Vanity Fair
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