feel as if I were going at an Express pace the other way. I am
clearly going back to London now. Compact Enchantress must have
forgotten something, and reversed the engine. No! After long
darkness, pale fitful streaks of light appear. I am still flying
on for Folkestone. The streaks grow stronger – become continuous –
become the ghost of day – become the living day – became I mean –
the tunnel is miles and miles away, and here I fly through
sunlight, all among the harvest and the Kentish hops.
There is a dreamy pleasure in this flying. I wonder where it was,
and when it was, that we exploded, blew into space somehow, a
Parliamentary Train, with a crowd of heads and faces looking at us
out of cages, and some hats waving. Monied Interest says it was at
Reigate Station. Expounds to Mystery how Reigate Station is so
many miles from London, which Mystery again develops to Compact
Enchantress. There might be neither a Reigate nor a London for me,
as I fly away among the Kentish hops and harvest. What do I care?
Bang! We have let another Station off, and fly away regardless.
Everything is flying. The hop-gardens turn gracefully towards me,
presenting regular avenues of hops in rapid flight, then whirl
away. So do the pools and rushes, haystacks, sheep, clover in full
bloom delicious to the sight and smell, corn-sheaves, cherryorchards,
apple-orchards, reapers, gleaners, hedges, gates, fields
that taper off into little angular corners, cottages, gardens, now
and then a church. Bang, bang! A double-barrelled Station! Now a
wood, now a bridge, now a landscape, now a cutting, now a – Bang! a
single-barrelled Station – there was a cricket-match somewhere with
two white tents, and then four flying cows, then turnips – now the
wires of the electric telegraph are all alive, and spin, and blurr
their edges, and go up and down, and make the intervals between
each other most irregular: contracting and expanding in the
strangest manner. Now we slacken. With a screwing, and a
grinding, and a smell of water thrown on ashes, now we stop!
Demented Traveller, who has been for two or three minutes watchful,
clutches his great-coats, plunges at the door, rattles it, cries
‘Hi!’ eager to embark on board of impossible packets, far inland.
Collected Guard appears. ‘Are you for Tunbridge, sir?’
‘Tunbridge? No. Paris.’ ‘Plenty of time, sir. No hurry. Five
minutes here, sir, for refreshment.’ I am so blest (anticipating
Zamiel, by half a second) as to procure a glass of water for
Compact Enchantress.
Who would suppose we had been flying at such a rate, and shall take
wing again directly? Refreshment-room full, platform full, porter
with watering-pot deliberately cooling a hot wheel, another porter
Page 68
Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
with equal deliberation helping the rest of the wheels bountifully
to ice cream. Monied Interest and I re-entering the carriage
first, and being there alone, he intimates to me that the French
are ‘no go’ as a Nation. I ask why? He says, that Reign of Terror
of theirs was quite enough. I ventured to inquire whether he
remembers anything that preceded said Reign of Terror? He says not
particularly. ‘Because,’ I remark, ‘the harvest that is reaped,
has sometimes been sown.’ Monied Interest repeats, as quite enough
for him, that the French are revolutionary, – ‘and always at it.’
Bell. Compact Enchantress, helped in by Zamiel (whom the stars
confound!), gives us her charming little side-box look, and smites
me to the core. Mystery eating sponge-cake. Pine-apple atmosphere
faintly tinged with suspicions of sherry. Demented Traveller flits
past the carriage, looking for it. Is blind with agitation, and
can’t see it. Seems singled out by Destiny to be the only unhappy
creature in the flight, who has any cause to hurry himself. Is
nearly left behind. Is seized by Collected Guard after the Train
is in motion, and bundled in. Still, has lingering suspicions that
there must be a boat in the neighbourhood, and WILL look wildly out
of window for it.
Flight resumed. Corn-sheaves, hop-gardens, reapers, gleaners,
apple-orchards, cherry-orchards, Stations single and doublebarrelled,
Ashford. Compact Enchantress (constantly talking to