The Two Journeys.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1358, 25 June 1872, Page 3

The Two Journeys.

" We shall have a moist night of it sir," said the coachman of the Emerald to a young man who shared the coach-box with him: " will you be kind enough to hold the reins while I slip on my coat ? —And a stormy night, too," he added, when that operation was performed. *' There was a flash. We shall soon be in the thick of it."

"With all my heart," said Arthur Sutherland; " I don't mind a little damp. But can't you give the poor woman a place inside ? There are no inside passengers, I think." The words were kindly spoken, and the " poor woman " looked thanks to the young man, who, for his part, seemed rather to enjoy the pelting rain which, •succeeding a hot July day, was laying the dust of the broad turnpike road, and stirring up a refreshing scent from the meadows and hedges which lined it. Our story is of the bygone days, when railroads, as travelling roads, were only beginning to be talked of, and were the standing joke of travellers, reviewers, and theoretical philosophers. " Beautiful! grand !" exclaimed the young man, suddenly, before the driver had time to reply to his question, as a vivid flash of forked lightning, followed by a loud peal of thunder, caused the high bred cattle to plunge in their traces, and proved the coachman's anticipations to be correct and in course of speedy fulfilment. The same flash and peal which startled the horses, and excited the admiration of the young traveller, drew from tho poor woman just behind him a faint cry of alarm, and on turning his head, Arthur saw that she was pale and trembling, and that the infant she •carried was convulsively clasped to her bosom. He saw, too, that the slight summer cloak she wore, and the additional shawl which she had drawn over her bonnet, and spread around her baby, were an insufficient protection from the rain, which was now coming down in right earnest.

" Surely you will let her get inside," he said compassionately: " poor thing ! She and her child will be wet through in another five minutes."

*' We shall change horses directly," replied the coachman ; " and then I will see what I can do; but our governors are very particular. If they were to know of my doing such a thing, I should get a dressing. But on such a night as this is like to be "

The coach drew up to the inn door, even as the coachman was speaking ; and while the four panting, steaming horses were exchanged for a team fresh from the stable, the young woman and her infant were, much to her comfort, transferred from the outside to the inside of the coach.

The storm increased in its fury as the evening drew on. The lightning was fearfully brilliant and almost incessant, the thunder was terrific, and the rain poured down in torrents. The three or four outer passengers, wrapping themselves up in comfortable waterproof coats and cloaks, and pulling their hats over their eyes, silently wondered when it would be over, only now and then expressing a fear, which seemed not without foundation, that the horses wouldn't stand it much longer, and that the off-leader, especially, would bolt. But there was no such catastrophe, and another stage was accomplished. The thunderstorm had partially ;> bated, but the rain still poured down heavily as the coachman threw the reins to the horsekeeper, and a waiter from the inn ventured out upon the now muddy road to announce that the coach would remain there half-an-hour, and that a supper was on the table if the passengers would please to alight. Glad to change his position, and not unmindful of the demands of a youthful and sharp appetite, Arthur Sutherland had accepted the invitation, and was entering the supper-room, when a loud and angry altercation at the inn-door arrested his attention and his steps.

" Is she an inside passenger, I ask ? that's all I want to know." The voice was domineering and fierce. " No, sir, she is not;" —this was the coachman—" but she has got an infant, and is going all the way to Birmingham, and isn't over and above well clothed for the journey, night travelling and all-

and as there wasn't any one inside, and the storm came on, I thought there wasn't any harm " The coachman was interrupted in his apology and explanation by a coarse oath, and a declaration that if he didn't mind what he was about, the Emerald should soon have another driver, with the insinuation that there was some understanding between him and the woman about an extra fee, but that he (the angry speaker) would be one too many for him (the accommodating coachman) this time. •' There isn't anything of the sort," replied the coachman bluntly, " and here's a gentleman " —pointing to Arthur, who had come forward a few steps —" that can tell you so. He knows when and why I put the woman inside." The young gentleman thus appealed to briefly explained that at his earnest solicitation the poor woman was accommodated with an inside place when the storm came on. " She would have been drenched to the skin by this time,"' he added, "it she had kept her former seat on the top of the coach."

"That doesn't signify," retorted the other, who was evidently one of the coach proprietors, upon-whom the Emerald had lighted somewhat unexpectedly, and upon whose overbearing and defiant address the outward costume of a gentleman sat unfittingly, while his temper wafc probably roughed by the light load of the Emerald that night: "it doesn't signify: if the woman goes inside, she must pay inside fare, that's all;" and, returning to the coach door, he in a few words placed the alternative before the traveller.

Without any further reply than that she was unable to accede to the demand, the young mother was about to step out into the soaking rain, when the youth—for Arthur Sutherland could by no means lawfully claim to be considered a man—gently interfered. " You surely do not mean to turn the poor woman and her baby out into the rain, sir ? It may cause her death to be exposed to it through the whole night. I dare say she is not much used to travelling, and she has nothing to wrap round her but a thin shawl."

