the street, and a glimpse into the country, we found ourselves irresistibly attracted to the railway. The scene here was the same as on the previous night, and we were more and more confirmed in our opinion, that, next to the sea or a navigable river, a railway is the pleasantest object in a rural view. As to the impostors who extort thousands of pounds from the unhappy shareholders, on the pretext that the line will be injurious to their estates, they ought at once to be sent to Brixton for obtaining money under false pretences. It gives a greatly increased value to their lands, as may be seen by the superior rents they can obtain for the farms along the line; and as to the picturesqueness of the landscape, it is only because the eye is not yet accustomed to it, nor the mind embued with railway associations, that it is not considered a finer "object" than the level greenery of a park, or the hedgerows of a cultivated farm. Painters have already begun to see the grandeur of a tempestuous sea ridden over by steamers; and before the end of the next war, some black "queller of the ocean flood," with short funnel and smoke-blackened sails, will be thought as fit a theme for poetry and romance, as the Victory or the Shannon.