Penelopes Experiences in Scotland | Page 5

I can save the country, and I
know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of
Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last
year we discussed travelling third class and continued to travel first.
Get into that clean hard-seated, ill- upholstered third-class carriage
immediately, both of you; save room enough for a mother with two
babies, and man carrying a basket of fish, and an old woman with five
pieces of hand-luggage and a dog; meanwhile I will exchange the
tickets."
So saying, she disappeared rapidly among the throng of passengers,
guards, porters, newspaper boys, golfers with bags of clubs, young
ladies with bicycles, and old ladies with tin hat-boxes.
"What decision, what swiftness of judgment, what courage and
energy!" murmured Salemina. "Isn't she wonderfully improved since
that unexpected turning of the Worm?"
Francesca rejoined us just as the guard was about to lock us in, and
flung herself down, quite breathless from her unusual exertion.
"Well, we are travelling third for once, and the money is saved, or at
least it is ready to spend again at the first opportunity. The man didn't
wish to exchange the tickets at all. He says it is never done. I told him
they were bought by a very inexperienced American lady (that is you,

Salemina) who knew almost nothing of the distinctions between first
and third class, and naturally took the best, believing it to be none too
good for a citizen of the greatest republic on the face of the earth. He
said the tickets had been stamped on. I said so should I be if I returned
without exchanging them. He was a very dense person, and didn't see
my joke at all, but then, it is true, there were thirteen men in line behind
me, with the train starting in three minutes, and there is nothing so
debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humour as selling tickets
behind a grating, so I am not really vexed with him. There! we are quite
comfortable, pending the arrival of the babies, the dog, and the fish,
and certainly no vendor of periodic literature will dare approach us
while we keep these books in evidence."
She had Laurence Hutton's Literary Landmarks and Royal Edinburgh,
by Mrs. Oliphant; I had Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time; and
somebody had given Salemina, at the moment of leaving London, a
work on `Scotias's darling seat,' in three huge volumes. When all this
printed matter was heaped on the top of Salemina's hold-all on the
platform, the guard had asked, "Do you belong to these books, ma'am?"
"We may consider ourselves injured in going from London to
Edinburgh in a third-class carriage in eight or ten hours, but listen to
this," said Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at
random when the train started.
"'The Edinburgh and London Stage-coach begins on Monday, 13th
October 1712. All that desire ... let them repair to the Coach and Horses
at the head of the Canongate every Saturday, or the Black Swan in
Holborn every other Monday, at both of which places they may be
received in a coach which performs the whole journey in thirteen days
without any stoppage (if God permits) having eighty able horses. Each
passenger paying 4 pounds, 10 shillings for the whole journey,
allowing each 20 lbs. weight and all above to pay 6 pence per lb. The
coach sets off at six in the morning' (you could never have caught it,
Francesca!), `and is performed by Henry Harrison.' And here is a
`modern improvement,' forty-two years later. In July 1754, the
Edinburgh Courant advertises the stage-coach drawn by six horses,

with a postilion on one of the leaders, as a `new, genteel, two-end glass
machine, hung on steel springs, exceedingly light and easy, to go in ten
days in summer and twelve in winter. Passengers to pay as usual.
Performed (if God permits) by your dutiful servant, Hosea Eastgate.
CARE IS TAKEN OF SMALL PARCELS ACCORDING TO THEIR
VALUE.'"
"It would have been a long, wearisome journey," said I contemplatively;
"but, nevertheless, I wish we were making it in 1712 instead of a
century and three-quarters later."
"What would have been happening, Salemina?" asked Francesca
politely, but with no real desire to know.
"The Union had been already established five years," began Salemina
intelligently.
"Which Union?"
"Whose Union?"
Salemina is used to these interruptions and eruptions of illiteracy on
our part. I think she rather enjoys them, as in the presence of such
complete ignorance as ours her lamp of knowledge burns all the
brighter.
"Anne was on the throne," she went on, with serene dignity.
"What Anne?"
"I know all about Anne!" exclaimed Francesca. "She came from the
Midnight Sun