" I can't help that," said the proprietor, sharply, for he seemed to think the interference of the young traveller a piece of gratuitous interference to be resented ; " the young woman should have taken care of that herself."

" I did not think of its being such a night when the coach started," the woman said, in a soft gentle voice ; •' and if I had known it, I had nothing warmer to put on : but I dare say I shall do very well," she added, resignedly ; "at least, if it wasn't for the poor baby." And, wrapping this object of her solicitude as warmly as she couli in her shawl, she was stepping from the coach, when the young man interfered. 1 * It is a great shame," he said, indignantly ; " and I shouldn't have expected "

" I should like to know what business you have to interfere, sir," said the proprietor, hotly ; " you had better pay the inside fare for her yourself, if you think so much about it."

" Very well, I will then," returned the young man : " please to keep your seat, my good woman, and I'll make it all right." " I couldn't think of it, sir," she said ; but before she could frame a remonstrance in suitable words, the proprietor and her young champion had both disappeared; and while she was hesitating what to do next, the coachman came forward and informed her that she was to keep her inside place the rest of the way. This settled the matter.

" Come, Mr Sutherland," shouted a voice from the supper room, " you are going to help us, aren't you ? Here's some good stowage, but you must make haste about it: nothing like the time present; it will soon be ' Time's up, gentlemen.'" " Thank you," replied Arthur, " but I am not going to take supper this even ing." The extra fare had dipped into a purse not very well lined. If the " poor woman " had known the penance to which her young champion doomed himself as the price of his generosity, and how, in the drenching rain, which lasted all the remainder of the journey, he was fain to content himself with munching and mumbling a dry biscuit, just to amuse his internal economy with the hope of something to follow, she would not, I think,

have passed the night so comfortably as, in her ignorance, s he did. But howe ve r this might be, \ n due time, or within balf-an-hour of it, the Emerald drove up to the office of the "•' Hen an & Chicke aSj where, in the early morning, a pleasantlooking, manly young mechanic was, among others, waiting the arrival. A gleam of satisfaction passed over his countenance as he scrutinised the roof of the coach.

" I am glad she didn't come through such a night as this has been," he said to a fellow-workman by his side. " She is delicate and timid, and wasn't well pro* vided with cloakings either: and the poor baby " "Here, Alex :" the voice of hid wife from the open coach window stopped short the young man's colloquy; and he hastened to open the door.

"Bless you, Edith! you here? I thought you wouldn't have come in such weather, and I didn't tnink to look for you inside, anyhow."

" Oh, I wanted to get home so badly," said the young traveller, putting her infant into its father's arms ; whereupon it began to kick and crow " a good un," as he afterwards said ; " and besides," she added, " it didn't seem like rain when we left London, or perhaps I mightn't have come."

" Well, I am glad you were able to get an inside place." " I shouldn't though," said Edith, " if it hadn't been for a young gentleman

her friend afresh, just in time to see him turn the corner of New-street. " There ! lam vexed," she said ; and on her way home, like a dutiful wife, she gave her husband a true and full account of her incidents of travel, from the Bull and Mouth in London to the office iu Birmingham. A few weeks afterwards, one Sunday morning, as Arthur Sutherland, with his sister, was walking towards church, he passed a respectable young couple, in one of whom he recognised the " poor woman," his travelling companion. It was plain that he too was remembered, for in another minute the man had turned, and was at Arthur's elbow.

" Excuse toy freedom, sir," he said ; "but I wish to thaok you for your kindness to my Edith—my wife, I mean — that terrible night she came down from London."

" Don't speak a word about it," replied the youth ; "lam glad I was able to give a little assistance; but it isn't worth mentioning. I hope your wife didn't get any harm, for she had some of the storm, as it was." " Not the least in the world, sir; but she might have got a good deal if she had come all the way outside of the coach. She had been to London to see her friends, and hadn't more than enough left to pay her fare down. I think you was money out of pocket, sir," the man added, after a little hesitation; " and if you wouldn't be offended at my offering to pay back again " " Not a word about it, my good fellow ; I couldn't think of it "

" Then, sir, I must thank you for it, and hope to be able to return the kindness some other way ;" and the man rejoined his young wife. " That's young Sutherland," he said. " His father's a regular screw, they say ; but this one has got a good name, as far as he can do anything. If the old gentleman had been on the coach that night instead of the young one, you migiit have been wet through fifty times before he would have said a word for you, Edith." " What new friend have you picked up now, Arthur ? " asked his sister, when the short conference was ended ; " t and what is that about the coach ? I guess now why you had to borrow of me the day after your journey, to make up your book as you said." " Well, never mind now, Jessy ; I'll tell you all about it another day," said Arthur.