Pomonas Travels | Page 6

vacant on account of
a sudden case of croup in a baronet's family."
I looked at the ladder and I looked at that top front seat, and I tell you,
madam, I trembled in every pore, but I remembered then that all the
respectable seats was on top, and the farther front the nobbier, and as
there was a young woman sitting already on the box-seat, I made up my
mind that if she could sit there I could, and that I wasn't going to let
Jone or anybody else see that I was frightened by style and fashion,
though confronted by it so sudden and unexpected. So up that ladder I
went quick enough, having had practice in hay-mows, and sat myself
down between the young woman and the coachman, and when Jone
had tucked himself in behind me the horner blew his horn and away we
went.
[Illustration: "I looked at the ladder and at the top front seat"]
I tell you, madam, that box-seat was a queer box for me. I felt as
though I was sitting on the eaves of a roof with a herd of horses
cavoorting under my feet. I never had a bird's-eye view of horses

before. Looking down on their squirming bodies, with the coachman
almost standing on his tiptoes driving them, was so different from
Jone's buggy and our tall gray horse, which in general we look up to,
that for a good while I paid no attention to anything but the danger of
falling out on top of them. But having made sure that Jone was holding
on to my dress from behind, I began to take an interest in the things
around me.
Knowing as much as I thought I did about the bigness of London, I
found that morning that I never had any idea of what an everlasting
town it is. It is like a skein of tangled yarn--there doesn't seem to be any
end to it. Going in this way from Nelson's Monument out into the
country, it was amazing to see how long it took to get there. We would
go out of the busy streets into a quiet rural neighborhood, or what
looked like it, and the next thing we knew we'd be in another whirl of
omnibuses and cabs, with people and shops everywhere; and we'd go
on and through this and then come to another handsome village with
country houses, and the street would end in another busy town; and so
on until I began to think there was no real country, at least, in the
direction we was going. It is my opinion that if London was put on a
pivot and spun round in the State of Texas until it all flew apart, it
would spread all over the State and settle up the whole country.
At last we did get away from the houses and began to roll along on the
best made road I ever saw, with a hedge on each side and the greenest
grass in the fields, and the most beautiful trees, with the very trunks
covered with green leaves, and with white sheep and handsome cattle
and pretty thatched cottages, and everything in perfect order, looking as
if it had just been sprinkled and swept. We had seen English country
before, but that was from the windows of a train, and it was very
different from this sort of thing, where we went meandering along lanes,
for that is what the roads look like, being so narrow.
Just as I was getting my whole soul full of this lovely ruralness, down
came a shower of rain without giving the least notice. I gave a jump in
my seat as I felt it on me, and began to get ready to get down as soon as
the coachman should stop for us all to get inside; but he didn't stop, but

just drove along as if the sun was shining and the balmy breezes
blowing, and then I looked around and not a soul of the eight people on
the top of that coach showed the least sign of expecting to get down
and go inside. They all sat there just as if nothing was happening, and
not one of them even mentioned the rain. But I noticed that each of
them had on a mackintosh or some kind of cape, whereas Jone and I
never thought of taking anything in the way of waterproof or umbrellas,
as it was perfectly clear when we started.
[Illustration: "DOWN CAME A SHOWER OF RAIN"]
I looked around at Jone, but he sat there with his face as placid as a
piece of cheese, looking as if he had no more knowledge it was raining
than the two Englishmen on the