第25章

Mr.Goodchild faltered, looked out of window, looked in again, andsaid, as he had so often said before, 'There is the sea, and here are the shrimps; - let us eat 'em'!'

But, the wise donkey was at that moment in the act of bolting: not with the irresolution of his previous efforts which had been wanting in sustained force of character, but with real vigour of purpose: shaking the dust off his mane and hind-feet at Allonby, and tearing away from it, as if he had nobly made up his mind that he never would be taken alive.At sight of this inspiring spectacle, which was visible from his sofa, Thomas Idle stretched his neck and dwelt upon it rapturously.

'Francis Goodchild,' he then said, turning to his companion with a solemn air, 'this is a delightful little Inn, excellently kept by the most comfortable of landladies and the most attentive of landlords, but - the donkey's right!'

The words, 'There is the sea, and here are the - ' again trembled on the lips of Goodchild, unaccompanied however by any sound.

'Let us instantly pack the portmanteaus,' said Thomas Idle, 'pay the bill, and order a fly out, with instructions to the driver to follow the donkey!'

Mr.Goodchild, who had only wanted encouragement to disclose the real state of his feelings, and who had been pining beneath his weary secret, now burst into tears, and confessed that he thought another day in the place would be the death of him.

So, the two idle apprentices followed the donkey until the night was far advanced.Whether he was recaptured by the town-council, or is bolting at this hour through the United Kingdom, they know not.They hope he may be still bolting; if so, their best wishes are with him.

It entered Mr.Idle's head, on the borders of Cumberland, that there could be no idler place to stay at, except by snatches of a few minutes each, than a railway station.'An intermediate station on a line - a junction - anything of that sort,' Thomas suggested.Mr.Goodchild approved of the idea as eccentric, and they journeyed on and on, until they came to such a station where there was an Inn.

'Here,' said Thomas, 'we may be luxuriously lazy; other people will travel for us, as it were, and we shall laugh at their folly.'

It was a Junction-Station, where the wooden razors before mentionedshaved the air very often, and where the sharp electric-telegraph bell was in a very restless condition.All manner of cross-lines of rails came zig- zagging into it, like a Congress of iron vipers; and, a little way out of it, a pointsman in an elevated signal-box was constantly going through the motions of drawing immense quantities of beer at a public-house bar.In one direction, confused perspectives of embankments and arches were to be seen from the platform; in the other, the rails soon disentangled themselves into two tracks and shot away under a bridge, and curved round a corner.Sidings were there, in which empty luggage-vans and cattle-boxes often butted against each other as if they couldn't agree; and warehouses were there, in which great quantities of goods seemed to have taken the veil (of the consistency of tarpaulin), and to have retired from the world without any hope of getting back to it.Refreshment-rooms were there; one, for the hungry and thirsty Iron Locomotives where their coke and water were ready, and of good quality, for they were dangerous to play tricks with; the other, for the hungry and thirsty human Locomotives, who might take what they could get, and whose chief consolation was provided in the form of three terrific urns or vases of white metal, containing nothing, each forming a breastwork for a defiant and apparently much-injured woman.

Established at this Station, Mr.Thomas Idle and Mr.Francis Goodchild resolved to enjoy it.But, its contrasts were very violent, and there was also an infection in it.

First, as to its contrasts.They were only two, but they were Lethargy and Madness.The Station was either totally unconscious, or wildly raving.By day, in its unconscious state, it looked as if no life could come to it, - as if it were all rust, dust, and ashes - as if the last train for ever, had gone without issuing any Return-Tickets - as if the last Engine had uttered its last shriek and burst.One awkward shave of the air from the wooden razor, and everything changed.Tight office-doors flew open, panels yielded, books, newspapers, travelling-caps and wrappers broke out of brick walls, money chinked, conveyances oppressed by nightmares of luggage came careering into the yard, porters started up from secret places, ditto the much-injured women, the shining bell, who lived in a little trayon stilts by himself, flew into a man's hand and clamoured violently.The pointsman aloft in the signal-box made the motions of drawing, with some difficulty, hogsheads of beer.Down Train! More bear! Up Train! More beer.Cross junction Train! More beer!Cattle Train!More beer.Goods Train! Simmering, whistling, trembling, rumbling, thundering.Trains on the whole confusion of intersecting rails, crossing one another, bumping one another, hissing one another, backing to go forward, tearing into distance to come close.People frantic.Exiles seeking restoration to their native carriages, and banished to remoter climes.More beer and more bell.Then, in a minute, the Station relapsed into stupor as the stoker of the Cattle Train, the last to depart, went gliding out of it, wiping the long nose of his oil-can with a dirty pocket-handkerchief.