Volume Ii Part 9 (2/2)
As we were leaving the sleepy Falls of Montmorency in the carriage, we looked out to see whether the Frenchman had got sight of us, fully expecting he would take a chaise and come after us to collect some other impost which we had evaded paying. The sun was in great force, and I was reposing in its delicious rays, thinking how delightful it was to ride into Quebec on such a day, when in an instant of time we were all dispersed about the road. In a field hard by, where a great load of lumber as high as a house was piled, a boy who was extracting a log set the upper logs rolling. This frightened the horses. They were two black steeds of high spirit, and therefore very mad when alarmed. Had they run on in their uncontrollable state, they would, if they escaped vehicles on the way, have arrived at a narrow bridge where unknown mischief must have occurred. The driver, who was a strongly built Irishman, about sixty, with good judgment and intrepidity, instantly threw the horses on to the fence, which they broke, got into the ditch, and seriously cut their knees. I leaped out into the ditch with a view to help my daughter out of the carriage; but she, nimbler than I, intending to render me the same service, arrived at the ditch, and a.s.sisted me out, merely asking ”whether four quietly disposed persons being distributed over the Dominion at a minute's notice was a mode of travelling in Canada?”
Mrs. Hall, who was riding with us, also escaped unhurt Her husband deliberately remained some time to see what the horses were going to do, but finding them frantic, he also abandoned the carriage.
Later, in England, being Ashton way, I paid a visit to my friend the Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens, whose voice, in early Chartist times, was the most eloquent in the two counties of Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re.
He fought the ”New Poor Law” and the ”Long Timers” in the Ten Hours'
agitation. His views were changed in many respects, but that did not alter my regard for his Chartist services--and there remained his varied affluence of language, his fitly chosen terms, his humorous statement, his exactness of expression and strong coherence, in which the sequence of his reasoning never disappeared through the crevice of a sentence.
All this made his conversation always charming and instructive.
After lecturing in the Temperance Hall and the ”evening was far spent,”
a cab was procured to take me to Mr. Stephens's at the ”Hollins.” A friend, Mr. Scott, in perfect wanton courtesy, having no presentiment in his mind, would accompany me. When we arrived at Stalybridge (where there is a real bridge), the cabman, instead of driving over it, drove against it. I thought, perhaps, this was the way with Ashton cabmen; but my friend came to a different conclusion. He said the cabman had not taken the ”pledge” that afternoon. I was told Ashton cabmen needed to take it often. The driver, resenting our remonstrance, drove wildly down a narrow, ugly, deserted street, which he found at hand. It was all the same to me, who did not know one street from the other. My friend, who knew there was no outlet save into the river, called out violently to cabby to stop. The only effect was that he drove more furiously.
Mr. Scott leaped out and seized the horse, and prevented my being overthrown. Before us were the remains of an old building, with the cellars all open, in one of which we should soon have descended. Cabby would have killed his horse, and probably himself, which no doubt would have been an advantage to Ashton.
As the place was deserted I should have been found next morning curled up and inarticulate. We paid our dangerous driver his full fare to that spot, and advised him to put himself in communication with a temperance society. He abused us as ”not being gentlemen” for stopping his cab in that unhandsome way.
The next morning I went to the scene of the previous night's adventure.
Had Mr. Henley, the loud, coa.r.s.e-tongued member for Oxfords.h.i.+re at that time, seen the place, he would have said we were making an ”ugly rush”
for the river. Not that we should ever have reached the river, for we should certainly have broken our necks in the brick vaults our driver was whipping his horse into.
As I needed another cab on my arrival at Euston, I selected a quiet-looking white horse, and a Good Templar-looking cabman, first asking the superintendent what he thought of him. ”O, he's all right,”
was the answer, and things went pleasantly until we arrived at a narrow, winding street. I was thinking of my friend, Mr. Stephens, and of the concert which at that hour he had daily in his bedroom, when I was suddenly jerked off my seat and found the white horse on the foot-pavement. I stepped out and adjured the cabman, ”By the carpet-bag of St Peter” (no more suitable adjuration presented itself on the occasion), to tell me what he was at. I said,
”Are you from Ashton?” ”Nothing the matter, sir. All right Jump in. Only my horse s.h.i.+ed at the costermonger's carrot-cart there. She's a capital horse, only she's apt to shy.” I answered, ”Yes; and unless I change my mode of travelling by cabs, I shall become shy myself.”
Late one night, after the close of the Festive Co-operative Meeting in Huddersfield, a cab was fetched for me from the fair--it being fair time. The messenger knew it was a bad night for the whip, as he might be ”touched in the head” by the festivities, so he said to cabby: ”Now, though it is fair night, you must do the fair thing by this fare. He does not mind spreading principles, but he objects to being spread himself.” Cabby came with alacrity. He thought he had to take some ”boozing cuss” about the fair, with an occasional pull up at the ”Spread Eagle.” When he found me issuing from a temperance hotel, bound for Fernbrook, he did not conceal his disappointment by tongue or whip, and jerked his horse like a Bas.h.i.+-Bazouk when a Montenegrin is after him.
