CHAPTER LXI

THE GOLCONDA STATION OF THE GREAT GAMMON AND SPINACH RAILWAY

CROP received the intelligence of his master’s change of horses with the same indifference as he would hear that Bartley had sent a pair of new boots home and wanted the old ones to mend. What he rode was nothing to him, so long as his master was pleased, provided, of course, his mount did not disfigure him. He felt more the severance from pretty Betsy Jane, the barmaid of the Coach and Horses hard by, but by sudden wrench, believing not that

“Hearts could thus be torn away,”

he looked confidently forward to a renewal of their interesting intimacy. Meanwhile he presented her with an eighteen-penny workbox, with a picture of Roseberry Rocks on the lid, and a handsome coloured photograph of himself in a claret-coloured case.

Having then communicated his marching orders to the helpers in the yard, so that they might get his horses ready for him, he next began hissing and packing up his own things, in order to send them along with Mr. Bunting’s. Of course, he took both first and second class clothes, relays of boots, and everything becoming, little doubting that Burton St. Leger was a place of size and importance. Betsy Jane, indeed, had her misgivings on that point, and much feared he might fall into the hands of the designing. Even in his undress travelling clothes, with the rose-tinted tops obscured with caps, she thought she had never seen any one so natty and handsome. What a happy woman she would be if she could have a bar of her own under the title of Mrs. Crop. So Crop and she went to the Alhambra Circus together that evening, and after a soothing glass of rum and milk in the morning, he tore himself away from her auburn ringlets. He then repaired to the Mews, where he found his master waiting to receive him. The bill was paid, the horses were quickly turned out, everything becoming, and Crop received the last compliment of the yard in the shape of a leg up, while another helper handed him his led horse, and, after the usual bumpings and jerkings, he got settled into his saddle, and with parting adieus put his horses in motion, and presently passed off the pavement of the Mews on to the McAdam of May Fair.

They were nice looking horses as they now stepped freely along; one a bay—called the Bard, on which Mr. Bunting is depicted careering over the Downs to the Pic Nic; the other a brown, called the Kitten, of much the same cut and calibre. Horses, servant, saddles, clothing, were altogether a very creditable turn out. So thought Mr. Bunting, as Crop now aggravated them into a trot, and our friend jumped into a perambulating Hansom to follow and see that all went on right at the place of exchange. Crop’s instructions were to go to 51 A, Sligo Mews, Rochester Square, there to exchange horses and then proceed at once to the Golconda Station, where Mr. Bunting would meet him. Now, however, Mr. Bunting thought he would just follow him in view, and abandoning his cab in the Square, take a peep round the corner, to be ready in case of requirement. Crop knowing the town as well as any cabman, went jerking by all the short cuts and by-ways, was presently in the denoted region. As luck would have it, he entered Rochester Square on the east side, which led to the 51 A end of Sligo Mews. Being a tolerably quick fellow at finding addresses, he soon saw by Matthew Andrew’s darting in at the door as Crop rounded the corner where the stable was, and ere he reached it, Owen Ashford came popping out in charge of the lad, followed by the Exquisite led by old one-eye. Crop coming up then dropped from the Bard, jockey fashion, who was immediately slapped into the stable, followed by the Kitten, and Crop was instantly hoisted upon Owen Ashford, and the leading-rein of the Exquisite passed into his hand. He then proceeded to jerk and jag them into motion, Peter and Andrew retreating into the stable the moment their horses had left the door. Though the exchange was effected as quickly as possible, not two minutes being consumed in the operation,

“all the white bonnets were over the border,”

again, and John Crop was honoured with a perfect ovation as he passed up the Mews.

Sally Saunders the washerwoman, threw an old shoe after him; Billy Booth, the knife-grinder, ceased his discordant noise and grinned extensively; Mrs. Codling, the greengrocer, offered Crop a bushel of apples for his bargain; Jessey Ford and Lucy Grove, the jobbing milliners and dress-makers, clapped their hands and exclaimed, “Those’ll be the swells we saw!—those’ll be the swells we saw!” While Tomkins, the badgeless cabman, hallood out, “I say, sur! is your gov’nor fond o’ valking?”

