bonnets and summer dresses; gentlemen in travelling caps
and linen-jackets, whose mustachios had just begun to
sprout for the ensuing tour; and stout trim old veterans
with starched neckcloths and neat-brushed hats, such as
have invaded Europe any time since the conclusion of the
war, and carry the national Goddem into every city of
the Continent. The congregation of hat-boxes, and
Bramah desks, and dressing-cases was prodigious. There
were jaunty young Cambridge-men travelling with their
tutor, and going for a reading excursion to Nonnenwerth
or Konigswinter; there were Irish gentlemen, with the
most dashing whiskers and jewellery, talking about
horses incessantly, and prodigiously polite to the young
ladies on board, whom, on the contrary, the Cambridge
lads and their pale-faced tutor avoided with maiden
coyness; there were old Pall Mall loungers bound for Ems
and Wiesbaden and a course of waters to clear off the
dinners of the season, and a little roulette and trente-
et-quarante to keep the excitement going; there was old
Methuselah, who had married his young wife, with Captain
Papillon of the Guards holding her parasol and
guide-books; there was young May who was carrying off
his bride on a pleasure tour (Mrs. Winter that was, and
who had been at school with May's grandmother); there
was Sir John and my Lady with a dozen children, and
corresponding nursemaids; and the great grandee
Bareacres family that sat by themselves near the wheel,
stared at everybody, and spoke to no one. Their
carriages, emblazoned with coronets and heaped with
shining imperials, were on the foredeck, locked in with a
dozen more such vehicles: it was difficult to pass in and
out amongst them; and the poor inmates of the
fore-cabin had scarcely any space for locomotion. These
consisted of a few magnificently attired gentlemen from
Houndsditch, who brought their own provisions, and
could have bought half the gay people in the grand
saloon; a few honest fellows with mustachios and portfolios,
who set to sketching before they had been half an hour
on board; one or two French femmes de chambre who
began to be dreadfully ill by the time the boat had
passed Greenwich; a groom or two who lounged in the
neighbourhood of the horse-boxes under their charge, or
leaned over the side by the paddle-wheels, and talked
about who was good for the Leger, and what they stood
to win or lose for the Goodwood cup.
All the couriers, when they had done plunging about
the ship and had settled their various masters in the
cabins or on the deck, congregated together and began to
chatter and smoke; the Hebrew gentlemen joining them
and looking at the carriages. There was Sir John's great
carriage that would hold thirteen people; my Lord
Methuselah's carriage, my Lord Bareacres' chariot,
britzska, and fourgon, that anybody might pay for who liked.
It was a wonder how my Lord got the ready money to
pay for the expenses of the journey. The Hebrew gentlemen
knew how he got it. They knew what money his
Lordship had in his pocket at that instant, and what
interest he paid for it, and who gave it him. Finally there
was a very neat, handsome travelling carriage, about
which the gentlemen speculated.
"A qui cette voiture la?" said one gentleman-courier
with a large morocco money-bag and ear-rings to another
with ear-rings and a large morocco money-bag.
"C'est a Kirsch je bense--je l'ai vu toute a l'heure--
qui brenoit des sangviches dans la voiture," said the
courier in a fine German French.
Kirsch emerging presently from the neighbourhood of
the hold, where he had been bellowing instructions
intermingled with polyglot oaths to the ship's men engaged
in secreting the passengers' luggage, came to give an
account of himself to his brother interpreters. He
informed them that the carriage belonged to a Nabob from
Calcutta and Jamaica enormously rich, and with whom
he was engaged to travel; and at this moment a young
gentleman who had been warned off the bridge between
the paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence on to the
roof of Lord Methuselah's carriage, from which he made
his way over other carriages and imperials until he had
clambered on to his own, descended thence and through
the window into the body of the carriage, to the applause
of the couriers looking on.
"Nous allons avoir une belle traversee, Monsieur
George," said the courier with a grin, as he lifted his
gold-laced cap.
