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 seat next him. Seeing he wasn't going to
let those men think he minded the rain any more than they did, I
determined that I wouldn't let the young woman who was sitting by me
have any notion that I minded it, and so I sat still, with as cheerful
a look as I could screw up, gazing at the trees with as gladsome a
countenance as anybody could have with water trickling down her nose,
her cheeks dripping, and dewdrops on her very eyelashes, while the
dampness of her back was getting more and more perceptible as each
second dragged itself along. Jone turned up the hood of my coat, and so
let down into the back of my neck what water had collected in it; but I
didn't say anything, but set my teeth hard together and fixed my mind
on Columbia, happy land, and determined never to say anything about
rain until some English person first mentioned it.
But when one of the flowers on my hat leaned over the brim and exuded
bloody drops on the front of my coat I began to weaken, and to think
that if there was nothing better to do I might get under one of the
seats; but just then the rain stopped and the sun shone. It was so
sudden that it startled me; but not one of those English people
mentioned that the rain had stopped and the sun was shining, and so
neither did Jone or I. We was feeling mighty moist and unhappy, but we
tried to smile as if we was plants in a greenhouse, accustomed to being
watered and feeling all the better for it.
I can't write you all about the coach drive, which was very delightful,
nor of that beautiful lake they call Virginia Water, and which I know
you have a picture of in your house. They tell me it is artificial, but
as it was made more than a hundred years ago, it might now be
considered natural. We dined at an inn, and when we got back to town,
with two more showers on the way, I said to Jone that I thought we'd
better go straight to the Babylon Hotel, which we intended to start out
for, although it was a long way round to go by Virginia Water, and see
about engaging a room; and as Jone agreed I asked the coachman if he
would put us down there, knowing that he'd pass near it.
