“This, too, is a bit of England,” I thought.
When at length the coachman had mounted the box—when the reins were gathered up, and the first smack of the whip given, poor Father Bonneville looked more nervous and uneasy than he had done while I was driving him down the hill over the frontier of France. On we went, however, at a pace which seemed to take away his breath, rattling in and out amongst carts and wagons, and horses and dogs, touching nothing, though seeming every moment about to be dashed to pieces against some great lumbering dray, or to kill a score or two of old people and children. The coach was heavily laden on the top: men’s legs and feet were hanging down in all quarters, and we seemed to sway from side to side with a terrible inclination to precipitate ourselves into the window of some early-risen shopkeeper in Portsmouth.
At length, much to my satisfaction, we were out of the town; and after passing over some wide and curious-looking downs, unlike any thing else I had ever seen in other lands, we entered upon a richer and better cultivated country, and the real face of England—old England—merry England, as it has been endearingly called, spread out before me like a garden. And it is a garden—the garden of the world. I know not why, but the very heaths and moors—and we passed several of them—seemed to have an air of comfort and sunny cheerfulness, superior to the cultivated fields of other lands. From time to time when we stopped to change horses, though it was done with a marvelous rapidity, which allowed but little time for questions, I asked an ostler or a waiter the names of various places we had passed; and I remarked that the English must be very fond of the devil, as they had made him god-father to every place for which they could not well find an epithet. I heard of Devil’s dykes, and Devil’s punch-bowl, and Devil’s jumps, at every step.
We paused to dine, as it was called, at a small town, beautifully situated amongst some fine sweeping hills, and on asking the name, found that it was called Godalming.
“Gott Allgemein,” I said, turning to Father Bonneville, who nodded his head. But it was an unfortunate speech; for one of our fellow-travelers, a great, fat, black-looking man, dressed in mourning, who had never opened his mouth during the day, but who had continued reading a book, let the coach rattle and roll as it would, now fixed upon me as an antiquary, and tormented me during the whole of the rest of the journey with a dissertation upon pottery, and sepulchral urns, and Roman coins, when I wished to observe the country, and gain information regarding the new land which I had just entered. He evidently took me for an Englishman; but my companion he soon found out to be an emigrant, and compensated in some degree for his tiresomeness, by giving us the names of several good inns—“Where,” as he added, with a gentle inclination of his head toward Father Bonneville, “there were waiters who could speak French.”
My good old friend was a little mortified, I believe; for he flattered himself that his English was without accent.
Night fell while we were yet some distance from London, and still we rattled on at the same velocity, till our heavy friend in the corner thought fit to inform us that we were entering London. It did not seem to be an agreeable entrance at all; for the dark streets, lighted by very dim globe lamps shining through a fog, into which we seemed to plunge, had a somewhat forbidding aspect to the eye of a stranger, and the multitude of figures hurrying along on both sides of the way, now seen, now lost, as they came under the lamps, or passed the blazing shop-fronts, looked like phantoms of the dead pursued by some evil spirit. The noise too was intolerable; for vehicles were running in every direction, making an awful clatter as we clattered by them, while through the whole was heard a dull, everlasting grumble, as if the city suffered under one continual thunder-storm.
At length, we dashed up to the door of an inn, and every one began to jump out or down, and to scramble for trunks or portmanteaus, as best he might.
I cannot say that our first night’s residence in London was peculiarly agreeable; for besides being both heated and tired, stiff and cramped, we had the delight of being half-devoured by bugs till dawn of day.
Poor Father Bonneville rose late, nearly as much fatigued with his night’s rest as with his day’s journey. But immediately after breakfast, we set out to seek for better accommodation. I proposed that we should go to one of the inns which had been mentioned; but he advised, strongly, that we should take a small lodging, adding—“London, when I recollect it, was the greatest place for lodgings in the world.”