I cared nothing, as I had made up my mind not to say another word about cabs if they broke my neck. I knew we had a stout hill before us, which would bring things quiet The next day the hotel people, who saw the cabman's rage, said they thought there was mischief in store for me.
They knew nothing of Ashton ways, and their apprehensions were original.
After a pleasant sojourn in Brighton, where the November sun is bright, and the fogs are thin, grey and graceful, softening the glare of the white coast, tempering it to the sensitive sight, I returned to London one cold, frosty day, when snow and ice made the streets slippery. I had chosen a cabman whose solid, honest face was a.s.suring, and being lumpy and large himself I thought he would keep his ”four-wheeler” steady by his own weight. Being himself lame and rheumatic, he appeared one who would prefer quiet driving for his own sake. We went on steadily until we reached Pall Mall, when he turned sharply up Suffolk Street. Looking out, I called to my friend on the box, saying, ”This is not Ess.e.x Street” ”Beg your pardon, sir, I thought you said Suffolk Street,” and began to turn his horse round. In that street the ground rises, and the carriage-way is convex and narrow, it required skill to turn the cab, and the cabman was wanting therein. He said his rein had caught, and when he thought he was pulling the horse round, the horse had taken a different view of his intention, and imagined he was backing him, and, giving me the benefit of the doubt, did back, and overturned the cab, and me too. Not liking collisions of late, I had, on leaving Brighton, wrapped myself in a railway cloak, that it might act as a sort of buffer in case of b.u.mping--yet not expecting I should require it so soon.
Seeing what the horse was at, and taking what survey I could of the situation, I found I was being driven against the window of the house in which Cobden died. I have my own taste as to the mode in which I should like to be killed. To be run over by a butcher's cart, or smashed by a coal train or brewer's van is not my choice; but being killed in Pall Mall is more eligible, yet not satisfactory.
As I had long lived in Pall Mall, I knew the habits of the place.
There is a gradation of killing in the streets of London, well-known to West-end cabmen. As they enter Trafalgar Square, they run over the pa.s.senger without ceremony. At Waterloo Place, where gentlemen wander about, they merely knock you down, but as they enter Club-land, which begins at Pall Mall West, where Judges and Cabinet Ministers and members of Parliament abound, they merely run at you; so I knew I was on the spot where death is never inflicted. Therefore I took hold of the strap on the opposite side of the cab to that on which I saw I should fall.
For better being able to look after my portmanteau, I had it with me, and, fortunately had placed it on the side on which I fell. Placing myself against it when the crash came, and the gla.s.s broke, I was saved from my face being cut by it. My hat was crushed, and head bruised. It was impossible to open the door, which was then above me, and had the horse taken to kicking, as is the manner of these animals when in doubt, it would have fared ill with me. Possibly the horse was a member of the Peace Society, and showed no belligerent tendency; more likely he was tired, and glad of the opportunity of resting himself. The street, which seemed empty, was quickly filled, as though people sprang out of the ground. Two Micawbers who were looking out for anything which ”turned up,” or turned over, came and forced open the cab-door at the top, and dragged me up, somewhat dazed, my hat off, my grey hair dishevelled, my blue spectacles rather awry on my face--I was sensible of a newly-contrived, music-hall appearance as my shoulders peered above the cab. A spirit merchant near kindly invited me into his house, where some cold brandy and water given to me seemed more agreeable and refres.h.i.+ng than it ever did before or since. The cab had been pulled together somehow. My rheumatic friend on the box had been picked up not much the worse--possibly the fall had done his rheumatism good. I thought it a pity the poor fellow should lose his fare as well as his windows, and so continued my journey with him.
On one occasion, after an enchanted evening in the suburbs of Kensington, a fog came on. The driver of the voiture drove into an enclosure of stables, and went round and round. Noticing there was a recurring recess, I kept the door open until we arrived at it again, and leapt into it as we pa.s.sed again. When the driver, who was bewildered, came round a third time, I surprised him by shouts, and advised him to let his horse take us out by the way he came in. There was no house, or light, or person to be seen, and there was the prospect of a night in the cold, tempered by contingent accident.
Having engaged to be surety for the son of a Hindoo judge, who was about to enter as a student in the Inns of Court, a new adventure befel me. I had accepted from his father the appointment of guardian of his son. My ward was a young man of many virtues, save that of punctuality. As he did not appear by appointment, I set out in search of him. Crossing Trafalgar Square I found myself suddenly confronted by two horses'
heads. An omnibus had come down upon me. It flashed through my mind that, as I had often said, I was in more danger of being killed in the streets of London than in any foreign city or on the sea; and I concluded the occasion had come. I knew no more until I found myself lying on my back in the mud after rain, but, seeing an aperture between the two wheels, I made an attempt to crawl through. A crowd of spectators had gathered round and voices shouted to me to remain where I was until the wheels were drawn from me. Lying down in the mud again was new to me. There was nothing over me but the omnibus, and as I had never seen the bottom of one before, I examined it.
It happened that a surgeon of the Humane Society was among the spectators, who a.s.sisted in raising me up, and took me to the society's rooms close by, where I was bathed and vaseline applied to my bruises.
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