Crop jerked his head, and tried to look unconcerned, putting it all down to their low back-woodsman-like ignorance. They knew nothing of May Fair. Meanwhile Mr. Bunting having seen the exchange effected, regained his cab and drove off to the station to order the horse-box.

The Golconda Station of the Great Gammon and Spinach Railway, as the reader—at all events the shareholders are well aware—was built, as George Robins used to say, “regardless of expense,” the architect having apparently taken his idea of the edifice from some scene in the Arabian Nights entertainment. Hence, the splendid dividend of two-pence-halfpenny a share, so complacently announced by the chairman, as shown in the picture of “The Railway Meeting” in that inimitable work, the “Manners and Customs of the English.” If poor George Stevenson had ventured to shadow forth such a gigantic structure in the early days of railways, he would have been “pooh-pooh’d,” and requested not to make a fool of himself; so vast is its space, and interminable its limits. No need of mirrors or artificial means to magnify or reproduce its dimensions. It is startling as it stands. Since, however, the dividends, originally pitched at two hundred and fifty per cent., have dwindled down to two-pence-halfpenny, the directors have been endeavouring to rectify their original error by curtailing the working establishment, and instead of having two men—one to help the other to do nothing, as formerly they had—they put the work of two men upon one; so that unless a traveller looks a little to himself, he stands a chance of being only indifferently served. If the majority of railways had been constructed with anything like ordinary prudence and economy, they would have been sources of wealth to the shareholders, and the public might have travelled for half what they now do. As it was, it was believed that their resources were boundless, and every species of folly and extravagance was indulged in. That, however, by way of parenthesis.

When Mr. Bunting arrived at the Great Golconda Station, expecting to have a horse-box supplied as quickly as he would a shilling’s worth of heads at a club, he found there was a good deal of holloaing and shouting, and shifting of work from one person to another. There is nothing so unbusiness-like as a great deal of noise. At length the little caravan was got up to the tramway, the compartment let down, and the willing horses were punched into the box like bullocks. Up then went the side, and nothing further was seen of Owen Ashford but his eye. Tickets were taken, cabs and carriages began to roll into the yard, and presently the engine came hissing down from its house. Meanwhile Mr. Bunting proceeded to give his parting directions to the groom—fearing before to trust him with two sets at a time. The only difficulty he anticipated was that of the man-boy finding his way from the Curleyford Station, where he had to stop, to Burton St. Leger; to obviate which Mr. Bunting had taken a tracing off the county map on to a piece of foreign letter paper, which he now presented to Crop, pointing out to him what to hit, miss, or avoid, in a very blind-leading-the-blind sort of way. “You’ll have no difficulty,” said he, “you’ll have no difficulty,” repeated he, folding the paper, after mystifying himself and giving it to Crop, who forthwith transferred it to his hat along with his kerchief and a slice of bread and cheese.

Just then Mr. Dick Dawdler, who has the same sort of mania for seeing trains start that some gentlemen of old used to have for seeing the mails leave the White Horse Cellar or the Peacock at Islington, strolled up and claimed our hero’s acquaintance, almost making him forget, in the midst of Dawdler’s sage observations about the weather—what it had been, what it was going to be, what it was last year,—to tell Crop to order him apartments at the Cornwallis Hotel, and have a fly to meet him by the Express train that evening.

The bell then rang. “Take your seats! Please take your seats!” resounded along the platform; late comers rushed frantically in, hollowing out “Stop!” as though they were left behind. A battue of doors sounded from end to end, a shrill whistle followed, and away went the long train, hissing and snorting like an exasperated crocodile. The last joint of its tail having disappeared at the turn, porters again stood at ease, strangers retired, and the Golconda Station sunk into a state of temporary repose.