"D-- your French," said the young gentleman, "where's
the biscuits, ay?" Whereupon Kirsch answered him in the
English language or in such an imitation of it as he could
command--for though he was familiar with all languages,
Mr. Kirsch was not acquainted with a single one, and
spoke all with indifferent volubility and incorrectness.
The imperious young gentleman who gobbled the
biscuits (and indeed it was time to refresh himself, for he
had breakfasted at Richmond full three hours before)
was our young friend George Osborne. Uncle Jos and his
mamma were on the quarter-deck with a gentleman of
whom they used to see a good deal, and the four were
about to make a summer tour.
Jos was seated at that moment on deck under the
awning, and pretty nearly opposite to the Earl of
Bareacres and his family, whose proceedings absorbed
the Bengalee almost entirely. Both the noble couple
looked rather younger than in the eventful year '15, when
Jos remembered to have seen them at Brussels (indeed,
he always gave out in India that he was intimately
acquainted with them). Lady Bareacres' hair, which was
then dark, was now a beautiful golden auburn, whereas
Lord Bareacres' whiskers, formerly red, were at present
of a rich black with purple and green reflections in the
light. But changed as they were, the movements of the
noble pair occupied Jos's mind entirely. The presence of
a Lord fascinated him, and he could look at nothing else.
"Those people seem to interest you a good deal," said
Dobbin, laughing and watching him. Amelia too laughed.
She was in a straw bonnet with black ribbons, and
otherwise dressed in mourning, but the little bustle and
holiday of the journey pleased and excited her, and she
looked particularly happy.
"What a heavenly day!" Emmy said and added, with
great originality, "I hope we shall have a calm passage."
Jos waved his hand, scornfully glancing at the same
time under his eyelids at the great folks opposite. "If you
had made the voyages we have," he said, "you wouldn't
much care about the weather." But nevertheless, traveller
as he was, he passed the night direfully sick in his
carriage, where his courier tended him with brandy-and-
water and every luxury.
In due time this happy party landed at the quays of
Rotterdam, whence they were transported by another
steamer to the city of Cologne. Here the carriage and
the family took to the shore, and Jos was not a little
gratified to see his arrival announced in the Cologne
newspapers as "Herr Graf Lord von Sedley nebst
Begleitung aus London." He had his court dress with him;
he had insisted that Dobbin should bring his regimental
paraphernalia; he announced that it was his intention to
be presented at some foreign courts, and pay his respects
to the Sovereigns of the countries which he honoured
with a visit.
Wherever the party stopped, and an opportunity was
offered, Mr. Jos left his own card and the Major's upon
"Our Minister." It was with great difficulty that he could
be restrained from putting on his cocked hat and tights
to wait upon the English consul at the Free City of
Judenstadt, when that hospitable functionary asked our
travellers to dinner. He kept a journal of his voyage and
noted elaborately the defects or excellences of the various
inns at which he put up, and of the wines and dishes of
which he partook.
As for Emmy, she was very happy and pleased. Dobbin
used to carry about for her her stool and sketch-book,
and admired the drawings of the good-natured little artist
as they never had been admired before. She sat upon
steamers' decks and drew crags and castles, or she
mounted upon donkeys and ascended to ancient robber-
towers, attended by her two aides-de-camp, Georgy and
Dobbin. She laughed, and the Major did too, at his droll
figure on donkey-back, with his long legs touching the
ground. He was the interpreter for the party; having a
good military knowledge of the German language, and
he and the delighted George fought the campaigns of the
Rhine and the Palatinate. In the course of a few weeks,
and by assiduously conversing with Herr Kirsch on the
box of the carriage, Georgy made prodigious advance in
the knowledge of High Dutch, and could talk to hotel
waiters and postilions in a way that charmed his mother
and amused his guardian.
Mr. Jos did not much engage in the afternoon
excursions of his fellow-travellers. He slept a good deal
after dinner, or basked in the arbours of the pleasant
inn-gardens. Pleasant Rhine gardens! Fair scenes of peace
and sunshine--noble purple mountains, whose crests are
reflected in the magnificent stream--who has ever seen
you that has not a grateful memory of those scenes of
friendly repose and beauty? To lay down the pen and
even to think of that beautiful Rhineland makes one
happy. At this time of summer evening, the cows are
trooping down from the hills, lowing and with their bells
tinkling, to the old town, with its old moats, and gates,
and spires, and chestnut-trees, with long blue shadows
stretching over the grass; the sky and the river below
flame in-crimson and gold; and the moon is already out,
looking pale towards the sunset. The sun sinks behind
the great castle-crested mountains, the night falls suddenly,
the river grows darker and darker, lights quiver in it
from the windows in the old ramparts, and twinkle
peacefully in the villages under the hills on the opposite shore.
So Jos used to go to sleep a good deal with his bandanna
over his face and be very comfortable, and read all
the English news, and every word of Galignani's admirable
newspaper (may the blessings of all Englishmen who
have ever been abroad rest on the founders and proprietors
of that piratical print! ) and whether he woke or
slept, his friends did not very much miss him. Yes, they
were very happy. They went to the opera often of
evenings--to those snug, unassuming, dear old operas in the
German towns, where the noblesse sits and cries, and
knits stockings on the one side, over against the bourgeoisie
on the other; and His Transparency the Duke and his
Transparent family, all very fat and good-natured, come
and occupy the great box in the middle; and the pit is
full of the most elegant slim-waisted officers with straw-
coloured mustachios, and twopence a day on full pay.
Here it was that Emmy found her delight, and was
introduced for the first time to the wonders of Mozart and
Cimarosa. The Major's musical taste has been before
alluded to, and his performances on the flute commended.
But perhaps the chief pleasure he had in these operas
was in watching Emmy's rapture while listening to them.
A new world of love and beauty broke upon her when
she was introduced to those divine compositions; this
lady had the keenest and finest sensibility, and how could
she be indifferent when she heard Mozart? The tender
parts of "Don Juan" awakened in her raptures so
exquisite that she would ask herself when she went to say
her prayers of a night whether it was not wicked to feel
so much delight as that with which "Vedrai Carino" and
"Batti Batti" filled her gentle little bosom? But the Major,
whom she consulted upon this head, as her theological
adviser (and who himself had a pious and reverent soul),
said that for his part, every beauty of art or nature made
him thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to
be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the stars
in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a
benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as
for any other worldly blessing. And in reply to some faint
objections of Mrs. Amelia's (taken from certain theological
works like the Washerwoman of Finchley Common
and others of that school, with which Mrs. Osborne had
been furnished during her life at Brompton) he told her
an Eastern fable of the Owl who thought that the
sunshine was unbearable for the eyes and that the
Nightingale was a most overrated bird. "It is one's nature to
sing and the other's to hoot," he said, laughing, "and
with such a sweet voice as you have yourself, you must
belong to the Bulbul faction."
I like to dwell upon this period of her life and to think
that she was cheerful and happy. You see, she has not
had too much of that sort of existence as yet, and has not
fallen in the way of means to educate her tastes or her
intelligence. She has been domineered over hitherto by
vulgar intellects. It is the lot of many a woman. And as
every one of the dear sex is the rival of the rest of her
kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable
judgments; and gentleness for dulness; and silence--which is
but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling
folks, and tacit protestantism--above all, finds no mercy
at the hands of the female Inquisition. Thus, my dear and
civilized reader, if you and I were to find ourselves this
evening in a society of greengrocers, let us say, it is
probable that our conversation would not be brilliant; if, on
the other hand, a greengrocer should find himself at your
refined and polite tea-table, where everybody was saying
witty things, and everybody of fashion and repute tearing
her friends to pieces in the most delightful manner, it is
